At first the captain would not hear of any such proposition, but finally, by dint of much persuasion, Bert won a reluctant consent.
“All right,” grumbled the captain. “If you must, you must, I suppose. But hurry up now. Step lively! All hands ready?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” sang out the crew, and after a few parting instructions from Captain Manning, the first officer, Mr. Collins, shouted the order to give way.
The crew bent to their oars with a will, and the heavy boat fairly leaped through the water at their sturdy strokes. In almost less time than it takes to tell, the boat was under the porthole from which they had first seen the signals, and Mr. Collins was talking in a low voice with a white-faced man who peered out of the circular opening.
“He almost had us a little time back,” said the latter, “but we managed to make enough noise to scare him away for the time. We haven’t heard anything of him for quite a while now, but he’s hungry, and he’ll soon be back. Heaven help us, then, if you fellows can’t do something for us.”
“We’ll get him, all right, never fear,” said Mr. Collins, reassuringly, “but how do you stand now? How many did the beast get before you got away from him?”
“He killed the three animal keepers almost at one swipe,” said the man, who proved to be the second mate. “Then the captain, as was a brave man, stood up to him with an old gun he used to keep in his cabin, and the beast crushed his head in before he could get the old thing to work. It must have missed fire, I guess. Then the brute started creeping toward us as was on deck, and we made a rush for the fo’castle door. The first officer happened to be the last one in, and the tiger just caught his arm with his claws and ripped it open to the bone. We managed to drag him in and slam the door in the beast’s face, though, and then we piled everything we could lay hand to against the door.”
“What did he do then?” inquired Mr. Collins.
“Why, he went ragin’ back and made a dive for one of the stokers that was up at the engine-room hatchway gettin’ a bit of fresh air, and he almost nabbed him. The dago dived below, though, and had sense enough to drop a grating after him. That stopped the cursed brute, and then I don’t know what he did for a while. Just a little while ago, though, as I was tellin’ ye, he came sniffin’ and scratchin’ around the door, and if he made a real hard try he’d get in, sure. Then it ’ud be good-night for us. Not one of us would get out of here alive.”