The place
was a charnel-house, a stifling pit, filled with the charred contents
of the furnaces, which gave off the most noisome fumes owing to the
rapid condensation of steam and water escaping from the damaged pipes.
But the gale raging without served one good purpose in driving plenty
of air down the ventilating cowls. Gradually, the choking atmosphere
cleared. Courtenay was the first to reach the lowermost rung of the
iron ladder, whence he looked with the eyes of despair on a scene of
death and ruin.
The electric light was uninjured. It revealed the bodies of several
men, either dead or insensible, lying amidst the scattered coal.
Shovels, stoking-rods, and pieces of iron plate had been hurled about
in wild confusion. The door of one furnace was blown clean out of its
bolts; furnace bars and fire-bricks strewed the iron deck, while, each
time the ship rolled, the heavy clank of loose metal somewhere in the
engine-room proved that the damage was not confined solely to the
stoke-hold.
If Courtenay could have dropped quietly into the sea through the stout
hull of the _Kansas_ he would have welcomed the certain result in that
bitter moment.
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