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.

A man rushed by, or tried to do so. Courtenay recognized him as a
leading stoker who had temporary charge of the donkey-boiler and seized
him wrathfully, his eyes ablaze.

"Go back!" he roared.

"Senor! The ship is lost!"

"Go back, and await my orders."

He could have strangled the fugitive in his sudden rage. The fireman
endeavored to gasp his r