We tried to go along the starboard side, but the flames came out in such strong pulsations there, that we were obliged to cross to the port side, where there seemed to be about ten feet clear.
“Now then,” cried Mr Brymer; “they’re all below, and have not taken the alarm. A quick rush, and we have them.”
He was half-way along the clear pathway formed along the deck between the flames floating up from the hold and the port bulwark, and his figure stood up strangely unreal against the bluish light, when there was a heavy report below in the hold, and a rush of flame which extended from side to side of the ship. But after the report there was no roar or crackling sound of burning, for the blue and orange flames came pulsing up in great waves silent and strange, the quiet mastery they had attained being appalling.
The explosion—that of a spirit-cask, one of the many in the hold—brought up the men from the forecastle, wild with excitement; but we only saw them for, a moment, and then they were screened from us by the fire, which was singularly clear from smoke, and rose steadily upward and away from the main-mast, whose sails hung down motionless in the calm.
We all stood motionless, unable to grasp the extent of this new calamity, and listened to the yelling and shouting of the frightened men, who now broke loose entirely from the slight control Jarette had held principally by means of his revolver. For death in a more horrible form threatened them than that from the pistol which had held them in subjugation, and with one consent they all began to shout the word “Boats!”
Just then there was the report of a pistol, and Jarette’s voice rose loud and clear.
“Silence—idiots—fools!” he shouted. “It is your own doing, and now you want to run away and leave a good ship and all its valuable cargo—ours, do you hear?—all ours—to burn. Bah!”
“The boats, quick!—the boats!” shouted one of the men.
“Throw that fool overboard, some of you,” cried Jarette, contemptuously; “he has not the spirit of a mouche. Bah! what is it? A cask or two of spirit in the hold. Come along, brave lads. The pumps and buckets; we will soon make grog of the spirits, and it will cease to burn.”
“No, no! The boats!” cried two or three. “We are all lost!”