“Bully,” said Candon. “I was beginning to feel like a caged canary. You chaps don’t know what it’s been the last week. Well, let’s get finished. There’s some truck still to be stowed in the after cabin and I want to do a bit more tinkering at the engine. There’s a day’s work on that engine—them cylinder rings were sure made in Hades.”
“Well, you can leave it,” said Hank. “I’m putting out at sunup. I don’t count on that engine and you’ll have time to tinker with her on the way down.” He stopped suddenly, raised his head, and held up a finger. The night was warm and the skylight full open. In the dead silence that fell on the cabin they could hear through the open skylight the far-away rattle of a cargo winch working under the electrics, the whistle of a ferry boat and away, far away, though great as the voice of Behemoth, the boo of a deep sea steamer’s siren.
“Yes,” began Hank again, gliding to the door of the saloon as he spoke, “you can tinker with it on the way down.” He vanished, and the others, taking his cue, kept up the talk. Then they heard him pounce.
“What you doing here?”
“Hullo! me—I ain’t doin’ nothin’—what you gettin’ at? You lea’ me go.”
“What you doing here, you low down scow-hunker? Answer up before I scrag you.”
“Tell you I was doin’ nothin’. I dropped aboard to see if I couldn’t borry a light, seein’ the shine of your skylight.”
“I’ll give you a light.”
Then they heard the quite distinctive sounds of a man being kicked off the ship, blasphemous threats from the wharf-side—silence.