Chapter Forty Four.
I was so upset and worried about the way in which I had acted in the cabin, that for a time I forgot all about my sandwich; but, as I neared the steam, and heard the hissing and shrieking going on, I began nibbling the biscuit, and went on along the side of the broken deck close to the starboard gangway, and as soon as I was in the thick mist, I forgot all about the scene in the cabin, the clanking of the pump so steadily going on helping to drive it out of my head.
“Well, Bob,” I said, “you haven’t put it all out yet, then. Why, I could have finished long ago, if I’d stopped.”
“No doubt, clever-shakes,” said Mr Brymer. “Here, lay hold of the nozzle and do it then.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” I cried. “I thought it was Bob Hampton.”
“I know you did,” he said, as I took a step or two forward to where I could dimly see the mate manipulating the copper tube, and directing the water here and there. “Catch hold: I’ll go and pump, and send some one to have some food.”
I took the nozzle and went on with the task, Mr Brymer hurrying forward to the pump, while I was astonished to find how little impression had been made upon the fire. Tons of water must have been poured into the hold, but wherever I directed the stream, there was the sputtering, hissing, and shrieking, and I began to ask myself whether it would be possible to master the great body of fire after all.
A strange, nervous feeling came over me now, and I began to suppose—and, oh, what nonsense one can suppose when that tap is turned on, and allowed to run!—I imagined danger after danger. I saw the fire gradually eating its way to chests of horrible explosives—chemicals of whose existence we were not aware—and as, with feverish haste, I directed the heavy streams of water down into that thick mist of vapour, I kept on fancying that the sharp reports of steam were the precursors of another terrible explosion, of which, from my position, I should be the first victim. And as I thought these horrors, I poured the water here, there, everywhere, so as to make sure that I did not miss the dangerous place, though, even as I directed the jet, I felt as nervous as ever. For I told myself that the explosive might be so tightly packed to make it waterproof that all I sent down was only for it to run off again, and that I might spare my pains.