At that moment the candle end, drowned in a pool of its own melted tallow, guttered, blinked, and went out. The utter blackness of the hold rushed over Zachary and the fly who clutched at the threads of the sailor's coarse shirt. Zachary was only a young boy, scarcely older than Chris himself, and the fly could almost feel the quickening of Zachary's heartbeat at the sudden flood of dark, the sense of the late hour, and the rat-infested hold. Zachary moved quickly in the pitch-black, his hands outstretched to feel the ladder, his breath coming and going rapidly through his parted lips. The heat of the airless place, the heavy smells of the cargo itself, oppressed and weighed on both Zachary and his unsuspected companion. The _Mirabelle_ was moving slowly forward in calm tropic seas, scarcely making headway on an almost breathless night. Down in the hold the ladder eluded Zachary's reaching fingers, and the creaking of the ship was all that was to be heard except for the faint sound of Zachary's breathing. Then all at once, as sometimes happens in a roomful of talking people, there came a moment of total silence. For a second there was a space in the creaking of the ship, the pad of rats, or the slight shift and reshift of boxes. And in that second, just as Zachary's fingers touched the ladder, to Zachary and to Chris on his shoulder, came the distinct sound of another man's breathing. CHAPTER 21 Exhausted as he was by his long vigil and the effort needed to change his shape, it was another hour or more before Chris could sleep that night. The sound of that heavy but held-back breathing, so close to Zachary and himself in the black hold, frightened Chris almost more, once he was safe in his cabin and hammock, than it had at the time. Zachary had bolted up the ladder like a frightened squirrel, with Chris, as a fly, holding on for dear life. Even so, Zachary moved none too fast to suit Chris, who flew off toward his own cabin in a chattering fright. The lumpy form of Amos, asleep in his hammock, was reassuring, but Chris lay shivering and puzzling for a long time before he finally fell asleep. The next day, lying on his stomach in the hot sun, he dozed with his cheek on his folded hands, his mind going over and over the details of the night before. Try as he would, Chris could not remember having seen any member of the crew even near the hatch leading to the hold. Let's see, he began in his mind, a bunch of the men were singing--Bowie was one of 'em. They went down to their quarters first. They were really closest to the hatch. Mr. Finney called Abner up to the bridge, and Abner came back and went down a while later. Guess Mr. Finney went to his quarters--I don't remember seeing him cross the deck or come over that way at all.