"About the candidate for Mate's certificate who told the examiner that: 'There ain't no pub o' that name in Gravesend'?" asked Peter.

"No, but that's not so dusty," replied Preston. "My yarn concerns an old skipper in the Penguin Line. He was----"

But Mostyn was not to hear the anecdote.

A violent concussion, as if the ship had struck a rock, almost threw the two men off their feet. A m.u.f.fled report followed.

"Mined, by Jove!" exclaimed Preston, in the brief lull that succeeded the detonation.

Then pandemonium was let loose. The lascars, yelling and shouting, poured on deck, followed by a mob of native firemen. Capable enough in ordinary circ.u.mstances, the Indians lacked the stolidity and grim courage of British crews when disaster, sudden and unexpected, stared them in the face.

Captain Bullock was quickly on the bridge. He could do little or nothing to allay the panic, for the native petty officers were as frantic as the rest. To add to the difficulties of the situation, every light on board went out. Vast clouds of smoke and steam were issuing through the engine-room fiddleys. The propeller was slowing down. The engineer on watch had, on his own initiative, cut off steam and opened the high-pressure gauges.

The Old Man shouted through the speaking-tube to the engine-room.

There was no response.

Just then, in the glare of the lightning, he caught sight of Anstey, who, awakened by the explosion, had hurried to the bridge in his pyjamas and uniform cap.

"Nip below, Mr. Anstey, and see the extent of the damage," he ordered.

Anstey turned to obey. At the head of the bridge-ladder he encountered Crawford, the engineer of the watch.

"Nice sort of night to be in the ditch, laddie," exclaimed Crawford, as he elbowed his way past the Third Officer. "How far is to land, anyway?"

Crawford was on his way to report to the bridge. He had been flung violently on the bed-plates when the explosion occurred. Upon regaining his feet he found the engine-room in darkness save for the feeble glimmer of an oil lamp. Water was pouring in like a sluice through a rent in the after bulkhead that separated the engine-room from No. 3 hold. The firemen, panic-stricken, were bolting on deck.

Neither by words nor action could Crawford stem the human tide of affrighted Asiatics.

Quietly he made his way to the platform and awaited orders from the bridge. The telegraph remained silent, the indicator on the dial still pointing to "Full Ahead".

By this time the water in the stokeholds was damping the fires, and Crawford deemed it prudent to shut off steam and open the escape valves in order to avert an explosion of the boilers.

Knee deep in the oily water that slushed to and fro as the ship rolled, the engineer of the watch groped his way through clouds of steam until his self-appointed task was done. Then, after shouting in case anyone else had remained below, he effected his retreat and at once made for the bridge to report to the Old Man.

"She's going, Mr. Preston," declared Captain Bullock.

"She is, sir," agreed the Acting Chief. Experience had taught him the now unmistakable symptoms of a foundering ship.

"Call away the boats," continued the Old Man "If you've trouble with that mob use your revolver, Preston. Don't hesitate. Remember we've women on board. Use your discretion as to what boat you stow 'em in."

The Acting Chief hurried off, pausing outside the wireless-room to give Mostyn the last known position of the ship, which information was a necessary adjunct to the SOS call.

Peter had not been idle. The moment the seriousness of the situation became apparent he was back at his post in the wireless-cabin.

The shutting off of steam had automatically stopped the dynamo. In any case, the explosion had severed the "leads". The main set was out of action. Mostyn had to fall back upon the emergency gear.

For quite ten minutes he contrived to call up, but no rea.s.suring reply came through in reply to the urgent appeal for aid. There were ships within range of the emergency set, that Peter knew. He had spoken them earlier in the evening.

"Either atmospherics or else they've another Partridge and Plover on board," he thought grimly. "Wonder where my birds are?"

The two Watchers ought to have been on the bridge by this time. In case of distress it was their duty to "fall in" outside the wireless-cabin and await instructions. Neither had done so.

The floor of the cabin had quite an acute list by this time. It was only by propping his legs against the lee bulkhead that Mostyn could keep seated. He realized perfectly well that the ship was sinking rapidly, but it is part of an unwritten code of honour that a wireless officer "stands by" until he is ordered away by his skipper or swept from his post by the sea itself.

Even as he waited, still sending out the unacknowledged SOS, he thought of Olive Baird, wondering how she was faring in the horrors of the night. If he only knew--but perhaps for his peace of mind it was as well that he did not.

Above the turmoil without came the report of two pistol shots in quick succession. There was no mistaking the sharp cracks. They differed completely from the detonations of the distress rockets that at intervals were fired from the bridge, on the chance that a vessel in the vicinity might proceed to the aid of the foundering ship.

The pistol shots reminded Peter of something that he might otherwise have overlooked. Without removing the telephones from his ears he groped and found his automatic and a box of cartridges.

"No knowing when it might come in useful," he soliloquized, as he thrust the weapon into his hip pocket. "While I'm about it I might as well get dressed."

With considerable difficulty, owing to the now terrific list of the ship, he contrived to throw off his oilskin and don his white patrol suit over his pyjamas. Then, putting on his oilskin once more, he waited.

He had not much longer to wait.

"Any luck?" inquired the Old Man, who was gripping the doorway of the wireless-cabin with both hands in order to prevent himself slipping bodily to lee'ard.

"No, sir," replied Mostyn.

"Then chuck it," continued the skipper. "Look nippy. She's nearly gone. Where's your life-belt?"

A slight recovery on the part of the stricken _West Barbican_ enabled Peter and the skipper to gain the weather bridge rail, the former securing a lifebelt from the chest by the side of the chartroom.

It was a weird and terrible sight that met Mostyn's eyes as he clung to the rail. The vivid flashes of lightning threw the scene into strong relief as the bluish glare illumined the night.

Not only was the ship listing to port. She was well down by the stern, her p.o.o.p being practically submerged. From the lee side of the boat-deck a row of empty davits overhung the black water, the lower blocks of the disengaged falls flogging the ship's side like a series of blows with a sledge-hammer.

A cable's length away was one of the boats with only half a dozen people in her. Another more laden was a little distance away, the rowers laying on their oars. A third, deep in the water, was laboriously putting away from the ship. A fourth, waterlogged, with her bow and the top of the transom showing above the surface, was drifting at some distance astern of the ship, while a fifth was floating bottom upwards with five or six lascars struggling to clamber upon the upturned keel.

"We'll have to shift for ourselves, Mostyn," said the Old Man calmly.

"The best of luck!"

The people in the sparely manned boat, noting the skipper and the Wireless Officer on the bridge, began to back towards the foundering ship.

"Avast there!" bawled Captain Bullock. "Stand off. Keep clear of the suction. She's going!"

With a shudder like an animal in mortal pain the staunch old ship made her final plunge. Amidst the rending of wood, as the enormous pressure of confined air burst the decks asunder, and the crash of the funnel as the guys carried away, she slid stern foremost beneath the waves.

Then a violent rush of water swept Peter off the shelving planking of the bridge. He was conscious of being flung heavily against some solid object, turned round and round like a slowly spinning top, and being dragged down, down, down.

Vainly he tried to keep his breath. The pressure on his lungs became intolerable. He was barely conscious of struggling madly in the crushing embrace of the black water.

Then everything became a blank.

CHAPTER XXII