“Mr. Impey,” Phil answered calmly, “I have made you no promise. There is no agreement between you and me; there could be none. You offered the yacht; you outlined a plan. I listened only. On the other hand,” he added, his voice rising in his earnestness, “you promised that you would not interfere with my plans, and you have broken your word. Remember there is a key to your cabin, and as I said before, Marley can look out for two prisoners as readily as one.”
The spy saw that it would only do himself harm to follow further his quarrel with Phil. The lad was obdurate. Impey saw all his work in Japan, stretching over a year, going for naught. It was bitter to contemplate the result, but there seemed no visible relief.
The two days following were entirely uneventful. As Singapore was approached a feeling of dread came over both lads. Suppose, after all, the Chinese squadron should evade them. The “Sylvia” had been unsuccessful in its attempts to talk with them by wireless.
“If their wireless gear is working, they won’t answer,” O’Neil told Phil the evening of the fifth day out, while they were approaching Singapore Straits.
It was just breaking day when the white clustered buildings of the city of Singapore loomed up out of the tropical darkness. As day slowly drew on, the vast shipping in the harbor took shape. The lads and O’Neil eagerly watched while the harbor, like a bud opening to the sun, became slowly revealed to their eager eyes.
“There’s not a man-of-war there!” Phil exclaimed in keen disappointment. “What had we best do—wait here, or intercept them farther down the Straits of Malacca?”
“Excuse me, sir, for making a suggestion,” O’Neil said quietly in Phil’s ear. “I think Mr. Impey would be safer locked up. I don’t like his actions. He approached both Randall and Wells in a roundabout way to sound them out if they’d help him, and he’s been very thick with the dago engineer. It ain’t hard to get a hot bearing on these turbines, I hear. Stop the oil flow and it burns up in five minutes.”
Phil did not hesitate in his decision a moment. He had been awaiting only a corroboration of his own belief as to what should be done with Impey. A disablement at this time would be disastrous. The Chinese squadron might be delayed some days, and meanwhile Japan’s port scouts might appear at any time. Phil had more than feared that they might already be on the scene, awaiting in the straits.
“Will you attend to it, O’Neil,” Phil said at once, “and look into the engineer’s intentions, too?”
Phil held O’Neil in high regard for his ability in handling men. He would soon find out if the engineer were worthy of trust, and if not, O’Neil had a way of intimidation that seemed to take with the rascals he encountered.