The Survivors of the Chancellor by Jules Verne Read Free Book Online Page A

Captain Huntly of our critical
situation.
    In order to insure complete secrecy, it was necessary to
secure the person of the unhappy Ruby, who, quite beside
himself, continued to rave up and down the deck with the
incessant cry of "Fire! fire!" Accordingly Curtis gave or-
ders to some of his men to seize him and gag him; and
before he could make any resistance the miserable man was
captured and safely lodged in confinement in his own cabin.
CHAPTER XII
CURTIS BECOMES CAPTAIN
    OCTOBER 22. — Curtis has told the captain everything; for
he persists in ostensibly recognizing him as his superior
officer, and refuses to conceal from him our true situation.
Captain Huntly received the communication in perfect
silence, and merely passing his hand across his forehead as
though to banish some distressing thought, re-entered his
cabin without a word.
    Curtis, Lieutenant Walter, Falsten, and myself have been
discussing the chances of our safety, and I am surprised to
find with how much composure we can all survey our anx-
ious predicament.
    "There is no doubt," said Curtis, "that we must abandon
all hope of arresting the fire; the heat toward the bow has
already become well-nigh unbearable, and the time must
come when the flames will find a vent through the deck.
If the sea is calm enough for us to make use of the boats,
well and good; we shall of course get quit of the ship as
quietly as we can; if, on the other hand the weather should
be adverse, or the wind be boisterous, we must stick to our
place, and contend with the flames to the very last; perhaps,
after all, we shall fare far better with the fire as a declared
enemy than as a hidden one."
    Falsten and I agreed with what he said, and I pointed out
to him that he had quite overlooked the fact of there being
thirty pounds of explosive matter in the hold.
    "No," he gravely replied, "I have not forgotten it, but it
is a circumstance of which I do not trust myself to think.
I dare not run the risk of admitting air into the hold by
going down to search for the powder, and yet I know not at
what moment it may explode. No; it is a matter that I can-
not take at all into my reckoning; it must remain in higher
hands than mine."
    We bowed our heads in a silence which was solemn. In
the present state of the weather, immediate flight was, we
knew, impossible.
    After considerable pause, Mr. Falsten, as calmly as
though he were delivering some philosophic dogma, quietly
observed:
    "The explosion, if I may use the formula of science, is
not necessary, but contingent."
    "But tell me, Mr. Falsten," I asked, "is it possible for
picrate of potash to ignite without concussion?"
    "Certainly it is," replied the engineer. "Under ordinary
circumstances, picrate of potash although not MORE inflam-
mable than common powder, yet possesses the SAME degree
of inflammability."
    We now prepared to go on deck. As we left the saloon,
in which we had been sitting, Curtis seized my hand.
    "Oh, Mr. Kazallon," he exclaimed, "if you only knew
the bitterness of the agony I feel at seeing this fine vessel
doomed to be devoured by flames, and at being so powerless
to save her." Then quickly recovering himself, he continued:
"But I am forgetting myself; you, if no other, must know
what I am suffering. It is all over now," he said more
cheerfully.
    "Is our condition quite desperate?" I asked.
    "It is just this," he answered deliberately, "we are over
a mine, and already the match has been applied to the train.
How long that train may be, 'tis not for me to say."
    And with these words he left me.
    The other passengers, in common with the crew, are still
in entire ignorance of the extremity of peril to which we are
exposed, although they are all aware that there is fire in the
hold. As soon as the fact was announced, Mr. Kear, after
communicating to Curtis his instructions that he thought he
should have the fire immediately extinguished, and intimat-
ing that he held him responsible for all contingencies that
might happen,