cigar
to go rolling across the deck and to drop into the hold below.

It was some time later that Paul Perkins came on deck to take his turn
at the night vigil.

As he came forward he was startled to see what appeared to be a ghostly
figure, slightly darker than the fog, slip from the forward hold and
glide across the deck toward the ensign, who was pacing up and down.
Much startled, Paul called out aloud, and at the same instant a peculiar
acrid odor came to his nostrils.

"Something's burning!" he cried.

Simultaneously he had come up to the side of the hatch and saw that
smoke was pouring from it. What he had taken for a ghostly figure was a
whirl of smoke.

"Fire! Something's on fire below!" cried the boy, dashing forward.

The ensign reached the edge of the hold as quickly. Together they peered
over into the great open space below. Both involuntarily recoiled with
a cry of horror and alarm at what they saw.

The _Good Hope's_ hold was a mass of flames! To gaze into them was like
looking into a red hot furnace.

Adrift in a blinding fog, on a burning ship, and without boats, was a
predicament the like of which their adventurous lives had never before
encountered!

The cigar so carelessly cast aside by the ensign had fallen upon a pile
of sacking, grease-soaked and inflammable, lying in the former whaler's
hold. Like all whale ships the timbers of the _Good Hope_ were literally
soaked with grease, the result of whale oil and blubber. Such timbers
burn like matchwood.

Small wonder that, brave man as he was, and schooled against emotional
display in the stern school of the Navy, the ensign should yet cry out:

"If help does not arrive, we are doomed to die like rats!"

CHAPTER VIII.

A BOY SCOUT SIGNAL.

It was five minutes later that the whole company of castaways was
gathered around the hatchway. A red glare from below shone on their
faces, illuminating expressions of dismay and apprehension.

"What can we do?" gasped out Rob. "There are no boats, no means of
escape!"

"We'll be burned to death," shuddered Paul Perkins.

All looked to the ensign for some suggestion. His tightly compressed
lips and drawn features suggested that he was thinking deeply, thinking
as men think whose very lives depend upon quick decision.

"We must put on the hatches," he said decisively; "there they lie
yonder. That will deprive the fire of oxygen and give us at least a few
hours before we have to vacate.