Once, in early days, when Courtenay was a middy an a destroyer, his

ship ran ashore on the Manacles. After a bump or two, and a noise like

the snapping of trees during a hurricane, the little vessel broke her

back, and the after part, with the engines, fell away into deep water.

Courtenay happened to be on the bridge; the forward half held intact,

so he and the other survivors clambered ashore at low water.

He waited now for the rending of plates, the tearing asunder of stanch

steel ribs and cross-beams, which should sound the knell of the ship's

last moments. But the Kansas seemed to be in no hurry to fall in

pieces. She strained and groaned, and shook violently when a wave

pounded her; otherwise, she lay there like a beaten thing, oddly

resembling the living but almost unconscious men stretched on the

mattresses in the forward saloon.

Courtenay did not experience the least fear of death. Emotion of any

sort was already dead in him. He found himself wondering if an

unexpectedly strong current, setting to the southeast, had not upset

his reckoning--if there were any broken limbs among the occupants of

the saloon--if Elsie had been injured by being thrown down into his

cabin. He looked at his watch; it was past eleven. In four hours

there would be dawn. Dawn! In as many minutes he might see the day

that is everlasting. . . . Ah! Perhaps not even four minutes! The

Kansas, with a shiver, lifted to the embrace of a heavy sea, lurched

to port, and settled herself more comfortably. The deck assumed an

easier angle. Now it was possible to walk. There were no rocks here,

at any rate.

Courtenay at once jumped to the conclusion that the

powerful current whose existence he suspected had cut out for itself a

deep-water channel towards the land, and the ship had struck on the

silt of its back-wash. Anyhow, the Kansas was still living. The

lights were all burning steadily. He could detect the rhythmic throb

of the donkey-engine. He felt it like the faint beat of a pulse. In

her new position the ship presented less of a solid wall to the

onslaught of the sea. The tumultuous waves began to race past without

breaking so fiercely. Had she started her plates? Were the holds and

engine-room full of water? If so, Walker and his helpers were already

drowning beneath his feet. And, when next she moved, the vessel might

slip away into the depths!

These and kindred thoughts, thoughts without sequence and almost

without number, flew through his mind with incredible speed. They were

lucid and reasoned, their pros and cons equally dealt with--he could

have answered any question on each point were it propounded by a board

of examiners--and all this took place within a few seconds, between the

impact of one big wave and another.




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