silently taking the baby
Florry, her namesake, in her arms, kissed her many times. I had told her
while, she was dressing, of the smoke-wreaths about the base of the
broken mast, and she believed in the testimony my eyes had afforded me
far more than in the reports of Christian Garth. We did not encounter
Mr. Lamarque when we first went on deck; he had gone forward to smoke,
some one said; but Captain Ambrose was standing alone, telescope in
hand, and to him we addressed ourselves, quietly.

He seemed startled when I disclosed the result of my observation--for I
did not choose to commit the pilot--but he did not attempt to deny the
truth of the condition of things, and conjured us both to entire quiet
and composure, and, if possible, to absolute silence. The safety of five
hundred people, he said, depended on our discretion; the ship might not
ignite for days, if at all, he thought, so carefully had the air been
excluded from the cotton by the process of tight calking, so as to seal
it almost hermetically; indeed, the fire might be wholly extinguished by
the pumps, which were constantly at work, pouring streams of water
around and through the hold; and a panic would be equal to a fire in any
case. Such were his calmness and apparent faith in his own words, that
they did much to allay Miss Lamarque's fears. My own were little
soothed--I never doubted from the beginning what the end would be.

Mr. Lamarque approached us while the conference with the captain was
going on, and, under the seal of secrecy, the condition of affairs was
communicated to that gentleman.

I never saw a man so crushed and calm at the same time. His handsome
face seemed turned to stone--he scarcely spoke at all, and made no
inquiries. I think his mind, like mine, was made up to the worst. Yet he
commanded himself so far as to go to the breakfast-table and superintend
the meal of his little children, about whom he hung, like a mother-bird
who sees the shadow of a hawk above her brood, from that moment until
the _denoument_ of the drama separated us two forever.

Miss Lamarque and I sat down together on a bench, while the host of
hungry passengers crowded down to the cabin at the welcome summons of
the bell, and I was aware again of the pale widow and her patient child
standing near me.

A sudden thought occurred to me. This woman, more than any one among us,
needed the strengthening stimulus of good food, and this meal might be
her last on shipb