rting the sky above it, sinking almost as fast as the ship was
sinking.

"Santa had wrapped her mantilla over her head. She went down the
ladder before me, following Farrell. Our boat was white-painted on
thwarts and stern-sheets. . . . I was keeping my foothold with
difficulty, loaded with a water-breaker. . . . A man took it from
me, all in silence. I gripped Farrell's hand and hoiked him on
board. There was a great silence hanging, as it seemed, about those
last moments.

"We pushed off a little way. The third and last boat was lowered
down, and we saw the last half-dozen, with the captain at their
heels, tumbling down in a stampede.

"The _Eurotas_ took her plunge just as we heard them unhook from the
davit-blocks."

NIGHT THE SIXTEENTH.

CAPTAIN MACNAUGHTEN.

(Foe's Narrative Continued.)

"I once read a novel called _One Traveller Returns_. That's all I
remember of it--the title.

"Well, I am that traveller: and if ever I write down the story of the
_Eurotas_, and in particular of what was suffered on board her boat
No. 2, I have no doubt that nine readers out of ten will forget the
details just as soon and just as completely. There is a horrible
sameness about these narratives, Roddy; and the truer they are (as
I've proved) the nearer they resemble one another. Monotonous they
are--these drawn-out agonies--as the sea itself upon which they are
enacted. From time to time you sit up half-awake out of your stupor,
and then you know that something is going to happen, and also that it
is something you've read about somewhere, something that you've
_lived_ through (or so it seems) in dreams, or in a previous
existence. You hardly know which; and you don't care, much.
It's going to be horrible, you know: it's going to be all the more
horrible, in its way, for being conventional. You want to get it
over and pass on to the next stereotyped nightmare. That's the
feeling.

"So I'm going to confine my tale pretty closely to myself and what
pulled me through. . . . But before I get to this I must tell you of
two shocks that fell on me before I came to it, and seemed to promise
that the books were all wrong and not half vivid enough. I dare say
that quite a number of survivors have tried to paint the sense of
loneliness that swooped on them in the first few seconds after their
ship had slid down. But I'll swear I had read nothing to prepare me
for it. . . . It's not a ship--it's a continent--th