Mr. Somerville drew a book from his pocket. "If that be so," he said gently, "may I suggest that we seek aid from One who is all-powerful? We are few, and of different religions, but in this hour we can surely worship at a common altar."
"Right!" said the taciturn Englishman, varying his adjective for once.
The missionary offered up a short but heartfelt prayer, and, finding
that he carried his congregation with him, read the opening verse of
Hymn No. 370, "For those at Sea."
The stewards, most of whom understood a few words of English, readily grasped the fact that the padri was asking for help in a situation which they well knew to be desperate. They drew near reverently, and even joined in the simple lines:
O hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea.
During the brief silence which followed the singing of the hymn it did, indeed, seem to their strained senses that the fierce violence of the gale had somewhat abated. It was not so, in reality. A steady fall in the barometer foretold even worse weather to come. Courtenay, assured now that the main engines were absolutely useless, thought it advisable to get steering way on the ship by rigging the foresail, double-reefed and trapped. The result was quickly perceptible. The Kansas might not be pooped again, but she would travel more rapidly into the unknown.
Yet this only afforded another instance of the way men reason when they seek to explain cause from effect. The hoisting of that strip of stout canvas was one of the time-factors in the story of an eventful night, for it was with gray-faced despair that the captain gave the requisite order when the second engineer reported that his senior was dead, the crown of two furnaces destroyed, and the engines clogged, if not irretrievably damaged, by fallen debris. None realized better than the young commander what a disastrous fate awaited his ship in the gloom of the flying scud ahead. There was a faint chance of encountering another steamship which would respond to his signals. Then he would risk all by laying the Kansas broadside on in the effort to take a tow-rope aboard. Meanwhile, it was best to bring her under some sort of control, the steam steering-gear, driven by the uninjured donkey-engine, being yet available.
In the saloon, Elsie had shielded her face in her hands, to hide the tears which the entreaty of the hymn had brought to her eyes. Some one whispered to her:
"Won't you sing something, Miss Maxwell?"
It was the American. He judged that the sweet voice which unconsciously led the singing of the hymn must be skilled in other music.
She looked up at him, her eyes shining.
"Sing! Do you think it possible?" she asked.
"Yes. You can do a brave thing, I guess, and that would be brave."
"I will try," she said, and she walked to the piano which was screwed athwart the deck in front of the polished mahogany sheath of the steel mainmast. It was in her mind to play some lively excerpts from the light operas then in vogue, but the secret influences of the hour were stronger than her studied intent, and, when her fingers touched the keys, they wandered, almost without volition, into the subtle harmonies of Gounod's "Ave Maria." She played the air first; then, gaining confidence, she sang the words, using a Spanish version which had caught her fancy. It was good to see the flashing eyes and impassioned gestures of the Chilean stewards when they found that she was singing in their own language. These men, owing to their acquaintance with the sea and knowledge of the coast, were now in a state of panic; they would have burst the bonds of discipline on the least pretext. So, as it chanced, the voice of the English señorita reached them as the message of an angel, and the spell she cast over them did not lose its potency during some hours of dangerous toil. Here, again, was found one of the comparatively trivial incidents which contributed materially to the working out of a strange drama, because anything in the nature of a mutinous orgy breaking out in the first part of that soul-destroying night must have instantly converted the ship into a blood-bespattered Inferno.
Excited applause rewarded the song. Fired by example, the dapper French Count approached the piano and asked Elsie if she could play Beranger's "Roi d'Yvetot." She repressed a smile at his choice, but the chance that presented itself of initiating a concert on the spur of the moment was too good to be lost, so M. de Poincilit, in a nice light tenor, told how
Il était un roi d'Yvetot
Peu connu dans l'histoire,
Se levant tard, se couchant tôt,
Dormant fort bien sans gloire.
The Frenchman took the merry monarch seriously, but the lilting melody pleased everybody except "Mr. Wood." The "Oh, Oh's" and "Ah, Ah's" of the chorus apparently stirred him to speech. He strolled from a corner of the saloon to the side of Gray, the American engineer, and said, with a contemptuous nod towards the singer:
"What rot!"
"Not a bit of it. He's all right. Won't you give us a song next?"
If Gray showed the face of a sphinx, so did "Mr. Wood," whose real name was Tollemache. He bent a little nearer.
"Seen the rockets?" he asked.
"No. Are we signaling?"
"Every minute. Have counted fifteen."
"You don't say. Things are in a pretty bad shape, then?"
"Rotten."
"Well, like Brer Rabbit, we must lie low and say nothing."
This opinion was incontrovertible. Moreover, Tollemache was not one who needed urging to keep his mouth shut. Indeed, this was by far the longest conversation he had indulged in since he came aboard; nor was he finished with it.
"Ship will strike soon," he said.
Gray turned on him sharply. "Oh, nonsense!" he exclaimed. "What has put that absurd notion into your head?"
"Know this coast."
"But we are far out at sea."
"Fifty miles from danger line, two hours ago. Thirty now."
"Are you sure?"
"Certain."
"Do you mean to tell me that in three hours, or less, the ship may be a wreck?"
"Will be," said Tollemache. "Have a cigar," and he passed a well-filled case to his companion.
The American was beginning to take the silent one's measure. He bit off the end of a cigar and lit it.
"What's at the back of your head?" he asked coolly. The other looked towards the Chileans.
"Those chaps are rotters," he said.
"You think they will cut up rough? What can they do? We must all sink or swim together."
"Yes; but there are the women, you know. They must be looked after.
You can count on me. Tell the chief steward—and the padri."
Gray felt that here was a man after his own heart, the native-born American having a rough-and-ready way of classifying nationalities when the last test of manhood is applied by a shipwreck, or a fire.
"Got a gun?" he inquired.
"Cabin. Goin' for it first opportunity."
"Same here. But the captain will give us some sort of warning?"
"Perhaps not. Die quick, die happy."
Then Gray smiled, and he could not help saying: "Tell you what, cousin, if you shoot as straight as you talk, these stewards will come to heel, no matter what happens."
"Fair shot," admitted Tollemache, and he stalked off to his stateroom, while the Count was vociferating, for