"There is something wrong. Can you not smell it?"
For a moment he imagined her dreaming. Then his nose warned him that she was right. There was something unusual in the atmosphere.
Even when their fire was no more than a heap of gray ashes with a golden core, and one of their lee ports was open, the faint, not unpleasant smell of wood smoke hung about the cabin. But this was quite different,—an acrid, pungent smell as of burning fat. He glanced at the fire and raked his mind for an explanation of it.
"It is worse in my room," she said, and he went quietly to the sacred little passage off which her sleeping-apartment opened.
Yes, it was worse there, and what it meant he could not imagine.
"You have not been burning anything?" he asked.
"Nothing. The horrid smell wakened me."
He turned and ran up the companion-steps, with a vague idea that something in the hold might have caught fire, though how that could be was beyond him. There was nothing there but their reserve stores, and certainly nothing that could take fire of its own accord. Besides, it was two days since he had been down there, and he never took a light, as the hatch, when shoved askew, gave all that was needed.
He fumbled the bolts of the little doors open, but the doors seemed jammed. He pushed. They remained firm. He made sure of the bolts again and put his shoulder to the doors. They resisted all his efforts.
"Good Lord!" he said, in something of a panic. "What's all this?"