And now he recalled the sudden change which had taken place, and grasped the fact that they were head to wind, or nearly so, while a vibration beneath his feet told him that the engine was hard at work. The next minute--how he did not know--they were by the way down into the engine-room, the doctor's snowy figure being visible in a misty light which struck upward as he descended, Steve following breathless and panting, to find in the glow shed by the fires the cook on one side and Watty Links on the other, while even here the snow-dust was whirling down and melting at once into a rain, which ascended as a thick steam. "Hadn't you better have kept in the cabin, sir?" said the engineer to Steve; and then he turned to the doctor, "Come down for a warm, sir?" "No! I wanted to try and get some hot drink to the men on deck--some hot coffee." "Couldn't be done, sir," said the cook. "Let's say that when we've tried and failed," cried Steve. "You can get hot water here; I'll fetch coffee and sugar." "Very well, sir, I'll try; but how are we to get it to them on deck?" "Bottles, man, bottles!" cried the doctor. "Where there's a will there's a way." The energy displayed by the new-comers, aided by the warmth, had its effect upon the man; the engineer remembered that he had two clean bottles in a locker, and Steve and the doctor fought their way again over the slippery, snowy deck to the cabin, from which they emerged again well laden, and in another quarter of an hour they were on their way first to the wheel, holding on tightly to prevent their being swept heavily across the poop, and they felt, more than saw, the two men, and by them the captain and mate. They did not speak their mission, but told it dumbly by pressing a bottle of hot coffee in each man's hand, waiting while it was consumed, and then returning to get the bottles refilled, their thanks being a warm, hearty pressure and a shouted warning from the captain to take care as they turned to creep back under such shelter as they could get, Steve having hard work once to save himself from being driven forward by the wind, which seemed to come from all quarters at once. The men huddled forward on deck were now relieved in the same way, this taking two journeys, after which they joined the engineer in partaking of the hot, steaming compound, and prepared to return on deck. "Hadn't you better stay below here, sir?" said the man; "there's nothing to be done on deck." "We'll come down again," replied the doctor. "Why, Steve," he cried, "Captain Marsham is on the bridge!"