Page:Arthur Stringer - The Shadow.djvu/219



FTER seven cataleptic hours of unbroken sleep Blake awakened to find his shoulder being prodded and shaken by the pale-eyed fourth engineer. The stowaway's tired body, during that sleep, had soaked in renewed strength as a squeezed sponge soaks up water. He could afford to blink with impassive eyes up at the troubled face of the young man wearing the oil-stained cap.

"What 's wrong?" he demanded, awakening to a luxurious comprehension of where he was and what he had escaped. Then he sat up in the narrow berth, for it began to dawn on him that the engines of the Trunella were not in motion. "Why are n't we under way?"

"They 're having trouble up there, with the Commandante. We can't get off inside of an hour—and anything 's likely to happen in that 209