"Say," shouted the American, his clear voice dominating the turmoil,

"that gave us a shower-bath. If we could just stand outside and see

ourselves, we should look like an illuminated fountain."

That was the right note--belief in the ship, contempt of the darkness

and the gale. The crisis passed.

"There really cannot be a heavy sea," said Elsie, cheerfully

inaccurate. "Otherwise we should be pitching or rolling, perhaps both,

whereas we are actually far more steady than when dinner commenced."

"I find these lulls in the storm most trying," complained Isobel.

"They remind me of some wild animal hunting its prey, creeping up with

silent stealth, and then springing."

"I have never before heard a fog-horn sounded so continuously," said

the missionary's wife, a Mrs. Somerville. "Don't you think they are

whistling for assistance?"

"Assistance! What sort of assistance can anybody give us here? Unless

the ship rights herself very soon we don't know what may happen."

Isobel seemed to have a premonition of evil, and she paid no heed to

the effect her words might have on the others. Although the saloon was

warm--almost uncomfortably hot owing to the closing of the main

air-passages--she shivered.

Mr. Somerville drew a book from his pocket. "If that be so," he said

gently, "may I suggest that we seek aid from One who is all-powerful?

We are few, and of different religions, but in this hour we can surely

worship at a common altar."

"Right!" said the taciturn Englishman, varying his adjective for once.

The missionary offered up a short but heartfelt prayer, and, finding

that he carried his congregation with him, read the opening verse of

Hymn No. 370, "For those at Sea."

The stewards, most of whom understood a few words of English, readily

grasped the fact that the padri was asking for help in a situation

which they well knew to be desperate. They drew near reverently, and

even joined in the simple lines: O hear us when we cry to Thee

For those in peril on the sea.

During the brief silence which followed the singing of the hymn it did,

indeed, seem to their strained senses that the fierce violence of the

gale had somewhat abated. It was not so, in reality. A steady fall in

the barometer foretold even worse weather to come. Courtenay, assured

now that the main engines were absolutely useless, thought it advisable

to get steering way on the ship by rigging the foresail, double-reefed

and trapped. The result was quickly perceptible. The Kansas might

not be pooped again, but she would travel more rapidly into the unknown.

Yet this only afforded another instance of the way men reason when they

seek to explain cause from effect. The hoisting of that strip of stout

canvas was one of the time-factors in the story of an eventful night,

for it was with gray-faced despair that the captain gave the requisite

order when the second engineer reported that his senior was dead, the

crown of two furnaces destroyed, and the engines clogged, if not

irretrievably damaged, by fallen debris. None realized better than the

young commander what a disastrous fate awaited his ship in the gloom of

the flying scud ahead. There was a faint chance of encountering

another steamship which would respond to his signals. Then he would

risk all by laying the Kansas broadside on in the effort to take a

tow-rope aboard. Meanwhile, it was best to bring her under some sort

of control, the steam steering-gear, driven by the uninjured

donkey-engine, being yet available.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024