Dan paused just an instant.

“Fighting hard,” he replied, and then he added quickly, “Mr. Howland, we need men.  Two of the crew are gone.  Ask some of the men of your party, please, to go forward and report to Mr. Jackson.  And you, Miss Howland, go into the saloon right away—­and stay there.  Tell the others that if they appear on deck before I give the word I shall have them locked in.”

The girl obeyed silently, but Mr. Howland paused irresolutely a second, in which time Dan had turned and was hastening after his men.

“I will do as you say,” Mr. Howland called after the retreating form of the Captain, “but I want to talk to you first.”

“All right, sir, come on then.  You’ll have to talk to me down in the hold, I’m afraid.”

The second mate and his men had in the meantime pried the battens from the hatch and thrown it open.  The hold was about half full of cotton bales, railroad ties, oakum, resin, and the like, and they descended to them by means of a scaling ladder, clambering thence toward the forward bulkhead.  One of the men had a lantern which cast a pallid glow about the immediate vicinity, bringing into vague relief the well-ordered masses of cargo, and ending suddenly against a hard wall of dark as palpable as a barrier of stone.  The air was heavy with musty sweetness and with yellow smoke which streaked lazily past the lantern globe—­and with silence, save for the dull roar in the adjoining hold.

“Make a stand right here,” and Dan’s voice sounded hollow through the gloom.  “Stand right here.  You’ve got water in your hose; I want that bulkhead kept soaked.  Let her go.”

As the streams of water plunged against the steel wall Dan turned to his employer.

“You wanted to speak to me, Mr. Howland?”

“Yes, I want to compliment you on your discipline and—­and what is the exact situation?”

“Not so good; but a working chance.  It will be a short and sharp go; for the hold’s lined with tar and sugar reek—­otherwise the cotton might go for days.  It won’t in that hold, though.  The fight’ll be right here.  If it breaks through into this we’ve got to run; if not, it will burn out where it is.”

“What are the chances that it won’t?”

“Why, you know more about the structural strength of this boat than I do.  To be honest, I never liked your bulkheads, else I would have opened a stop-cock and flooded the hold long ago.  Still, what water would burst through, fire might not.”

Horace Howland, who had paid his own price for the Tampico, and who by the same token had his own opinion of her, said nothing.

“I have arranged about the boats,” resumed Dan.  “If the worst comes, my men know what to do and they are the men to do it.  It’s not too rough to launch safely.  Now, Mr. Howland, I’ve wasted too much time talking.  Don’t forget to send two men to Mr. Jackson,” and he sprang up the ladder and hurried forward.