aptain Bahrens was in the chart
house. When the next flash came, I saw the other lookout man making his
short turns on the narrow space of bow deck, and was tempted to join
him; why, I do not know. I crept past the donkey-engine, holding fast to
it as I went, until I reached the iron gate that closes the narrow
passage to the bow deck. With two silver dollars in my teeth I staggered
across this rail-guarded plank, and when the next flash came I was
sitting at the feet of the lookout man with the two silver dollars in my
outstretched hand. He took the money, and let me crawl forward between
the anchors and the high bulwark of the bows.

The sensations which this position gave me were strange beyond
description. Darkness was thick around me; at one moment I was carried
upward until I felt that I should be lost in the black sky, and the next
moment the downward motion was so terrible that the blacker water at the
bottom of the sea seemed near. I cannot say that I enjoyed it, but I
could not give it up.

When the great bow rose, I stood up, and, looking over the bulwark,
tried to see either sky or water, but tried in vain, save when the
lightning revealed them both. When the bow fell, I crouched under the
bulwark and let the sea comb over me. How long I remained at this weird
post, I do not know; but I was driven from it in such terror as I hope
never to feel again.

An unusually large wave carried me nearer the sky than I liked to be,
and just as the sharp bow of the great iron ship was balancing on its
crest for the desperate plunge, a glare of lightning made sky and sea
like a sheet of flame and curdled the blood in my veins. In the trough
of the sea, under the very foot of the immense steamship, lay a delicate
pleasure-boat, with its mast broken flush with its deck, and its
helpless body the sport of the cruel waves.

The light did not last longer than it would take me to count five, but
in that time I saw four figures that will always haunt me. Two sailors
in yachting costume were struggling hopelessly with the tiller, and the
wild terror of their faces as they saw the huge destruction that hung
over them is simply unforgettable.

The other two were different. A strong, blond man, young, handsome, and
brave I know, stood bareheaded in front of the cockpit. With a sudden,
vehement motion he drew the head of a girl to his breast and held it
there as if to shut out the horrible world. There was no fear in his
face,-