“Indeed I do,” the Captain answered calmly.
“Now,” Jones said briskly, dismissing the matter of the boys from his mind, “we have my other cargo to discuss before our dealings are finished for this trip.”
The Captain held up a thin, white hand to stop Jones. “Not now,” he said. “Our business can wait until we have refreshed ourselves and had a bit of dinner. Then when it is dark, you can turn over your cargo—if the terms are satisfactory—and sail home unobserved.”
He waved his stick at the boys and motioned to two of his crew members. “Take them below and lock them in an empty cabin. And set a close watch on them.”
As Sandy and Jerry were led off by the two crewmen, they saw the Captain precede Jones to the foot of the deckhouse ladder. He paused and bowed, indicating that Jones should go first. Somehow, the courtly, old-fashioned gesture seemed to Sandy more sinister than anything else he had seen since the start of this day.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Escape to Danger
Stepping over the high sill of the door that led from the deck to the passageway, Sandy and Jerry were plunged at once into gloom and near-darkness. The throb of the freighter’s engines, barely noticeable on deck, became a roar, and the passage was thick with the smells and heat from the engine room below.
They were pushed and shoved along the passage, past a number of doors which Sandy presumed were the crew’s quarters. On the other side of the passage, an occasional door opened onto the engine room, a great cavern of heat and noise, brightly illuminated by lights on all sides, and crisscrossed by catwalks and ladders.
Without a word, their guides stopped before a door opposite the main opening to the engine room. One of them produced a large key ring and, after a moment’s searching for the right key, unlocked the door.
Motioning them to enter, the guard stood aside as Sandy and Jerry stepped into the gloom of a small cabin. Then the door slammed behind them, the key clicked in the lock, and they were alone. Through the ventilating slits cut in the top and bottom of the door, they heard one of their captors.