Hughie and Allerton surveyed each other. "Which boat are you going in?" inquired Allerton. "None," said Hughie. "Going to stay on board?" Hughie nodded. "But she'll sink under our feet." as "I don't believe she's badly damaged as all that. There's some game on here." "I don't suppose she's damaged at all," said Allerton, "but you can be sure they won't be such blamed fools as to leave the ship floating about to be picked up. Old Angus will let water into her before he leaves, if he hasn't started the process already." "Well, I'm not going in any of those boats," said Hughie. "If the Orinoco sinks, I'll float to Europe on a hen-coop.' "May I have half of it?" said Allerton. "You may," said Hughie. And 80 so the S.S. Orinoco Salvage Company, Limited, was floated, and the Board of Directors entered upon their new duties at once. "Is that a fact?" he said. "Weel, I'll bide too." And so a third member was co-opted on to the Board of Directors. "We'd better get out of sight," said Hughie. "They won't like leaving us behind. I think I know a good place to wait. Come along.' The trio slipped round behind the chart-house and passed along a deserted stretch of the deck. Finally they disappeared down the engine-room hatchway. The engine-room was illuminated by a couple of swinging lanterns. A black and greasy flood of water glistened on the iron floor below, filling the crank-pits and covering the propeller - shaft. The doors leading to the stokehold were standing open, and they could see that the floors there too were flooded, though the water had not reached the level of the fire-bars. Owing to the immobility of the ship its oily surface was almost unMr ruffled, and the engine-room By this time the boats had been swung outboard and their provisioning completed. They were now lowered from the davits, and the men began to take their places. There was no panic, for the night was calm and the Orinoco showed no signs of settling deeper. Messrs Gates and Dingle were already at their respective tillers. Captain Kingdom and Mr Angus were standing by the davits to which the whaleboat was still shackled. itself was curiously quiet after the turmoil on deck. The fires were burning low, but occasionally a glowing clinker slipped from between the bars into the blood-red flood beneath, with a sizzling splash. The steam was hissing discontentedly in the gauges. The Salvage Board stood knee-deep in the water of the engine-room. Hughie picked up a smoky inspection-lamp-a teapot-like affair with a wick in the spout -lit it, and peered about. bed-plates of the engines, ensconced himself behind a convenient cross head, with his feet in a flooded crank - pit and his body squeezed back as far as possible into the shadow of the condenser. He had not long to wait. Presently cautious feet were heard descending the iron ladder, and Mr Angus, comparatively sober, stepped heavily into the flood on the floor. wade to and peered "Now look here," he said. "I don't quite know where this water came from, and it doesn't much matter, as no more is coming in at present. If the old man means to sink the ship he will have to come down here to do it. He has probably got some dodge arranged by which he can just turn a wheel and open a valve and send her to the bottom. Isn't that the idea, Goble? (I'll explain to you afterwards, Allerton.) My impression is is that he'll pop down and turn the valve on just before he leaves. In that case one of us must stand by and turn it off again. You two go through into the stokehole. He's not likely to come in there. If he does, you must use your own discretion. wait here, on the far side of the cylinders, up against the condenser. He's not likely to see me, but I shall be able to watch him and see which valve-wheel he turns on." His first proceeding was to wade to the stokehole end of the engine-room,-Hughie thought at first that he was going right through into the arms of Allerton and Goble, and wondered what they would do with him,-where he began to manipulate the great valvewheel which kept the steam imprisoned in the boilers; and presently Hughie could hear the roar of the escape far above his head. This was a purely precautionary measure, and could do no harm to any one. Then Mr Angus splashed his way to the corner by the donkey-pump, where the machinery for controlling the bilge and water-ballast valves was situated, and began to twist over another wheel. Presently there was a gurgling bubbling sound in the I'll bowels of the ship, followed by a slight hissing and whispering on the surface of the water on the engine-room floor. The valve was open. The other two obeyed, and Hughie, scrambling across the Mr Angus turned and lurched heavily through the rising flood to the iron ladder. Thirty seconds later a glistening figure crawled out of the crank-pit tion. The gurgling and hissand vigorously turned the ing ceased. The valve was wheel in the opposite direc- closed. CHAPTER NINE.-LITERA SCRIPTA MANET. "Mr Marrable, did ye ever would have observed, which see a drookit craw?" "No." "Well, see me!" announced Mr Goble complacently. He crawled out of the engine room companion - way and sat down upon the deck. Excessive spruceness had never been a foible of his, but now he was an unrecognisable mass of coal- dust, oil, and tallow. He was dripping wet, for he had spent the last hour in an exhaustive examination of the Orinoco's waterlogged internal economy. The morning sun was warm, and he steamed comfortably as he detailed the result of his investigations to Hughie, who in some imperceptible but inevitable manner had taken command of the tiny ship's company. Shorn of technicalities and irrelevant excursions into the regions of pawky philosophy, Mr Goble's report came to gave a little much-needed artistio verisimilitude to the Bimbo Brothers' bald and unconvincing narrative of disaster. Incidentally he had flooded the forehold and engine-room with sufficient water to give those members of the ship's company who were not in their employer's confidence the impression that she was sinking, and to furnish those who were with a prima facie argument for deserting her. But these thoughtful precautions, though sufficient to procure the abandonment of the Orinoco, were by no means sufficient to send her to the bottom, a consummation to be achieved at any cost; for to leave your ship lying about in mid-ocean, to be picked up by the first chance-comer, while you go hurrying home to extract a cheque from the Insurance Company, savours of slipshod business methods; and Mr Noddy Kinahan was nothing if not thorough. Now every steamer which plies under Lloyds' ægis is fitted, below the water - line, with a set of what are called bilge-valves. Through these it is possible to expel any water which may have found its way into the body of the vessel. As it is even more desirable to prevent the entrance of water into your ship than to assist its exit, these valves are of a strictly "non-return" variety, and no amount of pressure from the outside should ever prevail upon them to play the part of Mr Facing-Both-Ways. The very life of the ship depends upon them; and the enterprising individual who tampers with their mechanism in such a manner as to convert what is meant to be an Emergency Exit into a sort of Early Door for the rolling deep, does so at the risk of coming into immediate and painful collision with the criminal laws of his country. Mr Angus, it appeared, had been employing some of his spare time during the voyage in reversing one of these bilgevalves, with such skill and finesse that, as we have seen, one had only to give a turn to a worm-and-wheel gear in the engine - room to admit the Atlantic Ocean in large quantities. "Oh, he has a heid on him, has Angus!" commented Mr Goble with professional appreciation" even when he's fou'. He made a rare job o't. But how he managed tae contrive that imitation o' a collision, merely through some jookery-packery wi' the reversegear and throttle, wi'oot tearin' the guts oot o' her, I div not ken. Man, it was a fair conjurin' trick! By rights the link motion should be twisted intil a watch-chain and the cross-heids jammit in the It's guides. But they're no. jist Providence, I doot," he added rather apologetically, with the air of one who should have thought of this sooner. Then he uprose from his seat on an inverted bucket. "Before I gang ben, sir," he concluded, "tae change ma feet and ma breeks, I'll tak' the liberty tae inquire of you what you propose tae dae next. Maircy me! Yon's Walsh." Two figures had appeared round the corner of the charthouse, their presence on the far side thereof having been advertised for some time by the clanking of the deck-pumps. (Mr Angus's precaution of blowing off steam before leaving had put mechanical assistance in getting rid of the water out of the question for the time being.) "Yes, it's me," said Walsh, who, it will be remembered, was the Second Engineer, to whom Hughie had recently been acting as deputy. "I should have come on duty at eight bells to relieve Angus, but I slept right through everything till Mr Marrable found me in my bunk an hour or two ago. I expect they put something in my grog last night." "It's quite a hobby of theirs," said Allerton drily. "Mr Marrable, I have found something that may be useful to us." He handed his superior officer a damp but undamaged little packet of papers. "Where did you find them?" asked Hughie. "I thought I had gone through Kingdom's kit pretty thoroughly." 66 They were sticking in the falls of the davits belonging to the boat Kingdom went off in," replied Allerton. "I saw him hurrying along the deck from his cabin just before his departure, carrying the log-book and some papers and instruments. I expect he dropped these as he went over the side." "Sit down, everybody," said the commander, "and we'll see this through. It may concern us all." The packet contained two letters, together with some invoices and bills of lading referring chiefly to the Orinoco's cargo of astringent claret. Hughie glanced through the letters. Then he re-read them with some deliberation. Then he whistled, low and expressively. Then he sat up and sighed, gently and contentedly. "Mr Noddy Kinahan," he said, "is shortly going to wish, with all his benevolent and philanthropic little heart, that he had never been born. And we are the people that are going to make him wish. Listen!" He read the two letters aloud. They were brief, but explicit. One contained Kinahan's orders to Kingdom as to the disposal of the Orinoco. The other was a sort of invoice, or consignment-note, relating to the person of one Marrable, who had apparently been shipped on board the night before the ship sailed. Each of these documents, it may be added, contained sufficient matter to ensure penal servitude for their author. Hughie stopped reading, and there was a long and appreciative silence. Then Allerton said "What beats me is to under stand how Kinahan could have been such a mug as to commit these schemes to paper, and how Kingdom should have been such a fool as to want to keep them. I'd have let them go down in the Orinoco." on "I expect one explanation covers both cases, said Hughie. "Kingdom probably demanded his orders in black and white, as a guarantee that he would get his money when he had done his job. Otherwise he had no claim Kinahan for a penny, beyond his ordinary wage as skipper. Kinahan probably agreed, stipulating that the letters should be handed back to him when they squared accounts. It was a risky thing to do, but when two thieves can't trust each other, and dropping about documentary evidence to that effect-well, that's where poor but deserving people like ourselves come in. No, I shouldn't think Kingdom would want to leave these behind; and I opine that he's a pretty sick man by this time if he has missed them." go He folded the letters up, and put them away carefully. "Now, gentlemen," he said briskly, "I propose that we go below and see if there is sufficient steam on the Orinoco to pump the rest of the water out of her and get the propeller revolving again. We'll have to damp down most of the fires, because we can't run to many firemen, but I think we ought to knock four or five knots out of her in ordinary weather. Luckily, seventy-five per cent of the ship's company |