“All right, lead on,” said Jack and then to himself he added: “I can’t in the least make out why old Bill should be so secretive. I might just as well have met him in his cabin. But maybe he is being watched, and thinks the place he has appointed would be better.”
The steward led the way aft through a maze of corridors and passages. At last they arrived far in the stern of the ship where the unlighted passages showed no cabins were occupied. The twenty first-class passengers had all been booked amidships, thus the hundreds of cabins opening on the stern passages were unoccupied and nobody went near them.
“You’ve no idea why Mr. Raynor selected this part of the ship to meet me?” said Jack, as he followed the man who lighted the way with an electric torch.
“No, sir,” he replied, with a shake of his head. “I suppose he had his reasons, sir.”
“No doubt, but this is an odd part of the ship to keep an appointment,” said Jack. “We must be far away from the occupied cabins.”
“Oh, yes, sir. Almost a tenth of a mile. Wonderful, ain’t it, sir, the size of these big ships? A fellow could yell his lungs out in this part of the vessel, sir, and things, being as they are, and the cabins empty and all, nobody could hear him.”
“I suppose not,” said Jack idly. “Are we nearly there?”
“Yes, sir. Just turn down this passage, sir. Right to the left, sir, mind that step and—” Crash!
A great burst of light, as if a sudden explosion had occurred in front of him blinded Jack, and at the same instant he felt a violent blow on the back of the head. Then the bright light vanished with a loud report and he seemed to swim for an instant, in blackness. Everything went out, as if a light had been switched off, and the lad pitched heavily forward on his face.
“Good, that will settle his hash for a while,” muttered a voice, and Radwig, a short, wicked-looking bludgeon in his hand, bent over the senseless boy. By the German’s side was another man, a short, thick-set, clean-shaven fellow with a projecting jaw, known on the passenger list as Mr. Duncan Ewing, of Chicago.