Page:Cruise of the Dry Dock.djvu/256

 no sense to a scheme like that. Captain Kidd himself wouldn't be up to it.”

A long silence followed this ultimatum, then Caradoc said, “Oh, it's possible, I suppose. The mathematical formula of possibility would work out about ten million chances to one that we lose.”

“Yes, I know it's risky.”

“And how do you hope to get in past that guard?”

“We'll have to climb up the ladder right under him, hang there until he is on his up-deck walk, then swing inside and when he turns around we could be simply strolling up the deck toward him. There must be a lot of fellows on such a big ship. Maybe he doesn't know them all.”

“Why do you want to stroll toward him?”

“Because if he saw us walking off in the other direction, he would know we had not passed him, and so we must have come up the ladder.”

Caradoc shook his head in the darkness. “I'm going to try to jump on that guard when he turns his back, and down him.”