As he looked up, despairing of any chance to loosen the rusted valve, Larry came back on the run, carrying a coal-pick handle. He thrust it between the spokes of the wheel.
"Now, Mr. Neville, all together!" His Celtic jaw was set hard.
All three threw their weight against the handle. The wheel stirred.
As they straightened for another effort, a louder noise of hissing steam sounded from the boilers, and the fire-room force, mad with fright, came crowding through the passage to the higher floor of the engine-room.
"Quick! Together!" Neville gasped.
The wheel moved an inch.
"Once more! Now!"
The wheel turned and did not stop. The three men dropped the lever, seized the wheel, and threw the valve wide open.
"Good work, men!" Neville cried, and fell back exhausted.
The centrifugal pump was thrown in at the last desperate moment. When the rusted valve finally opened, water had risen to the lower grate-bars under every boiler in the fire-room. But once in action, the twelve-inch suction of the giant pump did its work with magic swiftness. In less than thirty seconds the last gallon of water in the bilges had been lifted and sent, rushing through the discharge, overboard.