"His name may really have been Cranze, but he was a poet, poor lad," he mused, thinking of the dead. "That's why he couldn't do the dirty work. But I sha'n't tell Lupton that reason. He'd only laugh--and--that poetry ought to be a bit of a secret between the lad and me. Poor, poor fellow! I think I'll be able to write a few lines about him myself after I've been ashore to see the agent, just as a bit of an epitaph. As to this spotty-faced waster who swapped names with him, I almost have it in me to wish we'd left him to be chopped by those sharks. He'd his money to his credit anyway--and what's money compared with poetry?" CHAPTER XII THE FIRE AND THE FARM The quartermaster knocked smartly, and came into the chart-house, and Captain Kettle's eyes snapped open from deep sleep to complete wakefulness. "There's some sort of vessel on fire, sir, to loo'ard, about five miles off." The shipmaster glanced up at the tell-tale compass above his head. "Officer of the watch has changed the course, I see. We're heading for it, eh?" "Yes, sir. The second mate told me to say so." "Quite right. Pass the word for the carpenter, and tell him to get port and starboard lifeboats ready for lowering in case they're wanted. I'll be on the bridge in a minute." "Aye, aye, sir," said the quartermaster, and withdrew into the darkness outside. Captain Owen Kettle's toilet was not of long duration. Like most master mariners who do business along those crowded steam lanes of the Western Ocean, he slept in most of his clothes when at sea as a regular habit, and in fact only stripped completely for the few moments which were occupied by his morning's tub. If needful, he could always go out on deck at a second's notice, and be ready to remain there for twenty-four hours. But in this instance there was no immediate hurry, and so he spent a full minute and a half over his toilet, and emerged with washed hands and face, sprucely brushed hair and beard, and his person attired in high rubber thigh-boots and leather-bound black oilskins. The night was black and thick with a drizzle of rain, and a heavy breeze snored through the _Flamingo's_ scanty rigging. The second mate on the bridge was beating his fingerless woollen gloves against his ribs as a cure for cold fingers. The first mate and the third had already turned out, and were on the boatskids helping the carpenter with the housings, and overhauling davit falls. On that part of the horizon against which the _Flamingo's_ bows sawed with great sweeping dives was a streaky, flickering yellow glow.