"We are--getting--smashed up--a good deal up here," proceeded the voice
mildly. "Doing--fairly well--though. Of course, if the wheelhouse should
go. . . ."

Mr. Rout, bending an attentive ear, muttered peevishly something under
his breath.

But the deliberate voice up there became animated to ask: "Jukes turned
up yet?" Then, after a short wait, "I wish he would bear a hand. I want
him to be done and come up here in case of anything. To look after the
ship. I am all alone. The second mate's lost. . . ."

"What?" shouted Mr. Rout into the engine-room, taking his head away.
Then up the tube he cried, "Gone overboard?" and clapped his ear to.

"Lost his nerve," the voice from above continued in a matter-of-fact
tone. "Damned awkward circumstance."

Mr. Rout, listening with bowed neck, opened his eyes wide at this.
However, he heard something like the sounds of a scuffle and broken
exclamations coming down to him. He strained his hearing; and all the
time Beale, the third engineer, with his arms uplifted, held between
the palms of his hands the rim of a little black wheel projecting at the
side of a big copper pipe.

He seemed to be poising it above his head, as though it were a correct
attitude in some sort of game.

To steady himself, he pressed his shoulder against the white bulkhead,
one knee bent, and a sweat-rag tucked in his belt hanging on his hip.