"To Panama, you hear
me!" he shouted. He beat the floor with his foot. "Faster, faster,
faster," he cried. "We've got a great story! We want a clear wire, we
want the wire clear from Panama to City Hall. It's the greatest story
ever written--full of facts, facts, facts, facts for the Consolidated
Press--and Keating wrote it. I tell you, Keating wrote it. I saw him
write it. I was a stoker on the same ship."
The mate and crew came running forward and stood gaping stupidly
through the doors and windows of the chart-room. Channing welcomed
them joyously, and then crumpled up in a heap and pitched forward
into the arms of the captain. His head swung weakly from shoulder to
shoulder.
"I beg your pardon," he muttered, "I beg your pardon, captain, but
your engine-room is too hot. I'm only a stoker and I know my place,
sir, but I tell you, your engine-room is too hot. It's a burning
hell, sir, it's a hell!"
The captain nodded to the crew and they closed in on him, and bore
him, struggling feebly, to a bunk in the cabin below. In the berth
opposite, Keating was snoring peacefully.
After the six weeks' siege the Fruit Company's doctor told Channing
he was cured, and that he might walk abroad.
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