Walker was about to take her to the saloon, whence an inner staircase

communicated with the principal staterooms, but she knew that the door

leading to the promenade deck had been left unlocked, so she signaled him

to lead her the speediest way. Speak she could not. Although there was

a perceptible improvement in the weather, Elsie found the wind even

harder to combat than when she traversed the deck with Courtenay. This

apparent contradiction arose from the fact that during their early

dealing with the boats the sailors had cut away the greater part of the

canvas shield rigged to protect passengers from adventurous seas.

Nevertheless, all flustered and breathless as she was, she held Walker

back when he would have left her in the shelter of her cabin.

"Do spare me one moment," she pleaded. "When I have put on dry clothing,

what am I to do? Where am I to go? I will do anything rather than

remain alone."

Walker jammed himself in the doorway to break the violence of the

unceasing deluge of spray.

"Well, missie," he said, "I'm examining the engines, Mistaw Tollemache is

fi-wing up the donkey-boiler, an' Doctaw Chwistobal is with Mistaw Boyle.

You know whe-aw the captain is, so I weckon yo' best place is the saloon."

"Dr. Christobal said you were making a raft?"

"That's wight. But when the ship got off, we tackled othaw jobs. She is

ow-ah best waft."

"And--do you think--we have any chance."

"Nevah say 'die,' missie. Owt can happen at sea."

She made a guess at the meaning of "owt."

"May I not look after some of the injured men?"

"That you can't," was Walker's prompt assurance. "You'd bettaw stick to

the saloon. I'll tell the captain yo' the-aw."

"Tell him? Are you returning to the bridge?"

"Telephone!" shouted Walker, as an unusually heavy sea caused him to slam

the door unceremoniously. He bolted it, too. Not if he could help it

would his charge come out on that storm-swept deck unattended.

The electric light glowed brightly in Elsie's cabin, exactly as she had

left it an hour ago. This was one of the anomalous conditions of the

disaster. It lent a queer sense of Midsummer madness to the night's

doings. In a few days it would be Christmas, the Christmas of sunshine

and flowers known only to that lesser portion of the habitable earth

south of the line. In Valparaiso the weather was stifling, yet here, not

so very far away, it was bitterly cold. And the ship was driving

headlong to destruction, though electric bells and switches were at

command in a luxuriously furnished apartment, while the engineer had just

spoken of the telephone as a means of conversing with the captain. Away

down in her feminine heart the girl wondered why Courtenay himself had

not come to her. Why had he sent Christobal first and Walker

subsequently? Oh, of course he had more urgent matters to attend to,

though, in the helpless condition of the ship, it was difficult to

appreciate their precise degrees of importance.




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