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the smoke. We 'll be better down below here till they get some water on her."
They were in a corridor of steel plates, seven feet high, five feet wide, and more than thirty feet long. From end to end of it, the big shaft that spins the starboard propeller lay, shining like a steel python, stretched and bound in its bearings. At one end was the wall through which the shaft passed out to the after-peak and the screw; at the other was the entrance from the engine-room, already blue with smoke; above them was the throat of the closed ventilator. They were in a metal vault, far below the surface of the river, with every avenue of escape cut off by the fire above them.
Captain Keighley leaned back against the shaft and took off his helmet.
The men stood waiting. They had depended on him to show them the way out of the danger into which he had led them. One of the "Brownies" demanded: "How are we goin' to get up?"
"Well," Keighley said contemptuously, "I 'm not keepin' yuh, am I? Get up any way yuh like."
III
The words were Captain Keighley's challenge—a challenge to one of those combats of mind against mind by which the trained leader, turning on his rebellious followers, seems to use the hand of chance and circumstance to whip them into line—a challenge that struck the men before him with a little instinctive start that passed over the group like a shudder.
They stared at him. Some of them were pale, with lips parted. One of the captain's own faction had an odd expression of hurt surprise and reproach. Another was frowning. The man who had spoken said angrily: "You brought us down here. Why the don't yuh take us up?"
The captain smiled. He was clean-shaven, lean-cheeked, thin-lipped, and his smile was not sweet; for he knew that he had been beaten by the fire, and he knew that he could have been so beaten only because of the treachery of his lieutenant and the "Brownies."
"Moore," he said, "take yer friends back to the Manhattan. It 's goin' to be cooler out there."
The lieutenant blinked at him. It was the first time Keighley had ever openly shown his quiet understanding of the intrigues among the crew, and the change in his manner was a sufficient menace without the sarcastic implication of his words. What that implication was, Moore was trying not to let himself consider. Fires had been to him what battles are to the general who has political ambitions. That the issue of any of them might endanger his career had been possible; that it might end his life had never seriously occurred to him. And the Adam's apple in his throat worked like a feed-pump gone dry as he swallowed and swallowed this fear.
The men looked at him, and it was evident that he was in no condition to think for them. They looked at the captain, and Keighley's hard eyes were glittering as they shifted down the line from face to face.
"I saw yer frien' Doherty on deck," he said. "I guess yer benev'lent association had something to do with this business, eh?"
They did not answer.
"Well," he said, "I hope it 's good fer it. It 's goin' to be a heavy call on the treasurer—five of yuh in a bunch."
That was more than they could bear. The man who had acted as their spokesman turned with an oath and ran out to the engine-room. The others broke and followed him, and Captain Keighley remained alone with his lieutenant.
Now the old captain had been a fireman since the days when the Sunday fights between the volunteer hose companies in Philadelphia had been "the only mode of public worship on the Sabbath" there. When those fights had culminated in riot, bloodshed, and the burning of churches, he had come to New York, and run with the "goose-necks" and defied the "leather-heads" until the paid brigade was formed and he took service with it. He had been living among men and politicians ever since; and to the natural cunning of the north of Ireland "sharp-nose" he had added a cynical experience that filled him to the full with the sort of wisdom which comes of such a life. Lieutenant Moore had been so simple to him that the "boy's" attempts to supplant him, with the aid of the chief and the "Brownies," had amused him like a game. He looked at Moore now with an almost kindly contempt and pity.
"You youngsters in the department," he said, "yuh 're great politicians. But what