“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Orace in a muffled voice, without looking up.
“We’ll be off in less than an hour. You needn’t bother about running on the electric motors going out—we want to get off as quickly as we can.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“I’ll ring down as soon as the last load’s being taken in, and you can start up then and keep running till we go.”
The footsteps retired along the deck overhead, and Orace breathed again.
He had noticed the iron door behind him, but had assumed that it led only to the fuel tanks. As a matter of fact, it did, but there was also a narrow alley running between the tanks and continuing forrard till it reached the foot of an emergency companion. He heard the slight click of the door opening, and quickly bowed his head over the engines again.
This man did not speak; but Orace, apparently intent on inspecting a sparking-plug, could hear the stealthy slither of feet over the greasy metal, and the hairs in the scruff of his neck prickled. There was something sinister about that wary approach—the man behind him moved so silently that Orace would never have noticed the sound if he had not been expecting it. The door itself had been unlatched so cautiously that that noise also would probably have escaped him if he had not been listening for the retreat of the man who had spoken to him.
The stealthy feet drew nearer, step by step, while Orace kept his back turned and went on poring over the plug terminals. They were nearer now—only a couple of yards behind him, as far as he could judge. Another yard, and Orace gathered himself for a sudden movement. He had ceased to wonder whether the intruder regarded him as an innocent party. For some reason which he could not immediately divine Orace was suspect.
Some premonition, the prompting of a sixth sense, made him swing aside in the nick of time, and the smashing blow that had been aimed at his head whizzed past his ear and clanged on the engine casing. Orace whirled and leapt, but his feet slipped on the oily grating, and he sprawled headlong. His blunderbuss was underneath the borrowed overalls, and he had no time to fumble for it before his opponent had pounced on him and caught his throat in a deadly grip.