Part 3

On the lower deck the Cubans were flocking to the overhang or climbing on the rail to gaze at the distant smoke astern. They talked excitedly, with many gestures. Evidently here was an event of some importance. Little by little the other steamer cut down the miles of intervening space until her funnel was visible. The _Fearless_ had been making no unusual effort to increase her own speed, but now Captain O’Shea said a few words into the engine-room speaking-tube, and Johnny Kent came trundling up from below, wiping his face with a bunch of waste.

The captain took him by the arm and imparted:

“I do not like the looks of her, Johnny; she is too fast to be healthy for us. I got the word in New York that two of the _Almirante_ cruiser class were coming out from Spain to join the blockadin’ fleet and make it hot for our business. There is nothing on the coast that can do over twelve knots, is there?”

“Only the _Julio Sanchez_, Cap’n Mike, and she’s laid up at Havana with her boilers in awful shape. I suppose you want me to hook up and burn my good coal.”

“I think this is a poor place to loaf in, Johnny. There was something said about a reward of fifty thousand dollars to the Spanish navy vessel that overhauled the _Fearless_ and sunk her at sea. Better crack on steam and maybe we can lose that fellow yonder after nightfall.”

“Aye, aye, Cap’n Mike, I’ll put the clamps on the safety-valves, and take care not to look at the gauges. I’ll need more help below.”

“Grab the deck-hands. Get to it.”

“And I was just crawlin’ into my bunk to finish the most excitin’ novel you ever read,” mourned Johnny Kent as he footed it down the ladder. “It’s all about adventures. The situations are hair-raisin’, Cap’n Mike.”

Young Mr. Van Steen had edged within ear-shot so that he heard part of this dialogue. Returning to the ladies, he thrust his hands in his pockets and tried to hide his perturbation. Nora questioned him eagerly, and he answered with a shrug and a laugh:

“We’re going to have a race with the steamer behind us. I imagine they told a few whoppers for my benefit. The chief engineer remarked in the most casual way that he intended to put clamps on the safety-valves. That is absurd, of course. The boilers might blow up.”

“I am inclined to think he meant it,” said Nora, who was looking at Captain O’Shea. “This is not a yachting cruise, Gerald.”

“But if the silly old ass of an engineer really meant it, and we are pursued by a hostile man-of-war,” stubbornly persisted Van Steen, “why did he talk about wanting to finish a novel because it was full of exciting adventures? Isn’t this exciting enough?”

“You are stupid,” impatiently exclaimed Nora. “These extraordinary men can’t see that they are living the most thrilling adventures. It is all in the day’s work with them. I am going to ask Captain O’Shea to tell me the truth.”

Her aunt objected, but with no great spirit. Her poor, tired brain was bewildered by this new turn of events. She had begun to hope to survive the voyage, but now she was beset by fresh alarms, fantastic and incredible. Imminent danger menaced the lawless tug. It could be felt in the buzzing excitement which pervaded the crowded decks. The only calm place was the bridge, where Captain O’Shea walked steadily to and fro, six paces to port and six paces to starboard, a ragged cigar between his teeth. Already the hull was vibrating to the increasing speed of the engines and the smoke gushed thick and black from the hot funnel.

Nora Forbes had mounted the bridge before Van Steen could make angry protest. Clinging to the canvas-screened rail, she paused to catch a bird’s-eye glimpse of the swarming decks which spread beneath her from the sheering bow to the overhang that seemed level with the following seas. Captain O’Shea snatched a coat from the wheel-house and flung it over the girl’s head and shoulders, for the red cinders were pelting down from the funnel-top like hail. For the life of him he could not keep the caressing note out of his pleasant voice when he was talking to a pretty woman.

“’Tis a bright day and a fine breeze, Miss Forbes, and the old _Fearless_ is poundin’ through it at thirteen knots. Are ye enjoying yourself?”

“Every minute of it,” she replied, and the joy of living made her cheek glow. “Are you really afraid of that steamer behind us? Mr. Van Steen thought you were joking with the chief engineer. Really you can be frank with me. I promise not to make a scene.”

He regarded her rather wistfully for an instant, felt unusually hesitant, and told her the truth because he could not bring himself to tell her anything else.

“If it is a Spanish cruiser yonder, as I mistrust, she may make short work of us. But she has to catch us first. And if I was easy to catch I would not be here at all. Sooner than risk a hair of your head, Miss Forbes, I would give up meself and my ship. But a man’s duty comes first.”

“You are not to give me--to give us, one thought,” she warmly assured him, and her head was held high. “Thank you for being honest with me, Captain O’Shea. Do you wish us to stay on deck?”

Perplexed and unhappy, he answered:

“There is no safe place to stow you if the Spaniard gets within shooting range. The hold is full of cartridges and dynamite and such skittish truck.”

The steamer astern was still slowly gaining on the _Fearless_. Her forward mast was now discernible, and the tiny ring around it was unmistakably a fighting-top. If the vessel belonged to any other navy than that of Spain, she would be jogging along at a cruising gait, instead of crowding in chase with a reckless consumption of coal. Captain O’Shea ran below to see how matters fared in the sooty, stifling kingdom of Johnny Kent. The _Fearless_ could not turn and fight. All hopes of safety were bound up in those clanking, throbbing, shining engines, in the hissing boilers, in the gang of half-naked, grimy men who fed the raging furnaces and wielded the glowing slice-bars and shifted the coal from the cavernous bunkers.

The quivering needles of the gauges already recorded more steam than the law allowed, and they were creeping higher pound by pound. The heat in the fire-room was so intense that the men had to be relieved at brief intervals. There was no forced ventilation, and the wind was following the ship. The deck-hands, unaccustomed to grilling alive, stood to it pluckily until they collapsed and were hauled out by the head and the heels. Back and forth, between the engine-room and this inferno, waddled Johnny Kent, raining perspiration, an oil-can in one hand, a heavy wrench in the other, and with the latter he smote such faint-hearted wights as would falter while there was strength in them.

“Hello, Cap’n Mike,” he roared as the skipper sidled into the engine-room. “Is the other vessel still gainin’ on us, and what does she look like?”

“She looks like trouble, Johnny. We are doing better. How are things with you?”

“I need a couple of husky men. No use sendin’ me those limpsy patriots.”

“I will look for them, Johnny. Will your boilers hold together? Can you get any more out of her?”

“Of course I can. She’s licensed to carry a hundred and eighty pounds, and I aim to push her to two hundred and fifty.”

Captain O’Shea hastened on deck, glanced forward and aft, and grinned as he caught sight of Gerald Ten Eyck Van Steen. To this pampered young man he shouted:

“You are a well-built lad. Jump below, if you please, and the chief will introduce ye to a shovel.”

“But I don’t want a shovel. I refuse to go below,” haughtily replied Van Steen. “It has occurred to me that if you will quit this silly race and let the other steamer come within signalling distance I can explain the case to her commander, and he will be glad to take us on board. Van Steen & Van Steen have influential banking connections with the Spanish government.”

“’Tis no time to deliver orations,” swiftly spake O’Shea. “The other steamer will shoot first and explain afterward. Come along and work your passage.”

“Do not resist, Gerald,” quavered Miss Hollister.

“Be a good sport and play the game,” slangily advised Nora Forbes.

Captain O’Shea did not appear to use violence. He seemed to propel Van Steen with a careless wave of the arm, and the indignant young man moved rapidly in the direction of the stoke-hole ladder. Johnny Kent pounced on him with profane jubilation, instantly stripped him of coat and shirt, and shot him in to join the panting toilers. There was a plucky streak in this victim of circumstances, and he perceived that he must take his medicine. The fire-room gang was reinforced by a strong pair of arms, a stout back, and the stubborn endurance of the Dutch.

The afternoon was gone and the sun had slid under the lovely western sea. The Spanish cruiser was spurting desperately to overtake her quarry before darkness. The speed of the quivering, clangorous _Fearless_ had crept up to a shade better than fifteen knots. The cruiser was in poor trim to show what she could do. Captain O’Shea knew the rated speed of every craft on the Spanish naval list and if his surmise was correct this particular cruiser should be doing eighteen knots. But he knew also that a foul bottom, slovenly discipline, and inferior coal counted against her, and that he had a fighting chance of escape.

It was immensely trying to watch and wait. Of all the company on deck that stood and stared at the small outline of the cruiser etched against the shining sea, only Captain O’Shea realized that this was the grimmest kind of a life-and-death tussle. He was your thoroughbred gambler who comprehends the odds and accepts them, but he was sorry for his crew, and much more so for the two women who were in his charge.

The chaperon had retired to her room in the grip of an acute nervous headache. She was mercifully unable to understand that tragedy moved on the face of the waters, that whether or not the _Fearless_ was to be obliterated depended on a certain number of engine revolutions per minute.

The cook had prepared supper, observing to himself as he rattled his pans:

“If we all is due to git bumped to glory, I reckon we’ll take it more cheerful with a square meal under our briskets.”

He dutifully bore a tray to the captain’s room, but Miss Hollister had no appetite, and he betook himself to the bridge, where Nora Forbes was standing beside the captain.

“Set the supper on the chart-locker in the wheel-house, George,” said O’Shea. “The young lady will not be wanting to go into her room and miss any of the show.”

In her twenty years Nora Forbes had never lived as intensely as now. The blood of an adventurous ancestry was in her veins. She was thrilled, but not afraid. More than she was aware, the dominating personality of Captain O’Shea was influencing and attracting her. Unconsciously she was sharing his simple, clear-eyed courage, which accepted things as he found them. There was singular comfort in standing beside him. They lingered for a moment in the wheel-house, where the tall young mate gripped the spokes, his eyes fixed on the swaying compass-card in the binnacle.

“You have never filibustered before, I take it, Miss Forbes,” said Captain O’Shea, “but ye are as cool as an old hand.”

“I never dreamed that men were living such lives as this nowadays,” she replied. “Tell me, do you----”

Down the wind came the report of a heavy gun. O’Shea leaped to the bridge and the girl followed, her heart throbbing with a sudden, sickening fear. Twilight was shutting down. The first star gleamed in the pale sky, but a curious after-glow lingered to flood the sea with tremulous illumination. The cruiser showed like a gray shadow, a vague blur, from which shot a second flash of red. Again the boom of her gun was heard on the _Fearless_, and this time the steel shell kicked up a water-spout far off to starboard.

“Johnny Kent has lost distance in the last half hour,” muttered the skipper. “His men can’t stand the pace.”

“What does it mean?” implored Nora, and she caught her breath with a sob. “Are they really and truly trying to kill us?”

“Those are the intentions, but the shooting is pretty bad, Miss Forbes. I will bet ye ten to one they do not hit us.”

Unwittingly she moved closer to him. Her hand was upon the rail and he covered it with his hard palm. At the firm, warm contact her fortitude returned. His tremendous vitality was like an electric current. She smiled up at him gratefully, and he said in a big, friendly way, to put her at ease:

“’Tis good to have somebody to hang onto in a tight pinch, isn’t it? Look! There he goes again! A better shot. It struck the water within two hundred yards of us. If he keeps on improvin’ his target practice, I may lose me bet.”

Nora was silent. She could think of nothing to say as she stared at the darkening horizon and the flashes of the cruiser’s guns. The after-glow died, and night marched swiftly across the tropic sea. It curtained the cruiser and obscured the _Fearless_. Johnny Kent had won in the first act of the drama.

Every light on board the tug was extinguished, and the word was carried below to close the draughts and slacken the fires in order to show no sparks from the funnel. The _Fearless_ swerved sharply from her course and ran straight away from the Cuban coast, heading to the southward across the Caribbean. To follow her was a game of blind-man’s-buff, and Captain O’Shea knew every trick of shaking off pursuit.

Nora had withdrawn her imprisoned hand with a self-conscious little start. Already the episode of the chase seemed unreal, theatrical. It would not have surprised her if the picturesque Cubans had burst into a light-opera chorus. She hastened to tell her aunt the good news, and presently there came staggering up from the lower deck the wreck of Gerald Ten Eyck Van Steen. The merciful night hid his grime and tatters. Leaning against the bulkhead of the tiny passageway, he addressed the invisible ladies in the state-room. His voice was husky and cracked, but, singularly enough, all its petulance had fled.

“It was simply great,” he exclaimed. “We shovelled coal like drunken devils, and between-times they dragged us on deck and turned the hose on us. My word, it was a sporty game, and we won. I am bruises from head to foot, but what’s the odds?”

Nora was instantly contrite. Here was an unexpected hero, whom she had shamefully forgotten.

“You poor Gerald! Tell us all about it.”

He felt proud of himself. Nora shared the feeling, and yet her behavior lacked the warmth to be expected of a girl whose engagement to Gerald Van Steen had been a notable society event on Fifth Avenue. Wayward and shocking it was, no doubt, but she knew that she would rather talk to the rude and unregenerate Captain Michael O’Shea.

She let Gerald tell her of the great fight for more speed down among the roaring furnaces, of the fainting men, the straining boilers, the furiously driven engines, and of the bullying, cursing, jesting Johnny Kent who held the men and the machines unfalteringly to their work.

“He is an awful brute,” said Van Steen, rubbing a welt on his shoulder, “but he has pluck--no end of it. A steam-pipe leading to a pump or something burst and scalded him, but he didn’t let up at all, and threatened us with more kinds of death and damnation than ever.”

“He must be suffering dreadfully,” exclaimed the ardently sympathetic Nora. “I thought he looked so good-natured and jolly and easy-going.”

“You are a poor hand at reading character,” was the earnest comment. “Were you anxious about me, Nora?”

“Yes, I suppose so. It was so exciting on deck that I couldn’t think of anything else but that wicked Spanish cruiser.”

“Where were you all the time?”

“On the bridge with Captain O’Shea.”

“The deuce you were! I don’t like him at all, Nora. He is not the sort you should have anything to do with.”

“I can’t very well help meeting him now and then, Gerald. Don’t be a goose. Tell me some more about your adventures with a shovel.”

Van Steen was ruffled and became a sulky companion. Nora let him kiss her good-night, and he wearily descended to find a resting-place on the open deck. She found her aunt awake and told her of the heroic conduct of the scalded chief engineer. The stamp of Van Steen’s approval was apt to color the mental attitude of Miss Hollister and she exclaimed in an animated manner:

“Does Gerald really believe that this Mr. Kent is such a fine character, a diamond in the rough?”

“Gerald certainly respects him, although he does not love him, Aunt Katharine.”

“Then I hope to meet Mr. Kent in the morning, Nora. I am given to understand that he saved our lives, but I can’t realize that the cruiser was actually shooting at us with deadly intent.”

Miss Hollister was a woman of a certain kind of determination whenever duty was concerned. And because she had misjudged the chief engineer, it was her duty to make amends. After breakfast she asked Van Steen if she might safely go to the lower deck and look into the engine-room.

“You are coming on remarkably well,” said he. “Aren’t you afraid of the brutes?”

“I wish to thank our preserver and to inspect the ship,” she calmly answered.

“Very well. Will you come along, Nora?”

“Thanks, Gerald, but Captain O’Shea wants to show me the chart of this coast and of the bay where he will try to land the cargo.”

“Hang Captain O’Shea; he is making a confounded nuisance of himself,” muttered Van Steen as he reluctantly departed with Miss Hollister. They passed among the lounging patriots and came upon their leader, Colonel Calvo, whom the flight from the cruiser had frightened, not out of his boots, but into them. As a cure for sea-sickness he had found the boom of an eight-inch gun extremely efficacious. He flourished his hat with flamboyant gallantry and bowed low as he addressed Miss Hollister.

“Ah, ha, Señora! To behol’ you is a pleasure for me an’ my braves’ of soldiers. Yesterday we was ready to fight the ship of Spain, to defen’ the ladies with our lives.”

The dignified spinster looked confused. She resented the bold stare of the colonel’s black eyes and the smirking smile. With a stiff little nod she grasped Gerald’s arm and told him, as they moved to another part of the deck:

“I hate that man. Is he really a brave officer?”

“Not yet, but perhaps, Miss Hollister. We shall have to ask Johnny Kent about him.”

Pausing at the engine-room door, they found an assistant on duty. To their inquiry he replied:

“The chief is in his bunk, all bandaged up and using language. His arm and chest were blistered bad.”

“I should like very much to do something for him,” timidly answered Miss Hollister. “Who is attending him?”

“The Cuban doctor has a medicine chest, ma’am, and we all try to soothe him. But he cusses us out and throws things at us.”

“I will look in his room and leave a message for you, Miss Hollister,” said Gerald.

“He must be in great distress. And I am sure he is not getting proper care,” she murmured.

Van Steen cautiously advanced to an open door beyond the engine-room, Miss Hollister hovering in the background. No sooner had the sufferer in the bunk caught sight of the young man than his big voice roared:

“Come to gloat, have you? I suppose you’re glad to see me on my beam ends after the awful way I abused you. Get to hell out of here.”

“Miss Hollister came below to express her sympathy,” began Van Steen, ready to dodge a water-bottle that stood beside the bunk.

“Holy mackerel! The lovely lady with the gray hair?” blurted Johnny Kent, his face redder than ordinary. “Did she, honestly? Is she out there? Did she hear me slip that cuss-word?”

“I am afraid so. Do you want to apologize? She accepts my statement that you are a grand man in an emergency.”

“Fetch her in. No, wait a minute. Straighten out the bedclothes and see that my nightie is buttoned clear up to the neck. This is the da-darnedest thing that ever happened to me.”

It was also an unprecedented experience for Miss Katharine Hollister, but one could not live twenty-four hours on board the _Fearless_ without losing one’s grip on conventions, even though they were made in New England. She halted at the brass-bound threshold of the little room, and peered curiously at the recumbent figure of the chief engineer with his gray mustache and mop of grizzled hair.

“Come in and take the chair by my desk, ma’am. What on earth made you want to see me?” was his hearty greeting.

She remained standing, and confessed, hesitating nervously:

“I formed such a shocking opinion of you when I first saw you--I thought you had killed that negro--and when Mr. Van Steen told me how you had toiled and suffered to save the ship--and were in pain--I knew my judgment was mistaken--and that it was my duty----”

“Forget it, ma’am,” and Johnny Kent waved a bandaged fist. “We ain’t pretty to look at, and our manners are violent, but when you talk about duty, I guess you and I believe in the same gospel.”

His gaze was so honestly, respectfully worshipful that Miss Hollister was conscious of an agreeable sensation. She was a woman, and a charming one, but at fifty years she no longer dreamed of masculine homage.

“Were you severely injured, Mr. Kent?”

“Not half as much as those poor old boilers. I’m afraid to guess how many tubes are leaky. I’ll quit sputterin’ and losin’ my temper when we get those Cubans and guns ashore.”

“Their leader does not seem very capable,” ventured Miss Hollister. “I was not at all favorably impressed with him when he spoke to me just now.”

“Did that sea-sick tin soldier annoy you, ma’am?” heatedly ejaculated Johnny Kent as he raised himself on his elbow and fixed a glittering eye on a holster which hung on the wall. “I’ll surge out of here and learn him a lesson that will do him a whole lot of good.”

“No more violence, I beg of you,” implored the spinster, dismayed and yet enjoyably thrilled. “I should not have mentioned it. If there is anything that can be done to make you more comfortable----”

“Pshaw, I’ll be up and doing before we try to make a landing, ma’am. Your droppin’ in to see me has made me chirk up. Blessed if it don’t make this hole of a room seem kind of sweetened and lit up and sanctified.”