they didn't.
We had picked most of 'em up at Rio--or they'd made a rush maybe for
the boats, and then we'd had to shoot one or two of 'em to teach the
others manners. In addition to every foot of hose we had 'board I
started a line of buckets and then rushed a gang below to cut through
the bulkhead to see if we could get at the stuff better.

"The men fell to with a will. Fire ain't so bad when you take hold of
it in time, and as long as there is plenty of steam pressure--and there
was--you can almost always get on top of it, unless something turns up
you don't count on.

"That's what happened here. I was standin' on the coamings of the hatch
at the time, peerin' down into the smoke and steam, thinking the fire
was nearly out, directing the men what to h'ist out and what to leave,
when first thing I knew there came a dull, heavy thump, as if we'd
struck a rock amidships, and up puffed a cloud of smoke and sparks that
keeled me over on my back and nearly blinded me.

"I knew then that the fire had just begun to take hold; that thump
might have been a cask of rum or it might have been a box of
nitro-glycerine. Whatever it was, there was no time to waste in
stoppin' the blaze before it reached the rest of the cargo.

"Captain Bogart had felt the shock and now came runnin' down the deck
with the dog at his heels. He knew I'd take care of the fire and he
hadn't left the bridge, but the way she shook and heaved under the
explosion was another thing.

"By this time the passengers were huddled together on the upper deck,
frightened to death, as they always are, the women the coolest in the
crowd. All except two little old women, sisters, who lived out of Rio
and who had been with us before. Fire was one of the things that scared
them to death, and they certainly were scared. They hung to the rail,
their arms around each other--the two together didn't weigh a hundred
and fifty pounds; always reminded me of two shiverin' little monkeys,
these two old women, although maybe it ain't nice for me to say it--and
looked down over the rail into the sea, and said they never could go
down the ladder, and did all the things badly scared women do, short of
pitching themselves overboard, which sometimes occurs. The captain
stopped and talked to 'em--told 'em there was no danger--his ears open
all the time for another let-go, and the dog nosed round and put out
his paw as if to make good what the captain had promised.

"The water was g