Caradoc shook his head in the darkness. "I'm going to try to jump on that guard when he turns his back, and down him."
"He'd give an alarm sure. We mustn't disturb him till we get ready to leave, then let him yell."
"What you are planning, Madden, is simply impossible. I like to be as conservative as possible."
"We can turn around and row back to the Vulcan—and starve."
"Go ahead to the accommodation ladder. However, it's impossible."
As the two moved silently nearer a murmur of machinery in the vast fabric came to them. As their tiny boat swung in beside the high hull, they could hear this noise quite plainly, and they trusted to this rumble to screen their operations somewhat. They ceased paddling and allowed the dinghy to drift against the iron side of the vessel. They could no longer see the deck and the guard, owing to the swell in the high metal wall. But presently they came to the rope ladder which they anticipated hung below the guard's station.
Madden caught this and tied the dinghy to it with the crawly feeling of a man who expects to have a gun fired at him the next moment.
Caradoc came up and the two adventurers stood in the boat's prow, both holding to the ladder.
"I'll bet that scoundrel shoots down," whispered Leonard, "before we get halfway up."
"Don't talk so loud—are you ready to try it?"