Lighting a fresh cigarette, he looked about. Mossamedes rolled and light and shadow played about the machinery. In front, the bright cranks flashed and faded in a shallow pit, the crossheads slammed between their guides and the connecting-rods, shining like silver, swung out of the gloom. Above, the big cylinders throbbed and shook with the impulse that drove the ship ahead. Men like shadows moved about with oilcans and tallow-swabs, but now and then a moving beam touched a face beaded by sweat. Macallister occupied the top of a tool box and smoked a black pipe.
Kit liked the engine-room. The steady beat of the machine was soothing. One got a sense of order, measured effort and strength that matched the strain. Force was not wasted but sternly controlled. In the engine-room Macallister was another man, quiet, keen, concentrated, and Kit understood the Scots' satisfaction when all ran well. They sprang from a stock that counted rule and effort to be worth more than beauty.
There was a crash, and Kit jumped from the locker. Mossamedes stopped and the shock threw him against a column. He seized the iron and held on, conscious that he trembled. The jar was terrifying because it was not expected. A sea broke about the vessel, she shook and water rolled across the deck. A greaser shouted and Kit saw Macallister on the grated platform above. He had not seen him go, but his hand was on the throttle-wheel. He did not look disturbed, and signed a man to the control of the reversing-gear. If the link were pulled across, the engines would go astern. The telegraph, however, was silent and Macallister did not turn the wheel.
The ship lifted, lurched forward, as if a sea had borne her up, and went on. Macallister waited for a few moments and then went up to the door with Kit. The door on the starboard side looked out towards Africa, but nothing broke the furrowed plain of glittering sea.
"I'm thinking she bumped a bit hummock," Macallister remarked. "She got a jolt, but the old boat was built by men who dinna scamp their job. Where ye see yon house's name, ye ken the work is good."
"All the same, you have started the bilge pump," said Kit, for a sharp throbbing pierced the beat of machinery.
"Pepe will let her rin a few minutes. Although I dinna expect she'll draw much water, ye keep the rules," Macallister replied and turned to Miguel, who came along the alleyway. "What do you think about it, friend? The third voyage has not begun well."
Macallister's Castilian was uncouth, but Miguel understood. "It is not good, Don Pedro! A bad coast and a treacherous people, but one is not disturbed. Some of the saints were fishermen, and mine is king of all. But I go to try the after well."
He went off, but Kit had noted that the line he carried was neatly coiled and the sounding-rod was wet. He thought it typical that the old quartermaster had tried the forward well a few moments after the ship struck. Moreover his talk about his saint somehow was not extravagant. One felt that Miguel knew and trusted his great patron.
"A most queer fellow," Macallister remarked. "A believer in wax images and pented boards."