THE MIDNIGHT CONFERENCE
The situation grew worse, and it finally reached the place where the
four boys were given almost no chance to talk together. As Captain
Garrish had said, it was true that the ship was desperately short of
hands, and the boys were kept busy day and night—with short intervals
for rest, of course—at unaccustomed tasks that wore blisters on their
hands and severely tested their patience and nerve.
“You boys are too much together—you waste too much time in talking,”
snarled the captain one day. “You’ll keep apart after this.”
He had them separated when they turned in also, giving them berths that
were far apart in the forecastle. Evidently, in his strange way, he was
growing more suspicious of them and of Chief Takyak every day. Possibly
he imagined the chief was telling them more than was desirable
concerning the quest for treasure.
Fred it was who chafed most under the restraint, and Bobby was
continually worried for fear he would do or say something that would
rouse the captain’s slumbering wrath. Their only chance, so thought
Bobby, was, by a show of meekness and docility, to fool the captain into
thinking there was no longer any need for watching them closely.
Then, when the captain’s attention was temporarily elsewhere, they would
make a break for freedom.
It was with this end in view that Bobby finally managed to get a word
alone with Fred. It was about twelve o’clock on a dark and stormy night
when Bobby crept like a shadow along the rail, holding fast to this
support to keep from being thrown to the deck by the swaying, heaving
motion of the ship.
That morning he had whispered to Fred when they happened to pass close
to each other on the deck. At that moment the captain’s back had been
turned to them, although he was in sight.
“Twelve o’clock—port side—near the stern,” was all that Bobby had had
time to whisper, but by a slight nod of his head Fred had shown that he
understood.
That night, when both were supposed to be fast asleep in their hammocks,
they would slip out noiselessly, trusting to luck that no one would see
them and that they might be able to get in a few words together without
discovery.
They must not be discovered. That, each knew without argument. For
discovery would mean that Captain Garrish would be put still more upon
his guard. They would be separated for good, perhaps flung into prison,
perhaps— But Bobby did not think any further than that. He only knew
that they must not be discovered.
So now, silently and cautiously, two figures crept along the deck to
meet at “the stern of the ship, port side.”
Once Bobby thought he saw a darker shadow detach itself from the shadows
about the pilot house, and he stopped still, his heart hammering loudly,
scarcely daring to breathe.
When nothing startling happened, however, he decided he must have been
mistaken and moved on again, more cautiously than before.
Then, still clinging to the rail, he descried another figure coming
toward him, and the height and bulk of it and something in the walk told
him it was Fred.
He was close to it. He reached out his hand and touched another hand. It
was Fred, all right—no mistaking that hearty squeeze.
“We may only have a minute or two before somebody comes along,” said
Bobby hurriedly, forced to raise his voice a little to make it heard
above the roaring of the wind. “So let’s get down to brass tacks.”
“Righto!” agreed Fred, crowding close to him against the rail. “You’ve
got a plan, Bobby! I thought I read it in your eye this morning.”
For the moment, forgetting the danger of their position, Bobby grinned
in the darkness. Same old Fred, he thought, light-hearted even in such
circumstances!
“Listen,” he said quickly. “I haven’t any plan—not yet. But I will have
soon,” he added, as a sound of dismay broke from Fred. “What I wanted to
do was to get word to you and the other fellows that the best thing we
can do just now is to lie low and pretend to be as meek as Moses.
Captain Garrish—”
“Bad luck to him!” growled Fred, and Bobby saw his fist clench on the
rail.
“Is watching us—”
“So I’ve noticed,” again interrupted Fred.
“Say!” came from Bobby impatiently, “if you know what’s good for you,
you’ll let me say what I have to say so that we can get back to our
bunks before somebody smells us out.”
“Oh, all right, all right,” said Fred contritely. “Go ahead, Bobby.”
Bobby wasted no time, but went ahead, glancing about him meanwhile
apprehensively. Any moment he expected to see Captain Garrish walk out
from the shadows and nab them.
“If we can make the captain think we’re harmless,” he said to Fred, “he
may stop watching us so closely and we’ll have our chance. I don’t know
yet how we’re going to manage it, but we’re going to escape from this
old tub somehow! We’ve got to! Our folks must be crazy with fright.”
“All right, I get you,” returned Fred. “You’re afraid my red-headed
temper will start a row somewhere and spoil our chances to get away. But
you needn’t worry, I’ll keep the lid on tight.”
“Fine,” gasped Bobby, as a sudden lunge of the ship picked up a huge
wave and both of them were covered with icy spray. “We’ll have to find
some way to pass the tip on to Billy and Mouser. They’re apt to go off
the handle any time when the captain gets rough.”
“We’ll manage somehow,” said Fred between chattering teeth. “Say, but
that old ocean is getting chilly. Hate to be thrown overboard into that
ice water. Where do you suppose we are, Bobby?”
“Don’t know,” said Bobby, finding that he also was shivering. “Getting
pretty far up north, I guess. Shouldn’t wonder but we’ll run across some
icebergs if we don’t get out of this mess pretty soon.”
“Always wanted to see icebergs,” said Fred.
“Funny I don’t seem to care much about ’em any more.”
“It would be funnier if you did,” retorted Bobby, and then another sharp
twist of the ship threatened their balance and drenched them through
with icy water.
When they had once more regained their footing on the slippery, rolling
deck, Bobby pressed close to Fred, grasping his arm urgently.
“We’ve got to get back now,” he chattered. “But let’s meet the same way
to-morrow night. We’ll try to slip the hint to Billy and Mouser and have
them here, too. If we’ve gotten away with it to-night, we may be able to
again.”
“Righto!” agreed Fred.
“And in the meantime,” added Bobby hurriedly, “we’ll do our best to
think up some way of escape. If we get too far into the Frozen North it
will be mighty hard to get back to civilization. It looks impossible to
get free, with nothing but this water about us, but impossible things
have happened more than once. We’ve got to find a way!”
“I’ve got my thinking cap on,” announced Fred. “We’ll think up some way,
sure enough.” With this they parted, returning as silently as they had
come, and regained the safety of their hammocks without meeting with
accident.
As Bobby, wet clothes and all—he did not dare take them off for fear of
waking the other men—got into the hammock and drew the rough blanket up
over him, he felt strangely happy and elated.
They had succeeded in eluding the captain’s vigilant eye this once,
perhaps they could do it again. At any rate he had enlisted Fred’s help
in his plan of throwing Captain Garrish off his guard, and that was the
first big step toward their escape.
Some day they would give Captain Garrish and his muttering crew the slip
for good and all. If he could only think of a way—if he could only think
of a way—and with the words saying themselves over and over in his mind
he finally fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
It seemed to him that he had not been sleeping five minutes, though in
reality it had been that many hours, when he was roused rudely from his
slumbers and hustled out on deck.
Sleepy-eyed, he stared about him.
It was a gray day; the storm clouds that had pursued them all the day
before had not yet lifted and a fog hung low over the seething water.
Bobby forgot his temporary elation of the night before, when he had
succeeded in talking to Fred. It was all very well to talk of getting
away, he thought, as the coarse rope slipped through his roughened
fingers. Talk was all very well. But how were they going to do it?
His gloomy mood was not lightened any by the fact that Captain Garrish
watched him and the other boys more closely than usual and Bobby even
thought he caught a hint of suspicion in the captain’s hard eyes.
Could it be, thought Bobby, that in some way the skipper had got wind of
that secret meeting the night before? There had seemed to be no one
about, but then, in the darkness of the night, how had it been possible
to make sure of that? The night, especially on shipboard, seems
possessed of a thousand eyes.
Could it be, and the thought made him pause for a moment in his work, at
which the captain barked a rough command at him, that the shadow he had
seen close to the pilot house was no shadow at all, but a man, perhaps
Captain Garrish himself, spying upon him?
He stole a glance at the latter and found the skipper’s fierce eyes
fixed on him with that same suspicious glare. Bobby’s own eyes dropped
to the deck, but his hands clenched angrily.
“I’ll show him—” he thought fiercely, as he fought for a firmer footing
on the slippery deck. “I’ll show him whether he can look at me like that
and get away with it!”