CHAPTER XIII--IT COMES TO A HEAD

As the minutes passed, lengthening into first the quarter and then the half hour, Ruth Fielding's impatience grew. The steward did not come back to the deck. Nor did Chief Officer Dowd return any reply to her note.

The situation became more and more irksome for the girl of the Red Mill. She believed that Irma Lentz considered her a personal enemy. Perhaps the woman had influence over the steward with whom the note to Mr. Dowd had been entrusted. Ruth began to feel that she was surrounded by spies, and that serious trouble would break out upon the _Admiral Pekhard_ within a short time.

If she left her seat to search for Mr. Dowd, or to confer with anybody else, the man she believed was hiding in the motor boat not ten yards from her chair might escape. Who he was she could only suspect. Why he was hiding there was quite beyond her imagination.

It was Captain Hastings who appeared first upon the open deck. He did not go immediately to the bridge, nor did he bow right and left to the ladies as was usually his custom. He came directly past Ruth and stared at her through his little squinting eyes in no friendly fashion. Ruth did not speak to him.

Captain Hastings took up a position by the rail not twenty yards from the girl's chair. Several passengers gathered about him; but she saw that the commander of the _Admiral Pekhard_ did not lose sight of her. He was there for a purpose--that was sure.

She wondered if the steward, playing her false, had given her note addressed to Mr. Dowd to Captain Hastings? She felt that apprehension nearly all feel when "something is about to happen." In fact, she had never felt more uncomfortable mentally in her life than at that moment.

The sun was going down now, for she had spent most of the afternoon since luncheon in her chair. The watches had been changed long since and she knew that on a sailing vessel this would be the second dog watch. Some of the crew were at supper. The bugle for the first-cabin call to dinner would soon sound.

She desired to go to her stateroom to freshen her toilet for dinner; yet, should she desert her post? Was Mr. Dowd merely delayed in coming to answer her note? Should she take the bull by the horns and tell Captain Hastings himself of the presence of the stowaway in the motor boat?

In this hesitating frame of mind she lingered for some time. Although the sea was calm, there was a haze being drawn over the sky as the sun disappeared below the western rim of the ocean, and it bade fair to be a dark evening. The wind whistled shrilly through the wire stays. There was a foreboding atmosphere, it seemed to Ruth Fielding, about the great steamship.

A dull explosion sounded from somewhere deep in the hold of the _Admiral Pekhard_. The ship trembled from truck to keelson. Screams of frightened passengers instantly broke out. Captain Hastings, at the rail, whirled to look toward the engine-room companionway.

Out of this door, just ahead of a volume of smoke or steam, dashed one of his officers. Ruth, who had got out of the reclining chair as quickly as her injured shoulder would allow, saw that this excited man was Dykman.

"An explosion in the boiler room, sir!" he cried, loud enough for everybody in the vicinity to hear him. "The engines are out of commission and I think the ship is sinking."

It seemed as though any ship's officer with good sense would have told the commander privately of the catastrophe. But immediately the full nature of the disaster was made known to the excited and terrified passengers.

"My heavens, Dykman!" squealed Captain Hastings, "you don't mean to say it is a torpedo? We've seen no periscope."

"I don't know what it is; but the whole place is full of steam and boiling water. We could not see the entire extent of the damage; but the water----"

He intimated that the water was coming in from the outside. Then, suddenly, the bugles and bells began, all over the ship, to signal the command for "stations." The engines had stopped and the steamship began to rock a little, for there was quite a swell on. Some of the passengers began screaming again. They thought the _Admiral Pekhard_ was already going down.

The tramp of men running along the decks, the shouts of the officers, and the continued screaming of some of the passengers created such a pandemonium that Ruth was confused. She knew that Captain Hastings had leaped to the bridge ladder and was now giving orders through a trumpet regarding the preparation of the boats for lowering.

One gang of men was unlashing the large motor boat and carrying davit ropes to it. That was the captain's boat, and it would hold at least forty of the ship's company.

Ruth began to wonder what boat she would go in. She realized that she was quite alone--that there was nobody to aid her. Tom had foreseen this. He had wished to accompany her across the ocean to be able to aid her if necessity arose.

And here was necessity!

Ruth saw some of the passengers running below, and was reminded that she was not at all prepared to get into an open boat and drift about the sea until rescued. There were several important papers and valuables in her stateroom, too. She moved toward the first cabin entrance.

Stewards were bringing the helpless wounded up to the deck on stretchers. No matter how small Ruth's opinion might be of Captain Hastings as a man, he seemed neglecting no essential matter now that his ship was in danger.

From the bridge he directed the filling and lowering of the first boats. He ordered the crew and stokers who came pouring from below, to stand by their respective boats, but not to lower them until word was given. Each officer was in his place. The stewards were evacuating the wounded as fast as possible and were to see that every passenger came on deck.

But Ruth did not see Mr. Dowd. The Chief Officer, who should have had a prominent part in this work, had not appeared. The girl went below, wondering about this.

As she approached her stateroom, Irma Lentz, well-coated and bearing two handbags, appeared from her stateroom. The black-eyed woman did not seem very much disturbed by the situation. She even stopped to speak to Ruth.

"Ah-h!" she exclaimed in a low tone. "Your friend, Mr. Dowd, fell down the after companionway and is hurt. They took him to his room. Perhaps you would like to know," and she laughed as she passed swiftly on toward the open deck.

The information terrified Ruth. For the first time since the explosion in the boiler room, the girl of the Red Mill considered the possibility of this all being a plot to wreck the _Admiral Pekhard_--a plot among some of the ship's company, both passengers and crew!

The mystery of which she had caught a single thread that morning at dawn when she had observed this black-eyed woman talking with the German-looking seaman, or stoker, was now divulged.

These people--Irma Lentz, the flaxen-haired man, Dykman (if he was one of the plotters) and perhaps others, had brought them all to this perilous situation. The German conspirators had, after all, been willing to risk their own lives in an attempt to sink the British ship.

She was but one day from port; it was not improbable that the ship's company would reach land in comparative safety. The two motor boats could tow the lifeboats, and if a storm did not arise they might all reach either the English or the French coast in safety.

Ruth was so disturbed by Irma Lentz's statement that she did not immediately turn toward her own room. She knew where Mr. Dowd's cabin was, and she hurried toward it.

It seemed sinister that the chief officer should have been injured just as she had sent word to him about the stowaway in the small motor boat. Ruth was convinced, without further evidence, that her discovery and attempt to reach Mr. Dowd with the information had caused his injury and had hastened the explosion.

She did not believe the latter was caused by a torpedo from a lurking submarine. The conspirators aboard the _Admiral Pekhard_ had deliberately brought about the catastrophe.

And it smote her, too, that Mr. Dowd might now be neglected in his cabin. When the passengers and crew left in the small boats, the first officer would, perhaps, be lying helpless in his berth.

She reached the door of the officer's cabin, and knocked upon the panel. There was nobody in sight in this passage and she heard no movement inside the first officer's room. Again she knocked.

At last there was a stirring inside. A voice mumbled:

"Yes? Yes? Eight bells? I will be right up."

"Mr. Dowd! Mr. Dowd!" Ruth called. "Wake up! The ship is sinking!"

"I'll be right with you, boy," said the officer, more briskly, but evidently not altogether himself.

"This is Ruth Fielding, Mr. Dowd!" cried the girl, hammering again on the door. "Do you need help? Come on deck quickly. The ship is sinking!"

"What's _that_?"

He was evidently aroused now. The door was snapped open and he appeared at the aperture just as he had risen from his berth--in shirt and trousers. His head was bandaged as though he wore a turban.

"What is that you say, Miss Fielding?" he repeated.

"Come quickly, Mr. Dowd!" she begged. "The ship is sinking. Those people have blown it up."

"Then there was something wrong!" cried the officer. "Did--did Captain Hastings come to you? I--I gave him your note after I fell----"

"He did nothing but wait until those people did their worst," declared Ruth angrily. "It is too late to talk about it now. Hurry!" and she turned away to seek her own stateroom.

It was fast growing dark outside. There were no lights turned on along the saloon deck. She saw not a soul as she hurried to her room. Everybody--even the stewards and officers--seemed to have got out upon the upper deck. She heard much noise there and believed some of the boats were being lowered.

She unlocked her stateroom door and entered. When she tried to turn on the electric light, she found that the wires were dead. Of course, if the boilers were blown up, the electric generating motors would stop as well as the steam engines. The ship would be in darkness.

She hastily scrambled such valuables as she could find into her toilet bag. Her money and papers she stowed away inside her dress. They were wrapped in oilskin, if she should be wet. Ruth was cool enough. She considered all possibilities at this time of emergency.

At least she considered all possibilities but one. That never for a moment entered her mind.

It was true that while she dressed more warmly and secured a blanket from her berth to wrap around herself over her coat, she was aware that the noise on the upper deck had ceased. But she did not realize the significance of this.

Being all alone, she had much difficulty in arraying herself as she wished. Her shoulder was stiff and she could not use her left arm very much without causing the shoulder to hurt excruciatingly. So she was long in getting out of the room again.

Just as she did so she heard a man shouting up the passage:

"Anybody here? Get out on deck! Last call! The boats are leaving!"

The shout really startled Ruth. She had no idea there was any chance of her being left behind. She left her stateroom door open and started to run through the narrow corridor.

Not six feet from the door she tripped over something. It was a cord stretched taut across the passage, fastened at a height of about a foot from the deck!

Helplessly, with her hands full and the blanket over her right arm, Ruth pitched forward on her face. She struck her head on the deck with sufficient force to cause unconsciousness. With a single groan she rolled over on her back and lay still.