And then I leaped up in the boat and fell back, for from the ship a terrific rush of flame sprang up skyward, mounting higher and higher, far above the tops of the masts as it appeared to me; and then, as the fire curved over in every direction, there was a terrible concussion, and all instantaneously a short sharp roar as of one tremendous clap of thunder, cut short before it had had time to roll.
Chapter Forty One.
The boat we were in rose as a long rolling swell which lifted the bows passed under it and swept on, while I gazed in awe at the falling pieces of burning wood, which were for the most part quenched in the sea, though others floated and blazed, shedding plenty of rays of light, and showing two boats being rowed with all the power of their occupants right away from where the ship rocked slowly, half hidden by a dense canopy of smoke which hung overhead.
The great waves of burning spirit were there no more. It was as if they had suddenly been blown cut, and in their place there were volumes of smoke, through which, dimly-seen, were sparks and patches of smouldering wood. And as the burning pieces which were floating here and there gradually died out, a strangely weird kind of gloom came over the scene, which grew more and more dim till the sea was black once more, and the sole light came from the ship—a feeble, lurid glow nearly hidden by steam and smoke.
And now we were half-stifled by the smell of the exploded powder and the steam evolved when the burning fragments fell in all directions, to be quenched over acres of water around the ship. It was a dank, hydrogenous odour, which made me hold my fingers to my nose till I forgot it in the interest with which I watched the ship. For Mr Brymer said sadly, but in a low voice, for fear that a boat should be within hearing—
“Poor old girl! she ought to have had a few more voyages before this. She’ll go down directly.”
But the minutes passed, and the ship still floated and burned slowly, though it was a different kind of burning now. No soft floats of spirit-blaze rose gently and silently, but little sluggish bits of fire burned here and there where the tar had melted, and the flame was yellow and the smoke black; in other places where the wood had caught there were vicious hissings, spittings, and cracklings, as if it were hard work to burn. And so hard did it seem in some places that the scraps of wood gave it up as a bad job, and went out.
But there was plenty of mischief still in the hold, from whence a dense body of smoke rose, the rolling volumes being dimly-seen by the reflections cast upon them, and tingeing the suffocating vapour of a dull red.