The captain was a tall, big-shouldered build of Irish ruffian, as hard with age as an old oak. Moran was shorter, stockier, heavier in the waist. They drew back from each other with a menacing stiffening of neck and shoulders. Then Moran said, “You’re relieved of your command here. Report to me to-morrow at headquarters.” [Illustration: _They had climbed the bunker ladders, and found the port_ See page 52] Keighley turned to his pipe. “Relieved be damned! I’m responsible fer this boat, an’ I’ll take her back to her berth.” He threw the stream down to strike the wall again, and shouted, “If we lay here feedin’ yer water towers till the fire drops the side of a house on us, where d’ yuh s’pose we’ll be? We got water to smash it in now. We won’t have it when we’re pumpin’ yer six lines full, will we? There’s time enough to stretch in after them bricks is down. Look out, there!” A section of the weakened wall, taken in the middle, broke and dropped on itself like a curtain. Half the roof collapsed and bore down the upper floors; and the stream, striking free on the ruin, began to pick it down, course by course, as Keighley laid the pipe to it. He did not so much as glance at Moran again. In the excitement of his work, he appeared to have brushed aside the quarrel from his thoughts as he would have brushed aside any man who got in his way at such a time. It was a manner that made all blustering insistence of authority impossible to Moran. He waited for the opportunity to reassert himself. “All right!” Keighley shouted, at last. “Shut her off.” The stream weakened, fell, and ceased. Keighley turned the searchlight on the street and called, “All right. Now put her back where she was!” He dropped down the wheelhouse ladder and ran aft as the boat drew up again at the foot of the street. Moran stood a moment, the jaw muscle working in his cheek. Then he went ashore in grim silence. It was a silence that promised him satisfaction in the morning, when Keighley should be notified that he was relieved of his command. “Shine” chuckled as he dragged on his line. “Moran got _his_ dose, I guess.” Farley replied, “There’s trouble in it fer th’ ol’ man, though.” “Shine” retorted, in his turn, “Don’t _you_ worry!” XI Ten minutes later the whole street was blotted out in smoke. The streams roared from the nozzles, and were lost in it. The pipemen, with heads down and eyes shut, braced themselves against the back-pressure and fought for breath. The officers, staggering into them, shouldered them forward, smothering. The whole line throttled in darkness, without orders, without head, swayed and struggled and stood helpless. Then, like a stroke of lightning, the flame split the smoke before them. The air seemed to explode in a blaze of burning gases; the heat whipped into their faces with a stinging lash; and the whole row of lumber piles that faced them lighted up together like a long line of beacons.