the engines can't stand it without
breaking down, and then where will you be, I'd like to know?"

"I'll risk that."

"No, cap'en," snorted the old chief, doggedly. "I'm responsible to the
owners for the engines, and if anything happened to the machinery they'd
blame me. I can't do it."

The skipper flew up to white heat at this.

"But, Mr Stokes, recollect I am responsible for the ship, engines and
all, sir. The greater includes the less, and, as captain of this ship,
I intend to have my orders carried out by every man-jack on board. Do
you hear that?"

"Yes, sir, I hear," replied Mr Stokes grumblingly as he backed towards
the bridge-ladder. "But, sir--"

The skipper would not give him time to get out another word.

"You heard what I said," he roared out in a voice that made the old
chief jump down half a dozen steps at once. "I ordered you to go full
speed ahead and I mean to go full speed ahead whether the boilers burst,
or the propeller races, or the screw shaft carries away; for I won't
abandon a ship in distress for all the engineers and half-hearted
mollicoddles in the world!"

"A ship in distress?" gasped old Mr Stokes from the bottom rung of the
ladder. "I didn't hear about that before."

"Well, you hear it now," snapped out the skipper viciously, storming up
and down the bridge in a state of great wrath. "But whether it's a ship
in distress or not, I'll have you to know, Mr Stokes, once for all that
if I order full speed or half speed or any speed, I intend my orders to
be obeyed; and if you don't like it you can lump it. I'm captain of
this ship!"

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE GALE FRESHENS.

Presently a cloud of thick black smoke again pouring forth from the
funnels showed that Mr Stokes had set the engine-room staff vigorously
to work to carry out the skipper's orders; while the vibration of the
upper deck below our feet afforded proof, were such needed, that the
machinery was being driven to its utmost capacity, the regular throbbing
motion caused by the revolving shaft being distinctly perceptible above
the rolling of the vessel and the jar of the opposing waves against her
bow plates when she pitched more deeply than usual and met the sea full
butt-end on.

The surface fog, or mist, which had lately obscured the view, rising
from the water immediately after the last gleams of the sunset had
disappeared from the western sky, had now cleared away, giving place to
the pale spectral ligh