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when the last thread parted under the ax-blade, the current still held the Flamisch hard against the wharf.

A stewardess ran out from the cabins, screaming that the after house-work was afire.

The whole catastrophe had developed so quickly that the thought uppermost in Lieutenant Moore's mind was still that first one of Captain Keighley's disgrace; and when he lost his head and began to shout at the men, like an officer in the panic of a retreat, it was abuse of Captain Keighley that he shouted.

"What the —— did he want to go down in the hold for, with a fire like this up here? He 's a of a fine captain, he is! He 's a —— of a captain!"

One of the pipemen, without turning his head, growled under his helmet: "Why did n't you haul her out of here long ago?"

"Why don't she come out now?" Moore cried. "That 's why I did n't. 'Cause she won't! That's why! 'Cause she can't!"

The tugs, whistling and panting around her, got their lines on the after bitts and pulled and shouldered and struggled noisily. But by the time they got her under way, the crew of the Flamisch, alarmed by the screams of the stewardess, were diving overboard with their clothes smoking, and Lieutenant Moore's men were retiring from a blaze that seemed to spit back their streams on them in spurts of steam. Moore ordered one of them to go below decks and warn Captain Keighley and the squad in the hold. The man glanced at his fellows, and they shook their heads. They were all partizans of the captain; they had been chafing under Moore's attacks on him, and they were contemptuous of the lieutenant for the way he had handled the pier-house blaze. Moreover, there were only four of them to two lines of hose; the one unnecessary man there, as they saw the situation, was Moore. Let him go himself.

The lieutenant repeated his orders. The man sulkily remained where he was. And what with "Brownies" and "anti-Brownies," the influence of the fire commissioner and the influence of the chief, the party of Captain Keighley and the followers of Lieutenant Moore, discipline on the Manhattan had come to such a pass that Moore had no redress against a subordinate who refused to obey his orders.

"All right," he threatened; "I 'll see to you, too!" and turned to run for the hatch.

The men shrugged their shoulders and laughed. The Manhattan, trying to bring its monitor to bear on the burning woodwork of the Flamisch, shot a terrific stream, roaring and threshing, over their heads. One of them said: "That darn fool 'll be sweepin' us off here in a minute. We 'd better get inside out o' this an' help in there."

They retreated aft for shelter, dragging their hose, and left the forward deck to the flames that were blown over the Flamisch in a steady breeze.

II

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Moore had found Captain Keighley and the "Brownies," with their two lines, working busily in the choke of cotton smoke, playing one pipe on the heart of the fire and with the other sprinkling the steaming bales about it. And Captain Keighley, with his helmet awry on his head and a smile of contempt slanting his mouth, feeling the Manhattan's eight pumps behind him, was playing with that fire as a matador plays with a bull. The screeches of the stewardess and the flight of the ship's crew had not alarmed him. He was used to the sight of blind fright; he saw the flames before him confined and beaten back; and he knew that for any fire that might develop behind him, the Manhattan was a park of cannon drawn up in reserve. He did not consider that the Manhattan, drawn up under the high side of the Flamisch, was a park of cannon in a hole in the ground.

Lieutenant Moore, explaining in the manner of a man with a grievance, took a valuable minute to make the situation plain. He made it plainer than he knew. Keighley narrowed his old eyes and nodded. "Back out, boys!" he called. "Leave yer lines. We 'll pick 'em up from the deck."

The men dropped the squirming hose and climbed up the ladders; and as soon as they passed the orlop deck it was evident that they were in a trap. Flames were blowing across the hatch above them, as if the very air had suddenly become inflammable and taken, fire from the fierce heat of the July sun. Captain Keighley led up the ladder until he was almost at the top, and then dropped down, singed and satisfied. There was no escape by that way.