ed, when they mustered together.
There was no one on board, and the machinists reported plenty of oil
fuel.

Soon the fires were lighted, and the indicator began to move, as the
boilers made steam. They did not wait for full pressure. Jenkins had
spread out a chart in the pilot-house, and when the engines could turn
over he gave the word. Lines were taken in except a spring to back on;
then this was cast off, and the long, slim hull moved almost silently
away from the dock.

Jenkins steered by the light of a match held over the compass until
there was steam enough to turn the dynamos, then the electrics were
turned on in the pilot-house, engine room, and side-light boxes--by
which time the dock was out of sight in the fog, and they dared speak in
articulate words. Their language was profane but joyous, and their
congratulations hearty and sincere.

A table knife is an innocent and innocuous weapon, but two table knives
are not, for one can be used against the other so skillfully as to form
a fairly good hack saw, with which prison bars may be sawed. The sawing
of steel bars was the sound that the sentry had heard mingling with his
footfalls.

Jenkins, at the wheel, called to the crowd. "Take the wheel, one of
you," he ordered. "I've just rounded the corner. Keep her sou'east, half
south for a mile. I'll be here, then. I want to rig the log over the
stern."

The man answered, and Jenkins departed with the boat's patent log. Down
in the engine and boiler rooms were the four machinists--engineers, they
would be called in merchant steamers--and under their efforts the
engines turned faster, while a growing bow wave spread from each side of
the sharp stem.

The fog was still thick, so thick that the fan-shaped beams from the
side lights could not pierce it as far as the bow, and the forward
funnel was barely visible--a magnified black stump.

Jenkins was back among them soon, remarking that she was making twenty
knots already. Then he slowed down, ordered the lead hove, each side,
and ringing full speed, quietly took the wheel, changing the course
again to east, quarter north, and ordering a man aloft to keep a lookout
in the thinner fog for lights ahead.

In a few minutes the man reported--a fixed white light four points off
the starboard bow, and a little later a fixed white-and-red flashlight
two points off the port bow.

"Good," grunted Jenkins. "I know just where I am. Come down from aloft,"
he called, "and