'Why, yes!' I exclaimed; 'that bluish haze is smoke!'
I had scarcely pronounced these words when Abraham, with his face turned our way, came to a dead halt, peered, and then roared out:
'Mr. Tregarthen, there's smoke a-filtering up out of the main hatch!'
'Take this wheel!' said I to Helga; then, in a bound, I gained the skylight, into which I roared with all my lungs for Jacob to come on deck. As I ran forward I saw smoke thinly rising in bluish wreaths and eddies round about the sides of the main-hatch, and from under the mast-coat at the foot of the mainmast.
'They're a-shouting like demons in the fok'sle, sir,' cried Abraham, throwing his pipe overboard in his excitement.
'They have set fire to the ship!' I cried. 'Does smoke rise from the fok'sle?'
'Yes! ye may see it now!—ye may see it now!' he bawled.
In the moment or two's pause that followed I heard the half-muffled shouts of the dark-skinned crew, with one or two clearer voices, as though a couple of the fellows had got their mouths close against the narrow opening in the hatch. I rushed forward from abreast of the mainmast, where I had come to a stand.
'What is wrong?' I cried. 'Where is this smoke coming from?'
A voice answered—it was Nakier's—but his dark skin blended with the gloom out of which he spoke, and I could not see him.