“What’s doing, young ladies?” asked the skipper, curiously, seeing their flushed and excited faces.
“Will—will you come below—to our stateroom—for a moment, Mr. Pandrick?” stammered Jessie. “There is something we want to show you. It is really something serious. Please come below at once.”
CHAPTER XXI—WORK FOR ALL
The skipper looked rather queerly at the two excited girls, but he went below with them without further objection. In fact, Skipper Pandrick was a man of very few words; he proved this when Nell opened the stateroom door and he saw the smoke swirling about the apartment.
“I reckon you girls ain’t been smoking in here,” he said grimly. “Then I reckon that smoke comes from below.”
“Is the ship really on fire?” gasped Jessie.
“Something’s afire, sure as you’re a foot high,” said the skipper vigorously, and stormed out of the stateroom and out of the cabin.
There was a hatch in the main deck amidships. He called two of the men and had it raised. The passengers as yet had no idea that anything was wrong, for Jessie and Nell kept away from them.
But they watched what the skipper did. He had brought an electric pocket torch from below and he flashed this before him as he descended the iron ladder into the hold. Almost at once, however, a whiff of smoke rose through the open hatchway.
“Glory be, Tom!” said one sailor to his mate. “What do you make of that?”