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Dirt and papers flew before it; tin cans leapt forth from holes and alleys; and sticks and small stones, sucked up in the vortex, joined in on the devil's dance. Ancient signs creaked and groaned and threatened to leave their moorings, old houses gave up shingles and loose boards, and up the street on the deserted bank building, the fire-doors banged like cannon.
And then there was a booming roar, a thundering crash, and the riddled Amaranth dropped loose from her hold and drifted helplessly away! Instantly the fire-doors of the Boreas were thrown open and the men began dashing buckets of water into the furnaces for it would have been death and destruction to stop the engines with such a head of steam on.
Some kept grimly at their work, dumb from fear. Others covered fright with profanity, cursing the storm, the ship, their mates, cursing themselves. Larry, as he threw coal steadily through his fire-doors, hummed a broken tune. He gave no heed to Dan, who grew more savage as the slow hours of overtoil dragged by. About four in the morning Neville called Larry to the engine-room.
Fire-doors were clanging close at hand, and the Chinese firemen were bawling behind a bulkhead; so my difficulty was not so much to keep silent myself as to recognize sounds which would give me a clue as to where Captain Riggs and the others had gone.
A dry, gusty wind, swooping down through the northern pass, slammed the great iron fire-doors that hung creaking from the stone bank building, caught up a cloud of sand and dirt and, whirling it down past empty stores and assay offices, deposited it in the doorways of gambling houses and dance halls, long since abandoned to the rats.
And then there was a booming roar, a thundering crash, and the riddled Amaranth dropped loose from her hold and drifted helplessly away! Instantly the fire-doors of the Boreas were thrown open and the men began dashing buckets of water into the furnaces for it would have been death and destruction to stop the engines with such a head of steam on.
Frank gave the information that there was a battery above, and the captain, not liking the idea of trusting his unarmed vessel within range of its guns, ordered the pilot to round-to and start down the river again. The order was obeyed at once, and Frank and the coxswain, who now began to breathe more freely, went below and stood before the fire-doors to dry their clothing.
"The whole thing," said he, "is merely a question of tactics. Things are going along very satisfactorily as they are. There's a drift on, a tendency you might say. The clothing people have come in. Magees have come in. Why, they've agreed to do every blessed thing you asked fireproofed stairways and fire-doors, ventilators and rest-rooms " "That makes the attitude of these others all the worse.
The stokehold ventilators hummed: in front of the six fire-doors two wild figures, stripped to the waist, staggered and stooped, wrestling with two shovels. "Hallo! Plenty of draught now," yelled the second engineer at once, as though he had been all the time looking out for Jukes.
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