Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/349

Rh danger thickened, were in perfect accord; and, as one descended the ladder to the engine-room with slow steps, the other went again to the tower, where I followed him.

"Boy," he said, "I've often wondered how this old ship would break up; now we'll see, but she's going to bite some of 'em yet, if she can't last."

"Are you going to run for it?" I asked.

"Run for it, with two engines, yes; but it's a poor business. And we'll have to fight! Well, who knows? There's luck at sea as well as on shore. If I run, they'll catch me in ten miles; but we'll all do what we can. Now smoke and have a brandy-and-soda. You may not get another."

The drink I took, but his calm I could not share. If the nameless ship were trapped at last I had freedom; but of what sort? The freedom of a bloody fight, the lottery of life, the remote possibility that, the ship being taken, I should get to the shelter of the war-vessels. The man soon undeceived me on both points. "If we're out-manœuvred and crippled in what's coming," said he, "I have given Karl my orders. This ship I've built and loved like a child isn't going to knuckle under to any man living. She's going to sink, lad, and we're all going to blazes with her! What's the odds? A man must die! Let him die on his own dunghill, say I, and a fig