Hastily setting his mechanical steering gear, the former Pirate rushed forward to where a glowing lump of lava was burning its way slowly but surely through the deck. "Fire! Fire!" shrilled Roger, who had dropped down on the rail unnoticed in the smoke and confusion. "Water, Ato! Water, you old Slow Poke!" "Avast!" puffed Samuel Salt, staring down in astonishment at the glowing lump at his feet. "It's alive, Mates, and lively as a grig. It's a FIRE baby, that's what! HAH! Didn't I just say there was life on a volcano? Well, this proves it and I'm taking this young one along for proof." "Now stop talking like a book and act like a seaman," choked Ato, in his agitation tripping over a rope but still managing to keep his hold on the water buckets. "Fire baby or not, can't you see it's burning a hole in the deck, you seventh son of a sea-going Jackass? Here, put it out! Dash this water over it before it burns up the whole ship!" "Avast! Avast and belay!" roared Samuel Salt in a terrible voice as Ato raised his bucket. "I'm still Captain here. Do you wish to destroy a rare specimen of volcanic life? Fetch a shovel from the hold, Roger. A shovel, I said, and don't stand there dithering." "Aye aye, sir!" sputtered the Read Bird, half falling and half flying down the companionway. Now a bird is a quick and handy fellow about a ship and in half the time it would have taken a seaman, Roger was back with a long handled shovel. Snatching the shovel, which he had often used on former treasure hunts, Samuel scooped up the bawling fire baby and started on a run for the galley. "It's turning black, it's turning black," wailed the disconsolate collector, crooning to the ugly infant as he ran along as if he were its own mother. "Aye, aye--it's going out!" "And a good thing, too," panted Ato, who was close behind him. "What in tarry barrels are you fixing to do with it, Sammy?" Roger, sensible bird that he was, stayed long enough to douse the two buckets of water on the smoking deck, then he, too, made a bee line for the galley. He was just in time to see Samuel lift the lid of the range and slide the baby down on top of the hot coals. No sooner had the squat infant touched the glowing fire than it stopped yelling at once and began to purr and sing like a teakettle set on to boil. "Well, I'll be swizzled!" gulped Ato, and snatching a wet dish towel from the rack, he wound it round and round his aching head. "Whatever made you think of that?" "It's my scientific mind," the Pirate told them blandly. "The proper place for any infant that size is bed and I naturally figured that a fire baby belonged in a fire bed, and a bed of hot coals was the nearest to it, so here it is!" Winking solemnly at Roger, who was regarding the little Lavaland Islander with fear and loathing, Samuel picked up the poker and gave the baby an affectionate poke. "It'll do fine here," he predicted happily, "and prove beyond a quibble that volcanos are inhabited."