“C. Q.”; or, In the Wireless House
The ship was now about half an hour from quarantine and it was a question whether or not she would come to anchor before the Captain should learn that he might still add to the luster already surrounding his name by identifying yet another fleeing felon on board his ship. Once at anchor Graeme must swim for it. Micky had already figured out that that was his only chance. With a life preserver or an oar pitched from the last life-boat aft he might, if the tide were favorable, make the Long Island shore. But in the meantime? Suppose Ponsonby stumbled on the Roakby affair the first thing?
The ship’s bell struck six times and the bugler began simultaneously to blow the first call for dinner. Seven o’clock. It still lacked thirty minutes before the ringing notes of “Roast Beef of Old England” would send the passengers in their everyday clothes down into the saloon for their last musty meal at the line’s expense. It was the moment when all the passengers were in their state-rooms washing up and brushing their hair, or taking an appetizer at the bar.
Micky put out the lights in the wireless house232
