that ends in a cataract,
elemental passions are apt to strive with elemental fears. Few among
these rough sailors had ever given thought to the future. They had
lived from hand to mouth, the demands of a hard and dangerous
profession alternating with bouts of foolish revelry. Most of them had
looked on death in the tempest, in the swirling seas, in the uplifted
knife. But then, there was always a chance of escape, an open door for
the stout heart and ready hand; whereas, under present conditions,
there was nothing to be done but pray, or curse, or wait in stoic
silence until the first ominous quiver ran through the swift-moving
ship. So, all unknowingly, they grouped themselves according to their
nationalities, for the Latins knelt and supplicated the saints and the
Virgin Mother, the Celts roared insensate threats at the islanders who
had thrown them into the very jaws of eternity, and the Saxons stood
motionless, with grim jaws and frowning brows, disdaining alike both
frenzied appeal and useless execration.

Someone threw a cork jacket over the girl's shoulders, and bade her
fasten its straps around her waist. She obeyed without a word.
Indeed, she seemed to have lost the power of speech. Everything had
suddenly assumed such a crystal clear aspect that her eyes were gifted
with unnatural vision though her remaining senses were benumbed. The
blue and white of the sky, the emerald green of the water, the russet
brown and cold gray of the land--these shone now with a beauty vivid
beyond any of nature's tints she had ever before seen. She was
conscious, too, of an awful aloofness. Her spirit was entrenched in
its own citadel. She seemed to be brooding, solitary and remote, yet
shrinking ever within herself; quite unknowing, she offered a piteous
example of the old Hebrew's dire truism that man came naked into the
world and naked shall he depart.

In a curiously detached way she wondered why Hozier did not return.
The prayers and curses of the men surrounding her fell unheeded on her
ears. Where was Hozier? What was he doing? Why did he not come to
her? She felt a strange confidence in him. If he had not been struck
down by that calamitous shell he would have saved the ship--assuredly
he would have devised some means of saving their lives! Perhaps, even
now, he was attempting some desperate expedient! . . . The thought
nerved her for an instant. Then a rending, grinding noise was followed
by a sudden