The passengers of the _Pandora_ witnessed the chase and capture from the port bow of their vessel, and many were their ignorant conjectures as to the mode of boiling down and preserving the dead fish, and they watched the _Daisy_ perseveringly with their glasses until a large cloud of black smoke, arising from her cauldrons, announced that the blubber had been finally disposed of; and the operation of ‘whaling’ was over. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER X. DANGER. About the same time a small wreath of blue smoke was observed issuing from one of the starboard ports of the _Pandora’s_ half-round, and the alarmed steward rushed upon the quarter-deck, with the terrible news that the ship was on fire. Vernon Blythe was the officer to receive it. ‘Unbatten the main hatch,’ he shouted, in a loud, clear collected voice to the carpenter, ‘and pass out the kegs of gunpowder. Now, lads!’ he continued, addressing some of his watch, ‘screw on your hose, and lead it through the skylight.’ As the women became alive to the possible danger of their position, they made confusion worse confounded by their screams. ‘Jack,’ cried Alice Leyton, as she flew to him for protection, ‘where shall we go? What shall we do? We shall all be burned to death.’ ‘Stay where you are, dear,’ he answered, hastily but kindly, ‘and do nothing. It will all be right in a few minutes. Where is Lovell? Go and stay by him till I tell you all is safe,’ and with a nod and a smile he was off to the scene of action. Alice rushed to her mother, who was half-fainting in a wicker chair, and flung herself at her feet. ‘Oh, he was too good for me. I was a fool not to see it. If anything happens to him, I shall never forgive myself,’ she said incoherently, as she began to weep with fear. Mrs Vansittart was leaning on her husband’s arm, pale with fright, as she begged him to say if she had ever failed in her duty to him during the last twenty years; her daughter Grace was trying to extract some consolation from Godfrey Harland, who appeared to be more alarmed than herself, and all the other passengers were watching the threatened danger with faces white with suspense and fear. At the moment of the alarm, Mr Coffin happened to be between his blankets, snoring loudly, and Captain Robarts was in a similar position in his cabin, but both men were soon awakened to a sense of what was going on in the vessel.