CHAPTER XVII--BOARDED

Rollife was busy with his repairs on the aerials. Dowd was down in the engine room, or so Ruth supposed, and neither seemed suspicious of any further happening that would injure them. Rather, they considered themselves in full charge of a steamship that was in no actual or present danger.

Ruth Fielding's mental vision saw more clearly. There was something else coming--something far more tragic than anything that had thus far occurred.

There might be, hidden somewhere in the cargo-holds, time-bombs set to explode at a given moment. Her imagination was by no means running away with her when she visioned such a possibility.

Surely there was something still to happen to the _Admiral Pekhard._ If not, why then all the scurry to get away from the ship, the conspirators themselves included in the stampede?

Or had the ship's position been made known to a German submarine and would the U-boat soon appear to torpedo the British craft? This was not so far-fetched an idea. Only, the young woman was pretty sure that the explosion aboard the _Admiral Pekhard_ had been advanced in time because of her own suspicions and the attempt she had made to get Mr. Dowd to investigate matters which the conspirators did not wish revealed.

Rollife had taken the lantern and Dowd had gone in search of another, Ruth presumed. By and by she began to wonder what was engaging the first officer's attention for so long, and she went to the engine-room hatch. Her small electric torch showed her the way.

To her amazement--and not a little to her fear at first--Ruth found the first officer lying upon the engine-room ladder. He was wet from head to foot, his turban of bandages had come off, displaying a bleeding scalp wound, and he was panting for breath.

"What has happened to you, Mr. Dowd?" she cried. "Did you fall into the water?"

"I dived into it," explained Dowd, grinning faintly. "That water in the fireroom didn't look right to me. I found the seacocks below, there. Two were open, as I suspected."

"Oh!"

"It was a deliberate attempt to scare us--and it succeeded. I shut off the cocks. This compartment could be pumped out if we had the men. Of course, the steam pumps can't be used. We have no donkey engine on deck. All the machinery is down there, half under water.

"There must have been more than Dykman and that man you saw talking to Miss Lentz, in the plot. Another man in the stoker-crew, perhaps. He flung a bomb into one of the furnaces after opening the seacocks. It was a well laid plot, Miss Fielding."

"Yes, I know," she said hastily. "But to what end?"

"How's that?"

"What was the final consideration? Why was this done? They must have known the ship would not sink. Then, what did they do all this for?"

"Why--by Jove!" gasped Dowd, "I had not thought of that, Miss Fielding."

He crept up the ladder and stood upon the deck, the water running from the garments that clung closely to his limbs and body.

"Doesn't it seem reasonable," she asked, "that the conspirators, whoever they were, should have some object rather than the simple desertion of a vessel that was not likely to sink?"

"It would seem so," he admitted, and his tone betrayed as much anxiety as she felt herself.

At the moment a shout from Rollife, the radio man, aroused them.

"I've found it!" he cried.

They went toward the radio room. He was busy in the light of the lantern on the roof of the house. He had tools and a small plumber's stove that he had found. He turned on the blast of the stove and began to weld certain wires.

"Can you fix it?" Dowd asked quietly.

"You bet I can, Mr. Dowd!" declared Rollife. "In half an hour I'll have the sparks shooting from those points up there. You watch."

Ruth looked at Mr. Dowd. Her unspoken question was: "Shall we take him into our confidence? Shall we tell him our fears?"

Before the first officer could answer her unspoken inquiry Ruth's sharp eyes glimpsed a light over his shoulder. It was an intermittent sparkle, and it was low down on the water. She remembered then the light she had seen for a moment when she had first come on deck after learning that the ship was abandoned.

"What is that?" she whispered, pointing.

Dowd wheeled to look. Instantly she saw by the light of her torch that he stiffened and his head came up. He gazed off across the water for quite two minutes. Then he said:

"It is a light in a small boat I believe. At first I thought it might be a submarine. But I do not believe a submarine would show anything less than a searchlight in traveling on the surface at night."

"Oh! Who can it be?" murmured Ruth.

"You put a hard question, Miss Fielding. Surely it cannot be our friends coming back."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean a boat sent by Captain Hastings to make sure that nobody was left on the steamship."

"Do you consider that likely?" she asked.

"Well--no, I do not," he admitted.

"Then you think it may be people who have not our interest at heart?" was her quick demand.

"I am afraid I can give you no encouragement. I cannot imagine Captain Hastings abandoning the ship without believing she would sink. In the darkness he must have got so far away that he would think she had gone down. He would be anxious, you understand, to get his crew and passengers to land."

"Of course. I give him credit for being fairly sane," she said.

"On the other hand, who would have any suspicion that the ship would not sink save those who had brought about the panic?"

"The Germans!" exclaimed the girl.

"Exactly. I believe," said Dowd quietly, "that here come the men who caused the explosion in the fire room and opened the seacocks. They purpose to take charge of the _Admiral Pekhard_, of course. If they get aboard we shall be at their mercy."

"Oh, can we stop them? Can we hold them off?" murmured Ruth.

"I do not know. I am not sure that it would be wise to offer fight. You see, we shall finally be at their mercy."

"If we can't beat them off!" Ruth exclaimed. "Haven't you arms aboard?"

"My dear young lady----"

"Oh, don't think of me!" Ruth cried. "Do just what you would do if I were not here. Wouldn't you and the radio man fight them?"

"I think we could put up a pretty good fight," admitted Dowd thoughtfully. "There are automatic pistols."

"Bring one for me," commanded Ruth. "I can shoot a pistol. Three of us might hold off a small boarding party, I should think."

"If they mean us harm," added Dowd.

"Make them lie off there and wait till morning so that we can see what they look like," begged Ruth.

"That might be attempted."

His lack of certainty rankled in the girl's quick mind. She ejaculated:

"Surely we can try, Mr. Dowd! There is another thing: the deck guns! Had you thought of them?"

"My goodness, no!" admitted the first officer.

"If we could slue around one of those guns, a single shot might sink the boat off there. If they are enemies, I mean."

"Now you have suggested something, Miss Fielding! Wait! Let me have your torch. I will take a look at the guns."

He ran along the deck to the forward gun. After a minute there he ran back to the stern, but kept to the runway on the opposite side of the deck as he passed the girl of the Red Mill. She waited in great impatience for his return.

And when he came she saw that something was decidedly wrong. He wagged his head despairingly.

"No use," he said. "Those fellows were sharper than one would think. The breech-block of each gun is missing."

"That light is drawing close, Mr. Dowd!" Ruth exclaimed. "Get the pistols you spoke of--do!"

But first Dowd called to the radio man up above them: "Hi, Sparks, see that boat coming?"

"What boat?" demanded the other, stopping his work for the moment. Then he saw the light. "Holy heavens! what's that?"

"One of the boats coming back--and not with friends," said Dowd.

"Let me get these wires welded and I'll show 'em!" rejoined Rollife. "I'll send a call----"

At the moment the sudden explosion of a motor engine exhaust startled them. It was no rowboat advancing toward the _Admiral Pekhard_. Probably its crew had been rowing quietly so as not to startle those left aboard the ship.

"The pistols, Mr. Dowd!" begged Ruth again.

The first officer departed on a run. Rollife kept at his work with a running commentary of his opinion of the scoundrels who were approaching. Suddenly a rifle rang out from the coming launch.

"Ahoy! Ahoy the steamer!" shouted a voice. "We see your light, and we'll shoot at it if you don't douse it. Quick, now!"

Another rifle bullet whistled over the head of the radio man. Ruth removed her thumb from the electric torch switch instantly. But Rollife refused at first to be driven.

The next moment, however, a bullet crashed into the lantern on the roof of the radio house. The flame was snuffed out and the radio man was feign to slide down from his exposed position.

Dowd came running from the cabin with the pistols. He gave one to Ruth and another to Rollife. The latter stepped out from the shelter of the house and drew bead on the lamp in the approaching launch. Ruth heard the chatter of the weapon's hammer--but not a shot was fired!

"Great guns, Dowd!" shouted the radio man, exasperated. "This gat isn't loaded."

"Neither is mine!" exclaimed Ruth, who had made a quick examination in the darkness.

"Oh, my soul!" groaned the first officer. "I got the wrong weapons!"

"And no more clips of cartridges? Well, you----"

There was no use finishing his opinion of Dowd's uselessness. The motor boat shot alongside under increased speed. There was a slanting bump, a grappling iron flew over the rail and caught, and the next moment a man swarmed up the rope, threw his leg over the rail, and then his head and face appeared.

Ruth in her excitement pressed the switch of her electric torch. The ray of light shot almost directly into the eyes of the first boarder. He was the flaxen-haired man--the man she believed she had seen hiding in the small motor boat before the explosion in the steamer's fire room.