"
"He'd give an alarm sure. We mustn't disturb him till we get ready to
leave, then let him yell."
"What you are planning, Madden, is simply impossible. I like to be as
conservative as possible."
"We can turn around and row back to the _Vulcan_--and starve."
"Go ahead to the accommodation ladder. However, it's impossible."
As the two moved silently nearer a murmur of machinery in the vast
fabric came to them. As their tiny boat swung in beside the high hull,
they could hear this noise quite plainly, and they trusted to this
rumble to screen their operations somewhat. They ceased paddling and
allowed the dinghy to drift against the iron side of the vessel. They
could no longer see the deck and the guard, owing to the swell in the
high metal wall. But presently they came to the rope ladder which they
anticipated hung below the guard's station.
Madden caught this and tied the dinghy to it with the crawly feeling of
a man who expects to have a gun fired at him the next moment.
Caradoc came up and the two adventurers stood in the boat's prow, both
holding to the ladder.
"I'll bet that scoundrel shoots down," whispered Leonard, "before we get
halfway up."
"Don't talk so loud--are you ready to try it?"
"What are you going to do--jump on him?" breathed Leonard.
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