ome of my old mates!" His
was a low, chuckling laugh. "I'll be having a word to say, they better
believe, of ship's engines! Talking of their ten and twenty thousand
tonners--ferry-boats, river ferry-boats, that's what I'll tell 'em they
have alongside o' this one. And everything working beautifully"--he
hesitated a moment--"leastwise in my division. An' why shouldn't it, Mr.
Lavis, after four days and three nights now of never closing an eye for
more than two hours together? But two nights and another day now, an'
'twill be all behind us. And something to put behind a man, that--a
record-breakin' maiden passage of the greatest ship ever built. And--but
I'm gassin' again. We'll be moving on."

Lavis followed Linnell to where a man in grimy blue dungarees was
standing silent watch. Before him was a row of levers and beside him a
dial on which were words in very black letters: FULL SPEED, HALF SPEED,
and so on. To one side was a disk around which two colored arrows, one
red and one green, were racing. A gong was at the man's ear. At his feet
was a pit into which a great mass of highly polished steel was driving
in and out, in and out, up and down ceaselessly.

Linnell studied the colored arrows as they sped around the disk. "Port
engine a bit the best of it?" He had to speak into the man's ear to make
himself heard.

The man in dungarees nodded. "A wee bit, sir."

"How's all else?"

"Couldn't be better, sir." He had to yell to make himself heard. "Are we
holding our own, sir?"

"A full revolution better than any watch since we left port."

The man nodded as if he had been expecting it, but presently chuckled
and swung one foot playfully toward the glittering gray cross-head as it
went driving down into the pit. "A full revolution!" he
echoed--"t-t-t"--and spat with obvious significance into the pit.

"T-t-t--" mimicked Linnell, and slapped him lightly on the shoulder
before he turned to Lavis.

"Will you go farther or wait here?"

"I'll wait here, if you don't mind, and stand part of the watch with
Andie."

"Very good! I'll pick you up later."

Lavis, standing beside Andie and gazing into the pit, pointed to the
great cross-head driving by. "If that were to fly out and go through the
bottom of the ship, Andie, would it sink her?"

Andie projected his lower lip. "It _might_ sink her, sir, though it
don't seem possible-like. But if it _did_ sink her, 'twould be _about_
the only way _to_ sink her, sir."

L