Chapter Nineteen.
The Burning of the “Icebear.”
All hands worked steadily, willingly, and well. There was not a sound to be heard, except the roar of the flames, the tramping of feet, an occasional word of command, and the steady clank, clank of the little pumping engine. No noise, no bustle, no confusion on board the burning ship.
The flames had soon gained mastery over the captain’s cabin, and over the wardroom as well, for the fire seemed to spread on both sides.
Claude was walking slowly up and down the deck, ’twixt main and foremast, quietly superintending everything. That he was here, and here only, showed the perfect confidence he had in his men and officers to carry out the terrible duties now imposed upon them.
Smoke and flames were pouring up through the companions aft, and it was evident that that portion of the ship was doomed.
Claude was hoping against hope. Were the cabin and wardroom only destroyed and the fire here checked, the hull and the fore-part of the ship would be but little injured, and the voyage home be, after all, made in safety.
The greatest danger of all rested in the fact that the magazine, containing a very considerable quantity of gunpowder and gun-cotton, lay close to—almost in—the seat of fire, and so quickly had the flames spread that it had been found impossible to remove the stores without the almost certainty of exploding the whole.
So among the first orders given was for a volunteer to carry the end of the hose along the lower deck and flood the magazine.
Boy Bounce was the first to spring forward.