“’Tis no more than a hunch, Johnny. I’m Irish, and my people feel things in the air. We don’t have to be told. This Professor Ernst Wilhelm Vonderholtz does not ring true. There is a flaw in him somewhere.” “Well, we’re sort of travellers in disguise ourselves, ain’t we, Cap’n Mike? I feel plumb full of false pretences. The pot calls the kettle black. How about that?” “’Tis our own business,” snapped O’Shea. “So is his,” briefly concluded Johnny Kent as he crawled into the bunk. No more than five minutes later he was snoring with the rhythm and volume of a whistling buoy in a swinging sea. O’Shea lay awake for some time, trying to fit his uneasy surmises together, or to toss them aside as so much rubbish. He had not heard the banshee cry, but a vague conjecture had fastened itself in his mind that something was fated to go wrong with this voyage of the _Alsatian_. And without tangible cause or reason, he found this foreboding interwoven with the presence on board of the affable, mild-mannered, studious Professor Ernst Wilhelm Vonderholtz. Sailormen are notably superstitious, and O’Shea had been schooled to beware of cross-eyed Finns in the forecastle and black cats in the cabin. But surely no tradition of the sea held it an ill omen to have on board a blond scientist with gold-rimmed spectacles and a well-cut beard who was seeking information among the technical schools and universities of the United States. “He has it in his head that Johnny Kent and I are seafarin’ men by trade, and he wants to make sure of it for some reason of his own,” reflected O’Shea. “It has strained me imagination to lie to him and get away with it. As for Johnny, he would rather talk farming than anything else in the world, so he will pass for a genuine hayseed in any company.” They were deprived of the pleasant society of Professor Vonderholtz next day, for he boldly monopolized the school-teacher, Miss Jenness, who seemed not in the least bored by his assiduous attentions. Elderly ladies watched them with open interest, and diagnosed it as one of those swift and absorbing steamship romances. For three days out of Liverpool the _Alsatian_ moved uneventfully over the face of the waters. The weather was bright, the sea smooth. The scratch crew of firemen toiled faithfully in the torrid caverns far below, and the mighty engines throbbed unceasingly to whirl the twin screws that pushed the foaming miles astern. On the bridge the captain and his officers went cheerfully about their tasks, thankful for clear skies and a good day’s run. It was after midnight, and the _Alsatian_ was in mid-ocean, when a few of the first-cabin passengers heard what sounded to their drowsy ears like several pistol shots. There are many noises aboard a steamship that are unfamiliar to the landsman. Excepting Captain O’Shea and Johnny Kent, such of the passengers as had been awakened paid so little heed to the sounds that they soon went to sleep again.