"And so we worked away all that fearful night and long into next forenoon. We didn't think much o' rest, gentlemen, nor food either. We just choked down a bit o' junk now and then, or a morsel o' biscuit, and kept it down with a peg o' rum. But, bless you, sir, our eyes was burnin', our faces hangin' in bags of blisters, and our mouths so dry by this time that there was no good trying to sing, for we were hardly fit to talk.
"Soon, now, the deck all along became so hot that the men had to leave in relays to put their shoes on.
"The end came so suddenly that we was thunderstruck. Somewhere near the fore-hatch the deck blew up with the force of the steam.
"Ah, what a sight! The clouds of smoke risin' as high as the foretop, and the tongues of red flame following and licking them up!
"About the same time the fire spread up out of the scuppered hole, and the saloon was all in a blaze 'fore ye could have said 'marling-spike'. It was all over now.
"But, next minute, and just as we was preparin' to lower the boats, a white squall came thunderin' over the sea, took the Ossian aback, and for five minutes at least we stood holding on to the riggin' or stays, while she went ploughin' astern. We 'xpected, cap'n, to see her go under, stern foremost, every minute. Mebbe I was a bit white, cap'n. I don't know, but my pals was."
"It was really a fearful situation," said Captain Leeward.
"Yes, sir, and gettin' worse as the time went on, for so long as the squall lasted the smoke and fire and sparks flew over us. But it stopped at last, and the breeze came round the other way.
"Then we worked like devils, cap'n, to get her afore it, and when we did it weren't quite so bad.
"Well, you know, gentlemen, a squall often brings on dirty weather. So did this. Seemed to me it was a choice o' deaths—to stay on board and sink with the burnin' ship, or lower the boats to go to Davy Jones in them. There was more hope in the last idea, so we lowered the boats one by one. I insisted on the skipper goin' in the gig—she was a good boat,—and then came the lowerin' o' the last, and that was the one, sir, that God's mercy enabled us to fetch you in.