A quartermaster was at the captain's heels.
"Get over a life-boat on each side and attend to those idiots!" roared
Mayo.
He thrust his way into a crowded corridor, beating frantic men back with
his fists, adjuring, assuring, appealing, threatening. He mounted upon a
chair in the saloon. He fairly outbellowed the rest of them. Men of the
sea are trained to shout against the tempest.
"You are safe! Keep quiet! Sit down! This steamer is ashore on a
sand-bank. She's as solid as Bunker Hill." He shouted these assurances
over and over.
They began to look at him, to pay heed to him. His uniform marked his
identity.
"You lie!" screamed an excited man. "We're out to sea! We're sinking!
Where are your life-boats?"
Bedlam began again. Like the fool who shouts "Fire!" in a throng, this
brainless individual revived all the fears of the frenzied passengers.
Mayo realized that heroic action was necessary. He leaped down from the
chair, seized the man who had shouted, and beat the fellow's face with
the flat of his hard hand.
That scene of conflict was startling enough to serve as a real jolt to
their attention. They hushed their cries; they looked on, impressed,
cowed.
"If there's any other man in this crowd who wants to tell me I'm a liar,
let him stand out and say so," shouted Captain Mayo. "You're making
fools of yourselves. There's no danger."
He released the pallid and trembling man of whom he had made an example
and stepped on to a chair. He put up his hand, dominating them until he
had secured absolute silence.
"You--you--you!" he said, crisply, darting finger here and there,
pointing out individuals. "You seem to have more level heads than the
rest, you men! Go forward where the man is casting the lead. Cast the
lead yourselves. Come back here and report to these passengers, as their
committee. I'm telling you the truth. There's no water under us to speak
of." He remained in the saloon until his committee returned.
The man who reported looked a bit sheepish. "The captain is right,
ladies and gentlemen. We could even see the sand where she has plowed it
up--they've got lanterns over the rail. There's no danger."
A steward trotted to Captain Mayo and handed him a slip of paper. The
captain read the message and shook the paper in the faces of the throng.
"The revenue cutter Acushnet has our wireless call and is starting,
and the Itasca will follow. I advise you to go to bed and go to sleep.
You're perfectly, absolutely safe. You will be transferred when it's
daylight. Now be men and women!"