Chapter II: Part 2

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.”

Miss Hollister colored and concluded that she had stayed quite long enough. With a gracious word of farewell, she hastened to the upper deck. Nora Forbes had found a new companion, a lean, sandy man in faded khaki whose sad, freckled face had a noticeable pallor and whose head was wound about with a white bandage. He sat with his back propped against a boat in the shade of the awning, and Nora announced to her aunt:

“I want you to know Mr. Jack Gorham. He is the man who conquered that giant of a negro. Captain O’Shea says it was one of the finest things he ever saw.”

Gorham, a modest, shrinking soul, looked acutely uncomfortable and protested:

“I had to get him. He fetched me a couple of clips, but I feel pretty spry. I’ll be ready to hop ashore and perforate them Spanish officers at a thousand per.”

Oddly enough, Miss Hollister was no longer terrified by the presence of these men of war. Since meeting Johnny Kent she had suffered a sea-change. In the face of the veteran soldier she was able to read that same quality of respectful admiration. She had been vouchsafed a glimpse of the real spirit of this singular voyage. It was pure romance, reincarnated from the age when the world was young. She had been permitted to sail with men who were living an Odyssey, a saga, but they knew it not. She thought of Johnny Kent in his bunk, and now she looked at Jack Gorham, commonplace, unlettered, uncouth, and listened while Nora repeated the story of the fight with Jiminez. The soldier wriggled uneasily. His embarrassment was painful. When questioned he could only repeat:

“Well, I just had to get him. That’s all there was to it.”

“But you did not have to risk your life,” persisted Nora. “Captain O’Shea was ready with his whole crew to overpower the man.”

“The captain wanted to tackle him, but of course I couldn’t stand for that,” patiently explained Gorham.

“_Why_ did you do it?” asked Miss Hollister.

“I guess it was what you might call a question of duty,” he drawled.

“I have heard nothing else,” was the spinster’s wondering comment. “And yet you are all breaking the laws of your country. My standards of right and wrong seem all topsy-turvy.”

“You sure did land in queer company this time,” seriously affirmed Gorham.

Miss Hollister’s excursion into the debatable ground of conduct and ethics as applied to buccaneering in the Caribbean was interrupted by Captain O’Shea, who was in a mood of brisk action and curt speech. Paying no attention to the ladies, he halted in front of Gorham to say:

“We shall try to put the stuff ashore to-night. Will ye be fit to land with the Cubans, or will I carry you back home with me?”

“Of course, I’ll land, sir. The nigger didn’t cut me deep,” was the dogged response. “What’s the programme?”

“The cargo will be hoisted out of the hold this afternoon, convenient for droppin’ into the boats. If you are able, will ye stand by to boss a gang of Cubans? Ye need not bear a hand yourself. Just talk to them and make signs with the butt end of that old Springfield.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll manage to keep them busy.”

The news ran through the ship. By noon the patriots were seething with excitement. They were about to set foot on the beloved soil of Cuba, to be quit of the hateful, perfidious ocean. They became incredibly valiant. These forty men would face a Spanish army. They talked of marching to attack fortified cities. Magically revived, they scoured the rust from their weapons and brandished them with melodramatic gesticulation. They sang the battle-hymns of the revolution and wept at sight of the blue, misty mountain range of the distant coast. Jack Gorham regarded them critically.

One gang of Cubans went into the hold and another was stationed on deck. The heavy cases of rifles and cartridges were passed up through the hatchways and piled along the rail. Captain O’Shea sauntered hither and yon, once halting to remark in chiding accents:

“Better not bang those square boxes about so free and careless. ’Tis nitro-glycerine for making dynamite ashore.”

“I’ll land it myself,” said Gorham. “It will come in handy for blowin’ up Spanish troop-trains.”

Toward nightfall the _Fearless_ reduced speed and loafed along over a smooth sea at a distance of perhaps thirty miles from the coast. The crisis of the voyage had come. O’Shea must run his ship into a trap and get her out again.

As soon as darkness was at hand the _Fearless_ began the final dash for the coast. Johnny Kent had crawled from his bunk and wearily set himself down in the engine-room doorway to await orders.

“If anything goes wrong to-night, it’ll happen all of a sudden,” he grumbled to his first assistant. “Takin’ chances of getting bottled up in a bay don’t please me a mite.”

“There is nothing in sight, chief. It looks like an easy landing. The skipper knows his business.”

“But it would be just our fool luck to run into trouble with these two ladies aboard. Women complicate every game they draw cards in. But that Miss Hollister is certainly a queen, ain’t she, Jim?”

“She’s old enough to be my mother,” ungallantly observed the youthful assistant.

“And I’m ’most old enough to be your grand-daddy, you godless, disrespectful sculpin,” was the angry retort of Johnny Kent. “And I’m man enough to break you in two across my knees.”

The rash young man wisely held his tongue, and the chief engineer murmured to the world at large:

“Refinement and culture do make a heap of difference in folks. Now, if I had chased after refinement and culture when I was young, instead of incessantly pursuin’ rum, riot, and rebellion on the high seas--but what’s the use?”

Thereupon this pensive pirate turned to survey his chanting engines and wondered what the night might bring forth. The _Fearless_ maintained an even gait until the coast was no more than five miles distant. Then she drifted idly while Captain O’Shea swept the horizon with his night-glasses. His eyes and ears were acutely alert, but there was neither sight nor sound of Spanish blockading craft cruising to intercept him. Astern were piled six large flat-bottomed surf-boats, in nests, as fishermen’s dories are carried. These were now launched and towed, ready to be ranged alongside and filled with cargo.

The forty Cubans conversed in hushed tones. Every man had knapsack, blanket-roll, canteen, and loaded rifle. The _Fearless_ again picked up full speed and moved straight for the coast. Soon the mountains loomed like gigantic shadows blotting out the stars. It was a bold, sheer coast, indented here and there by small bays into which the rivers flowed from the passes and valleys. It was in a certain one of these bays that Captain O’Shea had been told by the Junta to beach his cargo. A force of Cubans led by General Maximo Gomez himself would be waiting to receive the munitions. As had been arranged, the _Fearless_ now showed a white mast-head light above a red. Captain O’Shea looked at his watch. Three minutes later his signal-lights flashed again. In the gloom of the mountain-side, a white light winked above a red.

“That looks good to me,” said O’Shea to the mate. “If there was anything wrong, the answering signal would warn us to keep clear. But I do not like this messin’ around in a bay. Give me the open coast and plenty of sea-room.”

The _Fearless_ had come so near the entrance of the bay that the shadowy headlands on either side were dimly discernible from the bridge. The speed of the tug diminished until she was cautiously moving ahead with no more than steerage-way.

The silence was intense. No one spoke above a whisper. The engines were turning over so slowly that their rhythmic clamor was no more than a faint, muffled throb, like the pulse-beat of the ship. Warily she slid into the quiet bay and made ready to drop anchor off a strip of white beach. The surf-boats were hauled alongside and the cargo began to tumble into them. It looked as though this game of filibustering might not be so hazardous as reputed. The seamen were in the boats, detailed to handle the oars and put the Cubans and the cargo ashore.

The deep-laden flotilla had not quit the _Fearless_ for the first trip to the beach when the vigilant skipper fancied he saw a shadow steal from behind a headland at the mouth of the bay. For a long moment he ceased to breathe, while his gaze followed the illusive shadow which he was not sure that he could distinguish from the darkened sea.

Then one or two sparks gleamed like fire-flies and were gone. This was enough. Captain O’Shea instantly concluded that the sparks had dropped from a steamer’s funnel. He was caught inside the bay. Perhaps the steamer would pass without sighting the _Fearless_. But the shadow halted midway between the headlands, and O’Shea cursed the treachery which he presumed had betrayed his destination. The snare had been cleverly set for him. The Cuban force in the mountains had failed to detect this Spanish vessel or they would not have signalled him that the coast was clear.

O’Shea had to make his choice. He could abandon his ship and flee with his crew and passengers to the beach and the jungle, or he could turn and try to smash his way out to sea. The thought of deserting the _Fearless_ was so intolerable that he made his decision without hesitating. Summoning the mate and Johnny Kent, he spoke hurriedly.

“’Tis bottled up we are. Look yonder and ye can see for yourself. Call the men aboard and cut the boats adrift. Give it to her, Johnny, and hold on tight. There may be the divil and all of a bump.”

“Goin’ to run her down?” asked the chief engineer.

“If she doesn’t get out of my way. ’Tis a small gun-boat most likely.”

III

The patriots were unable to adjust themselves to the sudden shift of events. One moment they were about to land, rejoicing and valorous, to be welcomed by the tattered legion of Maximo Gomez, and the next they were snatched away to surge hell-bent in the direction of the enemy and the detestable sea. Captain O’Shea might have delayed to dump them into the boats and turn them adrift to flounder about the bay, but in all probability the Spanish gun-boat would overtake and slay many before they could reach the shore. He did not love them, but it was his duty to safeguard them along with the cargo.

Less than ten minutes after the shadow had moved across the entrance of the bay, the _Fearless_ was swinging to point her nose seaward. As soon as the tug was fairly straightened out, O’Shea rang for full speed. It was no longer a silent ship. The patriots raised a lamentable outcry of grief and indignation, unable to comprehend this slip between the cup and the lip. They were unconvinced that the captain had really seen a gun-boat. They accused him of taking fright at phantoms.

Indeed, there was no such thing as slipping unperceived past the waiting enemy, for besides the loud protests of the Cubans, the engines of the _Fearless_ made a strident song that re-echoed from the wooded shores. No longer in ambush, the Spanish craft turned on a search-light whose streaming radiance picked the tug out of the gloom like a lantern-slide projected on a screen. The two vessels were perhaps four hundred yards apart. Straight into the path of the search-light rushed the _Fearless_, veering neither to right nor left. Her tactics were disconcerting, her insane temerity wholly unexpected. It was obvious that unless the gun-boat very hastily moved out of the way there would occur an impressive collision. And the tall steel-shod prow of an ocean-going tug is apt to shatter the thin plates of a light-draught, coastwise gun-boat.

Captain O’Shea himself held the wheel. The Spanish gunners hurriedly opened fire, but sensations of panic-smitten amazement spoiled their aim, and they might as well have been shooting at the moon.

“By Judas! ye are so gay with your search-light, I will just have a look at you,” muttered O’Shea as he switched on the powerful light which was mounted upon the wheel-house roof. The handsome gun-boat was sharply revealed, her sailors grouped at the quick-fire pieces on the superstructure, the officers clustered forward. Jack Gorham’s Springfield boomed like a small cannon, and a man with gold stripes on his sleeves toppled from his station and sprawled on the deck below.

The Cubans cheered and let fly a scattering, futile rifle fire, but the crew of the _Fearless_, convinced that they must fight for their skins, crouched behind the heavy bulwarks and handled their Mausers with methodical earnestness. The Spanish officers and seamen took to cover. They were not used to being shot at, and this filibustering tug was behaving like a full-fledged pirate. The commander of the gun-boat made up his mind to dodge collision and sink the _Fearless_ with his guns before she should flee beyond range outside the bay. His mental machinery was not working swiftly, because this was what might be called his crowded hour. He tried to swing his vessel head on and to sheer to one side of the channel.

Captain O’Shea climbed the spokes of his steering-wheel and swung the _Fearless_ to meet the manœuvre. He was bent on crippling the gun-boat. With leaky boiler tubes, the tug was in no condition for another stern chase and the Spanish gunners would certainly hull her through and through and explode the cargo before he could run clear of the hostile search-light.

A few seconds later, the foaming bow of the _Fearless_ struck the gun-boat a quartering, glancing blow that raked along her side. The Spanish commander had almost twisted his vessel out of the other’s path and O’Shea dared not swing to catch her broadside on, for fear of running aground. The impact was terrific. The Spanish craft had a low freeboard and the guns of her main-deck battery protruded their long muzzles only a few feet above the water. The steel stem of the _Fearless_, moving with tremendous momentum, struck them one after the other, tore them from their mountings and stripped the starboard side clean. The tug’s headway was checked and a tangle of splintered stuff held the two vessels interlocked. The Spanish gunners on the upper deck could not sufficiently depress the secondary battery to fire down into the _Fearless_, and on board the tug all hands had been knocked flat by the collision, so that for the moment there was no hostile action on either side.

So close together were the two steamers while they hung together that cases of cargo, toppling over, spilled through the crushed bulwark of the _Fearless_, and slid upon the gun-boat’s lower deck where the side had been fairly ripped out of her above the water-line. Then the tug very slowly forged ahead, tearing herself free and grinding against the gun-boat’s cracked and twisted plates until the twain parted company.

“We are still afloat, glory be, and the engines are turnin’ over,” cried O’Shea.

He spun the wheel hard over to pass out to sea between the headlands, and steered where he thought deep water ought to be. The gun-boat had not opened fire, and he began to hope that he might win the freedom of the sea. Nor was the hostile vessel making any effort to follow him, and instead of blazing his trail with her search-light it had been turned skyward to flash signals for assistance against the clouds.

“I jolted the ambition out of her,” joyfully exclaimed O’Shea. “I would not like to look at my poor old hooker, but she must be an awful hash on deck----”

The _Fearless_ suddenly yawed to starboard and took the bit in her teeth. The skipper tried to fetch her back on her course, but she failed to respond to the wheel. He instantly knew that a rudder chain had parted. He yelled down the tube to Johnny Kent to reverse his engines. The masterless tug was heading out of the channel and the incoming tide caught her bow and swung her away from the seaward passage, over toward the nearest headland and its submerged reef.

The _Fearless_ felt the powerful backward drag of her screw, but not in time. The disabled steering-gear wrought the mischief before the emergency tiller could be manned or an anchor dropped to hold her in the channel. Her keel scraped along the coral bottom and the hull trembled to the shock of stranding. The _Fearless_ was hard and fast aground and the tide lacked three hours of the flood.

Finding it useless to try to work her off, Captain O’Shea had the engines stopped. The plight was soon discovered by the gun-boat, which brought her search-light to bear on the tug. The Spanish commander laughed, no doubt, when he perceived that he could train his remaining guns and smash the _Fearless_ to pieces at his leisure. It was point-blank range at a conspicuous target, and the tables had been turned.

Captain O’Shea comprehended the fate that was about to overtake his helpless ship. His boats had been cut adrift and there was no means of conveying his people to the shore. They could only swim for it and try to find footing on the reef.

“’Tis no use showing a white flag and offering to surrender,” he said to himself while the sweat ran down his face. “We fired on them and we rammed their ship.”

There was a life-raft on the deck-house roof, and he was about to order it shoved overside in order to send Nora Forbes and Miss Hollister ashore in charge of Van Steen and the mate. It was a forlorn hope, because the gun-boat would most likely fire at anything seen afloat. Just then Jack Gorham climbed to the bridge and respectfully saluted the captain.

“We are up against it, Jack,” said O’Shea. “The Spaniard yonder is taking his time. He will anchor bow and stern and then shoot us to splinters. I will be grateful if ye will lend the mate and young Van Steen a hand with the ladies. If ye can fetch the beach, take to the woods and try to find the camp of General Gomez.”

“I have a proposition, sir,” returned the soldier, and for once his voice was unsteady with excitement. “When we were tangled alongside the gun-boat, some cases of cargo was jolted off our deck onto her deck where the woodwork and plates was all tore away. For God’s sake, put your search-light on her for a minute, quick, before she swings her smashed side away from us. She’s still turnin’.”

“And for what?” queried O’Shea, but he leaped for the lighting-switch, confident that the soldier knew what he was talking about.

“Two of them cases was nitro-glycerine, sir, and for a wonder they slid so easy that they didn’t go off. I know them when I see ’em. Just give me one sight of them.”

The search-light of the _Fearless_ swept across the gun-boat, which was slowly shifting her position to find the middle of the channel and a safe anchorage. There was cramped room to manœuvre, and she was swinging in a small arc which exposed for a little time the shattered side that had been rammed by the tug. A gaping hole above water disclosed the main-deck forward, and the search-light of the _Fearless_ played and flickered in and out, white and brilliant. It illuminated the wreckage and the heap of wooden cases which lay as they had slid across the fragments of bulwark that bridged the narrow gap between the interlocked vessels.

“Hold the light steady, sir,” said Jack Gorham as he dropped to one knee, shoved the barrel of the Springfield across the rail of the bridge, and laid his cheek against the stock. “It seems plumb ridiculous, but it’s worth tryin’.”

His wonderfully keen eyes had distinguished a square wooden case which sat exposed and somewhat removed from the others on the gun-boat’s littered deck. He had bragged of his marksmanship. Now was the supreme opportunity to make good. The gun-boat was moving. Her shattered side would be hidden from him before he could shoot more than twice or thrice.

As the sights of his beloved old rifle came true on the tiny target he pressed the trigger and the heavy bullet went singing on its way.

“Missed, by Godfrey!” grunted Gorham as he reloaded. “If I score a bull’s-eye, you’ll know it all right.”

Annoyed by this impertinence, the gun-boat let drive with a one-pounder which put a shell through the funnel of the _Fearless_ and showered the deck with soot. Gorham wiped his eyes and took aim for the second shot. Good luck and good marksmanship guided it. No need to wonder where this bullet struck. The case of nitro-glycerine exploded with a prodigious detonation that seemed to shake earth and sea and sky. The forward part of the gun-boat was enveloped in a great sheet of flame. The people of the _Fearless_ were stunned and deafened and the hull rocked violently against the reef. Burning fragments rained everywhere, and fell hissing into the bay. From the place where the gun-boat was rapidly sinking came cries for help.

“She is gone entirely. God help their poor souls,” brokenly murmured Captain O’Shea.

He turned to shout to the mate:

“Pull yourself together and paddle over yonder with the life-raft. Pick up all ye find of the poor men in the water and set them ashore. The Cuban army will take care of them as prisoners of war. And maybe you can find some of our boats. ’Tis an awful sight to see a fine vessel snuffed out like a candle.”

Jack Gorham sat on deck, his head in his hands, a disconsolate figure.

“I made a wonderful shot,” he muttered, “but I hope I’ll never have to make another one like it.”

“Bridge, ahoy!” roared Johnny Kent from the lower deck. “This is war. We beat ’em to it. Now let’s get this tug off the reef on the flood tide, if we rip the bottom out of her. This bay will be full of gun-boats and cruisers to-morrow.”

Going below for the first time since the _Fearless_ had entered the bay, the skipper found the decks in chaotic confusion. Broken bulwarks, smashed doors and windows, parted funnel-stays, twisted deck-houses, and other signs of the collision were strewn from bow to stern. Some twenty of the patriots had dived overboard. Of those left on board, several had been hurt, and the crew of the _Fearless_ were badly cut, bruised, and banged about.

O’Shea rallied all that were able to turn to, and set them to throwing cargo overboard. The guns and ammunition were packed in water-proof cases and could be fished up by the Cuban army at low tide. It was heavy material, and getting rid of two or three hundred tons of it must considerably lighten the stranded tug. At this back-breaking task doggedly labored Gerald Van Steen without waiting for an order. Captain O’Shea stared at him by the light of a lantern as though reminded of something important.

“The ladies!” cried he. “Are they safe and sound?”

“They are alive, thank you,” said Van Steen. “I stowed them in their room, and made them lie on the floor with the mattresses tucked against the wall to stop the bullets. I could think of nothing else to do.”

“And how did they take it?”

“Very well, indeed. Miss Hollister has been rather hysterical, but one can scarcely blame her.”

“Well, the worst may be over, and again it may not,” thoughtfully explained O’Shea. “Now, ’tis this way. I can set you people ashore, and ye can take a chance that the Cuban army will be able to send you inside the Spanish lines under a flag of truce. But there may be weeks of hard living and fever and exposure before ye get anywhere at all. And it may be the death of the ladies. Or you can stay with me, if we get this vessel off, and I will carry you back to the United States.”

“It isn’t a hilarious proposition either way,” replied Van Steen. “I rather think, though, that we had better stick to you.”

The mate returned aboard with the tidings that more than half the crew of the gun-boat had been rescued by the life-raft and in boats which had drifted to the beach.

“We ought to have those boats in case we need them,” said the skipper; “but if the ship can be worked off this tide, and is fit to go to sea, I will not wait for them or anything else.”

The tide was rising fast and the company worked like mad to heave the cargo overboard. At length Johnny Kent set his engines going hard astern and the _Fearless_ began to slide along her coral bed. Halting, bumping, grinding, she gradually moved into the deeper water of the channel and rolled in the swell that ran past the headlands. Collision and stranding had fearfully racked and strained her hull, and the captain was not surprised when Johnny Kent bellowed from below:

“We’re leakin’, of course. I guess every rivet in her must have pulled loose. You’d better pray for a spell of good weather.”

“Would ye rather be shot or drowned decent in a gale of wind, Johnny? ’Tis suicide to stay on this coast till daylight.”

The forlorn tug limped out to sea at her best speed, which was not much. The fire-room gang was more or less disabled and the engines needed a deal of tinkering. Drop an able-bodied man from a third-story window and he may not break his neck, but his gait is not apt to be brisk.

“By the holy poker!” ejaculated O’Shea to the mate as they watched the shadowy mountains drop astern. “We delivered the cargo, though it is in a few feet of water, but I have some patriots left. I could think of only one thing at a time. What will I do with them?”

“You can search me, sir. Dump ’em ashore at Key West, if we ever get that far.”

“I will not run into this coast again with a leaky old crab of a ship and no more than coal enough to carry me to a friendly port.”

Men must sleep, and when the _Fearless_ had left the coast twenty miles behind her Captain O’Shea set the regular watches and curled up on the wheel-house transom for a nap before daylight. Johnny Kent, after a sorrowful survey of his engines and boilers, crawled into his bunk and presently his snores rose and fell with the cadenced beat of the steam-pump that fought to keep the water from rising in the leaky hold. The sea was smooth, the clouds no longer obscured the stars, and the weary crew was suffered to rest before clearing away the wreckage and patching the broken upper works.

When O’Shea awoke the dawn was bright and a fresh breeze whipped across an empty sea. George, the cook, greeted him with melancholy demeanor.

“You-all suttinly did play th’ mischief with mah galley when you kerbumped that gun-boat, cap’n. Every las’ dish is busted.”

“Where were you, George?”

“Hidin’ behind th’ range, please, suh. An’ when that there Spaniard blew up it broke all th’ galley windows an’ filled me plumb full of glass. Ain’t we had mos’ excitement enough?”

“I hope so. Did your friend, big Jiminez, swim ashore last night?”

“No, suh. He’s in th’ galley helpin’ me straighten things out. Him an’ me ain’t a mite hostile. Mistah Gorham suttinly did knock a heap o’ sense into that niggah’s skull.”

The breeze blew with steadily increasing weight and began to kick up a choppy sea which racked the sluggish, laboring tug. Johnny Kent reported that the pump was not keeping the water down as easily as during the night. O’Shea chewed over this disquieting news and was undecided whether to attempt the long passage around Cape San Antonio into the Gulf of Mexico. The alternative was to run for Jamaica and take refuge in the nearest neutral port. The English government would probably seize his ship, but her company would be safe against arrest and condemnation as pirates by the Spanish authorities.

While he was considering this grave problem his eyes were gladdened by the sight of Nora Forbes, who came on deck and halted to gaze with amazement at the wrecked appearance of the vessel. Her splendid color paled and she smiled rather tremulously at Captain O’Shea, who reassured her:

“We are still afloat, but we look like a junk heap. And how did ye pull through? And is your aunt getting the upper hand of that nervous prostration?”

“Miss Hollister was terribly frightened, and--and--so was I. I would rather not hear about all that happened last night--not just yet.”

“And I would rather not think of it, just now, Miss Forbes. Perhaps I ought to have set ye ashore among the Cubans. I hope you will not be worse off at sea again.”

“I am glad to be at sea again, with you, Captain O’Shea,” said Nora, and she looked him in the eyes like a true viking’s daughter who scorned subterfuge and spoke as her heart moved her.

It was perhaps as well that Gerald Van Steen decided to join them just then.

“And are ye convinced that the Spanish are not a courteous people when ye meet them by night?” O’Shea cheerfully asked him.

“Do you know, I begin to like this filibustering,” answered the industrious young man, who looked as trampish as any of the crew. “One feels so well pleased after he has pulled out of one of these scrapes that it is almost worth while running into it.” He turned to Nora and addressed her with a shade of appeal in his voice: “Will you sit down with me for a while? I have no end of things to talk about.”

“Why, certainly, Gerald. Good-by, Captain O’Shea. The top o’ the morning to ye.”

The captain bowed and raised his straw hat. His ingenuous countenance wore a somewhat puzzled expression, as if he beheld a new complication in this tumultuous voyage of his.

It was well into the forenoon before Johnny Kent found a breathing-spell and climbed above to confer with the skipper. The indomitable engineer appeared aged and haggard. The pain of his burns distressed him and he was spent with worry and weariness. His hands trembled as he pulled himself up the bridge stairway.

“I ain’t as young as I was, Cap’n Mike,” he huskily exclaimed. “Blamed if I don’t feel kind of strained and shook up, same as the poor old _Fearless_. Looks like one of them fair-weather gales, don’t it? Bright sky and a big sea and wind to peel your whiskers off before night.”

“’Tis a good guess,” soberly replied O’Shea. “Can we weather it, Johnny?”

“I don’t want to make the ladies nervous and fretty,” confided the chief, “but we ain’t keepin’ the water down, Cap’n Mike. It will be in the fire-room before dark at this rate----”

“And then she will fall off into the trough of the sea and founder,” said O’Shea. “And we have no boats. Will your men stay on duty and keep her going?”

“They will, Cap’n Mike. The big nigger feels spry enough to turn to, and the gang is scared to death of him. They believe he’ll murder ’em if they quit on me.”

“Well, Johnny, make steam as long as ye can, and if the weather will not moderate I can try to fetch up somewhere before she goes to the bottom.”

“I ain’t particularly anxious, Cap’n Mike. I never saw you in a hole you couldn’t work your way out of. Of course, there’s the ladies. How are they, anyhow? The young one is on deck, lookin’ like a morning-glory. But what about Miss Hollister? She ain’t sick, is she?”

“Van Steen says the flurry last night gave her a sort of nervous prostration,” answered O’Shea. “She is up and dressed now and taking it easy in her room. Maybe ye would like to duck in and hand her a few kind words.”

“I sure would,” and Johnny Kent beamed. “Ladies like her are mighty refined and delicate and sensitive, and they’re liable to be took with this nervous prostration. I don’t blame her a bit, Cap’n Mike. Why, when we piled up on that reef and the gun-boat was fixin’ to shoot us all to hell-and-gone, I felt nervous myself. Honest I did.”

“Go to it, Johnny, but don’t mention the fact that we are due to founder as the next act of this continuous performance.”

It was really extraordinary to see how much animation came into the face of Miss Hollister when Johnny Kent poked his gray head inside the open door and grinned a bashful greeting. Never did a hero wear a more unromantic aspect, but the spinster had selected him as her own particular hero, nevertheless. He was rugged, elemental, as she had come to regard him, and, in fact, there was something uncommonly attractive to the discerning eye in the modest courage, inflexible devotion to duty, and simple kindliness of this grizzled old sea rover.

“I’m ashamed that we had to give you such a scare last night, ma’am,” he began. “It’s a hoodooed voyage, any way you look at it. Why, Cap’n Mike and me ran a cargo into Hayti last summer and you would have enjoyed it. Stuff on the beach in three hours and a funny old stone fort bangin’ away at us just enough to keep all hands amused.”

“But after this experience, you will not dream of going filibustering again, will you?” Miss Hollister asked him.

Johnny Kent tugged at his gray mustache and looked rather blank as he ejaculated:

“Why not? I ain’t fit for anything else. Of course, I get big wages for runnin’ these risks, and if I can ever save some money, I’m hopin’ to buy a farm down in Maine and raise chickens and such truck. That’s what I call really excitin’ and romantic.”

Miss Hollister responded eagerly:

“And a vegetable garden and cows, and----”

“Yes, ma’am. And flowers in the front yard--hollyhocks, and asters, and peonies, and a lilac bush by the front door-step. I set and think about it a lot.”

It did not appeal to the chief engineer as at all incongruous that the conversation should have taken this turn while the ship was slowly sinking beneath them.

“I have been very successful with flowers,” brightly returned Miss Hollister. “I shall be delighted to send you some seeds and cuttings whenever you return to New England to live on that wonderful farm of yours.”

“Thank you. Now when it comes to chickens, for all-round service there ain’t a bird to beat the Plymouth Rock. I subscribe to the _Poultry Journal_, and always bring it to sea to read----”

The mate dodged out of the wheel-house to shout:

“You’re wanted below, chief. The assistant sends up word that the loose coal is sucking into the pump and she’s chokin’ up.”

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” gently spoke Johnny Kent as he ceremoniously shook Miss Hollister’s hand. “Engines and pumps are provokin’ critturs and they’re always getting out of kilter.”

He paused outside to ask Captain O’Shea:

“What’s the answer? Do we win or lose? There’s bad news from below. The bunker coal is awash. The pump is liable to quit on me ’most any time.”

“I have overhauled the charts, Johnny, and there is a bit of a coral key marked down thirty miles from our present position, bearing sou’-sou’west. I have changed me course to head for it.”

“Thirty miles! Five hours or more at the speed we’re makin’. It will be a close finish, Cap’n Mike.”

“Life seems to be a game of close finishes for you and me, Johnny.”