The Flamingo’s chief mate oversaw the dangerous ferrying, and though every soul that was transshipped might be said to have had ten narrow escapes in transit over that piece of tossing water, luck and good seamanship carried the day, and none was lost.  And on the Grosser Carl the second mate, a stronger man, brazenly took entire command, and commended to the nether gods all who suggested ousting him from that position.  “I don’t care a red what your official post was on this ship before I came,” said the second mate to several indignant officers.  “You should have held on to it when you had it.  I’ve never been a skipper before, but I’m skipper here now by sheer right of conquest, and I’m going to stay on at that till the blooming old ship’s burnt out.  If you bother me, I’ll knock your silly nose into your watch-pocket.  Turn-to there and pass down another batch of those squalling passengers into the boats.  Don’t you spill any of them overboard either, or, by the Big Mischief, I’ll just step down and teach you handiness.”

The second mate was almost fainting with the heat before he left the Grosser Carl, but he insisted on being the last man on board, and then guyed the whole performance with caustic gayety when he was dragged out of the water, into which he had been forced to jump, and was set to drain on the floor gratings of a boat.

The Grosser Carl had fallen away before the wind, and was spouting flame from stem-head to poop-staff by the time the last of the rescuers and the rescued were put on the Flamingo’s deck, and on that travel-worn steamboat were some six hundred and fifty visitors that somehow or other had to be provided for.

The detail of famine now became of next importance.  They were still five days’ steam away from port, and their official provision supply was only calculated to last the Flamingos themselves for a little over that time.  Things are cut pretty fine in these days of steam voyages to scheduled time.  So there was no sentimental waiting to see the Grosser Carl finally burn out and sink.  The boats were cast adrift, as the crews were too exhausted to hoist them in, and the Flamingo’s nose was turned toward Liverpool.  Pratt, the chief engineer, figured out to half a ton what coal he had remaining, and set the pace so as to run in with empty bunkers.  They were cool now, all hands, from the excitement of the burning ship, and the objectionable prospect of semi-starvation made them regard their visitors less than ever in the light of men and brothers.

But, as it chanced, toward the evening of next day, a hurrying ocean greyhound overtook them in her race from New York toward the East, and the bunting talked out long sentences in the commercial code from the wire span between the Flamingo’s masts.  Fresh quartettes of flags flicked up on both steamers, were acknowledged, and were replaced by others; and when the liner drew up alongside, and stopped with reversed propellers, she had a loaded boat ready swung out in davits, which dropped in the water the moment she had lost her way.  The bunting had told the pith of the tale.