“Yes, Mother, he’s up on deck. So is daddy.”
“All right. Be careful going up and down the stairs.”
“I will,” promised Sue.
Sue meant to be careful, but instead of going upstairs, or up one of the companionways, as stairs are usually called on a vessel, Sue started down.
Perhaps she was thinking too much about the sea air her doll was going to breathe, or perhaps she was thinking too much about poor Mr. Pott. At any rate, Sue went down instead of up. She went down and down and at last she found herself in a dim part of the ship where only a little electric light here and there gave an uncertain glow.
Then Sue realized that she had gone wrong. She looked about her, clutched her doll tightly under her arm, and exclaimed:
“Oh, I guess I’m down cellar!”
In a way, she was in the “cellar,” or hold, of the ship.
As Sue looked about her in the dimness she heard a noise. Then in the glow of one electric light she saw a black man coming toward her. The man was very big, bigger, Sue thought, than anybody she had ever seen.