The moment, he conceived, was one for hurry. He told off four of the negroes as trimmers and stokers, and set Commandant Balliot over them to see that they pressed on with their work; he sent Clay with a huge gang of helpers overboard on the lee side to risk the crocodiles, and dig away the sand; and he himself, with a dozen paddlers, got into the dug-out canoe, which was his only boat, and set to carrying out a kedge and line astern. All of these occupations took time, and when at last steam had mounted to a working pressure in the battered gauge, and they got on board again, two of his canoe-men had been shot, and one of Clay's party had been dragged away into deep water by a prowling crocodile.
As no one else was competent, Kettle himself took charge of the engines, and roared his commands with one hand on the throttle, and the other on the reversing gear; Clay, for the moment, was quartermaster, and stood to the wheel on the upper deck; and Balliot, under the tuition of curses and revilings, drove the winch, which heaved and slacked on the line made fast to the kedge.
The little steamer rolled and squeaked and coughed, and the paddle-wheel at her stern kicked up a compost of sand and mud and yellow water that almost choked them with its crushed marigold scent. The helm swung over alternately from hard-a-starboard to hard-a-port; the stern-wheel ground savagely into the sand, first one way and then the other; and the gutter, which she had delved for herself in the bank, grew gradually wider and more deep. Then slowly she began to make real progress astern.
"Now, heave on that kedge," Kettle yelled, and the winch bucked and clattered under a greater head of steam, and the warp sung to the strain; and presently the little vessel slid off the bank, picked up her anchor, and was free to go where she pleased.
"Hurrah," cried Balliot, "we are saved. You are a brave man, Captain."
"I didn't ask you to speak," retorted Kettle. "We aren't out of the wood by a long chalk yet."
"But we are out of their fire now. We shall be disturbed no further."
"No, my lad, but we've got a precious heap of disturbing to do on our own account before we've squared up for this tea party. I'm going to drop down stream to somewhere quiet where we can fill up with wood, and then I'm coming back again to give your late Tommies bad fits."
"But I don't authorize this. I didn't foresee--"
"Very likely not. But a fat lot I care for that. Fact remains that I'm skipper here, and I'm going to do as I think best. I've got it in mind that my two engineers and a lot of good niggers have been shot by those disgusting savages over yonder, and I don't permit that sort of thing without making somebody pay a pretty steep bill for the amusement. So I'm going down stream to wood up, and then we'll come back and make them pay for the tea party."