oats over the side, and around each boat was a crazy, fighting mob.
Above our starboard rail towered the foremast of a schooner. She had
rammed us fair amidships, and in her bows was a hole through which you
could have rowed a boat. Into this the water was rushing and sucking her
down. She was already settling at the stern. By the light of a swinging
lantern I saw three of her crew lift a yawl from her deck and lower it
into the water. Into it they hurled oars and a sail, and one of them
had already started to slide down the painter when the schooner lurched
drunkenly; and in a panic all three of the men ran forward and leaped to
our lower deck. The yawl, abandoned, swung idly between the Patience and
the schooner. Kinney, seeing what I saw, grabbed me by the arm.

"There!" he whispered, pointing; "there's our chance!" I saw that, with
safety, the yawl could hold a third person, and as to who the third
passenger would be I had already made up my mind.

"Wait here!" I said.

On the Patience there were many immigrants, only that afternoon released
from Ellis Island. They had swarmed into the life-boats even before they
were swung clear, and when the ship's officers drove them off, the poor
souls, not being able to understand, believed they were being sacrificed
for the safety of the other passengers. So each was fighting, as he
thought, for his life and for the lives of his wife and children. At the
edge of the scrimmage I dragged out two women who had been knocked off
their feet and who were in danger of being trampled. But neither was the
woman I sought. In the half-darkness I saw one of the immigrants, a girl
with a 'kerchief on her head, struggling with her life-belt. A stoker,
as he raced past, seized it and made for the rail. In my turn I took it
from him, and he fought for it, shouting:

"It's every man for himself now!"

"All right," I said, for I was excited and angry, "look out for YOURSELF
then!" I hit him on the chin, and he let go of the life-belt and
dropped.

I heard at my elbow a low, excited laugh, and a voice said: "Well
bowled! You never learned that in an office." I turned and saw the
lovely lady. I tossed the immigrant girl her life-belt, and as though I
had known Lady Moya all my life I took her by the hand and dragged her
after me down the deck.

"You come with me!" I commanded. I found that I was trembling and that
a weight of anxiety of which I had not been conscious had been lifted.
I fou