“I thought I heard something out here,” he growled, in reply to Anderson’s muttered question.
Coming forward still farther, he rested his hand on the foot of the steel ladder and peered upward. A ray of the lamp fell full on his heavy, brutal features. That ray flashed for an instant on something gleaming that he carried in one hand—a pistol.
Ned noted all this in one quick flash, and then, with one of those impulses to quick action that come to us all sometimes, he let go his hold on the ladder and dropped with all his weight upon the ruffian. The Dreadnought Boy’s legs encircled Gradbarr’s neck, and before the man, taken entirely by surprise, could utter a sound, Ned’s weight had borne him down to the steel-grated floor of the cabin.
CHAPTER VI.
THERE’S MANY A SLIP.
With a roar like that which might have been expected to proceed from an infuriated bull, rather than from the throat of a human being, the husky henchman of the Atlas Submarine interests struck out blindly. But his blows only encountered the steel floor, and barked the skin off his knuckles.
“Better save your breath and your blows, my man,” warned Ned, who was seated comfortably astride the fellow’s neck.
While this had been going on, Herc, deprived of movement for a second from sheer astonishment, had dropped lightly beside them. Seeing at a glance that Ned needed no help, he turned his attention to Anderson, who, hearing the commotion outside, had dropped his work and come running toward the door. The fellow’s inherent cowardice showed in his pallid cheeks.