pper thought. The mate was swinging Number 25 about
to follow and look at the ship again; and the searchlight beam swept
back and forth through the snow; the blasts of the steam whistle, which
had ceased after the collision, burst out again. As before, no
response came from behind the snow. The searchlight picked up the
silent ship again; it had settled down deeper now by the bow, Alan saw;
the blow from Number 25 had robbed it of its last buoyancy; it was
sinking. It dove down, then rose a little--sounds came from it
now--sudden, explosive sounds; air pressure within hurled up a hatch;
the tops of the cabins blew off, and the stem of the ship slipped down
deep again, stopped, then dove without halt or recovery this time, and
the stern, upraised with the screw motionless, met the high wash of a
wave, and went down with it and disappeared.

No man had shown himself; no shout had been heard; no little boat was
seen or signalled.

The second officer, who had gone below to ascertain the damage done to
the ferry, came up to report. Two of the compartments, those which had
taken the crush of the collision, had flooded instantly; the bulkheads
were holding--only leaking a little, the officer declared. Water was
coming into a third compartment, that at the stern; the pumps were
fighting this water. The shock had sprung seams elsewhere; but if the
after compartment did not fill, the pumps might handle the rest.

Soddenness already was coming into the response of Number 25 to the
lift of the waves; the ferry rolled less to the right as she came
about, beam to the waves, and she dropped away more dully and deeply to
the left; the ship was listing to port and the lift of the ice-heaped
bow told of settling by the stern. Slowly Number 25 circled about, her
engines holding bare headway; the radio, Alan heard, was sending to the
_Richardson_ and to the shore stations word of the finding and sinking
of the ship and of the damage done to Number 25; whether that damage
yet was described in the dispatches as disaster, Alan did not know.
The steam whistle, which continued to roar, maintained the single,
separated blasts of a ship still seaworthy and able to steer and even
to give assistance. Alan was at the bow again on lookout duty, ordered
to listen and to look for the little boats.

He gave to that duty all his conscious attention; but through his
thought, whether he willed it or not, ran a riotous exultation. As he
paced