Beyond the Poseidon Adventure by Paul Gallico Page B

into the water, and it had been sucked-away. It was as though the Poseidon, in its death throes, had claimed her. He had returned solely to bring Belle back and restore to her in death some of the fine pride she had in life. Now she had gone, swept away into the vast graveyard that lay beyond the engine room. Perhaps, thought Manny, this was how it was meant to be. He felt old and lonely and frightened now that he had lost his reason for being there. The bonds which had bound them together in life were now truly severed, and he was a man alone. He looked at the others and saw the grimness on Rogo’s face. “Mr. Rogo,” he said, in a low, steady voice. “Belle’s gone now.”
    It went unheeded. Rogo, his face somber, asked Klaas, “How long? How long’ve we got?”
    Klaas held out apologetic palms. “Who can say? Two hours, maybe less. The weight of the ship will pull down, eventually the last bulkheads will burst, and judging by the angle it will sink like a stone. We ought to be going, Mr. Rogo.”
    Two hours might be enough. Rogo’s mind now was on his mission. “Okay, you guys, let’s get this goddamn gold outta here and snap it up.” He picked up a bar of shattered steel and began swinging it at the two chains which were padlocked discouragingly around the front of the hold door. The angry clang of steel on steel crashed around the room. Rogo’s face lit up with furious energy. His eyes bulged and the sweat shone in the pale yellow of the lamps. One chain clattered to the floor. He hammered the second one like a blacksmith, and then, seeing one thick link begin to part, thrust the bar like a lever against the hold door. His shoulders strained. Ugly little grunts burst through his clamped teeth. His eyes rolled white. The chain gave suddenly, and Rogo barked with triumph as he crashed backwards into Klaas. “Right, fellas, let’s get that gold and get the hell outta here!”
    Klaas restrained him with one hand. “Not so fast, my friend. I am an old hand at carrying freight of all kinds. This hold could be flooded, or there could be fire in there. There could even be gas. We must proceed with caution. Does anyone know what other cargo was in the hold?”
    His eyes were on Jason. He did not reply. Rogo said, “I dunno. I never saw inside. They just showed me where it was and said sit on it.”
    Another doubt had occurred to Klaas. “But a fortune like that, and only these?” He kicked the dangling chains. “It hardly seems possible.”
    “That was the whole goddamn point.” Rogo was pleased. For once, he was doing the explaining. “The stuff is packed in these Toledo Wire and Bolt cases. See? If they’d put shotgun guards and brand-new locks on it, someone mighta guessed. But no one was going to ask questions with just a coupla lousy chains.”
    “That’s right.” Jason was talking now. “I’ve got a . . . parcel in there. Put a nice innocent label on it and who’s going to bother checking. Anyway, only the grease monkeys come down to the engine room.”
    The door had been the entrance to the top hold of three. Now, with the upturning of the ship, it was the lower one, and the bottom of the door almost met the ceiling-floor on which they were standing. The imperfectly stamped letters “HOLD NO. 1” were upside down. Klaas pressed his hands and his ear against the flat authoritarian gray of the door. It was about seven feet high and four feet across.
    “No fire, I think,” he said, quietly, his hands testing the thick steel. “But I hear a noise. An odd noise. It sounds like an engine running and stopping, a sort of drumming. It could be water. I suggest we open it carefully.” He indicated the ten six-inch handles around the edge of the door. “These fit into angled slots to hold it up against a waterproof pad. A little at a time with each, please.”
    Tentatively he edged one down an inch. Then the same with the next. Coby stepped to the other side. She too moved one handle a fraction,