.

One explanation came to me, and I leaped at it--the possibility of a
stowaway hidden in the hold, some maniacal fugitive who had found in
the little cargo boat's empty hull ample room to hide. The men, too,
seized at the idea. One and all volunteered for what might prove to be
a dangerous service.

I chose Charlie Jones and Clarke as being most familiar with the ship,
and we went down into the hold. Clarke carried a lantern. Charlie
Jones held Singleton's broken revolver. I carried a belaying pin. But,
although we searched every foot of space, we found nothing. The
formaldehyde with which Turner had fumigated the ship clung here
tenaciously, and, mixed with the odors of bilge water and the
indescribable heavy smells left by tropical cargoes, made me dizzy and
ill.

We were stumbling along, Clarke with the lantern, I next, and Charlie
Jones behind, on our way to the ladder again, when I received a
stunning blow on the back of the head. I turned dizzy, expecting
nothing less than sudden death, when it developed that Jones, having
stumbled over a loose plank, had fallen forward, the revolver in his
outstretched hand striking my head.

He picked himself up sheepishly, and we went on. But so unnerved was I
by this fresh shock that it was a moment or two before I could essay
the ladder.

Burns was waiting at the hatchway, peering down. Beside him on the
deck lay a bloodstained axe.

Elsa Lee, on hearing the story of Henrietta Sloane, had gone to the
maids' cabin, and had found it where it had been flung into the berth
of the stewardess.

CHAPTER VIII

THE STEWARDESS'S STORY

But, after all, the story of Henrietta Sloane only added to the
mystery. She told it to me, sitting propped in a chair in Mrs. Johns's
room, her face white, her lips dry and twitching. The crew were making
such breakfast as they could on deck, and Mr. Turner was still in a
stupor in his room across the main cabin. The four women, drawn
together in their distress, were huddled in the center of the room,
touching hands now and then, as if finding comfort in contact, and
reassurance.

"I went to bed early," said the stewardess; "about ten o'clock, I
think. Karen had not come down; I wakened when the watch changed. It
was hot, and the window from our room to the deck was open. There is a
curtain over it, to keep the helmsman from looking in--it is close to
the wheel. The bell, striking every half-hour, does not waken m