"Why, then, there must be fire somewhere!" said Bertric, leaping up.
"Smouldering peat, certainly," I said, rising with him. "Under yon fagots is the only place I can think of as possible--or under the deck planking."
We went to the penthouse, and climbed on the piles of fagots on the port side. When we trimmed sail afresh we had hauled it along the starboard, and had at least smelt nothing of the smoke there. But now we set to work and hove the fagots overboard, setting the handsome sledge from off them forward out of the way. The peat smoke grew stronger as we lowered the pile, and at last a little cloud of blue smoke came up to us.
"No hurry," said I to Bertric, who was anxious, "there is no wind to fan the turfs into flame. It can but smoulder slowly."
"It is here," cried Dalfin, lifting a fagot whose under side was scorched and blackened, though more by heat and smoke than flame.
Under that was a bushel or so of peat, the midst of which was but a black hollow, round the sides of which the fire glowed red, only waiting for the wind to fan it into life. The turfs blazed a little in the draught as we cast them overboard quickly. Then we sent all the fagots on that side after them.
"This is no chance," I said. "There may be more yet. We must get all this lumber cleared."
It had been the same on the other side of the pile, but the peat was cold and dead, not having burned so long. Then we moved the wagon from the after end of the penthouse, and cleared that. Here again was peat, and more of it, and it had been lighted, and had only been out for a short time. Some of the turfs may still have had fire within them, but we did not wait to see. And all the while as we worked at this strange task, I wondered what the meaning of it all was.
The last fagot went overboard, and Bertric rose up and looked at me. His face was white as with some fear, and he stepped backward away from the penthouse aft.
"Comrades," he said, "why did they want to burn this ship? She is not burnt, only because as she ran in the light breeze there was no wind to set the peat aflame. They meant her to burn when she was in the open sea--when the spark they set in the turf should have had time to grow to flame, and fire the brushwood. Look at those two tar barrels set handy."