"I suggested deck cargo," replied Peter. "You turned it down. I don't question your authority or your wisdom on that point. The rest is up to you."
"A' right," rejoined the Old Man. "You just hang on here and keep these niggers up to scratch. I'll fix it up somehow."
And "fix it up somehow" he did; for when at sundown Mostyn returned to the ship he found that the long, heavy girders _were_ stowed. The Old Man had had the bulkhead between the main hold and the boiler-room cut through--it did not require much labour, so worn and rusty were the steel plates of that bulkhead--with the result that one end of each of the troublesome girders was within six inches of the for'ard boiler.
At length the loading-up was completed. Steam was raised in the wheezy boilers; the Portuguese customs officials were "suitably rewarded", and clearance papers obtained; and at four in the afternoon the _Quilboma_ crossed the bar of Bulonga Harbour, starboarded helm, and shaped a course for Pangawani.
Head winds and an adverse current made a vast difference to the speed of the old tramp. She had taken but three days to run south; five days still found her plugging ahead with Pangawani a good fifty miles off.
The _Quilboma_ was now making bad weather of it. Her foredeck was constantly under water, as she pitched and wallowed against the head seas. The glass was falling rapidly. Unless the ship made harbour before the threatened storm broke, it would be impossible to cross the bar until the weather moderated.
At midday Peter was with the skipper on the bridge when the Chief Engineer approached the Old Man.
"Coal's running low," he reported without any preliminaries.
"How long can you carry on for, Mr. Jackson?" inquired the captain.
"For five hours; less maybe," was the reply. "She's simply mopping up coal on this run. Goodness knows why, 'cause I haven't been pressing her overmuch."
The Old Man nodded. He quite understood. To run the antiquated engines at anything approaching full speed ahead might easily result in the patched-up boilers refusing duty altogether.
"Five hours'll about do," he declared. "Keep her at it, Mr. Jackson."
The Chief Engineer departed. He was not so sure that he could "keep her at it". Under normal conditions the coal taken on board at Pangawani ought to have been more than enough for the round trip. Unaccountably the consumption was much above the average, with the awkward result that the bunkers were nearly empty.