silently
toward the side of the ship.

He was safe now. He knew that the watch was not likely to come to the
superstructure for the next hour at least. The fellow had stumbled
over a chain. The sound, faint and far away as it had been, caught
Dan's ear instantly, leading him to mount the superstructure for an
observation.

"Everything secure above there?" demanded the officer of the deck.

"Aye, aye, sir."

"I thought perhaps you heard something, from the way you went up."

"I thought so, too, sir, but I must have been mistaken. I saw no one."

Reaching the side of the ship the figure hesitated a moment, then
quickly climbed through the rail. He was just opposite the lower boom,
the long, strong pole along which the sailors step to get down into the
small boats.

Trailing from a long rope at the end of the lower boat rode the ship's
dinghy, where she had been left for the night, as had other boats on
the opposite or starboard side.

Now a second figure seemed to rise directly out of the deck, and an
instant later it too had crept out on the lower boom. The men on the
quarter-deck could not see forward to the lower boom without leaning
out over the ship's rail, so the two men were unobserved.

Reaching the end of the boom, the men quickly let themselves down the
Jacob's ladder, dropping noiselessly into the dinghy. They had some
little trouble in casting the boat off, it having been made doubly
secure for the night.

Unluckily one of them dropped an oar, which fell to the bottom of the
boat with a loud clatter.

"What's that?" demanded the officer of the deck sharply.

"It sounded like an oar in a small boat, sir," answered Dan, making for
the topside, which, he reached in a few swift bounds.

"Something going on down there, sir."

"Where away?"

"Just aft of the port boom, sir."

"Can you see the dinghy?"

"Aye, aye, sir. Just make her out."

"Is she all right?"

"She looks to be, sir. I can't quite tell from here. I'll get over
that way; I'll go further forward, sir, and let you know. I see two
dinghies now. The port and starboard dinghies are moored to the port
boom, sir."

"Watch them while I turn out the guard."

"The dinghy is moving, sir. I think there is some one in her."

"Dinghy, there, ahoy!" bellowed the officer of the deck.

There was no reply from the men in the dinghy, who, by this time, were
making more frantic efforts to free themselves.

"Dinghy, there!" sho