Chapter Twenty.
The Last Disaster.
After the first shock of surprise at the alarming intelligence—the most awful that can be circulated on board a ship, and one that fills up the seaman’s cup of horrors to the brim—Captain Billings quickly recovered his usual equanimity. He was his own clear-headed, calm, collected self again in a moment.
“How did you discover it?” he asked the mate, in a low tone.
“I was ganging forwarts,” said Mr Macdougall, in the same hushed key, so that only Captain Billings and I could catch his words, “when a’ at once I smeelt somethin’—”
“Ah, that raking flying jibboom of yours wasn’t given you for nothing!” whispered the skipper, alluding to the mate’s rather “pronounced” nose.
“Aye, mon, it sairves me weel,” said Mr Macdougall, feeling the ridge of his nasal organ with much apparent satisfaction, and then proceeding to finish his statement. “But I could no meestake the smeel, the noo.”
“Something burning, I suppose?” said the skipper interrogatively.
“You’re right, Cap’en; the smeel was that o’ boornin’ wood and gas.”
“What did you do then?” asked Captain Billings.