of red-hot iron in forty-five minutes when you've
got forty-five tons of water a minute to do it with."

It was just as they came alongside that one of the crew made out a human
shape in the coal-chute some ten feet up the _Bremen's_ side. And
presently they saw others there, blackened faces, fierce and fearful
eyes. And above the fire crackle and the crash of water they heard men's
cries.

Straightway a ladder was brought, and three of the crew, Breen,
Kerrigan, and Hartmann, lifted it on their shoulders until the top rung
came up level with the coal-chute. But this, instead of bringing relief
to the fire-bound company, brought madness; for now they fought and
struggled so, each one wishing to go first, that none were able to go
at all. "They were like wild beasts," said one of the crew.

In this crisis Gallagher sprang up the ladder to the top, where he could
look in through the hole, the one hole in all the vessel's sides that
was large enough for a man's body to pass. And reaching in here, he
grabbed what was nearest, arm, leg, or shock of hair, and hauled it out
and lowered it down the ladder to Captain Braisted, who stood below him
and passed the bundle on. Then Gallagher grabbed again and again,
pulling forth by sheer strength one man at a time, taking them as they
came, Germans or Italians, officers or coal-handlers, anything that was
alive. Down came the tumbling mass, yelling, praying, fighting, a
miserable human stream; and when it was all over and the count was
taken, they had saved thirty-two lives.

Now one of the rescued men spoke up in broken English, and said that
there were others still on the _Bremen_, down in the engine-room. And
Gallagher volunteered to go aboard for the rescue if one of the men who
knew the vessel would come along to guide him. But no man offered this
service. It was too hazardous a thing, they said; where the fire was not
raging there was smoke and darkness, and the engine-room was far down in
the vessel. They had groped about themselves for half an hour in
despair, searching for the way out, and now that they had found it, they
were not fools enough to go in again.

"But you say there are others in there alive!" insisted Gallagher.

The rescued ones shook their heads blankly at this; in their minds the
law of self-preservation rode over all other things at this moment. Poor
men, they were half dazed by their sufferings and the shock!

[Illustration: SAVING THE MEN OF THE