"Now!" he exclaimed with a long breath.

What followed thrilled Wilbur with alternate excitement,
curiosity, and a vivid sense of desecration and sacrilege. For
the life of him he could not make the thing seem right or legal in
his eyes, and yet he had neither the wish nor the power to stay
his hand or interfere with what Kitchell was doing.

The Captain put the blade of the axe in the chink of the
secretary's door and wrenched it free. It opened down to form a
sort of desk, and disclosed an array of cubby-holes and two small
doors, both locked. These latter Kitchell smashed in with the
axe-head. Then he seated himself in the swivel chair and began to
rifle their contents systematically, Wilbur leaning over his
shoulder.

The heat from the coal below them was almost unbearable. In the
cabin the six doors kept up a continuous ear-shocking fusillade,
as though half a dozen men were fighting with revolvers; from
without, down the open skylight, came the sing-song talk of the
Chinamen and the wash and ripple of the two vessels, now side by
side. The air, foul beyond expression, tasted of brass, their
heads swam and ached to bursting, but absorbed in their work they
had no thought of the lapse of time nor the discomfort of their
surroundings. Twice during the examination of the bark's papers,
Kitchell sent Wilbur out into the cabin for the whiskey decanter
in the swinging racks.

"Here's the charter papers," said Kitchell, unfolding and
spreading them out one by one; "and here's the clearing papers