"There's a bulge in the centre," reported the second officer.
"Yes," said Dan, who seized a lantern and held it above his head, pointing out new objective marks for the water. The smoke had grown thicker. One man gagged at a nozzle; but drinking from the pipe the air which the water brought, he lowered his head and fought on.
They fought as men should fight, in the pungent half-gloom, colliding or falling prone as the vessel pitched, eyes fixed straight ahead, following the powerful silver lines of water which ribbed the dark and splashed against the steaming steel; white-yellow smoke spirals writhed about their heads like some grotesque saraband; coatless, shirtless, their streaked, sweating bodies gleamed dull and ghastly.
One of them straightened from the nozzle and glared at his side partner; and Dan, whose eyes were everywhere, saw him and moved close to him, where his fist could do best work if necessary. Any sign of mutiny now called for decided measures.
"Say, Mike," said the man in a rich brogue, "give us a hunk o' yer 'bacca—this makes the mout' dry"; and Dan chuckled his admiration for the fighting spirit of the Irish.
Once a tiny lance of flame leaped out through some hidden crevice—leaped far out at the men as a rifle spits its deadly fire, and then, curling about a sugar sack like a serpent's tongue, withdrew so suddenly, so silently, that it seemed to those who saw it as something which had flashed through their imaginations. A stream of water sought the outlet and the flame came no more then.
Suddenly a cry came from one of the men, and all eyes turned to a point in the bulkhead where a hectic flush glowed like a death's head. Four streams struck it simultaneously. It went out, but reappeared in another place. The water quenched this also, but it came back again and widened, and the plunging water was dried to mist at the instant of contact. The glow grew brighter, then dim, and then brighter, rising and falling as life pulses in a fevered body. A flood of smoke choked in from a viewless breach. Two of the men cried out, gurgled, fell on their faces, and turned over on their backs, struggling; then they lay still. Dan carried them to the deck, and returned with a sailor. The two had just gained the sugar sacks when the centre bulkhead quivered. A cross section collapsed into a V. A score of rivet holes yawned wide and red-hot bolts fell on the sacks and set them on fire. A line of plating, separating from its fellows, sagged open in a red grin and gave view of the raging hell within.
"Now, into it, boys!" yelled Dan, and the men, bowing their heads, advanced five feet, directing the streams into the fiery pit. For a minute the flames were driven back by the concentrated rush of water; two minutes, and then a gush of fire flared through the break. It broke as a stream hit it, but its ghost, in the guise of hot gases, choked the men.
A great roar of flame almost enveloped them, and the heat crisped their hair and seared their bodies, and they dropped their hose and raced for the ladder.
"Go on, men!" shouted Dan as they struggled out of the hold. "You've done all I can ask. Hurry! Get out!" and they got out and then turned to batten the hatch cover down. But the rush of fire was too swift to be denied. A thick-bodied pillar choked through the opening and spouted to the top of the funnel—great gouts of the devouring element pulsed softly, but with lightning swiftness, down the deck, and shrivelled a life raft. Long tongues and jets of fire were bursting everywhere out of the forward deck.