Suddenly a cry came from one of the men, and all eyes turned to a point in the bulkhead where a hectic flush glowed like a death’s head.  Four streams struck it simultaneously.  It went out, but reappeared in another place.  The water quenched this also, but it came back again and widened, and the plunging water was dried to mist at the instant of contact.  The glow grew brighter, then dim, and then brighter, rising and falling as life pulses in a fevered body.  A flood of smoke choked in from a viewless breach.  Two of the men cried out, gurgled, fell on their faces, and turned over on their backs, struggling; then they lay still.  Dan carried them to the deck, and returned with a sailor.  The two had just gained the sugar sacks when the centre bulkhead quivered.  A cross section collapsed into a V. A score of rivet holes yawned wide and red-hot bolts fell on the sacks and set them on fire.  A line of plating, separating from its fellows, sagged open in a red grin and gave view of the raging hell within.

“Now, into it, boys!” yelled Dan, and the men, bowing their heads, advanced five feet, directing the streams into the fiery pit.  For a minute the flames were driven back by the concentrated rush of water; two minutes, and then a gush of fire flared through the break.  It broke as a stream hit it, but its ghost, in the guise of hot gases, choked the men.

A great roar of flame almost enveloped them, and the heat crisped their hair and seared their bodies, and they dropped their hose and raced for the ladder.

“Go on, men!” shouted Dan as they struggled out of the hold.  “You’ve done all I can ask.  Hurry!  Get out!” and they got out and then turned to batten the hatch cover down.  But the rush of fire was too swift to be denied.  A thick-bodied pillar choked through the opening and spouted to the top of the funnel—­great gouts of the devouring element pulsed softly, but with lightning swiftness, down the deck, and shrivelled a life raft.  Long tongues and jets of fire were bursting everywhere out of the forward deck.

It had come at last, just as Dan had seen it coming all through the night—­all through the years.  His voice roared from the bridge: 

“To the boats—­every man to his station!”

The command was taken up and carried along, and noiseless shapes limned briefly in the fire glow, scuttled quickly to their appointed places.  Mr. Howland and his party stumbled out of the saloon with blanched faces and parted lips, but quietly.

“Women to the rail!” The cry echoed out over the sea,—­over the sea, which has heard these chivalrous words so often.

“Women first—­women to the rail!” Dan’s cry was taken up by the officers.  Silent figures in trailing garments moved as they were bid.

From the port quarter a gruff voice sounded.

“Ready, men—­ease away.”  Came the creak of tackle, the thud of iron upon steel—­then a silence—­then a rattle of oars in thole-pins—­then a clear hail from the darkness:  “All’s well, Captain Merrithew!”