The air was heavy with musty sweetness
and with yellow smoke which streaked lazily past the lantern globe--and
with silence, save for the dull roar in the adjoining hold.
"Make a stand right here," and Dan's voice sounded hollow through the
gloom. "Stand right here. You've got water in your hose; I want that
bulkhead kept soaked. Let her go."
As the streams of water plunged against the steel wall Dan turned to
his employer.
"You wanted to speak to me, Mr. Howland?"
"Yes, I want to compliment you on your discipline and--and what is the
exact situation?"
"Not so good; but a working chance. It will be a short and sharp go;
for the hold's lined with tar and sugar reek--otherwise the cotton
might go for days. It won't in that hold, though. The fight'll be
right here. If it breaks through into this we've got to run; if not,
it will burn out where it is."
"What are the chances that it won't?"
"Why, you know more about the structural strength of this boat than I
do. To be honest, I never liked your bulkheads, else I would have
opened a stop-cock and flooded the hold long ago. Still, what water
would burst through, fire might not."
Horace Howland, who had paid his own price for the _Tampico_, and who
by the same token had his own opinion of her, said nothing.
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