"
"Yes, what's that?"
"It--it's almost too wild to propose, but it's all I can think of. As
far as I know it's absolutely our last chance."
"Go on, go on," urged the Englishman impatiently. "I don't know of any
way out whatever."
"If we could slip aboard there and--and--well, kidnap somebody who knows
how to run our engines, bring him back to the tug, fire up and make a
race to South America--but there's no sense to a scheme like that.
Captain Kidd himself wouldn't be up to it."
A long silence followed this ultimatum, then Caradoc said, "Oh, it's
possible, I suppose. The mathematical formula of possibility would work
out about ten million chances to one that we lose."
"Yes, I know it's risky."
"And how do you hope to get in past that guard?"
"We'll have to climb up the ladder right under him, hang there until he
is on his up-deck walk, then swing inside and when he turns around we
could be simply strolling up the deck toward him. There must be a lot of
fellows on such a big ship. Maybe he doesn't know them all."
"Why do you want to stroll _toward_ him?"
"Because if he saw us walking off in the other direction, he would know
we had not passed him, and so we must have come up the ladder."
Caradoc shook his head in the darkness. "I'm going to try to jump on
that guard when he turns his back, and down him.
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