In the meantime the figure had flattened itself on the deck. When sure that the anchor watch had gone aft, the man rose and crept silently toward the side of the ship.
He was safe now. He knew that the watch was not likely to come to the superstructure for the next hour at least. The fellow had stumbled over a chain. The sound, faint and far away as it had been, caught Dan's ear instantly, leading him to mount the superstructure for an observation.
"Everything secure above there?" demanded the officer of the deck.
"Aye, aye, sir."
"I thought perhaps you heard something, from the way you went up."
"I thought so, too, sir, but I must have been mistaken. I saw no one."
Reaching the side of the ship the figure hesitated a moment, then quickly climbed through the rail. He was just opposite the lower boom, the long, strong pole along which the sailors step to get down into the small boats.
Trailing from a long rope at the end of the lower boat rode the ship's dinghy, where she had been left for the night, as had other boats on the opposite or starboard side.
Now a second figure seemed to rise directly out of the deck, and an instant later it too had crept out on the lower boom. The men on the quarter-deck could not see forward to the lower boom without leaning out over the ship's rail, so the two men were unobserved.
Reaching the end of the boom, the men quickly let themselves down the Jacob's ladder, dropping noiselessly into the dinghy. They had some little trouble in casting the boat off, it having been made doubly secure for the night.