was lit by a dull oil light, the door was fast-closed and locked. Away
into the night sped one continual message.

"Steamship _City of Boston_, lat.... long.... lying four points to
northward of usual course. Reply."

A time came when the young man ceased from his labours and sat up with
a yawn. He stretched out his hand and lit a cigarette, walked to the
little round window which commanded the deck, gazed out of it
steadily, and turned back once more to his chair before the
instrument. Then something happened. A greater shock than any that lay
in the blue lightning which he had been generating was awaiting him.
His right hand was suddenly gripped and held on to the table. He found
himself gazing straight down the black bore of a small but uncommonly
ugly-looking revolver. A voice which seemed remarkable for its
convincing qualities, addressed him.

"If you speak a word, Robins, move, or show signs of any attempt to
struggle, I shall shoot you. I have the right and the power." Robins,
a young man of nerve, whose name stood high on an official list of
those who might be relied upon for any desperate enterprise, sat like
a numbed thing. Dim visions of the face of this man, only a few feet
away from his own, assailed him under some very different guise. It
was Crawshay the man, stripped for action, whose lean, strong fingers
were gripping the butt of that revolver, and whose eyes were holding
him like gimlets.

"Now, if you are wise, answer me a few questions," Crawshay began.
"I'd have brought the captain with me, but I thought we might do
better business alone. You've been advertising the ship's