Dinner was served, but brought no relief. Men spoke sharply to one another; and Jenkins roared his orders from the bridge, bringing a culmination to the strain that no one could have foreseen.
The sudden appearance of an inbound steamer out of a haze that had arisen to the east necessitated immediate full speed. Riley was in charge of the engine room, but Sampson stood at the hatch exercising an unofficial supervision; and it was he that received Jenkins' thundering request for more steam.
Sampson, in a voice equally loud, and with more profanity, admonished Jenkins to descend to the lower regions and attend to his own affairs.
Jenkins yielded. Leaving Forsythe in charge of the bridge, he came down the stairs and aft on the run. Not a word was spoken by either; but, with the prescience that men feel at the coming of a fight, the two cooks left their dishes and the engineers their engines to crowd their heads into the hatches. Riley showed his disfigured face over the heads of the other two; and on the bridge Forsythe watched with the same evil grin.
But few blows were passed, then the giants locked, and, twisting and writhing, whirled about the deck. Florrie screamed, but Denman silenced her.
"Nothing can be done," he said, "without violating the parole; and even if--"
He stopped, for the two huge forms, tightly embraced, had reeled like one solid object to the rail, which, catching them at just above the knees, had sent them overboard, exactly as Sampson had gone before.
"Man overboard!" yelled Denman, uselessly, for all had seen. But he threw a life-buoy fastened to the quarter, and was about to throw another, when he looked, and saw that his first was a hundred feet this side of the struggling men.
He turned to glance forward. Men were running about frantically, and shouting, but nothing was done, and the boat still held at a matter of forty knots an hour. Riley grinned from the hatch; and, forward on the bridge, Forsythe turned his now sober face away, to look at the compass, and at the steamer fast disappearing in the haze that followed her.
Then, more as an outlet for his anger and disgust than in the hope of saving life, Denman threw the second life-buoy high in air over the stern, and led the shocked and hysterical Florrie down the stairs.