In the afternoon, while Ruth and Alice were reclining luxuriously in their steamer chairs, they observed one of the officers come up from below, and run toward the bridge.  There was something in his manner that startled Alice, and she sat up suddenly, exclaiming: 

“I hope nothing has happened!”

“Happened?  Why should it?  What do you mean?” asked Ruth.  But immediately a look of fear came into her own eyes—­a look born of suggestion merely.

“Oh, I don’t know,” and Alice tried to laugh, but it did not ring true.  “It was just a notion—­”

She did not finish, for another officer came on the run from forward, and he, too, sought the bridge.  Then the two girls saw curling up from one of the hatchways on the lower forward deck, a little wisp of smoke, and immediately afterward there sounded through the ship the clanging of bells.

“What’s that?” cried Ruth, casting aside her rug, and struggling to her feet, no easy matter from a steamer chair.  “What’s that?”

“Some alarm,” said Alice, faintly.

Paul came running toward them.

“Oh, what is it?” gasped Ruth, impulsively clasping him by the arm.

“Don’t be frightened,” said Paul, but Alice noticed that his lips trembled a little.  “It’s only a—­fire drill.”

As he spoke there was an outpouring of sailors from many places, and lines of hose were reeled out.

The wisp of smoke from the forward hatchway had increased now, though the hatch cover was on.

Up on the bridge the girls could see the captain leaving his post in charge of one of the officers.  The ship, too, seemed to be turning about.

“Are you sure it is only fire—­drill?” asked Alice.

“Why, that’s what a sailor told me,” answered Paul, slowly.

“Look,” said Alice, and she pointed to the curling smoke.

More clanging bells resounded, and more lines of hose were run out.  There was no doubt, now, that the Tarsus was making a complete turn.

Then, as the captain and one officer left the bridge there rang out the cry: 

“Fire!  Fire!  The ship’s on fire!  Lower the boats!”

CHAPTER V

DISABLED

Panics start so easily, especially at the mere mention of the word “fire,” that it is no wonder there was at once an incipient one aboard the Tarsus.  But the captain, who was a veteran, acted promptly and efficiently.

Some of the sailors had made a rush for the boats, but the captain, coming down from the bridge on the run, flung himself in front of the excited men.  He pushed one or two of them aside so violently that they fell to the deck.  Then the commander, in a voice that rang out above the startled calls, cried out: 

“Get back, you cowards!  If we do take to the boats it will be women and children first!  But we’re not going to!  Stop that noise!”