OCTOBER 22.—Curtis has told the captain everything; for he persists in ostensibly recognizing him as his superior officer, and refuses to conceal1 from him our true situation. Captain Huntly received the communication in perfect silence, and merely passing his hand across his forehead as though to banish2 some distressing3 thought, re-entered his cabin without a word.
Curtis, Lieutenant4 Walter, Falsten, and myself have been discussing the chances of our safety, and I am surprised to find with how much composure we can all survey our anxious predicament.
"There is no doubt," said Curtis, "that we must abandon all hope of arresting the fire; the heat toward the bow has already become well-nigh unbearable5, and the time must come when the flames will find a vent6 through the deck. If the sea is calm enough for us to make use of the boats, well and good; we shall of course get quit of the ship as quietly as we can; if, on the other hand the weather should be adverse7, or the wind be boisterous8, we must stick to our place, and contend with the flames to the very last; perhaps, after all, we shall fare far better with the fire as a declared enemy than as a hidden one."
Falsten and I agreed with what he said, and I pointed9 out to him that he had quite overlooked the fact of there being thirty pounds of explosive matter in the hold.
"No," he gravely replied, "I have not forgotten it, but it is a circumstance of which I do not trust myself to think. I dare not run the risk of admitting air into the hold by going down to search for the powder, and yet I know not at what moment it may explode. No; it is a matter that I cannot take at all into my reckoning; it must remain in higher hands than mine."
We bowed our heads in a silence which was solemn. In the present state of the weather, immediate10 flight was, we knew, impossible.
After considerable pause, Mr. Falsten, as calmly as though he were delivering some philosophic11 dogma, quietly observed:
"The explosion, if I may use the formula of science, is not necessary, but contingent12."
"But tell me, Mr. Falsten," I asked, "is it possible for picrate of potash to ignite without concussion13?"
"Certainly it is," replied the engineer. "Under ordinary circumstances, picrate of potash although not MORE inflammable than common powder, yet possesses the SAME degree of inflammability."
We now prepared to go on deck. As we left the saloon, in which we had been sitting, Curtis seized my hand.
"Oh, Mr. Kazallon," he exclaimed, "if you only knew the bitterness of the agony I feel at seeing this fine vessel14 doomed15 to be devoured16 by flames, and at being so powerless to save her." Then quickly recovering himself, he continued: "But I am forgetting myself; you, if no other, must know what I am suffering. It is all over now," he said more cheerfully.
"Is our condition quite desperate?" I asked.
"It is just this," he answered deliberately18, "we are over a mine, and already the match has been applied19 to the train. How long that train may be, 'tis not for me to say."
And with these words he left me.
The other passengers, in common with the crew, are still in entire ignorance of the extremity20 of peril21 to which we are exposed, although they are all aware that there is fire in the hold. As soon as the fact was announced, Mr. Kear, after communicating to Curtis............