There was no answer. He turned to see that Keighley had left him; and he followed back to the wheelhouse, where he found the captain standing at the pilot’s elbow with the glasses at his eyes. “It’s a Baltic-American boat, all right--the _Hessen_,” Keighley said. “No fire ashore. They pulled her out of her dock, I guess. I don’t see much smoke on her. Lay us alongside, Tom.” And the chief, mentally putting aside his feud with the “Jiggers” for the time, said: “They’re keeping it under hatches. Gi’ me the glasses.... It’s in one of her after holds.” XXIII The _Hessen_ had been loading with a miscellaneous cargo that included everything from cotton to baby carriages and wild animals. She had seven cargo holds, each four decks deep; and when a smell of smoke was discovered in the depths of her fifth hold, the wild animals were already stored on the ’tween decks of that hold, with the baggage and the bunks for the keepers on the decks below. To save the animals from being smothered in the smoke, the hatch of the second deck had been covered with double tarpaulins; live steam had been turned in on the smolder; an alarm of fire had been sent out for the fire-boat; and the captain had whistled for tugs to tow him out from the pier--for the fire that had spread from the _Sachsen_ to the wharves had taught the officers of the line to isolate their burning boats. When Keighley and his men came up their ladders to the main deck, the first officer of the _Hessen_ received them with a hurried explanation of the situation, the frightened animals roaring a chorus in accompaniment from below. “Can’t you hoist out the cages and let us open up?” the chief asked, when he arrived. “No place to hoist them to,” Keighley said, “unless we put back to the pier.” “Well, if we only cut a hole in the hatch and pump her hold full of water, you’ll lose all the cargo in the bottom, won’t you?” The first officer stroked his brown, German beard. “T’e beasts ... are ... more costly.” “There’s three barb’ry lions, he says,” Keighley explained rapidly, “an’ two trucks o’ nine trained leopards, an’ some big gorillas an’ half a circus goin’ back to Hagen--what’s-his-name, in Hamburg. We’ll have to flood her down without openin’ up. Smoke chokes them brutes off like kittens.” They stood beside the open hatch, in the fading light, and looked down into the dark cargo room. They could see faintly the ends of the box cages in which the animals were penned; and they could hear, _not_ faintly, the uproar of a panic-stricken menagerie frenzied by the smell of fire. They could not see the deck below, though the hatch that led to it was open. Keighley sniffed. “It’s sackin’.” He turned to his men. “Get yer axes. Bring yer lamps. Couple up the six-inch line.”