Part 10 (2/2)
Jarrold was, as has been said, a bull of a man. Thick-necked, powerful and possessed of no little science, he could have torn Jack to pieces if he could have gripped him right. But Jack, once free of his clutches, was careful to avoid this.
Jack possessed no little of the science of the gymnasium, too. He fought coolly, taking every advantage of his skill. Again and again he dodged Jarrold's mad rushes, and again and again he landed blows which seemed heavy enough to fell an ox.
But they did not appear to have any effect on Jarrold's big frame. A mere grunt was the only sign that he had noticed them. Jack began to despair of handling his man after all.
In the struggle, furniture was smashed, Jarrold's coat torn, and both combatants' faces were cut and bruised. Gasping for breath, dizzy from the thundering shock of the few blows Jarrold had driven home like flesh and blood sledge hammers, Jack was about to give up, when suddenly he noticed that no one was facing him. Jarrold, breathing heavily, his face purple, lay stretched across a lounge as he had fallen.
A terrible thought flashed through Jack's mind. Suppose he had killed him?
CHAPTER XIII
A DOSE OF SLEEPING POWDER
Jack rushed out into the hallway. It was not, as he had expected, smoke-filled, nor was there any odor of fire in the air. Somewhere he could hear the voices of officers shouting above the distant hub-bub in the saloon: ”Keep your heads! There is no fire.”
Doctor Flynn, the s.h.i.+p's surgeon, came hurrying by. Jack stopped him and explained what had occurred in Colonel Minturn's cabin.
”We must send for help and carry them both out of danger at once,” he said.
”Danger? But there is no danger,” exclaimed the doctor.
”But the fire?” gasped the boy.
”There is none. It was either the overwrought nerves of a silly woman that started the panic, or else there was some malicious design underlying the whole thing.”
The thought of what he had seen as he stood in the shadow of the saloon stairway rushed across Jack's mind: Miss Jarrold's sudden appearance and then the scream of fire. Could it have been possible that this was the thing that Sam had overheard her and her uncle debating? That, taking advantage of the panic they knew would be caused by such an alarm in the dead of night, Jarrold had schemed a way to enter Colonel Minturn's cabin?
”Will you come into Colonel Minturn's cabin with me at once, doctor?”
asked Jack.
”Certainly, my boy. But,” and the doctor stared at him in amazement, ”what has happened to you? Your face is bruised and marked. Have you been fighting?”
”A little bit,” said Jack grimly.
”With whom?”
”With a man I believe to be a consummate scoundrel. By the merest accident on earth, I happened along here just in time to frustrate what I believe to be a plot against Colonel Minturn.”
All this Jack explained hastily as they retraced their way down the corridor to Colonel Minturn's cabin. The panic had died down, and the pa.s.sengers, rea.s.sured now, were making their divers ways back to their cabins. Some tried to turn the whole matter into a joke. Others looked sheepish over the panic-stricken way in which they had behaved.
But when the two entered the colonel's cabin a surprise awaited them.
_Jarrold was not there._
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