Fortunately for them, the night was windless and the white steam drifted
straight up and as it rose, it spread out in an impenetrable fog.
Cloaked in this vapor, the two adventurers scrambled up some thirty-five
feet to the first deck. The steam was thick inside the rail. Covered by
the noisy shriek of the exhaust, they jumped inside the promenade
without being heard or seen, and a moment later, they dropped arm in
arm, like two casual strollers, and moved up deck.
Two minutes later, when the roaring exhaust had ceased and the vapor had
cleared away, the guard with the gun could never have guessed that the
two men he saw slowly promenading the deck had drifted over the rail,
out of the night, with the clouds of the noisy exhaust.
Neither of the lads so much as glanced at the sentinel as they strolled
past him. Caradoc was saying in the low tones men use when conversing in
the darkness:
"Do you suppose that fellow knows anything about engines?"
And Madden replied just as confidentially, as he sized the gun man up
out of the tail of his eye, "No, I'm sure he doesn't. An engineer never
has to stand guard."
"How are we ever going to spot an engineer?"
For the first time since starting, a little thrill of the joy of
adventure crept into Madden's heart.
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