Hatchie had placed his party in the hold, one of which was on the look-out at the hatchway. He saw the danger of the steamer; but all his friends were in the safest places the boat afforded. It was an anxious hour for him; but everybody was in peril, and there was no remedy.
Maxwell, whose excitement in the race was feigned, perceived that the boat was in imminent danger. He had not intended to carry the excitement quite so far. An explosion was not exactly the thing he desired. It would not be sufficiently discriminating in its choice of victims. But the firemen were too much excited to listen to reason; therefore he proceeded, with Vernon, towards the extreme after part of the boat. Passing round the gallery of the ladies' cabin, they perceived that Henry had, at last, left his post. Such was indeed the case. Roused from his abstraction by the terrible anticipation of an explosion, he had gone forward to reason with the pilots on the recklessness of their course in allowing the boat to be so hard pressed.
"Now is our time," said Maxwell, in a whisper.
"Here goes, then!" replied Vernon.
"Be careful that you do not injure her,—and bring her clothes."
"Ay, ay! Have the boat ready quick, for, if I mistake not, the sooner we are out of this boat the better."
The ruffian approached the door of Emily's state-room, and was about to open it, when, with a noise louder than the crashing of the thunderbolt, the starboard boiler exploded, and the Chalmetta lay a shapeless wreck upon the waters!
CHAPTER XIV.
"False world, thou ly'st; thou canst not lend
The least delight;
Thy favors cannot gain a friend,
They are so slight." FRANCIS QUARLES.