The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers Part 25

With a sharp cry of pain he leaped back to the rail again.

The deck was burning hot!

In spite of the spray that now and again came spattering over the derelict, the heat had been conducted throughout the craft. Not having thought of the possibility of a heated metal deck, Eric was barefoot. Of what use was it for him to be on board unless he could find out whether any one were there! The decks were empty. The steamer had sunk too deep for any one to be below, and live. There was only one place in which a survivor might still be--the sole remaining deck-house.

Thither the wireless aerial led! There, if anywhere, was some deserted creature, author of the unread message that had sparked across the sea.

There, and there only--and between Eric and that deck-house lay the stretch of red-hot deck, a glowing barrier to attempted rescue.

Surely it was beyond attempt!

Like a flash came to the boy's remembrance the old ordeal for witchcraft in which a man had to walk fifty feet over red-hot plowshares, in which, if he succeeded without collapse, he was adjudged innocent. At once Eric realized that some must have survived that awful test if the ordeal was of any value. What man had done, man again could do! It was at least as good a cause to save some man or woman from a fearful death as it was to save oneself from penalty of witchcraft.

Daring all, he leaped down from the rail on to the superheated deck.

In spite of his stoicism, the boy could not repress a cry of agony, that rang cruelly in the ears of his comrades in the boat. They had seen his figure outlined black against the red glare of the burning craft, and exulted. At the boy's cry, they shuddered, and more than one man blenched.

The iron seared and crisped his flesh as his feet touched the torture.

He could feel the skin curl and harden. Gritting his teeth, he sped at topmost speed of the house whither the aerials led.

The door was jammed!

Though the skin of his head seemed to tighten like a metal band, though his lungs stabbed within him as he breathed, though the pain in his feet was unendurable, Eric wrenched again and again at the handle, but the door would not budge. He called, but there was no answer. Almost delirious with baffled rage and excruciating suffering, the boy hurled himself against the door, throwing his shoulder out of joint with the power of the blow. The door fell inwards and he fell with it.

The heat that poured from the room was overpowering, a dull red glow in the far corner of the floor showing that the flames were immediately beneath. With a gasp and a clutch on his reeling senses, Eric saw stretched out on the wireless table before him the figure of a man, moaning slightly, but insensible. Unable to stand on the hot floor, unable to escape from the room in which he had become trapped, he had lain down on the instruments and his writhings near the key had sent those tangled messages that the operator on the _Itasca_ had not been able to understand.

Had it not been for the instinctive stimulus of his life-saving training, Eric would have deemed that the man was beyond help and would have sought safety himself. But his whirling senses held the knowledge how often life lingers when it appears extinct. Scarcely conscious himself of what he did, Eric grasped the unconscious man in his arms, raced back across the terror of the red-hot deck, reached the stern--how, he never knew--threw his moaning burden overboard and dived in after him.

The shock as his parched and blistered body struck the cold sea water steadied Eric for a second, just long enough to grasp the man he had rescued, as the latter came floating to the surface. Then the pain of the salt water upon his cruel burns smote him, and he felt himself give way.

He tugged twice at the life-line as a signal that he was at his last gasp, bidding them pull in. Then, gripping the last flicker of his purposed energy on the one final aim--not to loose hold in the sea of the man he had rescued from an intolerable death, the boy locked himself to the sufferer in the "side carry" he once had known so well.

A sinking blackness came over him, flashes of violet flame danced before his eyes, his head suddenly seemed to be as though of lead, his legs stiffened and refused to move, and in the lurid glare of the burning steamer, rescuer and rescued sank beneath the waves. The last thing that Eric felt was the tug on the life-line underneath his arms. His cry for help was answered! The Coast Guard boat was near.

CHAPTER VII

REINDEER TO THE RESCUE

When, the following morning, Eric awoke to consciousness in his bunk on the _Itasca_ he found himself the hero of the hour. He had been well-liked in his cla.s.s before, but his daring feat increased this tenfold. Like all clean-cut Americans, the cadets held plucky manliness to be the most worth-while thing in the world. The surgeon, who was bandaging his burns, told him, in answer to the boy's questions, that the rescued man would probably recover.

"You're not the only one I've got to take care of, though," the doctor said to him. "Van Sluyd's in sick bay this morning, too."

"What's the matter with him?" queried Eric.

"Van Sluyd's got grit," was the reply.

"What did he do?"

"I'm just going to tell you. About half an hour after the two of you had been brought on board, and while I was still examining your burns, Van Sluyd came up and asked if he could have a word with me.

"'Of course,' I answered, 'what's on your mind?'

"'My father's a doctor,' he said, 'and I've picked up a little medicine.

Is the fellow that Swift rescued badly burned?'

"'Yes,' I answered, 'he is.'

"'Wouldn't he have a better chance if some skin-grafting were done?'

"'Not a bit of doubt of it,' said I.

"'Then,' he said, 'if it won't incapacitate me for the service, you can go ahead on me.'"

"Who'd have thought it of Van Sluyd!" exclaimed Eric. "Talk about nerve, that's the real thing! What did you do, Doctor?"

"I went and had a chat with the captain and told him just what was needed. I told him that it would put Van Sluyd out of active training for several weeks and might set him back in his examinations."

"What did the captain say?" questioned the boy.

"He just asked me if I thought that the man's recovery was in any way dependent on it, and when I said I thought it was, he answered that I could go ahead. You can be sure Van Sluyd won't lose out by it."

"But won't it cripple him?"

"Not a bit," the surgeon answered. "I'll just take a few square inches of skin off the thigh and he'll be all right in a few weeks."

"Won't he have an awful scar?"

"There'll be a bit of a scar. But he won't have any more scars than you, at that, my boy."

"Are my feet going to take a long time to heal, Doctor?"

"I'm afraid it'll be quite a while before they feel all right. We'll have you up and around before examinations, however, just the same.

That's more than I can say for my other patient, though. He's badly burned."

"Have you found out who he was?" queried Eric.

"Certainly. He's the chief engineer of the craft, or, to speak more rightly, he was the chief engineer."

"How do you suppose he got left behind?"

"That's quite a story," the surgeon answered, as he tore off a piece of bandage. "He's too sick to do much talking, but it seems that when the fire was reported beyond control he sent all hands on deck out of the engine room, remaining behind himself to look after the pump-engines.

The pa.s.sengers and crew immediately took to the boats. When he tried to get up on deck a few minutes later he found that he was cut off. He had to get a crowbar and wrench his way through an iron grating, before he could get to the open air.

"In the meantime, every one supposed that he was in one or other of the boats, and they had pushed off, leaving him marooned. For an hour or more the flames smoldered, and the deck was quite bearable. He tried to gather materials for a raft, but almost everything on the ship was iron.

The cabin fittings were wood, but he couldn't find an ax, the sockets where the axes were usually kept being empty.