The main hold was littered with a maze of boxes, bales, and bundles, the last made up of sealskins roughly bound, with salt sprinkled upon the fleshy side of the pelts. This precaution had been taken by Marr and Whitehouse on the day following the raid.
Stirling paused near where the deck beams allowed a narrow passage through to the lazaret, and under a hatchway which led to the galley house and the cook's quarters. He glanced around and allowed his eyes to accustom themselves to the darkness.
None of the revolutionists had dared follow him down through the main hatch. The sight of the revolver he had flashed at them was a stern reminder, and he felt of this weapon as he waited. He heard the steady clamp of the engines and the calls in Russian as the stokehold crew were urged to greater efforts.
The Pole Star was striking away from Point Barrow, and had sheltered herself in a long lane of ice reaching deep within the North pack. It would be fortunate, indeed, if this lane opened and allowed the ship through to the sea to eastward.
Stirling found a box in the lazaret which had been crashed open by a rude heel, and through the hole in this he drew out a double handful of hard and dry ship's biscuits. He munched on these, and glanced about for water. None was in sight. He found several empty gin cases from which the square faces had been removed; a dark corner of the lazaret was piled with small, strong boxes. The lower tier of these contained bottles of ginger ale and soda. He emptied three bottles of soda, waited a few minutes, and then started drinking the fourth.
The effect was magical. The ship's biscuits, whose food value is high, served to refresh his weary body, and he stared around with some interest in his surroundings.
A stout door, heavily barred by a crossbeam in the bulkhead, indicated the way to the stokehold and the after part of the ship. He moved through the gloom and tested this crossbeam. It could be lifted, but he paused to listen. Clanking doors and scraping shovels on the iron plates of the stokehold marked where the Russians were feeding the Pole Star's fires.
There was no way through to the cabin and the girl save by way of the stokehold and the engine room, and the deck was crowded with alert revolutionists.
Stirling dropped his hand into the side pocket of his pea-jacket and felt the cold assurance of the little revolver's steel. It nerved him as he drew out his hand and lifted the crossbar which the cook had placed in order to prevent a raid on the lazaret.
An opening showed, lurid with furnace fires and hot coals. Three Russians, stripped to the waist, were lounging in one corner of the stokehold, and all were smoking cigarettes made from cut plug and tissue paper. Their attention was on a fourth Russian, who was watching the steam gauge above the central boiler.