"Oh! So that's the way av it?" the chief replied, and immediately went
to his state-room for the purpose of thinking it over. Eventually he
came to the conclusion that all was not as it should be, but that,
nevertheless, it was no affair of his. He was paid to obey signals
given him from the bridge.

"'Tis no business av mine, afther all," he soliloquized. "For why
should I be puttin' dogs in windows? He's paid to navigate the ship,
an' didn't Cappy Ricks tell me to mind me own business? And yet,
there's something wrong in this ship. I feel it in me bones."

He felt it with a force that was almost violent when Mr. Schultz
called down through the speaking-tube late one afternoon and told him
to put her under a dead-slow bell. That meant they were practically
heaving to, and steamers only heave to at sea in fine weather when
they have reached a certain longitude and latitude and plan to keep an
appointment. On the instant there was a strong odor of rat in Terence
Reardon's engine room, but his "Very well, sir," contained no hint of
his surprise and suspicion. He gave his orders to the firemen to bank
the fires, and when this had been done he informed his engine-room
crew that they might all go on deck for five minutes and get a breath
of fresh air. Nothing loath, they scrambled up the steel stairway--and
the instant the last man was out of earshot Terence Reardon sprang to
the speaking-tube to whistle up the skipper in his room.

Now, undoubtedly the cool and calculating Herr August Carl von Staden
had been carefully trained to take into consideration, when planning
his strategy, every conceivable contingency that might possibly arise.
It is probable that the German secret service never turned out a more
finished graduate than Herr von Staden; but the fact remains,