Another half hour passed before they heard his steps coming up the stairs. He stepped onto the bridge and for another long period he made no sound. Then they heard him enter the wheel house and the creak of a chair told them that he had sat down. Followed an agonizing period during which they hardly dared breathe. Once he lit his pipe and, as the match flared up they thought surely they would be discovered, but his back was toward them and he did not turn, at least until the match went out.
"Well, I guess it's about time."
The man spoke the words aloud but in a low tone. Then they heard him get up and, a moment later, pass out of the room.
"Time for what?" Jack whispered, his lips close to Bob's ear.
"That's what we've got to find out," Bob whispered back.
He passed the door of the wheel house and, a moment later, they heard him at the door of the wireless room.
"You guessed right," Jack whispered.
There seemed to be some trouble in getting the door unlocked and the boys hoped that the key would not fit. Several times they heard the man mutter under his breath and more than once he used, what Jack afterward referred to as "quite illuminating language." But finally they heard the door open and close.
"Come on now," Bob whispered as he got quietly to his feet.
Without knowing what plan Bob had in his head Jack followed him from the wheel house and around to the door of the wireless room. Through the crack beneath the door they could see a gleam of light and knew that he had turned on the electric but the shutters of the single window were so tightly closed that no ray came through them.