all her power against the wind and
the seas, a desperate insistence throbbing in the thrusts of the
engines; for Number 25 was fleeing--fleeing for the western shore. She
dared not turn to the nearer eastern shore to expose that shattered
stern to the seas.

Four bells beat behind Alan; it was two o'clock. Relief should have
come long before; but no one came. He was numbed now; ice from the
spray crackled upon his clothing when he moved, and it fell in flakes
upon the deck. The stark figure on the bridge was that of the second
officer; so the thing which was happening below--the thing which was
sending strange, violent, wanton tremors through the ship--was serious
enough to call the skipper below, to make him abandon the bridge at
this time! The tremors, quite distinct from the steady tremble of the
engines and the thudding of the pumps, came again. Alan, feeling them,
jerked up and stamped and beat his arms to regain sensation. Some one
stumbled toward him from the cabins now, a short figure in a great
coat. It was a woman, he saw as she hailed him--the cabin maid.

"I'm taking your place!" she shouted to Alan. "You're wanted--every
one's wanted on the car deck! The cars--" The gale and her fright
stopped her voice as she struggled for speech, "The cars--the cars are
loose!"

CHAPTER XVII

"HE KILLED YOUR FATHER"

Alan ran aft along the starboard side, catching at the rail as the deck
tilted; the sounds within the hull and the tremors following each sound
came to him more distinctly as he advanced. Taking the shortest way to
the car deck, he turned into the cabins to reach the passengers'
companionway. The noises from the car deck, no longer muffled by the
cabins, clanged and resounded in terrible tumult; with the clang and
rumble of metal, rose shouts and roars of men.

To liberate and throw overboard heavily loaded cars from an endangered
ship was so desperate an undertaking and so certain to cost life that
men attempted it only in final extremities, when the ship must be
lightened at any cost. Alan had never seen the effect of such an
attempt, but he had heard of it as the fear which sat always on the
hearts of the men who navigate the ferries--the cars loose on a
rolling, lurching ship! He was going to that now. Two figures
appeared before him, one half supporting, half dragging the other.
Alan sprang and offered aid; but the injured man called to him to go
on; others needed him. Ala