Norma was not on deck when I returned, nor did I see any one else for some time.  I walked forward, and paused at the door to the little wireless-room on the yacht, intending to ask the operator if he had seen her.

“Where’s Mr. Kennedy?” he inquired, before I had a chance to put my own question.  “Some one has been in this wireless-room this morning and must have been sending messages.  Things aren’t as I left them.  I think he ought to know.”

Just then Everson himself came up from below, his face almost as white as the paint on the sides of his yacht.  Without a word, he drew me aside, looking about fearfully as though he were afraid of being overheard.  “I’ve just discovered half a dozen sticks of dynamite in the hold,” he whispered, hoarsely, staring wide-eyed at me.  “There was a timing device, set for to-night.  I’ve severed it.  Where’s Kennedy?”

“Your wireless has been tampered with, too,” I blurted out, telling what I had just learned.

We looked at each other blankly.  Clearly some one had plotted to blow up the yacht and all of us on board.  Without another word, I took his arm and we walked toward our state-room, where Kennedy was at work.  As we entered the narrow passage to it I heard low voices.  Some one was there before us.  Kennedy had shut the door and was talking in the hall.  As we turned the corner I saw that it was Norma, whom I had forgotten in the surprise of the two discoveries that had been so suddenly made.

As we approached she glanced significantly at Kennedy as if appealing to him to tell something.  Before he could speak, Everson himself interrupted, telling of his discovery of the dynamite and of what the wireless operator had found.

There was a low exclamation from Norma.  “It’s a plot to kidnap me!” she cried, in a smothered voice.  “Professor Kennedy—­I told you I thought so!”

Everson and I could only look our inquiries at the startling new turn of events.

“Miss Sanford has just been to her state-room,” hastily explained Craig.  “There she found that some one had carefully packed up a number of her things and hidden them, as if waiting a chance to get them off safely.  I think her intuition is correct.  There would be no motive for robbery—­here.”

Vainly I tried to reason it out.  As I thought, I recalled that Gage had seemed insanely jealous of both Dominick and Kinsale, whenever he saw either with Norma.  Did Gage know more about these mysterious happenings than appeared?  Why had he so persistently sought her?  Had Norma instinctively fled from his attentions?

“Where are the others?” asked Craig, quickly.  I turned to Everson.  I had not yet had time to find out.

“Gone back to the trawler,” he replied.

“Signal them to come aboard here directly,” ordered Craig.

It seemed an interminable time as the message was broken out in flags to the trawler, which was not equipped with the wireless.  Even the hasty explanation which Kennedy had to give to Asta Everson, as she came out of her cabin, wondering where Orrin had gone, served only to increase the suspense.  It was as though we were living over a powder-magazine that threatened to explode at any moment.  What did the treachery of one member of the expedition mean?  Above all, who was it?