"The skipper is responsible. We won't frighten the boys if we don't need to," and Jessie tried to open the door again. "Come on. Don't stay here and get asphyxiated."
"It is all right with the window open," said Nell.
She turned to follow her chum and saw Jessie tugging at the door-knob and stopped, amazed. The other girl used both hands, but could not turn the knob. She tugged with all her strength.
"Why, Jessie Norwood! what is the matter with it?" whispered Nell, anxiously.
"The mean old thing won't open! It's a spring lock. How did it get locked this way, do you suppose?"
"You slammed it when you came in, Jess," Nell said. "But I had no idea that it could be locked that way. Especially from the outside. Oh, dear!
Shall I shout for one of the boys? Shall I?"
"Don't!" gasped Jessie, still struggling with the door-knob. "Don't you know if one of them comes here and sees this smoke, everybody will know it?"
"They'll have to know it pretty soon," said Nell. "The smoke is coming in all the time, Jess."
Jessie could see that well enough. She shrank from creating a panic aboard the yacht, realizing fully what a terrible thing a fire at sea can be. If this hovering fog of smoke meant nothing serious, their outcry for help at the stateroom window would create trouble--maybe serious trouble. Jessie had the right idea, if she could but carry it out--to tell the sailing master of the yacht, and only him.
The brass knob seemed as firmly fixed in place as though it had never been moved since it came from the shop. Jessie, at last, came away from it. She peered out of the small window. If she could only catch the skipper's eye!
But she could not. At that moment there was not a soul in sight from the window. She saw sea and sky, and that was all.
"Oh dear, Jess!" murmured Nell Stanley, at last giving way to fear.
"What shall we do? We'll be burned up in here!"
"Don't talk so, Nell!" commanded Jessie. "Do you want to scare me to death?"
"It's enough to scare anybody to death," proclaimed the minister's daughter. "I'm going to scream for father."
"You'll do nothing of the kind!" her friend declared. "Shrieking about this will do no good, and may do harm. Can't you see----"
"Not much, with all this smoke in my eyes," grumbled Nell.
"Don't be a goose! If we yell, everybody will come running, and will get excited when they see the smoke."
"But, Jess," Nell said very sensibly, "all the time we delay the fire is gathering headway."
"If it _is_ a fire."
"Goodness me! Where there's so much smoke there must be fire. How you talk!"
"I don't want to be shown up as a 'fraid cat and a killjoy," cried Jessie. "The boys are always laughing at us, anyway, because we get scared at little things: mice, and falling overboard, and a puff of wind. I am deadly sick of hearing: 'Isn't that just like a girl?' So there!"
"Well, for pity's sake!" gasped the clergyman's daughter. "That is just like a girl! Afraid of what boys will say of one! Not me!"
"Girls ought to be just as fearless as boys, and have as much initiative. Now, Nell Stanley, suppose Darry and Burd were shut up in this stateroom under these circumstances. What do you suppose they would do?"
Nell laughed aloud, serious as the situation was. "I guess Burd would put his head out of that window and bawl for help."
"Darry wouldn't," declared Jessie, firmly. "He would know what to do. He would realize that it would not do to start a panic."
"But if the door has been locked on us?"
"Darry would know what to do with that old lock. He'd--he'd find a way.
Find out what the matter with it was."
Jessie sprang at the door again. She stooped down and looked at the under side of the brass lock. Then she uttered a shrill squeal of delight.
"What is it now?" gasped Nell.
"I've got it! There is a snap here that holds the knob so you can't turn it! I must have snapped it when I came in!" She jerked the door open and ran. "Come on, Nell!"
"Well, of all things!" gasped her friend.
But she followed her friend out of the stateroom. They ran as well as they could through the cabin and got out upon the open deck. Skipper Pandrick, in glistening oilskins and sou'wester was far aft with his glasses to his eyes. He was watching a dark spot upon the stormy horizon that might have been steamer smoke, or a gathering storm cloud.
The girls ran up to him, but Jessie pulled Nell's sleeve to admonish her to say nothing that might be overheard by the other passengers.
"What's doing, young ladies?" asked the skipper, curiously, seeing their flushed and excited faces.
"Will--will you come below--to our stateroom--for a moment, Mr. Pandrick?"
stammered Jessie. "There is something we want to show you. It is really something serious. Please come below at once."
CHAPTER XXI--WORK FOR ALL
The skipper looked rather queerly at the two excited girls, but he went below with them without further objection. In fact, Skipper Pandrick was a man of very few words; he proved this when Nell opened the stateroom door and he saw the smoke swirling about the apartment.
"I reckon you girls ain't been smoking in here," he said grimly. "Then I reckon that smoke comes from below."
"Is the ship really on fire?" gasped Jessie.
"Something's afire, sure as you're a foot high," said the skipper vigorously, and stormed out of the stateroom and out of the cabin.
There was a hatch in the main deck amidships. He called two of the men and had it raised. The passengers as yet had no idea that anything was wrong, for Jessie and Nell kept away from them.
But they watched what the skipper did. He had brought an electric pocket torch from below and he flashed this before him as he descended the iron ladder into the hold. Almost at once, however, a whiff of smoke rose through the open hatchway.
"Glory be, Tom!" said one sailor to his mate. "What do you make of that?"
"You can't make nothing of smoke, _but_ smoke," returned the other man.
"It's just as useless as a pig's squeal is to the butcher."
But Jessie believed that the incident called for no humor. If there was a fire below----
"Hi, you boys!" came the muffled voice of Skipper Pandrick from below, "couple on the pump-line and send the nozzle end below. There's something here, sure enough."