inside, fastening the door, as it had been, behind them.
They captain lay on his back, in his under-shirt and drawers only, with his grizzled beard in the air and his windpipe exposed to full view.
He was an orderly man even in his cups, and habit made him easy to wake up when disturbed, but these two assassins were adepts at not disturbing people; they had left their shoes in the cabin, and made no noise as they moved about like phantoms.
A bunch of keys was hanging on the wainscotting over the captain's head, and the clothes he had taken off were neatly folded on the sea-chest at the side of his bunk, an open Bible lay beside them, from which he had read his nightly chapter.
The lips of the atheistic doctor curled as he took in these details. Perhaps the angels were watching over the drunken slumbers of this honest seaman, yet it was doubtful if they would be powerful enough to save that sun-tanned neck from the knife of Dennis, supposing he woke before they were gone.
Dennis took up his post quietly and grimly, his sharp and large clasp knife about the eighth of an inch from the bare throat under him, and his evil eyes fixed on the closed lids of the sleeper, while the doctor lifted the bunch of keys gently from the nail, and, going over to the medicine chest, selected the proper key, which he had observed before, and fitted it in.
The lock did not yield quite noiselessly, and at the rasping sound the captain stirred in his sleep, then the knife went very close to the skin, almost grazing it, as Dennis prepared for action.
Both murderers waited breathlessly while the old
