There were less than a dozen people on deck. Three men, in what were once white yachting suits, two men in dungarees—engineers evidently—three others who looked like sailors, and four women. A goodly stack of "grips" indicated pretty clearly that they fully expected to be taken off to the Golden Vanity.
One of the Lorelei's hands took the cutter's painter and made fast. There was hardly any sea on, and the boat rode easily alongside.
The Third Officer followed by Geoff boarded the disabled craft.
"You seem to have had trouble, sir," began Kelso, addressing one of the yachtsmen who appeared to be the owner.
"Sure thing," agreed the man. "We fair struck the tail of that hurricane and I guess there was some kick in that tail. My captain, chief officer, and six hands lost, all boats carried away, dynamos flooded, and both propellers busted. I guess I've had trouble enough this side of the Pearly Gates. So I guess we'll trouble your captain to give us a passage."
"Is the yacht making any water?" asked Kelso.
The owner glanced keenly at him. His jaw shot out aggressively.
"Say, if it's salvage you're after, young man——" he began.
"Don't waste time arguing, Abe," protested one of the ladies shrilly. "Let's get outa here. If it's a case of dollars——"
"Madam," protested Kelso, addressing the obviously ill-bred wife of a self-made millionaire. "It would give me great pleasure to put a few dollars into my modest banking account. But that is neither here not there so far as present conditions go. Captain Corbold would, I know, be only too willing to receive you all; but, unfortunately, circumstances prevent. He proposes to take you in tow, so if you will give your men orders to get a hawser ready, we'll endeavour to establish communication and get you into Nassau Harbour."
"I reckon it's salvage," persisted the owner, which remark received a concurrent "You bet" from his spouse.
"Not at all," declared Kelso. "Briefly the facts are these. We've a fire on board. It may break through at any moment. So far——"
"Fire!" exclaimed the owner. "Gee whizz! We carry a thousand gallons of gasoline on board this vessel, and I don't fear fire no more'n a duck fears water. See here, I'm the sole manufacturer of Sylvester's Universal Fire Quencher, with works at Noo York, Sheecago an' Detroit. A complete outfit F.O.B. Noo York costs a matter of three hundred an' fifty dollars, and I guess any fire on board a ship when there's Sylvester's Universal Fire Quencher handy stands a worse chance than snow in a stove! O'Meara, get that No. 3 size up right now! Mr. Fearon, here's copy for your paper; put it in with double leaded headlines: 'BRITISH SHIP SAVED FROM FIRE AT SEA BY SYLVESTER'S UNIVERSAL FIRE QUENCHER'. Look slick, O'Meara. This is where Abraham G. Sylvester's out to beat the band!"
The American's interest in pyrotechnics aroused, he seemed to have entirely forgotten the plight of the Lorelei. He was only a "live" demonstrator of his own patent fire-extincteur. A moment or so ago he was a more or less passive owner of a disabled yacht, anxious to "quit" at any price. Now he was a forceful business man, quick to seize an opportunity of "boosting" his goods.
"It's jolly decent of you, sir," declared Kelso. "My skipper will be most grateful for your assistance. But I've had my orders and I must carry them out. Will you please give instructions for the hawser to be made ready?"
The American made a gesture as if to imply that any such step was beneath consideration.
"Do, poppa," exclaimed one of the ladies—rather a slim and good-looking girl. "I don't want to lose the Lorelei. She can sure be fixed up if we get into harbour."
By this time O'Meara, one of the yacht's mechanics, had come on deck with the apparatus. Mr. Sylvester ordered the surviving members of the crew to prepare the hawser; then, having conceded this point, he had the Fire Quencher lowered into the Golden Vanity's boat, and, calling to Fearon—who was the chief reporter of a New York daily, and now on vacation—to look slick, leapt in after it.
Third Officer Kelso and Geoff had no option but to follow. The motor was restarted, and the cutter returned to her parent ship.
The way Mr. Sylvester took charge of matters on the deck of the Golden Vanity was no less surprising. The Old Man, unwilling to look a gift horse in the mouth, was simply clay in the hands of the forceful American.
The apparatus, consisting chiefly of two cylinders containing certain chemicals, was carried under the poop-deck. Here, with typical Yankee verbosity, the inventor explained the action of the machine and gave long details of various fires at which it had proved its merits.
"Now, Captain," he continued, "I guess we'll have that hatch open right now."
"If you do the flames will shoot up through the skylight as high as our mizzentruck," protested Captain Corbold apprehensively.
"If the flames were enough to bile Niagara I guess Sylvester's Universal Fire Quencher would put 'em out," asserted the inventor grandiloquently.
The Old Man could make no further protest. He gave the order. The hatch-cover was removed. Instantly a column of dark-red flame leapt upwards, mushrooming itself against the under side of the poop deck. The heat was so intense that the interested spectators precipitately stepped back.
But not so Abraham Y. Sylvester. He was a sort of human salamander. With a deft movement he depressed a lever of the apparatus with one hand while he guided the nozzle of a flexible pipe with the other.
The pillar of flame wavered; then, like a cowed beast, sunk back into the recess from whence it came. Dense suffocating fumes poured from the steerage flat driving everyone back, including the redoubtable demonstrator.
It was the oxygen-destroying fumes that had cleared the confined space—not the acrid smoke from the fire. Victory had been won.
Sylvester turned to Captain Corbold.
"I guess I've come out on top, Cap'n," he remarked. "That there fire is as dead as a rattler with his head under the wheel of an automobile."
"Is that all to be done?" gasped the astonished Old Man.
"Sure," was the confident reply. "But say: I reckon you've had a tooth drawn. Didn't the operator fellow offer you a glass of water to rinse your mouth out? Wal; just you wash that caboose out and you can just sleep easy. I bet it'll be the first good night's rest you'll have had for the last week."
He gave a triumphant glance at the officers and men standing by. That look convinced him that his boast was not an idle one. The tired eyes, drawn features, and generally dishevelled appearance of the Golden Vanity's crew bore silent testimony to their grim resolution and devotion to duty.
Spontaneously they raised a cheer for the gaunt citizen of the Greatest Republic on Earth.
Abraham Y. Sylvester raised a hand to enjoin silence.
"No need to bust yourselves, you guys!" he remarked pleasantly. "But just bear this in mind: don't ever go to sea in a ship that ain't properly equipped with the Sylvester Universal Fire Quencher. Just to make sure you've got the name fixed I'll repeat it: the Sylvester Universal Fire Quencher—three hundred an' fifty dollars free on board at Noo York. An' now, Captain, if you'll get your men to play water on the fire what ain't, I guess we'll talk of other matters right now."
CHAPTER XXIV. The Two Cripples
"Certainly, sir," agreed Captain Corbold. "Will you mind stepping aft to my cabin. 'Fraid it's not exactly shipshape, considering——"
But the American brushed the suggestion aside.