“THIS IS THE FINISH.”
As Jack had prophesied, they did have to “hold down the job for some
time.” In fact, dating from the morning on which Medway escorted them
to the engine-room of the _Valkyrie_, the two boys entered on what was
perhaps the strangest period of their lives in many respects. Virtually
prisoners, they yet found a certain pleasure in oiling, running and
ministering to the big engine. Their innate love of machinery found
full play during the following days and nights.
The gale blew itself out after two days, but they still were kept at
their posts. Medway had ordered two cots provided for them, and their
meals were served below. On trying to reach the deck for a breath of
air, after a long vigil at the engine, Jack found that the engine-room
was well guarded. At the door was stationed a husky sailor who roughly
told the boy to “get back where he belonged.” He had no choice but to
obey.
In this way the days went by, the boys taking watch and watch, four
hours on and four off. Medway or Hemming visited them regularly,
but made no comments, nor did they vouchsafe any information as to
the whereabouts of the yacht. Had the boys only known how the other
prisoners were faring, and what was ultimately to become of them all,
they might have been almost happy in their jobs as young engineers. But
as things were, their constant anxiety on these scores outweighed any
pleasure they found in running the machinery of the yacht.
Judkins evidently was still confined to his bunk. At least he did not
put in an appearance. And so, day after day went by and the yacht
forged steadily on, and the boys, working in the engine-room, had no
means of knowing her course or destination; for, unlike some craft, the
_Valkyrie_ carried no “tell-tale” compass in her engine-room.
Thus two weeks passed. Two weeks of absolute calm, so far as the boys
could judge, during which the yacht was forced forward at her full
speed capacity, which was eighteen knots. It was one day toward the end
of Jack’s watch when the thing happened which was to lead them all into
the jaws of disaster.
During the time that he had been on duty the boy had noticed that the
engine kept slowing down. Impatient janglings from the pilot house he
met as best he could with more steam. But at length even this resource
failed. It was plain enough that the _Valkyrie_ was losing speed
rapidly.
Jack went over the engine with zealous care, but so far as he could see
the fault did not lie there. On the contrary, every rod, crank and
bolt appeared in good order. Suddenly a thought struck him. He hastened
across the steel floor to the gauge on the bulkhead. What it told him
caused the boy to emit a whistle of dismay.
The steam pressure had fallen to seventy-five pounds. While he watched,
it dropped two pounds more, and the engine slowed down more and more
perceptibly.
He threw open the door leading to the fire-room. In that black hole he
saw the dim forms of the stokers on duty flitting about like gnomes in
the dust-laden darkness. He hailed the nearest of them.
“What’s the trouble?”
The answer came with a grumbling rumble from the half-naked fireman as
he threw open a furnace door and stood in the glare of the fire.
“S’ help me bob, kid, there ain’t more’n three tons of coal in the
bunkers an’ the boss tole us to keep steam down.”
“Three tons!” echoed Jack. “How long will that run us?”
“Not h’enuff so’s you could nowtice it,” rejoined the Britisher.
“Have you any idea where we are?”
“Yus. Leastways, I ‘eard ‘em torkin’ erbout h’it ‘fore I come on watch.”
“Where are we, then?”
“H’about ten north, fifty west, I ‘eard ‘em a sayin’.”
“That’s where?” asked Jack anxiously. He knew that ten north meant
somewhere pretty close to the equator. In fact, for days past he and
Tom had discarded all the clothing they could dispense with, for it had
grown insufferably hot in the engine-room.
“H’off the cowst h’of South Ameriky somewheres; bloaw me h’if h’I knows
where,” was the vague response. “H’all h’I knows h’is that h’if we
doan’t get no cowl, we doan’t get no steam.”
A quick step sounded behind Jack. As the footsteps rang out on the
metal floor the boy turned swiftly. Medway confronted him.
“What you doing here?”
“Finding out how much coal we had,” responded Jack. “There’s hardly
enough steam to run the engines.”
“You get back where you belong,” roared Medway, “and you, you
salt-horse-eating Britisher, you get back to your work. D’ye hear me?
I’ll have stuff enough down here before long to get us as far as we
want to go.”
As Jack once more entered the engine-room these words stuck in his
mind. “As far as we want to go.” They must, then, be nearing their
destination. And what was to follow? When he awakened Tom the two had
a long talk about it without coming to any definite conclusion on the
matter.
One thing was positive, steam had been raised again. By what means was
evident when the British stoker, who appeared inclined to be friendly,
stuck his head through the bulkhead door.
“They’re a-tearing the bloomin’ ship to pieces,” he confided, and then
withdrew as Medway’s step sounded on the ladder.
“How’s she workin’?” he asked briefly.
“All right,” replied Jack; “plenty of steam now.”
“Yes; and we’ll have plenty if we tear everything out of the old hooker
and leave nothing but the shell,” ground out Medway fiercely.
“Gracious, Tom,” remarked Jack a few minutes later, before he turned
in, “I guess they’re stripping the ship of everything that’ll burn.
Hark at that?”
Above the rumble of the engines they could hear plainly through the
ventilators the crashing of axes on deck, as the vandals in charge of
the yacht hacked down anything that would burn, in their mad desire
to reach whatever haven they were aiming for. But if the boys could
have been on deck they would have perceived a strong reason for these
desperate efforts to keep the yacht moving. Out of the south there was
coming toward them a dread harbinger of the terror of those waters.
A sickly-looking yellow halo around the sun, a sullen heaving of
the sea, which was of an odd, metallic hue, and a queer odor in the
atmosphere, which was still as death,—all these signs, coupled with an
alarming drop in the barometer, showed those in charge of this ominous
voyage that a tropical hurricane was fast approaching, and that for the
second time since the boys had come on board her the _Valkyrie_ was in
for a battle for existence.
But of all this, of course, they knew nothing. All they realized was
that it was insufferably hot in their oily, murky engine-room. From
time to time they were compelled to go to the funnel-shaped bottom of
one of the ventilators to get even a breath of air. Medway or Hemming
kept dodging up and down all day, and each time they appeared their
faces were furrowed more deeply with anxiety.
It was about the middle of Tom’s watch, namely five-thirty in the
afternoon, that the boy, without the slightest warning, was lifted
almost off his feet by a heavy lurch of the ship. He saved himself from
slipping into the revolving machinery only by clutching at an upright
stanchion. At the same instant his ears were assailed by a diabolical
screeching, as a wind, like the blast from a furnace mouth, was forced
down the ventilators. It was an unearthly sound; a bedlam like that
which might have been the fitting accompaniment of a witches’ frolic.
Jack, fast asleep on the couch, was rolled violently off it and grabbed
by Tom in time to save him from tumbling into the crank-pit.
“W-w-w-what is it?” gasped the newly awakened boy, his eyes wide with
amazement at the inferno of noises.
“I guess it’s a hurricane,” came Tom’s response, “and we’re running the
engines on furniture!”
As he spoke, the _Valkyrie_ appeared to be lifted skyward by a giant
hand and then pushed violently down again to an abysmal depth.
“A few more of those and—good-night,” spoke Jack, whose face had grown
pale as ashes.
The next few hours were filled with terror. Medway, revolver in
hand, stationed himself in the fire-room, keeping the terrified
stokers at work on pain of instant death. Into the furnaces of the
hurricane-driven ship was piled everything aboard that would burn.
Boats were ruthlessly smashed, costly mahogany and ebony trim and
panelling, chairs, tables, anything, everything that was combustible.
The boys toiled as if in a nightmare. Half stunned by the violence of
the vessel’s movements, sick, dizzy and aching in every limb, they kept
at their tasks. But not long before midnight the end came with the
suddenness of a thunder-clap. No time was left for thought even, much
less preparation.
They felt the _Valkyrie_ lifted bodily upward and then rushed downward
again with appalling force. There followed a crash that seemed to be
sufficient to smash the stout structure of steel and iron into a mass
of junk. The boys felt themselves hurled bodily across the engine-room
by some unseen force.
Then came a shout. It was Medway’s voice.
“Everyone for himself!”
The boys rushed on deck, not knowing what to expect. After that
appalling crash they hardly knew if the _Valkyrie_ was yet actually
under their feet.
“Whatever has happened, this is the finish!” gasped Jack as they went.