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It had been a gigantic artificial world with very few inhabitants. With twenty-five naval ratings about, plus the four of its regular crew, plus the space tug's complement, it seemed excessively crowded. And it was busy. There were twenty-five new men to be guided as they applied what they'd been taught aground about life in space.
"Did you get it? The manager told me something about the tug's engines needing repairs." "We got one scow that broke adrift off the Tajada reef. They had to turn back with the others." "Then perhaps I'd better telephone to find out what they mean to do," Kenwardine suggested. Jake wondered whether he wished to learn if they had already made inquiries, and thought frankness was best.
One thing, however, he did observe, that aroused an anxious hope in the boy's heart. A heavy column of smoke ascended from the tug's funnel, and a tongue of steam played in its edge. A frenzy of impatience seized Madden. If the Vulcan could only get under way and escape the fight! Why didn't they start at once!
"If you are not too bowled over, old chap," begged a middy named Gridson, "explain to us how a tug ever happened in the middle of the Sargasso in full flight from a hostile fleet." Some of the wounded were still coming up from the cutter, as Madden made a beginning of the tug's story. Just then he was interrupted by Ponsonby.
The tug approached them half an hour later and ran alongside the Adventurer. The boys on the Catspaw saw the boat's captain appear from the pilot-house and point a megaphone toward the white cruiser, and glimpsed Steve replying. What was said they could only surmise, but the tug's mission was evident enough. "He wants the job," said Joe anxiously. "Wonder if Steve will let him have it."
At the edge of the pier was the tug's captain, Marsh, listening to earnest expostulation by a half-dozen of the leading men of the town, among whom were both Newmark and Orde. As the three came within earshot Captain Marsh spit forth the stump of cigar he had been chewing. "Gentlemen," said he crisply, "that isn't the question.
I went shivering below, with exalted notions of the courage and endurance of lifeboat men. Soon after, the watch once more shouted, "Tug's in sight, sir;" and once again the mate and I went on deck. On this occasion, the tug Aid had made a mistake.
Now that it was the most urgent of all possible necessities to get away from Earth, in the opposite direction to the space tug's present motion, it was logical to dive toward it. The ship would plunge toward Earth, and Earth's gravity would help its rockets in the attainment of frenzied speed. But the tug still possessed its orbital speed.
She stretched out a slim brown hand. "You will find me very difficult sometimes, I warn you now." "I like difficult things, they seem to come my way." The languid hours sped by. Clark swam, fished, paddled with the girl, entertained her party in the tug's white painted saloon, and chatted with Mrs. Dibbott, the chaperon, about St. Marys. But most of all he explored the mind of Elsie Worden.
The sack over Tug's head was unbound and snatched away, and he looked about him to see a dozen more black Crows, with two other hapless prisoners, seated like an Indian war-council about a blazing lire, and, like an Indian war-council, pondering tortures for their unlucky captives. In the fire were two or three iron pokers glowing red-hot.
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