“So it seems, bos’n,” said Lord Francis. “But we’re not far off port now. Good-night.”
“Good-night, my lord. Better not leave things loose about in your stateroom to-night.”
Jacynth slept the sleep of a man with a quiet conscience and a good digestion, who had passed the greater part of the day on deck of a ship over which swept strong air blown across the broad Atlantic. He rarely dreamt, but on this particular night, some two hours after he had bidden Lord Francis good-night, and turned into the stateroom he had all to himself, he began tossing about with a great weight on his mind. If he had a weakness in the matter of personal dress it was centered upon his stockings of rich red wool and ribbed as is the salt sea sand. He had a shapely leg, and missed no opportunity when out of town of displaying it with the advantage of knickerbocker dress. He was dreaming now that a great calamity had befallen his treasured store of stockings. A spark from the funnel of the steamer, which, as he went below, he had seen streaming fire into the dark night, had, in the unaccountable way peculiar to dreams, fallen upon his bundle of stockings snugly ensconced in his box in the stateroom, and they were hopelessly smoldering; in vain he struggled to rise, seize a jug of water, and souse them. Something held him down by the chest, and he could not move. His terror seemed to have communicated itself to the passengers and crew. Hurried feet trampled on deck overhead. Voices sounded in eager talk, and the bos’n’s whistle shrilly rose above the row of the waves that thunderously beat aft the shattered port-light. Possibly help would come in time and some of the stockings would be saved. A rattle at the door. Jacynth, almost awake, cried “Come in,” an invitation quite superfluous, for the door was burst open.
“Look alive, sir!” shouted the bos’n, entering hurriedly. “Ship’s afire, and the boats are being got ready!”
“And Ronny?” said Jacynth, wide awake now the nightmare of the burning stockings uplifted.
“The young un’s all right, I seed to him first, and his father’s got him in tow. Better slew on as many things as you can. It’ll be bad in the boats till morning breaks.”
Jacynth was not long in dressing, foregoing in his haste the luxury of his worsted stockings, which he had full time to regret. When he went on deck a strange sight met his eye. The passengers, fully two hundred in number, were massed together aft of the bridge, most of the women bareheaded and all showing signs of hasty dressing. From one of the hatches near the wheel a dense volume of smoke poured forth, now and then with increasing frequency; lit up by tongues of flame on either side of the hatch, a line of blue-jackets plied hose and bucket in ineffectual struggle with the growing furnace. A singular quietness prevailed. There was a murmur of conversation among the closely-packed crowd of passengers. A sharp word of command from the first officer in charge of the fire brigade rose from time to time above the howling wind and the war of the turbulent waves that dashed against the bulwarks as if possessed with passionate desire to get at the flames. Ronny, his father holding one hand and Lord Castleton the other, stood on the outer fringe of the crowd aft, as near as he could get to the fire, which he was evidently enjoying as the best thing he had seen since the whale disappeared. The captain and second officer stood on the bridge, and through the wheel-house window could be seen four grim faces of the blue-jacketed giants whose curiously cheery voices answered the captain’s signals with the cry “Starboard,” “Steady it is, sir.” The captain, leaning over the rail of the bridge and addressing the crowd of trembling but quiet passengers, said: “Friends below there, I hope you’re all comfortably wrapped up. This is a bad job, but there’s no danger. If it had come an hour later we should have made for Holyhead and put in all right. But with this wind and the start the fire has got I don’t think we could carry on so far. The land is close by. If there were daylight we could see it. The ship is now making for the spit of land at the back of Pwlhelly. There is a smooth mile of beach there, which, if I can make it, will bring the ship up comfortably, and you can walk ashore in your slippers.”
Jacynth led a cheer for the gallant captain, which was taken up by the passengers, and seemed to do them an immense amount of good. After this the wonderful quietness once more fell over the doomed ship that sped onward swiftly through the sea that was now as rough as the bos’n’s forecast had pictured. On the crowded deck all was as orderly as if, according to their daily habit, the passengers had mustered to take a look round before going down to dinner. The wind, now blowing what even a sailor would have admitted to be half a gale, whistled shrilly through the creaking spars. The course taken by the ship brought it more abaft, and sometimes a gust blew the smoke from the burning hatch under and across the bridge, choking the passengers and hiding the captain and second mate from view. But for the most part it blew clear away over the starboard side, leaving the vessel amidships and forward clear enough.
“Land ahead,” sung out the lookout man; the sing-song voice of the man throwing the lead showed how nearly they were approaching the coast, the outline of which was recognized in the deeper shadow on the horizon.