moved slowly out of
ambush across the white deck, but often moved indecisively, as though
uncertain of a need to go; and then slowly went into hiding again. The
sea whirling and leaping past was far below our wall side. It was like
peering dizzily over a precipice when watching those green and white
cataracts.

The passengers, wrapped and comfortable on the lee deck, chatted as
blithely as at a garden-party, while the band played medleys of
national airs to suit our varied complexions. The stewards came round
with loaded trays. A diminutive and wrinkled dame in costly furs
frowned through her golden spectacles at her book, while her maid sat
attentively by. An American actress was the centre of an eager group of
grinning young men; she was unseen, but her voice was distinct. The two
Vanderbilts took their brisk constitutional among us as though the
liner had but two real passengers though many invisible nobodies. The
children, who had not ceased laughing and playing since we left New
York, waited for the slope of the deck to reach its greatest, and then
ran down towards the bulwarks precipitously. The children, happy and
innocent, completed for us the feeling of comfortable indifference and
security which we found when we saw there was more ship than ocean. The
liner's deck canted slowly to leeward, went over more and more, beyond
what it had done yet, and a pretty little girl with dark curls riotous
from under her red tam-o'-shanter, ran down, and brought up against us
violently with both hands, laughing heartily. We laughed too. Looking
seawards, I saw receding the broad green hill, snow-capped, which had
lifted us and let us down. The sea was getting up.

Near sunset, when the billows were mounting express along our run,
sometimes to leap and snatch at our upper structure, and were rocking
us with some ease, there was a commotion forward. Books and shawls went
anywhere as the passengers ran. Something strange was to be seen upon
the waters.

It looked like a big log out there ahead, over the starboard bow. It
was not easy to make out. The light was failing. We overhauled it
rapidly, and it began to shape as a ship's boat. "Oh, it's gone,"
exclaimed some one then. But the forlorn object lifted high again, and
sank once more. Whenever it was glimpsed it was set in a patch of foam.

That flotsam, whatever it was, was of man. As we watched it intently,
and before it was quite plain, we knew intuitively that hope was