“Why, Tom Fillot,” he whispered, “they’re getting off the chain cable from the hatch.”
“That’s it, sir; link by link.”
Chapter Thirty One.
A Novel Fastening.
“Come on!” whispered Mark; “we must stop that game. Who’s on the watch at the hatch?”
“Sam Grote, sir; but, poor lad, he can’t keep awake.”
“A lantern,” said Mark, laconically; and Tom Fillot trotted aft to the cabin, and came back in five minutes with a light half hidden in his breast.
During his absence, Mark had stood there listening in the darkness with a peculiar shuddering sensation to the soft clinking as link passed over link; and in imagination, while he peered through the transparent darkness, he saw a hand, which had been thrust out after the hatch had been raised a little, softly lifting and passing the cable off to the deck.