"Now then," he shouted, "if there are any sailormen here worth their salt, let them come and help. Am I to break up the whole of this ship's company by myself?"
Gradually, by ones and twos, the Grosser Carl's remaining officers and deck hands came shamefacedly toward this new nucleus of authority and order, and then the real work began. The emigrants, with sea sights and sea usage new to them, were still full of the unreasoning panic of cattle, and like cattle they were herded and handled, and their women and young cut out from the general mob. These last were got into the swaying, dancing boats as tenderly as might be, and the men were bidden to watch, and wait their turn. When they grew restive, as the scorching fire drew more near, they were beaten savagely; the Grosser Carl's crew, with the shame of their own panic still raw on them, knew no mercy; and the second mate of the Flamingo, who stood against a davit, insulted them all with impartial cheerfulness. He was a very apt pupil, this young man, of that master of ruling men at the expense of their feelings, Captain Owen Kettle.
Meanwhile the two lifeboats took one risky journey after another, being drawn up to their own ship by a chattering winch, discharging their draggled freight with dexterity and little ceremony, and then laboring back under oars for another. The light of the burning steamer turned a great sphere of night into day, and the heat from her made the sweat pour down the faces of the toiling men, though the gale still roared, and the icy spindrift still whipped and stung. On the Flamingo, Captain Kettle cast into the sea with a free hand what represented the savings of a lifetime, provision for his wife and children, and an old-age pension for himself.
The Grosser Carl had carried thirty first-class passengers, and these were crammed into the Flamingo's slender cabin accommodation, filling it to overflowing. The emigrants--Austrians, Bohemians, wild Poles, filthy, crawling Russian Jews, bestial Armenians, human debris which even soldier-coveting Middle Europe rejected--these were herded down into the holds, as rich cargo was dug out by the straining winches, and given to the thankless sea to make space for them.
"Kindly walk up," said Kettle, with bitter hospitality, as fresh flocks of them were heaved up over the bulwarks. "Don't hesitate to grumble if the accommodation isn't exactly to your liking. We're most pleased to strike out cargo to provide you with an elegant parlor, and what's left I'm sure you'll be able to sit on and spoil. Oh, you filthy, long-haired cattle! Did none of you ever wash?"
Fiercely the Grosser Carl burned to the fanning of the gale, and like furies worked the men in the boats. The Grosser Carl's own boat joined the other two, once the ferrying was well under way. She had hung alongside after Kettle cast off her line, with her people madly clamoring to be taken on board; but as all they received for their pains was abuse and coal-lumps--mostly, by the way, from their own fellow-countrymen, who made up the majority of the Flamingo's crew--they were presently driven to help in the salving work through sheer scare at being left behind to drown unless they carried out the fierce little English Captain's orders.
The Flamingo's chief mate oversaw the dangerous ferrying, and though every soul that was transshipped might be said to have had ten narrow escapes in transit over that piece of tossing water, luck and good seamanship carried the day, and none was lost. And on the Grosser Carl the second mate, a stronger man, brazenly took entire command, and commended to the nether gods all who suggested ousting him from that position. "I don't care a red what your official post was on this ship before I came," said the second mate to several indignant officers. "You should have held on to it when you had it. I've never been a skipper before, but I'm skipper here now by sheer right of conquest, and I'm going to stay on at that till the blooming old ship's burnt out. If you bother me, I'll knock your silly nose into your watch-pocket. Turn-to there and pass down another batch of those squalling passengers into the boats. Don't you spill any of them overboard either, or, by the Big Mischief, I'll just step down and teach you handiness."
The second mate was almost fainting with the heat before he left the Grosser Carl, but he insisted on being the last man on board, and then guyed the whole performance with caustic gayety when he was dragged out of the water, into which he had been forced to jump, and was set to drain on the floor gratings of a boat.
The Grosser Carl had fallen away before the wind, and was spouting flame from stem-head to poop-staff by the time the last of the rescuers and the rescued were put on the Flamingo's deck, and on that travel-worn steamboat were some six hundred and fifty visitors that somehow or other had to be provided for.
The detail of famine now became of next importance. They were still five days' steam away from port, and their official provision supply was only calculated to last the Flamingos themselves for a little over that time. Things are cut pretty fine in these days of steam voyages to scheduled time. So there was no sentimental waiting to see the Grosser Carl finally burn out and sink. The boats were cast adrift, as the crews were too exhausted to hoist them in, and the Flamingo's nose was turned toward Liverpool. Pratt, the chief engineer, figured out to half a ton what coal he had remaining, and set the pace so as to run in with empty bunkers. They were cool now, all hands, from the excitement of the burning ship, and the objectionable prospect of semi-starvation made them regard their visitors less than ever in the light of men and brothers.