“But it is,” I said; and he signed it, and I knew that he was taking new hope.

He unscrewed one of the ports to leeward, and, although we let much water into the forecastle, he threw the bottle out at an opportune moment, and then slammed the port shut again.

“Mr. Trenholm,” he said, as he climbed down from the top bunk, dripping and smiling, “I guess you were right about what you wrote there last—­I calculate that there’s a bit of a fight left in Captain Riggs yet, although I don’t for the life of me see what chance I’ve got of fighting anybody.  But, if you’re ready to try, I’m ready to see what can be done.”

“I knew it, captain!” I cried, taking his hand, “If you’ll do the planning I’ll do the work, and we’ll beat them yet.”

CHAPTER XII

THE BATTLE ON THE BRIDGE

Now, it was all very well for Captain Riggs and me to sit down there in the forecastle of the Kut Sang and consider ways and means of saving ourselves and the steamer from the Devil’s Admiral; but, although we made many plans, we had to drop them all.  There was no way out of the place except through the scuttle, and we worked at that and schemed about it; but the wooden frame was bound inside with steel ribs, and on the outside with chains, and we had no tools equal to the task.  Nothing but a jack-screw could wrench the covering from the deck.

When the starboard ports turned gray with the light of morning we had given up.  There was nothing to do but wait for something to happen, and all we could foresee was our doom in the vessel.

The sea had calmed, and Captain Riggs unscrewed one of the ports and looked out just as the sun popped up over the hills of the Philippine coast.

“Land!” shouted Captain Riggs, as he opened the port, and I climbed up on the bunks and opened a port for myself.  “That’s the Zambales coast of Luzon, and they have been making a good easting all night; but we are running north now—­see that point ahead?  It’s really an island—­the Little Sister, I am sure—­and Dasol Bay lies to the north up the channel between the island and the mainland.  He’s running to get into that channel behind the island and scuttle her there—­he knows his business.”

In a few minutes the island stood clear of the coast, and I could make it out, low and green and fuzzy, with a rim of white sand running back to the fringe of the jungle and a ruffle of combers on the shingle.  We could hear the boom of the waves ashore, beating at the base of the barren brown hills of the coast.

“He’s well off the track of the steamers here,” said Riggs, “but he won’t delay much longer now, unless he can get in behind the island and then he can take his own time, because he can pick up a sail before he is sighted through the ends of the channel.  That island caps a little bay, and he’ll be snug as a bug in a rug to do his work.  Let’s have a look on deck and see what’s up.”