“And Ronny?” said Jacynth, wide awake now the nightmare of the burning stockings uplifted. “The young un’s all right, I seed to him first, and his father’s got him in tow. Better slew on as many things as you can. It’ll be bad in the boats till morning breaks.” Jacynth was not long in dressing, foregoing in his haste the luxury of his worsted stockings, which he had full time to regret. When he went on deck a strange sight met his eye. The passengers, fully two hundred in number, were massed together aft of the bridge, most of the women bareheaded and all showing signs of hasty dressing. From one of the hatches near the wheel a dense volume of smoke poured forth, now and then with increasing frequency; lit up by tongues of flame on either side of the hatch, a line of blue-jackets plied hose and bucket in ineffectual struggle with the growing furnace. A singular quietness prevailed. There was a murmur of conversation among the closely-packed crowd of passengers. A sharp word of command from the first officer in charge of the fire brigade rose from time to time above the howling wind and the war of the turbulent waves that dashed against the bulwarks as if possessed with passionate desire to get at the flames. Ronny, his father holding one hand and Lord Castleton the other, stood on the outer fringe of the crowd aft, as near as he could get to the fire, which he was evidently enjoying as the best thing he had seen since the whale disappeared. The captain and second officer stood on the bridge, and through the wheel-house window could be seen four grim faces of the blue-jacketed giants whose curiously cheery voices answered the captain’s signals with the cry “Starboard,” “Steady it is, sir.” The captain, leaning over the rail of the bridge and addressing the crowd of trembling but quiet passengers, said: “Friends below there, I hope you’re all comfortably wrapped up. This is a bad job, but there’s no danger. If it had come an hour later we should have made for Holyhead and put in all right. But with this wind and the start the fire has got I don’t think we could carry on so far. The land is close by. If there were daylight we could see it. The ship is now making for the spit of land at the back of Pwlhelly. There is a smooth mile of beach there, which, if I can make it, will bring the ship up comfortably, and you can walk ashore in your slippers.”