I could not watch him when asleep, nor depute the task to others--all I could do was to overhaul the deck and force pumps, make up an extra supply of draw-buckets, and examine all approaches to the inflammable jute in the hold. In that last I found nothing to alarm me. It could not be reached except through the hatches, which were all battened down. And it was all in the lower hold; on top of the ballast tiers of sugar, and above it, stowed in the 'tween deck, was the rest of the sugar. He could not set fire to the sugar, even if he reached it. Yet in the hot, blistering heat of the Indian Ocean, when we had lain for days in a calm that was harder on our nerves than a hurricane, smoke filtered up through the seams in the cabin flooring--smoke with the pungent odor of burning jute; and the first man to notice it was George Morton. "Done it, by heavens!" I growled, as I turned out in answer to the captain's quiet call. There was a consultation in the cabin of the after-guard, to which were called the cook and steward, carpenter and sailmaker, and the two boatswains from the forecastles. All of these reported the smell of smoke in the compartments of the forward house, and the boatswain said that it was plainly noticeable at the fore and main hatches. Grace and her brother were listening; in Grace's face were uncertainty and apprehension, in her brother's, as he darted furtive glances at me, the deadly fear of immediate denunciation; but whether there was guilt or not I could not determine. No one could guess how the fire had started, and only two points were elucidated from the discussion, both bearing upon the captain's opinion that nothing could be done at present but to keep the hatches on and smother it. The carpenter ventured the opinion that the fire could not be smothered. "For the ship is a sieve, captain," he said. "You know I told you so in Hongkong, and wanted you to calk her, topsides, deck, and all. There's millions of little holes to let the air in." "And even so," added Morton, "the interstices between the barrels of sugar hold air that can be drawn upon." "Right," said the captain impatiently, and a little sadly. "But it's too late to calk every seam in this ship, and if it don't smother out, and we can't make port, this ship is gone. All we can do is wait, for if we open hatches and jettison sugar to get at it, we'll only give it more draft." So, we waited, but while waiting, headed the ship toward Calcutta, if not to save our lives, at least to meet with some craft that could deluge our jute with water--a large steamer, with power pumps and hose. But nothing came our way, and the days and weeks went on, with the deadening calm still engulfing us, and the deck growing hotter each hour. Soon the smoke became visible, curling up in countless little spirals, where the minute holes gave it egress.