Chapter LII: Changed Conditions

Bill looked at him curiously. The captain had changed for the worse since he had seen him last. He wore a pair of old khaki trousers and a golf coat buttoned up to his chin, over which he had a worn khaki overcoat which hung to his knees.

Suddenly his tone changed, and he became severely practical.

“Do you know a passenger named Holbrook? He was up here the other morning, but I missed him somehow.”

“Yes, sir, I was looking after his cabin,” said Bill. “I haven’t seen him since morning--he’s disappeared somewhere.”

The corner of Harvey Hale’s mouth lifted.

“And he’d better! That was a wise kid! Listen, boy, if you see him tell him to come right along to me.”

“If I see him I shall certainly tell him that,” said Bill, emboldened by the success of his disguise. “Better take me for your steward, captain. You don’t want all sorts of fellows coming up and down carrying stories. You never know what they will talk about.”

Hale seemed to take a favourable view of this, but, to Bill’s surprise, would not come to a decision. From his attitude Holbrook was certain that, though this swaggering freebooter might boast of his position and his power, he was the subordinate of another, and had little or no real authority in his hands.

That afternoon, Bill discovered that, if the secret of the morning’s adventures had been well kept, there was a feeling of suspicion abroad. The careless gaiety of the passengers who thronged the deck was less marked. He saw grave faces, and one man, unknown to him, buttonholed him in the companionway and asked him if anything was wrong.

“No, sir,” said Bill; “what do you mean?”

“Well, is there any trouble up above?” The passenger jerked his thumb in the direction of the heavens, but Bill guessed that he was referring to the bridge.

“Not that I know, sir.”

“Somebody was hurt this morning,” said the passenger, by no means reassured. “They say the captain’s dead.”

“I’ve heard nothing about it,” said Bill, and escaped.

The unobservant travellers could hardly fail to observe one peculiar fact. They came up as usual from dinner, to find a remarkable change in conditions. Betty, who did not leave the saloon until ten o’clock (she had waited on, hoping that Bill would put in an appearance) uttered a little gasp of wonder as she stepped out on to the deck.

“We’ve dined very early,” she said.

It was quite light. Every horizon was visible under the grey skies. She looked at her watch.

“Why,” she said, “it is ten o’clock--ten o’clock at night and still light! And, my! how cold it is!”

She woke the next morning shivering, and hastily pulled her fur coat on to the bed. There was a knock at the door, and the new steward came in.

“I’m going to put on your radiator if you don’t mind, Miss.”

“An electric radiator in July!” she said jerkily, for she was chilled to the bone.

“It does seem queer,” said the new steward. “I shouldn’t get up, Miss, until this cabin is warm.”

“Whatever has happened? Why is it so cold?” asked the muffled voice of the girl from beneath the clothes.

“I don’t know,” said Bill. “Probably because it snowed in the night. There’s two inches of it on the upper deck!”

He was one of the few who knew that for twenty-eight hours the _Escorial_, leaving her course, had been steaming at full speed northward into the frozen seas of the Arctic!