“What is it?” he tapped back.
“The professor says,” came the reply, “that the cabin next to you on the other side and the one you are now in used to be all one stateroom. A partition was put in some time ago of which the new crew knows nothing. It was so fitted that it could be moved out if necessary. Maybe if you can find out how it works,—he has forgotten,—you can get out when the time arrives.”
This was news indeed. There was, then, a way of escape out of their prison if they could find it. But with a moment’s reflection came another thought.
Even if they did get out, they could do nothing against twenty men and two officers. But, just the same, Jack made a mental note of the information, resolving to investigate. A time might come, as his father had suggested, when they could put it to practical use. That day was to come sooner than any of them expected.
But until dawn brought light it was useless to think of examining their prison. The darkness that enveloped them was velvety in its denseness. Only by a sense of touch could they find their way about. And so, tossed and tumbled by the violent motion of the yacht, faint and heart-sick from want of food and doubt as to what was to become of them, the boys passed the night as best they could. At times they slept fitfully, only to waken to hear the shrieking of the wind and experience the sickening plunges of the buffeted yacht.
The first chilly gray light that preceded the dawn was stealing into the cabin when, without warning, the motion of the engine suddenly stopped. They felt the yacht struggle like a wounded thing as the seas broke over her. Then her motion changed. Like a water-logged craft she began to tumble and roll in the trough of the waves.
“Are we sinking?” cried Tom, wakening from a doze with a start.
“I don’t know what’s happened,” rejoined Jack, “but it looks to me as if the machinery had broken down.”
“In that case we’re in a mighty bad fix?”
“About as bad as we can be. A few hours longer in the trough of this sea will break us up and send us to the bottom.”