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 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 bilge-valves, 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 to contrive that imitation o' a collision, merely through some jookery-packery wi' the reverse-gear 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 guides. But they're no. It's 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 chart-house, 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.)