h of easier game, leaving behind it a dead calm above but
mountainous seas beneath, that played ball with us the rest of the
night. Heaven help any wind-jammer it may have struck, for if caught
as completely unwarned as were we, with all sails set, she and all her
crew are likely to be still slowly settling through the dense darksome
depths of the twenty-five hundred fathoms the chart showed thereabouts,
and weeping wives and anxious underwriters will long be scanning the
news columns that report all sea goings and comings--except arrivals in
the port of sunken ships.

The second fall the elements have essayed to take out of us remains yet
undecided. The fact is, I am now writing over a young volcano we are
all hoping will not grow much older.

Two nights ago I was awakened half suffocated, to find my cabin full of
strong sulphurous fumes; but fancying them brought in through my open
portholes from the smoke-stack by a shift aft of the wind, I paid no
further attention to them. But when the next morning I as usual turned
out on deck to see the sun rise, a commotion aft of me attracted my
attention, Looking, I saw the first mate, chief engineer, and a party
of sailors, all so begrimed with sweat and coal dust one could scarcely
pick officers from seamen, rapidly ripping off the cover of one of the
midship hatches, while others were flying about connecting up the deck
fire hose. This didn't look a bit good to me, and when, an instant
later, off came the hatch and out poured thick volumes of smoke, I
failed to observe that it looked any better.

When the hatch was removed, the men thrust the hose through it, and
began deluging the burning bunker with water; for, luckily, it is only
a bunker fire,--in a lower and comparatively small bunker.

The fire had been discovered early the day previous, and for nearly
twenty-four hours officers and seamen had been fighting it from below,
without any mention to their two passengers of its existence, fighting
by tireless shovelling to reach his seat. And now they were on deck,
attacking it from above, only because the heat and fumes below had
become so overpowering they could no longer work there. But after an
hour's ventilation through the hatch and a continuous downpour of
water, the first mate again led his men below.

And so, the usual watches being divided into two-hour relays, the fight
has gone on wearily but persistently, until now, the evening of the
fourth day, the