“But watch him look over this way every little while, and you’ll feel that he’s got us on his mind. I think, Amos, he’s concluded we’re English boys, and, as some of these Greek sailors are apt to be hand in glove with the Turks, perhaps he may be plotting to hand us over to the enemy, expecting to profit thereby.”
“Whew! I wonder now!” whiffed Amos, as though the idea rather staggered him.
“Of course, as I said before, it’s pretty much all guess work with me,” Jack repeated, “but I’ve been fairly successful in reading faces. Honestly, if you asked me what I thought of our skipper, I’d say he might be a man who would turn on his best friend, if the pay was big enough.”
“I wish we knew the truth,” muttered Amos. “We might do something to put a peg in his nice little game. Each of us is carrying a shooting-iron now, for self-defense, even though we decided not to go armed when near the firing line, for fear of being roughly handled in case we fell into the hands of the Germans, as almost happened several times.”
“We must keep on our guard and watch out for treachery,” said Jack. “This happens to be one of those times when ‘an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.’”
“Yes, and I’ll match your proverb with another when I say that ‘forewarned is forearmed.’ If that old chap wants to get the better of two wide-awake American boys like us he must rise pretty early in the morning, that’s all.”
“Listen, Amos. I was just wondering what sort of a cargo they have down below.”
“Well, up to this minute, I’ve never bothered my head about that part of it,” admitted the other. “All I knew was that it’s carefully covered over with tarpaulins, so that the water can’t get at it. I took it for granted they were carrying bags of flour, or something in the way of food, to Smyrna, and would fetch back figs or oranges, or some other fruit grown around there.”
“It might turn out we’d be able to get a line on Captain Zenos if only we knew what his cargo consisted of,” suggested Jack, softly yet significantly.
Amos started, and looked into his chum’s blue eyes.