working desperately at the
valve-wheel of the circulating pump. Neville grasped the wheel, and gave
the best he had to open the valve. This manifold, connecting the pump
with the bilges, was intended only for emergency use. It had not been
opened for months, and was now rusted tight. The three men, straining
every muscle, failed to budge the wheel. After the third hopeless
attempt, Larry let go, and without a word bolted through the passage to
the fire-room.

"You miserable quitter!" Neville screamed after him, and bent again to
the wheel.

As he looked up, despairing of any chance to loosen the rusted valve,
Larry came back on the run, carrying a coal-pick handle. He thrust it
between the spokes of the wheel.

"Now, Mr. Neville, all together!" His Celtic jaw was set hard.

All three threw their weight against the handle. The wheel stirred.

As they straightened for another effort, a louder noise of hissing steam
sounded from the boilers, and the fire-room force, mad with fright, came
crowding through the passage to the higher floor of the engine-room.

"Quick! Together!" Neville gasped.

The wheel moved an inch.

"Once more! _Now!_"

The wheel turned and did not stop. The three men dropped the lever,
seized the wheel, and threw the valve wide open.

"Good work, men!" Neville cried, and fell back exhausted.

The centrifugal pump was thrown in at the last desperate moment. When
the rusted valve finally opened, water had risen to the lower grate-bars
under every boiler in the fire-room. But once in action, the twelve-inch
suction of the giant pump did its work with magic swiftness. In less
than thirty seconds the last gallon of water in the bilges had been
lifted and sent, rushing through the discharge, overboard.

Neville faced the boiler-room crew sternly.

"Now, you cowards, get to your fires!" he said.

As the men slunk back through the passage Dan growled:

"May that man some day burn in hell!"

"Don't be wishin' him no such luck," an angry voice answered; "wish him
down here wid us."

* * *

The morning dragged past; noon came, marking the sixteenth hour that the
men, imprisoned below the sea-swept decks, had struggled to save the
ship. Sundown followed, and the second night of their unbroken toil
began. They stuck to it, stood up somehow under the racking grind, their
nerves quivering, their bodies craving food, their eyes gritty from the
urge of sleep, while always the hideous noises of the