“If we do get out, Cap’n Mike, what in blazes are we apt to run into?” the engineer exclaimed, rumpling his mop of gray hair with both hands “Whoever it was that done the fancy pistol-shootin’ last night ain’t likely to hesitate to do it again. And there’s only two of us with guns unless a few of the passengers happen to have ’em in their valises.” “I will be ashamed of myself and disgusted with you if we don’t mix things up before this time to-morrow, ye fat old reprobate,” severely spake Captain Michael O’Shea, and the words were weighed with finality. “The Lord gave us brains, didn’t He? If we let ourselves be run away with aboard this floating hotel we ought to beg admittance to the nearest home for aged and decrepit seafarin’ men.” “It’s a perfectly ridiculous situation to be ketched in, as I said before, Cap’n Mike.” II The passengers so mysteriously imprisoned in the first-cabin quarters were soon to meet again that vanished scientist and fellow-voyager Professor Ernst Wilhelm Vonderholtz. Shortly before noon one of the doors which had blocked exit to the promenade-deck was opened from the outside. An alert, blond man stepped upon the brass threshold and stood gazing at the huddled, wondering passengers. The expression of his keenly intelligent face reflected easy confidence and half-smiling contempt. He wore the blue uniform cap and blouse of a ship’s officer, obviously purloined from the lawful owner, for the insignia was that of the International Line. The gold-rimmed spectacles and the precise, studious manner discarded, it was painfully apparent that he was something very different from a harmless professor of chemistry. Behind him, and filling the doorway, stood four other men in the grimy garments of the stoke-hole. The smears of coal-dust which blackened their features gave them a forbidding, sinister appearance. They were openly armed with revolvers. Their leader motioned them to remain where they were. He moved just inside the hall and addressed the passengers in his clean-cut English with its Teutonic shades and intonations. The audience was flatteringly attentive. The sight of the four grim stokers in the background compelled absorbed attention. “This steamer is in my control,” crisply began the singularly transformed university professor. “It is useless for you to wax indignant, to weep, to protest. The thing has been most carefully planned. I will explain a little in order that you may know why it is best for you to do as you are ordered. The strike of those firemen in Liverpool? It was fomented by my agents. They caused the strike to occur on the day of sailing. It was necessary to get rid of that crew of firemen. In their places were shipped my own--our own men. The company was surprised to find a new crew so easily. The stupid management suspected nothing. Many months, much money it had taken to select these men of mine, to have them all together in Liverpool prepared for the opportunity.”