They soon perceived the cause of the interruption.
Not far from them, garbed in his shirt and trousers, just as he had rushed from his cabin on awaking, stood the man who had occupied the neighboring cabin to theirs.
The flames illumined the grim compression of his lips beneath his gray mustache. His eyes were narrowed to a determined angle.
In his hand he held a blue-steel navy revolver on which the glare of the conflagration played glisteningly.
"Come on, boys!" roared the stoker who had threatened Herc with the spanner. "It's just a bluff!"
"That's to show you I mean business!"
At his words, the spell that had fallen on the frightened crowd for a second seemed to be broken, and the rush recommenced. The boys, with horrified eyes, saw the giant stoker snatch up a woman with a child in her arms and hurl her brutally back into the crowd, where she disappeared, lost in the vortex of struggling humanity.
"Crack!"
There was a spit of vicious blue flame from the revolver, followed by a yell of pain from the giant stoker.