A STRANGE WRECK.

"Well, boys, we got here just in time," observed Mr. Billings, as the boat cut through the water.

"I'm not so sure that we have arrived in time to avert a tragedy," said Jack, and he told of the shooting that he had witnessed.

"Probably a mutiny," said Mr. Billings, with the voice of experience.

"The crews on those old tramps are the riff-raff of a hundred ports. Bad men to handle in an emergency."

He had hardly finished speaking when, borne toward them on the wind, which was setting from the burning, sinking ship, came a most appalling uproar. It sounded like the shrieks of hundreds of pa.s.sing souls mingled with deep roars and screeches.

Even Mr. Billings turned a shade paler under his tan.

"In the name of heaven what was that?" he exclaimed.

As he spoke a huge tawny form was seen to climb upon the rail of the rusty old steamer and then launch itself into the sea with a mighty roar.

"A lion!" exclaimed Jack, "by all that's wonderful, a lion."

"That explains the mystery of those noises and the predicament of those poor fellows crowded on the stern away from the boats," said Mr.

Billings, who had quite regained his self-possession.

"But--but I don't understand," said Jack.

"That ship has a cargo of wild animals on board," explained Mr.

Billings. "Such shipments are regularly made from Hamburg, her hailing port, to America. Most probably she had lions, tigers, leopards, great serpents and other animals on board. When her bow was stove in a number of cages were smashed and the wild beasts escaped."

"That accounts for the shooting I saw, then," exclaimed Jack; "they must have been firing from the raised stern at the animals which menaced them on the main deck."

"Unquestionably. I am glad I brought my own shooting iron," said Mr.

Billings. "I packed it along in case we had trouble with a mutinous crew."

They were now close to the blazing ship. The heat and odor of the flames were clearly felt.

"We'll have to pull around on the weather side," decided Mr. Brown. "If we come up under the wind, we'd all be scorched before we could effect any rescues.

"Pull round the stern, my lads," he ordered.

"Aye, aye, sir," came in a deep-throated chorus from the crew.

As the four boats made under the stern, white, anxious faces looked down on them.

"Thank heaven you've come!" exclaimed the captain, whose haggard countenance showed all that he had been through. "We're just about at our last ditch. The animals we were taking from Jamrachs, in Hamburg, for an American circus, broke loose after the collision with the derelict. They've killed two of my men and maimed another."

"All right, my hearties, just hold on a minute and we'll have you out of that," exclaimed Mr. Billings cheerfully.

More roars and screeches from the loosened animals checked him. Then came more shots, telling of an attack on the stern, the only cool part of the ship left, which had been repulsed. The flames shot up, seeming to reach to the sky, and the smoke blotted out the sun, enveloping everything in the burning ship's vicinity in a sort of twilight.

"Do you think we'll be able to get all of them off?" asked Jack eagerly.

"I'm in hopes that we will," said Mr. Billings, "if nothing untoward happens."

There was, Jack noticed, a shade of anxiety in the young officer's tone.

There was, then, some peril, of which he knew nothing as yet, attached to the enterprise, thought Jack. But of the nature of the danger he had no guess till later.

As the first boat, Mr. Billings' craft, drew alongside the blistering side of the burning ship, a Jacob's ladder came snaking down from the stern. At almost the same moment Jack, who had been looking upward, uttered a shout of alarm.

The fierce face of a wild beast had suddenly appeared above the rail of the blazing _Oriana_. The next instant a great lithe, striped body streaked through the air straight for the boat. Instinctively Jack, who saw the huge form of the tiger, for that was the desperate flame-maddened creature that had made the jump, sprang for the side of the boat and dived overboard.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The next instant a great lithe, striped body streaked through the air.--]

He was not a second too soon. The tiger struck the side of the boat in the stern just where Jack had been sitting a fragment of a minute before. The boat heeled over as the great beast, mad with terror, clawed at its sides with its fore-paws and endeavored to climb in. Mr.

Billings, pale but firm, whipped out his revolver with an untrembling hand while the men, utterly unnerved, dropped their oars and shouted with alarm.

Bang! The tiger gave a struggle that almost capsized the boat. Then, suddenly, its claws relaxed their hold and it slid into the water, limp and lifeless, shot between the eyes. But where was Jack? The question just occurred to Mr. Billings when, looking up suddenly, he saw something that made him yell a swift order at the top of his lungs.

"Row for your lives, men, row. She's going to blow up!"

CHAPTER XXVIII.

CAST AWAY WITH A PYTHON.

When Jack dived overboard he was so unnerved by the sudden apparition of the fear-frenzied tiger that he rose some distance back of the boat. He came to the surface just in time to see the slaying of the animal and hear Mr. Billings' sharp cry of warning.

Before he could attract attention the boats were all pulling at top speed from the burning ship.

"She's going to blow up!" the words etched themselves on Jack's brain with the rapidity of a photographic plate.

He saw a convulsive tremor shake the big steel fabric and the despairing shouts of the men in the stern rang in his ears. At the same moment he dived and began swimming with all his strength away from the doomed ship. Suddenly came a shock that even under water seemed to drive his ear-drums in.

Then he felt himself seized as if in a giant's grip and dragged down, down, down. His vision grew scarlet. His heart beat as if it must burst from his frame and his entire body felt as if it was being cruelly compressed in a monster vise. Jack knew what had occurred: the boilers of the _Oriana_ had blown up and he was being carried down by the suction of the hull as it sank.

Just as he felt that he could no longer endure the strain, the dragging sensation ceased. Like a stone from a catapult Jack was projected up again to the surface of the sea. The sky, the ocean, everything burned red as flame as he regained the blessed air and sucked it in in great lungfulls.

For a moment or so he was actually unconscious. Then, as his normal functions returned, and his sight grew less blurred, he made out a hatch floating not far from him. He struck out for this and clambered upon it.

The sea was strewn with the wreckage of the explosion. Beams, skylights, even charred and blistered metal liferafts floated all about him. But these did not engross Jack's attention for long after he had cast his gaze in the direction where the _Oriana_ last lay. There he encountered an extraordinary sight.

On the surface of the ocean floated the stern section of the sunken steamer. To it still clung the occupants that he had last seen there.

Jack rubbed his eyes and looked and looked again. Yes, there was no doubt about it, the after part of the _Oriana_ was still afloat, although how long it would remain so it was impossible to say.

Jack guessed, and as it afterward transpired, guessed correctly, that the watertight bulkhead doors, which had automatically been closed all over the ship when the collision occurred, were sustaining the stern fragment of the ship on the surface. This part of the _Oriana_, unharmed by the explosion or the collision, was now floating much as a corked bottle might be expected to do, excepting, of course, that there was a marked list to the drifting fragment.[1]

[Footnote 1: The after part of the ill-fated tank steamer _Oregon_, sunk 100 miles off Sandy Hook, in 1913, when, during a severe storm, she broke in two, floated with the survivors in exactly the manner described in the _Oriana's_ case.--Author's Note.]

Jack now saw the scattered boats returning to the scene. The man in command of each was urging the crews on with voice and gesture. Not one had been harmed, but it was a narrow escape. Jack set up a shout, but apparently, in the excitement of racing for the floating stern part of the _Oriana_, he was unnoticed. However, this did not alarm him, for he was sure of being able to attract attention before long.