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.