"What were they talking about?"
"Even now I can only hazard a conjecture," he answered. "What I heard Reiffenburg say was this, word for word: 'Fully wound up she will run for an hour. Then will come the explosion. Sixty minutes exactly after it has been placed in the stokehole, it will blow the bottom out, and she will go down like a stone.' On hearing this the other paused for a moment, then he said:
"'When do you think it will be?'
"'The day after to-morrow,' Reiffenburg replied. 'If all goes well, and she keeps to the arrangement, she should be in sight.' When he had said this he strolled away towards the poop ladder, while the other took up his position, with his rifle, alongside the mizzen-mast, preparatory to our coming on deck."
CHAPTER X
For some minutes after the Commander-in-Chief had finished speaking, I stood staring down at the white whirl of water below me, wrapt in what I might term, for want of a better simile, an overwhelming bewilderment of terror. There could be no doubt that the construction he had placed upon what he had heard was a correct one. Yet it seemed beyond belief, as I reviewed it in my mind, that there could exist men in the world, so base, so callous, as to even contemplate putting such a scheme into execution. And yet, what other construction could we place upon it?
"Are you quite sure that you have told it to me exactly as you heard it?" I said, trying to speak calmly. "As you are aware, the mere substitution of one word for another, or the change of a sentence, might make all the difference."