From time to time a sudden gust of the light breeze fanned up the fire briefly at some point, but the fire fighters no longer feared for their safety.
Mr. Ross and Dr. Gray had been aroused by the sounds of fire-fighting; the others in the cabin staterooms slept on, for Dick Davis had wisely refrained from touching the button that would have sounded the heavy gong in the main cabin.
"How could the thing have started!" asked Mr. Ross, bewilderedly.
"It was set, by someone," replied Tom Halstead, joining Mr. Baldwin and the latter's friends. "It was a gasoline blaze, pure and simple."
"Who could have——" began Dr. Gray.
"I saw myself that the prisoner was safely locked in," broke in the young skipper. "Yet he's the only one I could suspect."
Almost at a run Halstead started forward, followed by Ab Perkins.
Down below, these two investigators found the door of the brig open. The lock had been picked. On the floor of the brig Tom found what was left of a steel table fork such as the crew used.
"He forced the tines and shank out of the handle, and worked it over into a pick-lock," muttered the young skipper. "I respect the fellow's ingenuity, if nothing else."
But where was Cragthorpe himself? Two searching parties, one under Ab and the other commanded by Third Officer Costigan, searched until Dick Davis, still on the bridge past his hour, broke in with: