There was something that she could not understand—something back of, and deeper, than the surface-work of the plotters. Perhaps that explosion in the fireroom had not been meant to injure the ship seriously. It was merely meant (as it did) to create panic.
It caused a situation serious enough to alarm the captain and all aboard. It seemed that all they could do was to flee from a ship that threatened to sink.
This situation might have been just what the plotters intended to create; because they would not wish to remain on the steamship when actual destruction was coming upon her!
They had escaped with the other members of the ship’s company. Yet the steamship drifted in apparent safety. Was there something much more tragic threatening the Admiral Pekhard?
CHAPTER XVII—BOARDED
Rollife was busy with his repairs on the aerials. Dowd was down in the engine room, or so Ruth supposed, and neither seemed suspicious of any further happening that would injure them. Rather, they considered themselves in full charge of a steamship that was in no actual or present danger.
Ruth Fielding’s mental vision saw more clearly. There was something else coming—something far more tragic than anything that had thus far occurred.
There might be, hidden somewhere in the cargo-holds, time-bombs set to explode at a given moment. Her imagination was by no means running away with her when she visioned such a possibility.
Surely there was something still to happen to the Admiral Pekhard. If not, why then all the scurry to get away from the ship, the conspirators themselves included in the stampede?
Or had the ship’s position been made known to a German submarine and would the U-boat soon appear to torpedo the British craft? This was not so far-fetched an idea. Only, the young woman was pretty sure that the explosion aboard the Admiral Pekhard had been advanced in time because of her own suspicions and the attempt she had made to get Mr. Dowd to investigate matters which the conspirators did not wish revealed.