www.freeclassicebooks.com

outstretched hand. A single glance at them convinced the fellow that he had

been more than well paid. Then he assisted her up the ladder, holding his skiff

close to the ship's side against the chance that this profitable passenger might

wish to be taken ashore later.

But presently the sound of the donkey engine and the rattle of a steel cable on

the hoisting-drum proclaimed the fact that the Kincaid's anchor was being raised,

and a moment later the waiter heard the propellers revolving, and slowly the little

steamer moved away from him out into the channel.

As he turned to row back to shore he heard a woman's shriek from the ship's

deck.

"That's wot I calls rotten luck," he soliloquized. "I might jest as well of 'ad the

whole bloomin' wad."

When Jane Clayton climbed to the deck of the Kincaid she found the ship

apparently deserted. There was no sign of those she sought nor of any other

aboard, and so she went about her search for her husband and the child she

hoped against hope to find there without interruption.

Quickly she hastened to the cabin, which was half above and half below deck. As

she hurried down the short companion-ladder into the main cabin, on either side

of which were the smaller rooms occupied by the officers, she failed to note the

quick closing of one of the doors before her. She passed the full length of the

main room, and then retracing her steps stopped before each door to listen,

furtively trying each latch.

All was silence, utter silence there, in which the throbbing of her own frightened

heart seemed to her overwrought imagination to fill the ship with its thunderous

alarm.

One by one the doors opened before her touch, only to reveal empty interiors. In

her absorption she did not note the sudden activity upon the vessel, the purring

of the engines, the throbbing of the propeller. She had reached the last door upon

the right now, and as she pushed it open she was seized from within by a

powerful, dark-visaged man, and drawn hastily into the stuffy, ill-smelling

interior.

The sudden shock of fright which the unexpected attack had upon her drew a

single piercing scream from her throat; then the man clapped a hand roughly

over the mouth.

The Beasts of Tarzan