Slim closed his eyes and moaned for a second time. "Let me loose," he managed to say.
"Stay there!" Stirling said with a slow glance around.
The curtain attracted his attention. It had been partly wrenched from its pole by the drawing away of the cord. Beyond it lay the alleyway and the cabins of the after part of the ship. The girl's cabin was one of four.
"Which stateroom is the girl in?" he asked, leaning over Slim.
The sailor squirmed and dragged at his arms where they were bound, rolled over, and stared upward at the deck. A light streamed down from the barricaded companion, a light which heralded the rising of the sun. Stirling followed the dock rat's glance and studied the shadow, then wheeled swiftly and saw a tiny ship's clock set in the wall. A hasty calculation of time and shadow showed him that the Pole Star was driving east by true reckoning and north by compass. The variation was all of ninety degrees.
He listened to the progress of the ship as he waited for the dock rat to answer his question. The throbbing of the screw and the swift rush of water under the counter showed that the revolutionists were still extending their efforts. The great bight of sea beyond Point Barrow and off the mouth of the Mackenzie River was being crossed. The land ahead would be unknown territory, filled with danger and starvation.
Weakly Stirling turned; all the fight seemed to have left him, and he swayed as he glanced downward. The sailor had closed his lips in a hard line, and there was malice and calculation in his sharp, darting glances about the cabin.
Stirling shrugged his shoulders, dropped on one knee, and felt the cord. It was drawn sufficiently tight. Rising slowly, the Ice Pilot breathed deeply, feeling the aching muscles of his chest as they expanded; then he set in order the chairs and stools of the cabin and lifted the rifle until it swung in a natural manner under his right armpit.
"Stay right there!" he commanded as he glanced toward the sailor. He was surprised at the sound of his own voice, unnatural and falsely tuned.
Shaking his head with weariness, he advanced to the curtain, brushed it aside with his left hand, and strode down the alleyway, where four doors offered themselves. Each was closed. He knocked at the first, but there was no answer; it was the same with the second.