"
"In a few hours? Then is the danger which you mentioned past?"
"I scarcely think so."
"Now I am not going to be diverted again. What is this dreadful danger?"
"Let me tell you, in the first place, that we shall probably make the
port before our situation becomes apparently worse,--that we do not take
to the boats, because we are twice too many to fill them, owing to the
Belle Voyageuse, and because it might excite mutiny, and for several
other becauses,--that every one is on deck, Capua consoling Ursule, the
captain having told to each, personally, the possibility of escape"----
"_Allez au hut!_"
"That the lights are closed, the hatches battened down, and by dint of
excluding the air we can keep the flames in a smouldering state and sail
into harbor a shell of safety over this core of burning coal."
"Reducing the equation, the ship is on fire?"
"Yes."
She did not speak for a moment or two, and he saw that she was quite
faint. Soon recovering herself,--
"And what do you think of the mirage now?" she asked. "Where is Ursule?
I must go to her," she added suddenly, after a brief silence, starting
to her feet.
"Shall I accompany you?"
"Oh, no.
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