The stream of water had come with a sudden rush, and struck him full in his smooth, plump, round face.
I tried to say, “I beg your pardon,” but I was choking with laughter and could not speak. But I could act, for I rapidly changed the nozzle back to my right hand, and directed it down at the spot I had selected for my attack, and as the clear, bright jet of water struck the smouldering cargo the effect was startling.
That fire might almost have been some fierce, dragon-like monster, suddenly attacked by its most deadly foe, for in an instant there was a savage hiss, followed by a series of crackling explosions, sputtering, popping, and shrieking even. For the steam began to generate and rush up from the hold, instantaneously changing from its natural invisibility to dense white clouds of vapour, which rose and spread, and grew so thick that I could not see where to direct the jet of water, but had to trust to my ear for the spot to attack.
“Hurray! hurray!” came faintly from forward, where the pump clanked steadily; and I responded to the cheer, but my voice was stilled by the hissing and shrieking arising from the hold. But I cheered again, and kept on, feeling quite excited, and more and more as if I were attacking a den of dragons, or serpents, so strangely unusual were the noises which followed every fresh direction of the stream.
“I say, Dale, you shouldn’t, you know,” came from close by me, in a tone full of protest; and I quite started to see Mr Preddle’s face looming out of the mist in which I was closely enveloped, and which grew more and more dense each minute.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” I shouted.
“Oh, don’t say that, Dale,” he cried back, the voice sounding very peculiar through the hissing and shrieking of the steam. “I am quite ready to forgive you, my dear boy.”
“But I didn’t really,” I yelled.
“Oh, Dale, don’t—don’t! Why, I saw you take aim at me with that thing across this dreadful gap.”
“I—can’t talk—now,” I shouted. Then, contradicting myself,—“Going to help pump?”