As his feet struck the ash-door, the ship rolled up. A cascade falling from Dan's fire had buried Larry's legs to the knees under a bed of white-hot coals. He shrieked again the cry of the mortally hurt as Dan dragged him too late from before the open door. "Mouse! Mouse!" Horror throbbed in Sullivan's voice. "You're hurted bad!" He knelt, holding Larry in his arms, while others threw water on the blazing coals. "Speak, lad!" Dan pleaded. "Speak to me!" The fire-room force stood over them silenced. Accident, death even, they always expected; but to see Dan Sullivan show pity for any living thing, and above all, for the Bunker Mouse-- The lines of Larry's tortured face eased. "It's the last hurt I'll be havin', Dan," he said before he fainted. "Don't speak the word, Mouse, an' you just after savin' me life!" Then the men in the fire-room saw a miracle: tears filled the big stoker's eyes. Neville had heard Larry's cry and rushed to the boiler-room. "For God's sake! what's happened now?" Dan pointed a shaking finger. Neville looked once at what only a moment before had been the legs and feet of a man. As he turned quickly from the sight the engineer's face was like chalk. "Here, two of you," he called unsteadily, "carry him to the engine-room." Dan threw the men roughly aside. "Leave him be," he growled. "Don't a one of you put hand on him!" He lifted Larry gently and, careful of each step, crossed the swaying floor. "Lay him there by the dynamo," Neville ordered when they had reached the engine-room. Dan hesitated. "'T ain't fittin', sir, an' him so bad' hurt. Let me be takin' him to the store-room." Neville looked doubtfully up the narrow stairs. "We can't get him there with this sea running." Sullivan spread his legs wide, took both of Larry's wrists in one hand, and swung the unconscious man across his back. He strode to the iron stairs and began to climb. As he reached the first grating Larry groaned. Dan stopped dead; near him the great cross-heads were plunging steadily up and down. "God, Mr. Neville, did he hit ag'in' somethin'?" The sweat of strain and fear covered his face. The vessel leaped to the crest of a wave, and dropped sheer into the trough beyond. "No; but for God's sake, man, go on! You'll pitch with him to the floor if she does that again!" Dan, clinging to the rail with his free hand, began climbing the second flight. At the top grating Neville sprang past him to the store-room door. "Hold him a second longer," he called, and spread an armful of cotton waste on the vise bench. Dan laid Larry on the bench. He straightened his own great body for a moment, then sat down on the floor and cried. Neville, pretending not to see Dan's distress, brought more waste. As he placed it beneath his head Larry groaned. Dan, still on the floor, wrung his hands, calling on the saints and the Virgin to lighten the pain of this man it had been his joy to torture. Neville turned to him.