"What are your force pumps going for?" he asked.
"Well, it ain't fur to water no flowers," said Arthur, beckoning Dan to the shaft tunnel, where a foot and a half of frothy water was rolling to and fro, slushing against the stuffing box, laving the engine-room bulkhead.
Leaking! Dan's first impulse was to drop his hands then and there and let the yacht sink or do what she would for all he cared. He had fought out his fight with a better craft than this and had lost her. He did not yield to this; in truth, before he could think of yielding there came a second impulse—to relieve his mind of several hundred accumulated metaphors, to which inclination he surrendered unconditionally, while Arthur, in the face of the verbal torrent, gazed at the source in humble admiration.
"How—how much is she taking in?" the young man finally gasped.
"About thirty strokes a minute. I'd 'a' whistled up the tube about it before, only I thought you had enough to fill your mind."
"How does it strike you?" asked Dan.
"It's gained only six inches in the past hour. I will say that much. But if you ask me my honest opinion, I'd say this rotten old pleasure hull is a-gettin' ready to open up and spread out like a—like a—balloon with the epizoötic."
"All right, when she begins, come on up with your men without asking leave. Report every half-hour. I'll be on the bridge, of course. If I can pick up a steamship I'll call her and desert ship; if not—well, we're somewhere outside the Winter Quarter light-ship. I'll need about five hours of the speed we're making to pick up the light vessel and beach the yacht in the lee of Assateague; maybe not quite five hours, I can't say exactly."
"I think we can keep ahead of the water we're makin' that long," replied Arthur, cheerfully.
As Dan regained the bridge, the bad news he had received below was slightly compensated for by the fact that the storm seemed to be taking a new kink, swirling away to sea. The gray combers, however, were still disagreeably to be reckoned with. The second officer had by this time pulled himself together, and as he reported to Dan, the young Captain was happy to feel that he had at least a lieutenant who could be counted on. Now if Mulhatton were only with him—but "Mul" was below, flat on his back, suffering technically from submersion, and so were the other men of the Fledgling who had been pulled aboard the yacht.