“There’s northen burnin’ here, sir.” 

 “Neither is there, it’s all on deck. Something in the galley, maybe—rags, most likely, they’ve thrown on the fire.” 

 “Captain!” said Lestrange. 

 “Ay, ay.” 

 “Come here, please.” 

 Le Farge climbed on to the poop. 

 “I don’t know whether it’s my weakness that’s affecting my eyes, but there seems to me something strange about the main-mast.” 

 The main-mast near where it entered the deck, and for some distance up, seemed in motion—a corkscrew movement most strange to watch from the shelter of the awning. 

 This apparent movement was caused by a spiral haze of smoke so vague that one could only tell of its existence from the mirage-like tremor of the mast round which it curled. 

 “My God!” cried Le Farge, as he sprang from the poop and rushed forward. 

 Lestrange followed him slowly, stopping every moment to clutch the bulwark rail and pant for breath. He heard the shrill bird-like notes of the bosun’s pipe. He saw the hands emerging from the forecastle, like bees out of a hive; he watched them surrounding the main-hatch. He watched the tarpaulin and locking-bars removed. He saw the hatch opened, and a burst of smoke—black, villainous smoke—ascend to the sky, solid as a plume in the windless air. 

 Lestrange was a man of a highly nervous temperament, and it is just this sort of man who keeps his head in an emergency, whilst your level-headed, phlegmatic individual loses his balance. His first thought was of the children, his second of the boats. 

 In the battering off Cape Horn the Northumberland lost several of her boats. There were left the long-boat, a quarter-boat, and the dinghy. He heard Le Farge’s voice ordering the hatch to be closed and the pumps manned, so as to flood the hold; and, knowing that he could do nothing on deck, he made as swiftly as he could for the saloon companion-way. 

 Mrs Stannard was just coming out of the children’s cabin. 

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