olumn of smoke and
steam. I ran forward, and saw them curling and leaping in the hell-mouth
of the hold.

The quarter-deck now staged a lurid scene: that blazing trap-door in
its midst; and each man there a naked demon madly working to save his
roasting skin. Abaft the mainmast the deck-pump was being ceaselessly
worked by relays of the passengers; dry blankets were passed forward,
soaking blankets were passed aft, and flung flat into the furnace one
after another. These did more good than the pure water: the pillar of
smoke became blacker, denser: we were at a crisis; a sudden hush denoted
it; even our hoarse skipper stood dumb.

I had rushed down into the waist of the ship--blushing for my delay--and
already I was tossing blankets with the rest. Looking up in an enforced
pause, I saw Santos whispering in the skipper's ear, with the expression
of a sphinx but no lack of foreign gesticulation--behind them a fringe
of terror-stricken faces, parted at that instant by two more figures,
as wild and strange as any in that wild, strange scene. One was our
luckless lucky digger, the other a gigantic Zambesi nigger, who for
days had been told off to watch him; this was the servant (or rather the
slave) of Senhor Santos.

The digger planted himself before the captain. His face was reddened by
a fire as consuming as that within the bowels of our gallant ship. He
had a huge, unwieldy bundle under either arm.

"Plain question--plain answer," we heard him stutter. "Is there any ----
chance of saving this ---- ship?"

His adjectives were too foul for print; they were given with such a
special effort at distinctness, however, that I was smiling one instant,
and giving thanks the next that Eva Denison had not come forward with
her guardian. Meanwhile the skipper had exchanged a glance with Senhor
Santos, and I think we all felt that he was going to tell us the truth.

He told it in two words--"Very little."

Then the first individual tragedy was enacted before every eye. With
a yell the drunken maniac rushed to the rail. The nigger was at his
heels--he was too late. Uttering another and more piercing shriek, the
madman was overboard at a bound; one of his bundles preceded him; the
other dropped like a cannon-ball on the deck.

The nigger caught it up and carried it forward to the captain.

Harris held up his hand. We were still before we had fairly found our
tongues. His words did run together a little, but he was not drunk.