CHAPTER XA MIDNIGHT ALARM
Sue Brown was very seldom afraid of anything. She and Bunny had gone through so many strange adventures and nothing had happened to them—that is, nothing of any account—that Sue was inclined to believe that nothing ever would happen. She had been lost more than once, and she had appealed to all sorts of persons—even tramps—to help her find her way home, and she had always reached home.
“And I guess I’m lost now down here in the cellar of this ship,” thought Sue. “Maybe this is a tramp to tell me how to get upstairs again.”
Sue spoke of things on the ship as she would of things at home—“down cellar and upstairs.”
The big, black man came nearer and nearer,and as he passed beneath an electric light Sue could see that he was not a negro, which she had at first taken him to be. He was black from coal dust that covered his face, hands, and clothes.
“Hello, little girl!” called the big man, and his voice was very friendly. “What are you doing down in the stoke hold?”
“Is this the stoke hold?” asked Sue. “I thought it was the cellar.”
“Ha! ha!” laughed the man. “Well, it is like a cellar, isn’t it, little girl? But what are you doing down here?”
“I—now—I guess I’m lost,” replied Sue.
“Well, if you’re lost, then I’ve found you,” said the man, his eyes looking strange in his black face. “You’re one of the passengers, I guess.”
“Yes,” said Sue, “Bunny and I are going to the West Indies, and maybe we’ll find Mr. Pott’s lost son and the treasure.”
“Oh, ho! So you’re treasure-hunters, are you, you and your brother? But is this Mr. Pott on board?”
“No, he’s in the hospital back in Bellemere,”explained Sue. “He’s a sailor and he fell off a horse.”
“A sailor has no business on a horse,” said the big man. “But I guess I’d better not be keeping you down here talking. Your folks may be looking for you, thinking you are lost.”
“Yes, please, I wish you’d take me upstairs,” Sue said. “I don’t think I could find my way myself. I came down a lot of stairs. I forgot—I should have gone up.”
“Yes, down in the stoke hold is no place for little girls,” said the man.
He was close to Sue now, and she could see the thick, black dust on his hands and face. He looked like the coal men who put the winter’s supply of “black diamonds” in the Brown cellar, so Sue asked:
“Do you work in a coal bin?”
“Pretty nearly,” the man answered. “I’m what they call a coal-passer. I bring the coal from the bins, or holds, to the furnace room, a wheelbarrow load at a time. I guess I’m pretty black,” he concluded.
“Yes,” said Sue, simply but honestly, “you are black, but I don’t mind that—it will wash off. You’re big too, aren’t you?”
“Hum! I’m glad you aren’t afraid of me,” laughed the man. “But sometimes I think the coal dust will never wash off after my day’s work. It would be too bad if I had to stay black, wouldn’t it—especially when there’s so much of me?”
“Yes,” agreed Sue, “it would. And now, please, will you take me upstairs?”
“That I will,” replied the coal-passer. “At least I’ll take you to the foot of the stairs that lead up to the berth deck, and you can find your way from there, or some of the stewards will show you. We stokers aren’t allowed to come up on deck until we get clean, and I haven’t time for that now. Come along with me, little girl.”
Sue followed, and went up several flights of steps behind the man, who watched that she did not fall, for some of the steps were of iron and slippery.
At last her guide stopped and told Sue to gostraight ahead and toward a light which he pointed out, and then up another flight of stairs.
“You’ll be all right then,” said the stoker.
“Good-by, and thank you,” said Sue.
“Good-by!” echoed the man, with a laugh.
He disappeared down a dark stairway, merging into the blackness of which he seemed a part, and Sue, going up another flight of steps, found herself in a place she remembered as being not far from her mother’s stateroom. A deck steward, clean and neat in white trousers and a blue coat, saw the little girl and asked:
“Where have you been? Your mother and father have been looking for you.”
“I’ve been down cellar,” explained Sue simply. “But I like it upstairs much better.”
“I should think you might!” laughed the steward. “I guess, little miss, you’ve been down in the stoke hold.”
“Yes, that’s where I was,” admitted Sue, “and a nice, big, black, coal man showed me the way back.”
Mr. Brown came along just then, somewhatworried over Sue’s absence, and took her to her mother’s room.
Soon after Sue had left her mother lying down in the stateroom Mr. Brown had come below to see his wife. He said Sue had not come back to the deck where he and Bunny had been waiting, and when Mrs. Brown related that Sue had left her some time before, there was a worrisome time until the little girl appeared.
“Don’t wander away like that again,” chided her mother.
“No’m, I won’t,” promised Sue.
The excitement over, Sue went up on deck with her doll, and after a while she announced that the doll was asleep.
“How can she be asleep when her eyes are open?” Bunny wanted to know. “She isn’t asleep at all!”
“She is so!” declared Sue.
“But how can she be with her eyes open?” asked the little boy. “You don’t sleep with your eyes open, do you?”
“No, I don’t; but my doll does,” declared Sue. “She’s different! She used to close hereyes when she went to sleep, but something broke in her and now she doesn’t close them. She sleeps with her eyes open.”
“Well, it’s a funny way to sleep,” remarked Bunny. “Anyhow, if she is asleep, let’s play ring-toss.”
“All right,” agreed Sue.
This is a game often played on shipboard. On the deck is set up a short wooden pin, or pole. Each player is given several rings of rope, some large and some small.
Standing a short distance away from the pin, each player tries to toss all his or her rope rings over the little pole. The one who tosses the largest number of rings over the pin wins the game.
Some of the men and women passengers played this game, but just now the rings were not in use, and Bunny and Sue took them. They placed the pin, set in its wooden base, on the deck near a companionway and began to toss the rings.
Whether Sue was more skillful or more lucky than Bunny may be guessed at, but she certainly tossed more rings over the pin thandid her brother. This made Bunny try all the harder.
“Here goes one over!” he cried, tossing a ring as hard as he could.
He did not throw it straight and it went too high. In fact, it went toward the stairway instead of toward the pin. And just then his father came up the stairs.
As if Bunny had aimed it, the rope ring, one of the largest, shot straight for Mr. Brown and settled down over his head and around his neck.
“Well!” cried Mr. Brown in surprise.
“Oh, Bunny Brown, look what you did!” shouted Sue.
“I ringed daddy! I ringed daddy!” laughed Bunny. “I’m a good shot! I ringed daddy!”
“I should say you did!” chuckled his father. “But I don’t call it a very straight shot when you were aiming for the peg over there. Just for that you don’t get any lollypop!”
“Oh, have you got lollypops?” asked Bunny.
“No, I haven’t any,” said Mr. Brown, witha laugh. “But if I had any you would get only a half one, for making such a poor shot, and Sue would get two.”
“Well, Bunny, I’d give you some of my lollypops,” said Sue kindly. “Only I haven’t got any,” she added, with a sigh.
“We can get some when we get to the West Indies,” said Bunny. “When will the boat be there, Daddy?” he asked, as Mr. Brown, taking the rope ring from his neck, sent it with a skillful toss over the pin.
“Oh, in about a week now, I guess,” was the answer. “You see we aren’t as fast as a regular passenger steamer. We are taking our time going south.”
“It’s lots of fun,” said Bunny. “I like it.”
“So do I,” said his sister Sue.
Mr. Brown played at ring-toss with the children for a while, and the rest of the day was spent in walking about deck, looking at distant ships, or in playing other games. Bunny and Sue managed to keep busy, so when night came they were tired, sleepy and ready for bed.
That night, after the children were asleep,Mr. and Mrs. Brown sat up a little while, talking in one of the saloons before retiring. They spoke of Mr. Pott, wondering how he was getting along in the hospital.
It was nearly midnight when Mr. Brown and Mrs. Brown went to their staterooms.
How long Mrs. Brown had been asleep she did not know, but she was suddenly awakened by feeling the ship quiver and shake as if it had struck something in the water. Sue was also awakened.
“What is it, Mother?” asked the little girl. “Are we going to sink?”
“I don’t know,” Mrs. Brown answered.
Then throughout theBeaconwas heard the sound of confused voices and the shouts of a midnight alarm.