twist the beastly things to please himself, and catch such wind as a
donkey of his sort could find. The second rushed up to the fray. He
flung himself at the port ventilator as though he meant to tear it out
bodily and toss it overboard. All he did was to move the cowl round a
few inches, with an enormous expenditure of force, and seemed spent
in the effort. He leaned against the back of the wheelhouse, and Jukes
walked up to him.

"Oh, Heavens!" ejaculated the engineer in a feeble voice. He lifted
his eyes to the sky, and then let his glassy stare descend to meet the
horizon that, tilting up to an angle of forty degrees, seemed to hang on
a slant for a while and settled down slowly. "Heavens! Phew! What's up,
anyhow?"

Jukes, straddling his long legs like a pair of compasses, put on an
air of superiority. "We're going to catch it this time," he said. "The
barometer is tumbling down like anything, Harry. And you trying to kick
up that silly row. . . ."

The word "barometer" seemed to revive the second engineer's mad
animosity. Collecting afresh all his energies, he directed Jukes in a
low and brutal tone to shove the unmentionable instrument down his
gory throat. Who cared for his crimson barometer? It was the steam--the
steam--that was going down; and what between the firemen going faint and
the chief going silly, it was worse than a dog's life for him; he didn't
care a tinker's curse how soon the whole show was blown out of the
water. He seemed on the point of having a cry, but after regaining his
breath he muttered darkly, "I'll faint them," and dashed off. He stopped
upon the fiddle long enough to shake his fist at the unnatural daylight,
and dropped into the dark hole with a whoop.

When Jukes turned, his eyes fell upon the rounded back and the big red
ears of Captain MacWhirr, who had come across. He did not look at his
chief officer, but said at once, "That's a very violent man, that second
engineer."

"Jolly good second, anyhow," grunted Jukes. "They can't keep up steam,"
he added, rapidly, and made a grab at the rail against the coming lurch.

Captain MacWhirr, unprepared, took a run and brought himself up with a
jerk by an awning stanchion.

"A profane man," he said, obstinately. "If this goes on, I'll have to
get rid of him the first chance."

"It's the heat," said Jukes. "The weather's awful. It would make a saint
swear. Even up here I feel exactly as if I had my head tied up in a
woollen blanket."