"Then tell him he's to get well as soon as he can, and play the man now and help us to save the ship, and you, and all of us; and I say, I really must go and help now, and--oh, Miss Denning, don't sit down there; that's my sandwich." I caught up the partly eaten biscuit and meat, and hurried out of the cabin to make my way forward. "What a donkey I have made of myself!" I cried, mentally. "I thought I had said stupid enough things to poor old Walters, and now I've spoken such nonsense to her that she'll always look upon me as a regular booby. Yes, that she will." CHAPTER FORTY FOUR. I was so upset and worried about the way in which I had acted in the cabin, that for a time I forgot all about my sandwich; but, as I neared the steam, and heard the hissing and shrieking going on, I began nibbling the biscuit, and went on along the side of the broken deck close to the starboard gangway, and as soon as I was in the thick mist, I forgot all about the scene in the cabin, the clanking of the pump so steadily going on helping to drive it out of my head. "Well, Bob," I said, "you haven't put it all out yet, then. Why, I could have finished long ago, if I'd stopped." "No doubt, clever-shakes," said Mr Brymer. "Here, lay hold of the nozzle and do it then." "Oh, I beg your pardon," I cried. "I thought it was Bob Hampton." "I know you did," he said, as I took a step or two forward to where I could dimly see the mate manipulating the copper tube, and directing the water here and there. "Catch hold: I'll go and pump, and send some one to have some food." I took the nozzle and went on with the task, Mr Brymer hurrying forward to the pump, while I was astonished to find how little impression had been made upon the fire. Tons of water must have been poured into the hold, but wherever I directed the stream, there was the sputtering, hissing, and shrieking, and I began to ask myself whether it would be possible to master the great body of fire after all. A strange, nervous feeling came over me now, and I began to suppose-- and, oh, what nonsense one can suppose when that tap is turned on, and allowed to run!--I imagined danger after danger. I saw the fire gradually eating its way to chests of horrible explosives--chemicals of whose existence we were not aware--and as, with feverish haste, I directed the heavy streams of water down into that thick mist of vapour, I kept on fancying that the sharp reports of steam were the precursors of another terrible explosion, of which, from my position, I should be the first victim. And as I thought these horrors, I poured the water here, there, everywhere, so as to make sure that I did not miss the dangerous place, though, even as I directed the jet, I felt as nervous as ever. For I told myself that the explosive might be so tightly packed to make it waterproof that all I sent down was only for it to run off again, and that I might spare my pains.