He felt like a ferret venturing
into a rat's den.
"Why you can tell an engineer easily," he murmured. "You've seen 'em,
oily fellows, with black smudges."
"That describes a fireman, too."
"No, a fireman's not so oily and is more cindery--then we'll know one by
his cap."
"Certainly," breathed Smith. "I hadn't thought of that."
Notwithstanding his danger, Madden could not help smiling as he moved
along after the fashion of a careless stroller, when he was really
keenly alert for a man with an engineer's cap.
The two youths were walking up a long deck, dimly lighted by small
incandescent bulbs placed on the inner surface of the outside stanchions
about thirty feet apart. Each bulb was carefully blinded from the ocean
by a sheath, which confined its glowworm radiance exclusively to the
promenade. On the inboard side were a long series of port holes,
likewise hooded from observation. Some were aglow, others dark.
The deck, rails, cabin walls, ports, hoods, joists of the top-deck were
newly washed and scrupulously clean. Fifty yards up-deck, where
perspective and the sheer of the ship gave the promenade the appearance
of a long, up-curved tunnel, the boys caught sight of a gang of men
scrubbing down deck. A little beyond the scrubbing gang, some garments
fluttered on a line drying in the night air.
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