“Yes, sir, I hear,” replied Mr Stokes grumblingly as he backed towards the bridge-ladder. “But, sir—”
The skipper would not give him time to get out another word.
“You heard what I said,” he roared out in a voice that made the old chief jump down half a dozen steps at once. “I ordered you to go full speed ahead and I mean to go full speed ahead whether the boilers burst, or the propeller races, or the screw shaft carries away; for I won’t abandon a ship in distress for all the engineers and half-hearted mollicoddles in the world!”
“A ship in distress?” gasped old Mr Stokes from the bottom rung of the ladder. “I didn’t hear about that before.”
“Well, you hear it now,” snapped out the skipper viciously, storming up and down the bridge in a state of great wrath. “But whether it’s a ship in distress or not, I’ll have you to know, Mr Stokes, once for all that if I order full speed or half speed or any speed, I intend my orders to be obeyed; and if you don’t like it you can lump it. I’m captain of this ship!”
Chapter Five.
The Gale Freshens.
Presently a cloud of thick black smoke again pouring forth from the funnels showed that Mr Stokes had set the engine-room staff vigorously to work to carry out the skipper’s orders; while the vibration of the upper deck below our feet afforded proof, were such needed, that the machinery was being driven to its utmost capacity, the regular throbbing motion caused by the revolving shaft being distinctly perceptible above the rolling of the vessel and the jar of the opposing waves against her bow plates when she pitched more deeply than usual and met the sea full butt-end on.