THE SARAGOSSA ENCOUNTERS THE RAGING FIRE-MISTS FROM PELÉE EIGHT MILES AT SEA, BUT LIVES TO SEND A BOAT Peter Stock stared long into the faint film of smoke, until the launch bearing Charter ashore was lost in the . The pale, sheet was unwrapped from the beauty of morning. There was an edging of rose and gold on the far dim hills. His eyes smarted from weariness, but his mind, like an automatic thing, swept around the great circle—from the ship to the city, to the -house on the Morne and back to the ship again. He was sick of the shore, disgusted with people who would listen to M. Mondet and not to him. Miss Wyndam had refused him so often, that he was half afraid Charter would not be successful, but he was willing to wait two hours longer, for he liked the young woman immensely, liked her breeding and her brain.... He joined Laird, his first officer, on the bridge. The latter was through the glass a of smoke on the city-front.
 
"What do you make of it, sir?" Laird asked.
 
The lenses brought to the owner a of red in the black bank. The rest of Saint Pierre was a gray, doll-settlement, set in the shelter of little gray hills. He could see the riven and castellated of Pelée weaving his black ribbon. It was all small, silent, and unearthly.
 
"That's a fire on the water-front," he said.
 
"That's what I made of it, sir," Laird responded.
 
Shortly the trumpetings of the Monster began. The harbor grew yellowish-black. The shore crawled deeper into the , and was lost altogether. The water took on a look, as if the bed of the sea were churned with some beastly passion. The anchor-chain grew taught, mysteriously strained, and banged a against its steel-bound eye. Blue Peter at the foremast, livened suddenly into a of , like a hooked . The black, quivering columns of smoke from the were fanned down upon the deck, adding to the white from the volcano.
 
"Better get the natives below—squall coming!" Peter Stock said, in a low tone to Laird, and upon the quiet, serious face of this officer, as he obeyed, an expression quite new. It was the look of a man who sees the end, and does not .
 
The women , as the sailors hurried them below and sealed the ways after them. A deep-sea language passed over the ship. There were running feet, bells below, cries from the native-women, quick oaths from the sailors; and then, Peter Stock felt the iron-fingers of fear about his heart—not for himself and his ship eight miles at sea, but for his good young friend and for the woman who had refused to come.
 
A hot, fetid breath charged the air. The ship rose and settled like a feather in a breeze; in a queer light way, as though its element were heavily charged with air, the water danced, alive with the of worlds. The disordered sky intoned violence. Pelée had set the foundations to trembling. A step upon the bridge-ladder caused the American to turn with a start. Father Fontanel was coming up.
 
"Oh, this won't do at all," Peter Stock cried in French. "We're going to catch hell up here, and you don't belong."
 
He dashed down the ladder, and led the old man swiftly back to the cabin, where he rushed to the ports and screwed them tight with lightning fingers, led the priest to a chair and locked it in its . Father Fontanel for the first time.
 
"It's very good of you," he said dully, "but what of my people?"
 
Stock did not answer, but rushed . Six feet from the cabin-door, he met the van of the , and found strength to battle his way back into the cabin.... From out the shoreward darkness thundered which rendered soundless all that had passed before. Comets flashed by the port-holes. The Saragossa and fell to her starboard side.
 
Eight bells had just sounded when the great thunder rocked over the gray-black harbor, and the molten vitals of the Monster, wrapped in a black cloud, filled the heavens, gathered and down upon the city and the sea. As for the ship, eight miles from the shore and twelve miles from the , she seemed to have fallen from a habitable planet into the firemist of an unfinished world. She heeled over like a biscuit-tin, dipping her bridge and gunwales. She was by blasts of steam and molten stone. Her anchor-chain gave way, and, burning in a dozen places, she was sucked inshore.
 
Laird was on the bridge. Plass, the second officer, on his way to the bridge, to relieve or assist Laird as the bell struck, was felled at the door of the chart-room. A sailor trying to drag the body of Plass to shelter, was overpowered by the of steam, gas, and molten stone, falling across the body of his officer. The ship was rolling like a runaway-buoy.
 
Peter Stock had been across the cabin, but clutched the chair in which the priest was sitting, and clung to an arm of it, pinning the other to his seat. Several moments may have passed before he his feet. Though badly burned, he felt pain only in his throat and lungs, from that awful, outer breath as he regained the cabin. Firebrands still screamed into the sea outside, but the Saragossa was steadying a trifle, and vague day returned. Stock was first to reach the deck, the woodwork of which was burning everywhere. He tried to shout, but his throat was closed by the hot dust. The body of a man was hanging over the railing of the bridge. It was Laird, with his face burned away. There were others fallen.
 
The shock of his burns and the terrible outer heat was beginning to overpower the commander when Pugh, the third officer, untouched by fire, appeared from below. In a , tongueless way, Stock fired the other to act, and staggered back into the cabin. Pugh up the hands, and set to the fires and the ship's course. Out of two officers and three sailors on deck when Pelée struck, none had lived. Peter Stock owed his life to the mute and appearance of Father Fontanel.
 
The screaming of the native-women reached his ears from the hold. Father Fontanel stared at him with the most pitiful eyes ever seen in child or woman. Black clouds were rolling out to sea. Deep thunder of a righteous source answered Pelée's lamentations. The sailors were fighting fire and carrying the dead. The thin shaken voice of Pugh came from the bridge. The engines were . Macready, Stock's personal servant, entered with a blast of heat.
 
"Thank God, you're alive, sir!" he said, with the little roll of Ireland on his tongue. "I was below, where better men were not.... Eight miles at sea—the long-armed divil av a mountain—what must the infightin' have been!"
 
Peter Stock him close and called huskily for and oils. Macready was back in a moment from the store-room, removed the cracked and twisted boots; the ashes from the face and ears of his chief; administered and talked .
 
"It's rainin' evenchooalities out.... Ha, thim burns is not so bad, though your shoes were pretty thin, an' the deck's with red-hot paste. It's no bit of a geyser in a dirt-pile, sure, can tell Misther Stock whin to come and whin to go."
 
The cabin filled with the odor of burnt flesh as he stripped the coat from Stock's shoulder, where an had fallen and burned through the cloth. and bandages were before the owner said:
 
"We must be getting pretty close in the harbor?"
 
This Macready's effervescence. Pugh had been putting the Saragossa out to sea, since he assumed control. It hadn't occurred to the little Irishman that Mr. Stock would put back into the harbor of an island freshly-exploded.
 
"I dunno, sir. It's hard to see for the rain."
 
"Go to the door and find out".
 
The rain fell in sheets. Big seas were driving past, and the steady beat of the engines was audible. There was no smoke, no familiar shadow of hills, but a leaden of sky, and the rollers of open sea beaten by a cloudburst. The commander did not need to be told. It all came back to him—Laird's body hanging over the railing of the bridge; Plass down; Pugh, a new man, in command.
 
"Up to the bridge, Macready, and tell Pugh for me not to be in such a damned hurry—running away from a stricken town. Tell him to put back in the roadstead where we belong."
 
Macready was gone several moments, and reported, "Pugh says we're short-handed; that the ship's badly-charred, but worth savin'; in short, sir, that he's not takin' orders from no valet—meanin' me."
 
Nature was righting herself in the brain of the American, but the problems of time and space still were mountains to him. Macready saw the gray eye harden, and knew what the next words would be before they were spoken.
 
"Bring Pugh here!"
 
It was rather a sweet duty for Macready, whose colors had been lowered by the untried officer. The latter was in a funk, if ever a had such a . Pugh gave an order to the man at the wheel and followed the Irishman below, where he encountered the gray eye, and felt Macready behind him at the door.
 
"Turn back to harbor at once—full speed!"
 
Pugh hesitated, his small black eyes burning with terror.
 
"Turn back, I say! Get to hell out of here!"
 
"But a firefly couldn't live in there, sir——"
 
"Call two sailors, Macready!" Stock comm............