Out of the hold wriggled a little braid of smoke. A small cloud puffed from the open hatch, followed by a dense black column that might have streamed from the funnel of an ocean liner. Bill emerged, coughing, and the crackling of burning wood sounded from below.
"God almighty!" shouted the captain. "What have you done?"
"The small boat's close to the companion," replied Bill calmly, designating the dinghy aft. "Head for the Crosby fleet—the nearest schooner."
"You damned traitor!" snarled the captain, starting forward. Bill blocked his way.
"I'm doing this—for you," he declared. "Those empty tar barrels in the hold—the Mary's doomed. So is the Crosby fleet. It's self-preservation for you, sir. Such things have happened accidentally before. Nobody will ever suspect that this didn't. Get out the way; give me the wheel!"
Captain Bert felt himself shoved aside by a quick-moving giant who dashed to the wheel and swung it—then the lurch of the schooner—the creaking of the boom. Flames from the hold licked out of the hatch, and smoke poured to leeward toward the fleet.
"—the wind's right—their position's right. They're fresh with paint and varnish. Good-by, old Crosby fleet!" sang the fiend at the wheel.
Captain Bert was upon him. He had been a skilled fighter in his day. He struck out with his left fist at Bill's grinning face. But the mate stepped nimbly aside, ducked, and letting go the wheel, floored the captain with an uppercut to the chin.
"No time for fooling!" Bill roared. "Stay there, and do what I tell you. I'm in command until we've seen this thing through."
The ancient Mary Chilton was a floating tinder box above her waterline. So rapidly did the flames catch on to the decks and bulkheads, it was doubtful whether a man could stay at the wheel long enough to bear down on the first schooner of the down-wind fleet.