The moment Mr. Briggs vanished from sight, the door of the cabin adjoining the skipper’s came stealthily open. Then, slowly, the figure of a little bald-headed man emerged. He shut the door carefully behind him, and then glanced swiftly up and down the corridor.
On tiptoe, he slipped over to Captain West’s door. He bent his head to listen. Then he backed off carefully and raised both clenched fists to shake them in a gesture of anger and defiance, before he whirled silently and made his way out of sight.
The little bald-headed man was Cookie.
He had heard every word spoken in the captain’s cabin since Sandy and Jerry had made their appearance there. Every inch of his little frame burned with determination to come to the rescue of his young friends and help thwart the schemes of the crafty Captain West.
In their own cabin, meanwhile, the two friends had just climbed wearily into their bunks.
Suddenly they shot erect as they heard a rattling and clanking outside their door. But they knew in the next instant what the noise meant. It was Mr. Briggs “dogging down” the heavy outside handle.
“Well,” Jerry said, “now we’re prisoners.”
“Yes,” Sandy said, “but I have a funny feeling that things are going to start to get better.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Sandy said grimly, “they couldn’t possibly get any worse.”