“Well, we may never have another chance as good as this,” remarked Jack, presently, in a singularly calm voice, which showed how completely he had control of his nerves; “so, perhaps, I’d better be ‘making hay while the sun shines.’”
“You’re away off there, Jack, because the sun has dropped behind the level horizon, and there’s only a glow to tell where he vanished. I’ll stand guard here and see that no one surprises you at work. But for the life of me I can’t guess how you’re going to make smoke, and run no danger of fire.”
“Oh! that’s easy,” chuckled Jack. “I’ve made too many a smudge to keep the skeeters off when in the open not to know the ropes. Just wait and see what happens.”
He was gone almost as soon as he had spoken the last word, and once more Amos began to sweep the horizon with his binoculars, as though eager to pick up some distant spot that would prove to be a vessel. It was becoming more and more difficult to make anything out, on account of the haze that extended with the coming of evening; but as we know, the main object Amos had in mind was to deceive the skipper, whenever he glanced that way.
Fainter grew the glow in the western sky. The far-off booming had also died away, so the only sounds that reached his ear consisted of the loud voice of the Greek captain berating his men for not doing something as he wished it.
Jack had been gone some little time, and Amos began to worry about him. It would really be too bad if, after all, the plan which he had considered so brilliant should be ruined by a sudden movement on the part of the skipper. They were nearly through their job, whatever it was, and the captain as well as the man who attended to all the cooking were likely to approach Amos.
If they saw Jack come up out of the hold they would instantly guess he had been prying around down there and making discoveries that had not been intended for the eyes of the two young passengers.
“Gee! I wish he would hurry,” Amos kept saying to himself, as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then looked around to see if Captain Zenos was observing him, and upon finding that it was so, immediately pointed off somewhere as though showing his chum some object the glass had brought to his attention.
Just when Amos was giving up all hope of their being able to carry out the little scheme, once more he heard a rustling sound close by, and knew that Jack had crawled up out of the open hatch.
Fortunately this gap could not be seen by those forward, nor was the man at the wheel able to keep his eye upon it, thanks to a stack of empty crates that were possibly being returned to fruit shippers around Smyrna—at least that was what the boys had been told, though they now believed it to be a mere subterfuge calculated to divert suspicion from the real errand of the big Greek powerboat.