She looked in a mirror. In the clear light without, any one could see

she had been crying, and there was so much work to be done that she did

not wish to remain in her stateroom until all tokens of the storm had

passed. She searched for a powder-puff, and was at a loss to discover

its whereabouts until she recollected that the doctor had borrowed it

for the use of a man slightly scalded when his own supply of antiseptic

powder was exhausted. So she went into Isobel's room, entering it for

the first time since the Kansas struck on the shoal. The two cabins

communicated, as Mr. Baring had gone to the expense of having a door

broken through the partition for the girls' use during the voyage. If

Elsie had not already given way to tears she must have faltered now at

the sight of her friend's belongings strewed in confusion over the

floor, chairs, dressing-table, and bed. Isobel possessed a

gold-mounted dressing-case the size of an ordinary portmanteau. It

held an assortment of pretty, and mostly useless, knick-knacks, and

they had all been tumbled out in a frantic hurry. At first Elsie

flinched from further scrutiny, but common sense told her that this

despondent mood must be fought. She dropped to her knees, found a

mother-o'-pearl poudrier, and picked up other scattered articles and

replaced them in the dressing-case. To accomplish this it was

necessary to rearrange various trays and drawers. Portraits of girl

friends, including her own, and of men unknown to her, letters,

memoranda, and other documents, were thrown about in disorder. All

these she put back in their receptacles, wondering the while what

motive had led Isobel to make such a frenzied search for some special

object that she cared not a jot what became of the remaining articles.

Yet, who could account for the frenzy of that terrible hour when the

captain announced the ship's danger? Even Courtenay himself, she

remembered, had emptied a locker in a rapid hunt for the dog's coat;

but he had laughingly explained his haste later when some chance

reference was made to his soaked garments.

Anything was explicable in the light of panic. She gathered up a skirt

and some blouses, locked the dressing-case, put the key in her purse,

and quitted the room with a heavy heart, for the handling of her

friend's treasures had brought sad memories.

Passing into the deck corridor, she heard the captain's voice,

apparently at a considerable distance. Two hundred yards away from the

ship, Courtenay and Tollemache were anchoring a flat framework, built

of spare hatches and secured by wooden cross-pieces. On it stood the

first of the infernal machines. The raft floated level with the water,

so its only conspicuous fitting was a small spar and a block, to which

a line and an iron bar were attached. The men looked strange in her

eyes at that distance. In the marvellously clear light she could see

their features distinctly, and, when Courtenay shouted to a sailor to

haul in the slack of the line, she caught a trumpet-like ring that

recalled the scene in the saloon when he held back the mob of stewards.

His athletic figure, silhouetted against the shimmering green of the

water, was instinct with graceful strength. He looked a born leader of

men, and, as though to mark his quickness of observation, no sooner had

Elsie glanced over the side of the ship than he waved a hand to her.




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