Before they left the deck she heard the spark sputtering at the top of the radio mast. Krueger was at the instrument, and without doubt he was sending a call to friends somewhere on the ocean. It would be no S O S for help in the Continental code, but in a German code, she was sure.
The jar and thump of the pumps already resounded through the ship. By the light of Boldig’s electric lamp they went below to the cabin. Ruth again produced her own torch and found her way to her stateroom, while Dowd and Rollife went the other way.
Alone once again, the girl of the Red Mill gave her mind up to a thorough and searching examination of the situation, and especially her own position.
She was the single woman with and in the power of a gang of men who were not only desperate, but who were of a race whose treatment of women prisoners had filled the whole civilized world with scorn and loathing. Ruth wished heartily that Irma Lentz had come back with the motor boat. She would have felt safer if Miss Lentz had been of the party.
Ruth realized that neither Dowd or Rollife could come to her help if she had need of them. They would be locked in their rooms at so great a distance from hers that they could not even hear her if she screamed!
One thing she might do. She hastily secured the key that was in the outside of the stateroom lock and locked the door from the inside. Scarcely had she done this when Boldig came along the corridor. He rapped on her door; then coolly tried the knob.
“Unlock the door and give me the key, Miss Fielding,” he commanded. “I will lock you in from outside and carry the key myself. Nobody will disturb you.”
“No, Mr. Boldig. I shall feel safer if I keep the key,” said Ruth firmly.
“Come, now! No foolishness!” he said angrily. “Do as you are told.”
“No. I shall keep the key,” she repeated.