The Survivors of the Chancellor (5 page)

"But don't you know that any shock at any time might
cause an explosion?"

"Oh, it's all properly secured," said Ruby, "tight enough;
I have no fears on that score, Mr. Falsten."

"But why," asked Falsten, "did you not inform the captain?"

"Just because if I had informed him, he would not have
taken the case on board."

The wind dropped for a few seconds; and for a brief interval I could not catch what passed; but I could see that
Falsten continued to remonstrate, while Ruby answered by
shrugging his shoulders. At length I heard Falsten say.

"Well, at any rate, the captain must be informed of this,
and the package shall be thrown overboard. I don't want
to be blown up."

I started. To what could the engineer be alluding? Evidently he had not the remotest suspicion that the cargo was
already on fire. In another moment the words "picrate of
potash" brought me to my feet, and with an involuntary
impulse I rushed up to Ruby, and seized him by the shoulder.

"Is there picrate of potash on board?" I almost shrieked.

"Yes," said Falsten, "a case containing thirty pounds."

"Where is it?" I cried.

"Down in the hold, with the cargo."

WHAT my feelings were I cannot describe; but it was
hardly in terror so much as with a kind of resignation that
I made my way to Curtis on the forecastle, and made him
aware that the alarming character of our situation was now
complete, as there was enough explosive matter on board to
blow up a mountain. Curtis received the information as
coolly as it was delivered, and after I had made him acquainted with all the particulars said, "Not a word of this
must be mentioned to anyone else, Mr. Kazallon. Where is
Ruby, now?"

"On the poop," I said.

"Will you then come with me, sir?"

Ruby and Falsten were sitting just as I had left them.
Curtis walked straight up to Ruby, and asked him whether
what he had been told was true.

"Yes, quite true," said Ruby, complacently, thinking that
the worst that could befall him would be that he might be
convicted of a little smuggling.

I observed that Curtis was obliged for a moment or two
to clasp his hands tightly together behind his back to prevent himself from seizing the unfortunate passenger by the
throat; but suppressing his indignation, he proceeded quietly,
though sternly, to interrogate him about the facts of the
case. Ruby only confirmed what I had already told him.
With characteristic Anglo-Saxon incautiousness he had
brought on board, with the rest of his baggage, a case containing no less than thirty pounds of picrate, and had allowed
the explosive matter to be stowed in the hold with as little
compunction as a Frenchman would feel in smuggling a
single bottle of wine. He had not informed the captain of
the dangerous nature of the contents of the package, because
he was perfectly aware that he would have been refused permission to bring the package on board.

"Anyway," he said, with a shrug of his shoulders, "you
can't hang me for it; and if the package gives you so much
concern, you are quite at liberty to throw it into the sea.
My luggage is insured."

I was beside myself with fury; and not being endowed
with Curtis's reticence and self-control, before he could interfere to stop me, I cried out:

"You fool! don't you know that there is fire on board?"

In an instant I regretted my words. Most earnestly I
wished them unuttered. But it was too late — their effect
upon Ruby was electrical. He was paralyzed with terror;
his limbs stiffened convulsively; his eye was dilated; he
gasped for breath, and was speechless. All of a sudden he
threw up his arms, and, as though he momentarily expected
an explosion, he darted down from the poop, and paced
frantically up and down the deck, gesticulating like a madman, and shouting:

"Fire on board! Fire! Fire!"

On hearing the outcry, all the crew, supposing that the
fire had now in reality broken out, rushed on deck; the rest
of the passengers soon joined them, and the scene that ensued
was one of the utmost confusion. Mrs. Kear fell down
senseless on the deck, and her husband, occupied in looking
after himself, left her to the tender mercies of Miss Herbey.
Curtis endeavored to silence Ruby's ravings, whilst I, in as
few words as I could, made M. Letourneur aware of the
extent to which the cargo was on fire. The father's first
thought was for Andre, but the young man preserved an admirable composure, and begged his father not to be alarmed,
as the danger was not immediate. Meanwhile the sailors
had loosened all the tacklings of the long-boat, and were preparing to launch it, when Curtis's voice was heard peremptorily bidding them to desist; he assured them that the
fire had made no further progress; that Mr. Ruby had been
unduly excited and not conscious of what he had said; and
he pledged his word that when the right moment should arrive he would allow them all to leave the ship; but that moment, he said, had not yet come.

At the sound of a voice which they had learned to honor
and respect, the crew paused in their operations, and the
long-boat remained suspended in its place. Fortunately,
even Ruby himself in the midst of his ravings, had not
dropped a word about the picrate that had been deposited
in the hold; for although the mate had a power over the
sailors that Captain Huntly had never possessed, I feel certain that if the true state of the case had been known, nothing on earth would have prevented some of them, in their
consternation, from effecting an escape. As it was, only
Curtis, Falsten, and myself were cognizant of the terrible
secret.

As soon as order was restored, the mate and I joined
Falsten on the poop, where he had remained throughout the
panic, and where we found him with folded arms, deep in
thought, as it might be, solving some hard mechanical problem. He promised, at my request, that he would reveal
nothing of the new danger to which we were exposed
through Ruby's imprudence. Curtis himself took the responsibility of informing Captain Huntly of our critical
situation.

In order to insure complete secrecy, it was necessary to
secure the person of the unhappy Ruby, who, quite beside
himself, continued to rave up and down the deck with the
incessant cry of "Fire! fire!" Accordingly Curtis gave orders to some of his men to seize him and gag him; and
before he could make any resistance the miserable man was
captured and safely lodged in confinement in his own cabin.

OCTOBER 22. — Curtis has told the captain everything; for
he persists in ostensibly recognizing him as his superior
officer, and refuses to conceal from him our true situation.
Captain Huntly received the communication in perfect
silence, and merely passing his hand across his forehead as
though to banish some distressing thought, re-entered his
cabin without a word.

Curtis, Lieutenant 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 unbearable, and the time must
come when the flames will find a vent 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 adverse, or the wind be boisterous, 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 pointed 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, immediate flight was, we
knew, impossible.

After considerable pause, Mr. Falsten, as calmly as
though he were delivering some philosophic dogma, quietly
observed:

"The explosion, if I may use the formula of science, is
not necessary, but contingent."

"But tell me, Mr. Falsten," I asked, "is it possible for
picrate of potash to ignite without concussion?"

"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 vessel
doomed to be devoured 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 deliberately, "we are over
a mine, and already the match has been applied 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 extremity of peril 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 his instructions that he thought he
should have the fire immediately extinguished, and intimating that he held him responsible for all contingencies that
might happen, retired to his cabin, where he has remained
ever since, fully occupied in collecting and packing together
the more cherished articles of his property and without the
semblance of a care or a thought for his unfortunate wife,
whose condition, in spite of her ludicrous complaints,
was truly pitiable. Miss Herbey, however, is unrelaxing in
her attentions, and the unremitted diligence with which
she fulfills her offices of duty, commands my highest admiration.

OCTOBER 23. — This morning, Captain Huntly sent for
Curtis into his cabin, and the mate has since made me acquainted with what passed between them.

"Curtis," began the captain, his haggard eye betraying
only too plainly some mental derangement, "I am a sailor,
am I not?"

"Certainly, captain," was the prompt acquiescence of the
mate.

"I do not know how it is," continued the captain, "but
I seem bewildered; I can not recollect anything. Are we
not bound for Liverpool? Ah! yes! of course. And have
we kept a northeasterly direction since we left?"

"No, sir, according to your orders we have been sailing
southeast, and here we are in the tropics."

"And what is the name of the ship?"

"The Chancellor, sir."

"Yes, yes, the Chancellor, so it is. Well, Curtis, I really
can't take her back to the north. I hate the sea, the very
sight of it makes me ill, I would much rather not leave my
cabin."

Curtis went on to tell me how he had tried to persuade him
that with a little time and care he would soon recover his
indisposition, and feel himself again; but the captain had interrupted him by saying:

"Well, well; we shall see by-and-by; but for the present
you must take this for my positive order; you must, from
this time, at once take the command of the ship, and act
just as if I were not on board. Under present circumstances, I can do nothing. My brain is all in a whirl, you
can not tell what I am suffering;" and the unfortunate man
pressed both his hands convulsively against his forehead.

"I weighed the matter carefully for a moment," added
Curtis, "and seeing what his condition too truly was, I acquiesced in all that he required and withdrew, promising him
that all his orders should be obeyed."

After hearing these particulars, I could not help remarking how fortunate it was that the captain had resigned of
his own accord, for although he might not be actually insane, it was very evident that his brain was in a very morbid
condition.

"I succeeded him at a very critical moment," said Curtis
thoughtfully; "but I shall endeavor to do my duty."

A short time afterward he sent for his boatswain and ordered him to assemble the crew at the foot of the main-mast.
As soon as the men were together, he addressed them very
calmly, but very firmly.

"My men," he said, "I have to tell you that Captain
Huntly, on account of the dangerous situation in which circumstances have placed us, and for other reasons known to
myself, has thought right to resign his command to me.
From this time forward, I am captain of this vessel."

Thus quietly and simply was the change effected, and we
have the satisfaction of knowing that the Chancellor is now
under the command of a conscientious, energetic man, who
will shirk nothing that he believes to be for our common
good. M. Letourneur, Andre, Mr. Falsten, and myself immediately offered him our best wishes, in which Lieutenant
Walter and the boatswain most cordially joined.

The ship still holds her course southwest, and Curtis
crowds on all sail and makes as speedily as possible for the
nearest of the Lesser Antilles.

OCTOBER 24 to 29. — For the last five days the sea has
been very heavy, and although the Chancellor sails with wind
and wave in her favor, yet her progress is considerably impeded. Here on board this veritable fire-ship I cannot help
contemplating with a longing eye this vast ocean that surrounds us. The water supply should be all we need.