"Hodge!" he said suddenly. "Come with me."
He ran from the cabin. His flashlight, lighting the pitch dark passages of the deserted ship, found the catwalk above the stokehole.
"Well, I'm blessed!" murmured Hodge a moment later.
Five bodies lay in the black pit below. There was still a faint glow of embers in the firebox. But although Kort flashed the light everywhere, there was no sign of the sea slugs.
"What are we waitin' for?" demanded Hodge fiercely.
It was he who led now. Seconds later, log after log of the furiously inflammable kwahna was disappearing into the fire-boxes. Blowers, powered by auxiliary batteries, shrieked at full speed. Mercury surged and simmered within the tubes. Behind the fire doors infernos raged.
Once Hodge vanished briefly to close the anti-grid switches and open the throttles of the high potential shield generators. Kort steadily kept on feeding the voracious boilers. There was as yet no pressure to turn the lighting dynamos. He worked by the gleam of flames alone.
"Run topside, son," gasped the older man at last. "See if you can signal the launches—we'll never make it by ourselves."
In two minutes Kort gained the deck. The first thing his eyes sought was the mainmast grid. It had struck an aurora, no longer the pale blue of ten minutes ago, by a hot, bright yellow signifying that the arresters were bypassing current to the sea. How long before they would break down under the rising potential?
He ran to the starboard rail at the sound of voices, the bump of a boat touching the ship's side, and almost collided with a grinning, brawny stoker. The launches were back!