“Blow me!” chuckled the captain, turning a triumphant gaze upon the massive walls, “electric lightnin' itself ud never smell us out in sich a tidy berth as this, says you.”
“It certainly is a snug spot,” assented Don; “though I wish”—glancing round at their sadly depleted numbers—“I wish that Jack and Pug were as safe, poor fellows.”
“Cheer up, my hearty. As I says afore, there's a Providence, lad, as sits up aloft to keep watch for the life of poor Jack.' Ay, an for the nigger's too, d'ye mind me, lad,” rejoined the captain, blowing his nose loudly. “So let's turn out an' see what manner o' headway the confleegrations makin'.”
Brief as was their absence from “the glimpses of the moon,” the fire had made alarming progress in the interval. Viewed from the centre of the swiftly-narrowing cordon of flame, the scene was awesome in the extreme. The rear column of the invader advanced the more slowly of the two, but even it was now within a stone's throw of that godsend, the captain's “tidy berth.”
On the seaward side the flames had overleapt the jungle's edge, and seized with unsated greed upon the luxuriant grass that everywhere grew amid the ruins. Nearer still, the dense, parasitic growth upon the remnant of wall, ignited by the dense clouds of sparks which the wind drove far ahead of the actual fire, was blazing fiercely. The heat was stifling; the air, choked with smoke and showers of glowing sparks, unbreathable. They retreated precipitately to the cooler shelter of the underground chamber.
Even here the noise of the flames could be distinctly heard. Indeed, they had been barely ten minutes below when the fiery sea rolled with a sullen roar over their heads, the fierce heat driving them back from the entrance.
Some hours must pass before it would be either safe or practicable to venture into the open air. Accordingly, following the captain's example, Don made himself as comfortable for the night as circumstances permitted. A quantity of dried grass, which Spottie had thoughtfully collected and deposited beside the stores, afforded an excellent bed, and soon the deep breathing of all three told that sleep too had made this long untenanted nook her refuge.
Upwards of an hour had passed when a tremendous grinding crash shook the passage from roof to floor, and brought Don and the captain to their feet. They had fallen asleep surrounded by a subdued glow of firelight; they woke to find themselves in pitchy darkness. Bosin and the scarcely more courageous Spottie began to whimper.
“Avast there!” the captain sang out at the latter. “Is this a time to begin a-pipin' of your eye like a wench, I axes? Belay that, ye lubberly swab, an' light the binnacle lamp till we takes our bearin's.”
This order Spottie obeyed with an alacrity which, it is but due to him to explain, sprang rather from a dread of his master's heavy boot than from his fear of the dark. In the light thus thrown on the situation, the cause of the recent crash became only too apparent. So, too, did its effect.