I had talked to
would be glad to have the vessel lie to, and make herself comfortable
until the storm was over.

We did not stay very long with the captain, for he wanted to take a nap,
and when we went out, we stood a little while by the railing, to see the
storm. The wind nearly took our heads off, and the waves dashed right up
over the bow of the ship, so that if any one had been out there, I
suppose they would have been soaked in a few minutes, if not knocked
down. But we saw two men at the wheel, in the pilot-house, steadily
holding her head to the wind, and we felt that it was all right. So we
ran below and reported, and then we all went to bed.

Although there was not much of the rolling that had been so unpleasant
before, the vessel pitched and tossed enough to make our berths,
especially mine, which was the upper one, rather shaky places to rest
in; and I did not sleep very soundly. Sometime in the night, I was
awakened by a sound of heavy and rapid footfalls on the deck above my
head. I lay and listened for a moment, and felt glad that the deck was
steady enough for them to walk on. There soon seemed to be a good deal
more running, and as they began to drag things about, I thought that it
would be a good idea to get up and find out what was going on. If it was
anything extraordinary, I wanted to see it. Of course, I woke up Rectus,
and we put on our clothes. There was now a good deal of noise on deck.

"Perhaps we have run into some vessel and sunk her," said Rectus,
opening the door, with his coat over his arm. He was in an awful hurry
to see.

"Hold up here!" I said. "Don't you go on deck in this storm without an
overcoat. If there has been a collision, you can't do any good, and you
needn't hurry so. Button up warm."

We both did that, and then we went up on deck. There was no one aft,
just then, but we could see in the moonlight, which was pretty strong,
although the sky was cloudy, that there was quite a crowd of men
forward. We made our way in that direction as fast as we could, in the
face of the wind, and when we reached the deck, just in front of the
pilot-house, we looked down to the big hatchway, where the freight and
baggage were lowered down into the hold, and there we saw what was the
matter.

The ship was on fire!

The hatchway was not open, but smoke was coming up thick and fast all
around it. A half-dozen men were around a donkey-engine that stood a
little forward of the hatch, and o