When Flanagan came again on deck, the first mate, his arm in a , walked the bridge. Flanagan was smiling a wide smile. The bridge of the Foundling was dipping afar and then afar. With each lunge of the little steamer the water and boomed alongside, and the spray dashed high and swiftly.
"Well," said Flanagan, himself, "we've had a great deal of a time, and we've come through it all right, and thank Heaven it is all over."
The sky in the north-east was of a dull brick-red in tone, shaded here and there by black masses that billowed out in some fashion from the flat heavens.
"Look there," said the mate.
"Hum!" said the captain. "Looks like a blow, don't it?"
Later the surface of the water and in the preliminary wind. The sea had become the colour of lead. The swashing sound of the waves on the sides of the Foundling was now provided with some manner of significance. The men's shouts were .
A squall struck the Foundling on her starboard quarter, and she leaned under the force of it as if she were never to return to the even keel. "I'll be glad when we get in," said the mate. "I'm going to quit then. I've got enough."
"Hell!" said the beaming Flanagan.
The steamer crawled on into the north-west. The white water, out from her, deadened the chug-chug-chug of the tired old engines.
Once, when the boat careened, she laid her shoulder flat on the sea and rested in that manner. The mate, looking down the bridge, which more than a coal-shute, whistled softly to himself. Slowly, heavily, the Foundling arose to meet another sea.
At night waves thundered on the bows of the steamer, and water lit with the beautiful phosphorescent went boiling and howling along deck.
By good fortune the chief engineer crawled safely, but , to the for coffee. "Well, how goes it, chief?" said the cook, with his fat arms folded in order to prove that he could balance himself under any conditions.
The engineer shook his head dejectedly. "This old biscuit-box will never see port again. Why, she'll fall to pieces."
Finally at night the captain said, "Launch the boats." The Cubans about him. "Is the ship going to sink?" The captain addressed them politely. "Gentlemen, we are in trouble, but all I ask of you is that you just do what I tell you, and no harm will come to anybody."
The mate directed the lowering of the first boat, and the men performed this task with all , like people at the side of a grave.
A young oiler came to the captain. "The chief sends word, sir, that the water is almost up to the fires."
"Keep at it as long as you can."
"Keep at it as long as we can, sir?"
Flanagan took the senior Cuban officer to the rail, and, as the steamer sheered high on a great sea, showed him a yellow dot on the horizon. It was smaller than a needle when its point is towards you.
"There," said the captain. The wind-driven spray was his face. "That's Jupiter Light on the Florida coast. Put your men in the boat we've just launched, and the mate will take you to that light."
Afterwards Flanagan turned to the chief engineer. "We can never beach," said the old man. "The stokers have got to quit in a minute." Tears were in his eyes.
The Foundling was a wounded thing. She lay on the water with engines, and each wave resembled her death-blow.
Now the way of a good ship on the sea is finer than sword-play. But this is when she is alive. If a time comes that the ship dies, then her way is the way of a floating old glove, and she has that much , spirit, buoyancy. At this time many men on the Foundling suddenly came to know that they w............