“Who was that?” asked Tom.
There was no answer. It was too dark to see, and he could strike no light. Someone moved across the floor of the shelter.
“Abe! Joe!” called Tom cautiously. Then he added: “Mr. Skeel!”
A snore answered him from the former professor’s sleeping place. Tom stole cautiously to the opening of the shelter. He could hear the two sailors talking together at the helm.
[CHAPTER XVIII]
TREACHERY
For a moment Tom did not know what to do, or what to think. He was convinced that an attempt had been made to rob him in the darkness of the night, and he wanted to know who was responsible. Yet he did not want to accuse or even think of any one as guilty, unless he had good proof.
“It couldn’t have been Abe or Joe,” he reasoned. “I could have heard them if they had left the shelter after I called out. It must have been Mr. Skeel. And yet——”
He paused, and listened once more to the steady breathing of the man who had once been, and who doubtless still was, his enemy.