of whose efficiency they had just received so convincing a proof, the men sullenly stood aside and passed up the half-dozen women or so who had not had an opportunity to take advantage of the boys' plucky stand.
From the bridge above, the captain of the Rhode Island hailed them.
"Six boats are away! Let the rest come!"
"Steady, steady!" came the sharp, commanding voice of the man with the pistol once more, as the score of men left began to scramble up the stairway. "One at a time! Take it easy!"
Under his authoritative voice the rush changed like magic to an orderly retreat, and in a few minutes a seventh boat was loaded with frightened passengers and lowered onto the heaving sea.
"Well, I guess we can go now, Herc," remarked Ned, turning to his companion.
"Yes, it's getting as warm here as it is in the smoke house at home in July," agreed Herc, as he carefully picked up his suitcase, which was somewhat battered by the recent knocking about it had gone through. After Ned had likewise recovered his piece of baggage, the two boys began the ascent of the stairway. For the moment they had quite forgotten the presence of the gray-mustached man, of whom, as we know, Herc stood in some awe on account of the inscription he had espied on the former's suitcase.
Now, however, the stranger was at the boys' sides. They saluted instinctively.
"I was a witness of your plucky conduct," he exclaimed warmly, "and I am glad to see that I was not to be disappointed in the estimate I had formed of both your characters. I shall keep a sharp lookout over your future careers as seamen in the navy."
It was a moment when ordinary barriers seemed to be let down, and Herc, in a hesitating tone, asked, as they gained the boat deck:
"Are you in the navy, too, sir, may we ask?"
"You may, my boy," was the hearty response. "I am Captain Dunham of the Manhattan."
"You're all right, sir," sputtered Herc, in his enthusiasm entirely forgetting the respect due to an officer.
The next minute, with cheeks even more crimson than the flames and his exertions had painted them, the farmer boy plunged forward into the confusion of the boat deck, much embarrassed at his impulsive breach of discipline.
CHAPTER VI.
A COWARD'S BLOW
Thanks to the boys' defense of the stairway, and the cool-headed commander's prompt action in quelling the onrush of the stokers, the boys found that there was plenty of room in the two boats that still remained to be lowered. Haste, however, was a matter of necessity, as the flames by this time had devoured the bulkheads and were sweeping forward, driven by the high wind.
The captain of the Rhode Island had recovered his wits, and the loading of the boats went on rapidly. In its company were enrolled the cowardly stokers, at whom the boys could not gaze without a feeling of disgust.
"Are not you boys going in that boat?" said a voice at their elbow, as the davits were swung out and the remainder of the crew prepared to lower it.
"No, sir; as navy men," said Ned, proudly dwelling on the "men," "we prefer to wait till the last boat to leave the ship."
"That's right," agreed the commander approvingly.
He hastened off and assumed the control of the few maneuvres to be carried out before the Rhode Island was ready to be abandoned. The captain of the Rhode Island had recognized Captain Dunham, and was anxiously trying to aid him; but the naval commander treated the other with some contempt, doubtless inspired by the latter's abject failure to quell the panic in its inception or handle it when it broke.
The boys now had time to gaze about them.
The glare of the burning ship lit up the surrounding water with a weird radiance, in which they could see the loaded boats, already lowered, tossing helplessly, the crowds on each being so great that the sailors could not use their oars.
"Say, Ned, suppose the boiler busts!" suddenly exclaimed the cheerful Herc, as the last boat was swung out.
"No use thinking of such possibilities," rejoined Ned decisively.
"Well, I can't help it," protested Herc indignantly. "I remember when that thresher blew up to grandpa's. I guess this would be something like that, eh, Ned?"
"Only more so," was the dry reply.
Suddenly the notification that all was ready for the lowering of the last boat rang out.
As this one was to be the final lifeboat to leave the ship, it was put overside before any one boarded it. The officers of the Rhode Island, the six members of the crew remaining, the boys and Commander Dunham getting into it by sliding down the falls.
At last they were all on board, and the order was given to shove off. No time was lost in doing this, as the Rhode Island was by this time a mass of flames in her forepart, and it seemed impossible that she could float much longer.
"Do you anticipate being picked up shortly, captain?" asked the boys' friend of the commander of the Rhode Island.
"Why, I don't expect that we'll have to drift about very long," was the reply. "You see, the Sound is well traveled, and some ship must have seen the flare of the fire."
It was bitterly cold in the storm-swept waters of the Sound, but the boys checked any tendency they might have felt to complain by thinking of the plight of the women and children in the other boats.
It is doubtful as the newspapers at the time pointed out, that there would have been no fatalities attendant on the wreck of the Rhode Island, if but a little less than half an hour after they had cast adrift from the ill-fated steamer, the Kentucky, of the Joy Line, had not hove in sight. By this time the Rhode Island had burned to the water's edge, and sank with a noisy roar.
The Kentucky bore down with all speed on the drifting boatloads of half-frozen men and women, and within an hour every one of the passengers had been picked up and given warm food and drink and attention.
As the Kentucky, having performed her rescue work, pursued her way to New York, the boys mingled with the excited crowd of the saved that thronged her lighted saloon.
While they walked about, overhearing interesting scraps of conversation relating to the rescues of several of the passengers, they were startled by a sudden cry in a woman's voice:
"There he is! There he is, the coward!"
There was a rush to the part of the saloon from whence the cry had proceeded. Every one was naturally anxious to ascertain what could have caused it. The boys were among the curious persons who joined the throng.
They saw a slight, pale-faced woman pointing indignantly to a tall youth who was slinking away through the crowd, trying evidently to conceal himself from the woman's scorn.
"What is the matter, madam?" somebody asked the excited woman.
"Why, I was in the first rush for the stairway," explained the woman, "before those brave young men there – " It was the boys' turn to try to slink away. "Before those brave young men there kept back the cowardly fellows who were trying to trample past us. That man yonder, who has just slunk away, dealt me this blow in the face," she pointed to a livid weal on her cheek, "and
