furious eye of Cheeseman
glaring at her along the blue barrel of his still levelled pistol."]

Then, with a queer little sob of expectancy, she darted forward to the
glazed cupola and raised the bucket shoulder high over the open slide.
As she stood there, her splendid young figure posed like a Greek
goddess, a hoarse oath was yelled from the bridge, followed instantly by
the simultaneous crack of a revolver and the ping of a bullet on the
bucket. The missile glanced off and seared the bloom on the girl's
cheek.

Looking up, she caught the furious eye of Cheeseman glaring at her along
the blue barrel of his still levelled pistol. She smiled up at him, and
before he could fire again she dumped the contents of the bucket into
the whirling tangle of machinery below.

CHAPTER XXX

AFTERMATH OF STORM

The cinders fell with a clatter among the pistons and the fly-wheels,
and Nettle Jimpson, too absorbed in watching results, forgot to notice
that the ruffian on the bridge had not fired a second shot at her. For
almost immediately there began a jarring and a scrunching in the engines
which told that the delicate mechanism was trying to assimilate in its
vitals the rough food she had fed it with, and found it indigestible.
Cold-blooded murder was quite in Mr. Cheeseman's line as a preventive,
equally so as a cure had that been possible. But those ominous sounds
were eloquent of mischief done, and he was not the man to run his neck
into a noose for the empty pleasure of revenge.

Three feeble revolutions followed, and then the engines stopped
altogether, and the _Cobra_, quickly exhausting the way on her, lay like
a log on the oily swell. Brant came running from his cabin, and at the
foot of the bridge stairs met Cheeseman, who had descended, and the
chief engineer, who had hurried up from below.

"How long will it take to pick the stuff out?" asked Brant, when he had
been informed of what had happened.

"It will be from two to three hours before we can get a move on the
ship," was the engineer's verdict. "A lot of the muck has got into the
governors and cylinders. If I hadn't shut off steam sharp there'd have
been such a mix up that the steamer would have had to dock for repairs."

This meant that the _Snipe_ would be up with them in twenty minutes.
Brant cocked a wicked eye at the oncoming destroyer, and then began to
walk to where Nettle was still standing by the engine-room hatch. So
diabolical was the men