But hark! adown the wind comes the sound of a signal-gun; a minute goes by, then there is another. All eyes are turned towards the Trefoil, and now smoke can be distinctly seen rolling slowly up from her decks, near the bows.
Once again the signal-gun.
The Trefoil is on fire!
Chapter Sixteen.
Old Seth Becomes Surgeon—A Terrible Danger—Ralph Floods the Magazine—Fighting the Fire—Wreck of the “Trefoil”—Buried at Sea—“Land Ho!”
The second mate had been left in charge of the Trefoil when the boats left the vessel to go in pursuit of the whale. How sadly that pursuit ended the reader has already been told. Besides this officer, when the fire broke out there were only on board the cook, the steward, and three or four ordinary seamen. Smoke was first seen issuing from the fore hold, and, whether for good or for bad, the mate at once ordered the hatches to be battened down, then he hoisted the boat’s recall, and commenced firing minute-guns as a signal of distress.
It had been a race for wealth with the Trefoil’s boats when leaving her. As they sped back again to their burning ship it was a race for life itself, or at all events for all they held dear in life. Yonder, with the smoke hanging like a dark and ominous cloud over her forecastle, and rolling slowly upwards hiding yards and shrouds, was their home upon the waters, the good ship in which they had sailed from England more than a year ago. If anything were to happen to her, how were they ever to reach their native shores, where wives and children, fathers, mothers, and sisters, were even now pining for the return of the absent sailors?
The bold, straightforward character of McBain was never so well seen as in times of emergency and danger, and then, too, the goodness of the man’s heart shone forth. Our heroes’ boat was among the first, if not the first, to render assistance, after the terrible wreck of the captain’s whale-boat, as described in the last chapter; and as soon as it was discovered that the Trefoil was on fire, McBain had an interview with the mate.