The interior of the turret was as dark as a pocket, but the detective quickly discovered the door which communicated with the interior of the vessel proper, and he opened it. Contrary to his expectations, he found himself then inside a brilliantly lighted section of the vessel, which he recognized at a glance to be the general assembling-room—the apartment used by the pirates for their general uses.

It was, in fact, in the form of a miniature social hall of a great steamship, and even the detective was amazed to see the sumptuousness with which it was furnished and decorated. It might have done service as a compartment in the palace of a prince, so perfect were its appointments. But the thing which interested the detective most just then was the fact that there was not a human being to be seen, not a sign of one, beyond the general significance of the place itself.

“Come!” he whispered. “It will never do for us to remain here. They will be bringing their spoils aboard presently, and we must be well concealed before that time.”

“Are you going to remain here?” asked Kane also in a whisper.

“Sure! What do you suppose I took all that trouble to get here for?”

[82]

“Why, to have it out with the pirate—to have a scrap with him at once, capture his ship and cargo, and all that.”

“We will do that later. Just now we have other axes to grind.”

He glided rapidly aft toward a door he saw in the bulkhead, opened it cautiously, and peered through. But instantly he started back, and, seizing Chick and Kane with either hand, forced them underneath the long table behind them.

And they were not a moment too soon. The door which he had partially opened was thrown wide ajar this time, and a woman appeared on the threshold. She paused there for a moment, and the detective, from his position under the table, could see her plainly.

His mental comment at that moment was that it would not do to say that she was beautiful, merely because her face was too strong for that adjective; but she was certainly handsome. She was tall and well formed, and her hair and eyes were as black as night, while her skin was as white as that which you often see on people with red hair.

For a moment she stood there in the doorway, while her great, round, black eyes took in every detail of the cabin she was surveying.

“I surely thought I heard somebody here,” Nick heard her murmur. “Doubtless it was one of the men.”

Again she looked around her searchingly. Then she turned, and seemed to study the room she had quitted, as if she were undecided what to do; but, after a moment[83] of hesitation, she came into the room where Nick and his companions were concealed under the table, closed the door after her, and walked rapidly through toward the turret door by which the detective had effected an entrance.

Nick changed his position so that he could watch her, and he saw that she hesitated again at the turret door; but it was at once evident that her curiosity was too much for her judgment, for, after an instant, she pushed the door open in front of her, and disappeared through it, closing it behind her.

“Now is our opportunity,” said Nick. “Quick! Follow me!”

He darted from under the table, glided rapidly toward the door through which the woman had first made her appearance, and in an instant, followed by Chick and Kane, passed through into the after-cabin of the vessel.

And if the other one was sumptuous in its appointments, this one put it entirely in the shade. It was veritably a palace—the palace of a queen, too; but evidently of a queen who was provided with a prince consort, for there were many evidences about of masculine uses.

There were cigarettes and cigars upon the table in the center of the room. There was a piano built into the bulkhead at one end of it. There was an electric drop light burning on the table, and there were comfortable chairs, books, papers, periodicals, and articles of various kinds and uses scattered about everywhere.

At one side of the center-table there was a chess-stand,[84] with the ivory men in such a position as to indicate that a game had been interrupted in order that the Aurora might be looted; and there were pictures and hangings and other decorations in the compartment, which showed that it was the abode of refinement, as well as of a pirate.

All these things the detective noticed in his first searching glance around him.

“That woman was afraid to go outside, for some reason,” he said to the others. “She did not wish the captain of this craft to see her, and so it follows that she won’t be gone more than a minute or two; but there must be another cabin aft of this one—at least, there is sure to be a couple of staterooms.”

He started forward as he spoke, and, pushing aside a hanging drapery, found himself in a narrow gangway, or passage, with an open door of a stateroom on either side of him. But a glance told him that these were the rooms occupied by the two people he most wished to avoid until he had heard enough of what they might have to say to each other to determine him how to act.

Beyond these, however, there were other doors—two of them—and, as before, one on either side. These were closed, and he decided at once that they were not in constant use. He opened one of them at the same time that he pointed toward the other.

“Go in there,” he directed, and so it happened that Chick and Kane went together into one of the rooms, while Nick found himself alone in the remaining one.

And then, just as he pulled the door shut behind him—that[85] is, he closed it all but the merest crack—the noise of the opening and closing of the door of the outer cabin apprised him of the fact that the woman had returned.

He supposed that she would return to the table and seat herself there, while she awaited the return of the pirate chief from his expedition aboard the Aurora; but in that he was mistaken. He was peering through the crack left him by not quite closing his own door, and he could see past an aperture at the side of the portière at the end of the passage that the woman was coming straight toward it.

He watched her without moving.

He hoped that she would not come to his door, o............