Page:Ballinger Price--Fortune of the Indies.djvu/117

 practised diligently. He saw that enough oil was ready for the watch, and turned up as eight bells was striking to report, with a grin, to his chief.

"You're in a fair way to learn your trade, son," drawled the engineer. "I noticed you felt only one side of the crankpin brasses, but I guess you'll feel both sides next time."

"I surely will, sir!" said Mark, and departed to the shaft-alley.

The shaft-alley is a strange place, hooded over with steel barely head high. Nothing lives there but the shaft, turning ceaselessly by itself, and the thrust-blocks working away. Mark had been in plenty of shaft-alleys on Resthaven freighters, but then the ships were anchored, the propellers still. Now, as he went on toward the stern to look at the tail-shaft stuffing-box, he realized how near he was to a whole sea outside. Water beat around with strange, hollow sounds; the big screw plunged and swirled just beyond the echoing steel walls. The water-noises were insistent; Mark had suddenly the feeling of being imprisoned in a narrow tube which was tumbling down through wild seas. The shaft-alley somehow was very remote and