The curious sense of waiting, they knew not for what, which dulled the
thoughts and stilled the tongues of the small company at the table,
soon communicated itself to the stewards. The men stood in little
knots, exchanging few words, and those mostly meaningless; but the
chief steward, whose trained ear caught the regular beat of the
donkey-engine, woke them up with a series of sharp orders.
"Switch on the lights," he said loudly. "Clear the table and hurry up
with the coffee. Get a move on those fellows, Gomez. Have you never
before been in a ship when the screw stopped?"
The Gomez thus appealed to was the Englishman's second-in-command; he
acted as interpreter when anything out of the common was required. He
muttered a few words in the Hispano-Indian patois which his hearers
best understood, and the scene in the saloon changed with wondrous
suddenness. The glow of the electric lamps banished the gathering
shadows. The luxurious comfort of the apartment soon dispelled the
notion of danger. Coffee was brought. The smoking saloon was
inaccessible, owing to the closing of the gangway, but the chief
steward suggested that the gentlemen might smoke if the ladies were
agreeable. Under such circumstances the ladies always are agreeable,
and the instant result was a distinct rise in the social barometer.
The noise of the steam exhaust ceased as abruptly as it began. The
ship was riding easily in spite of the heavy sea. Drifting with wind
and wave is a simple thing for a big vessel. There is no struggle, no
tearing asunder of resisting forces. Thus might a boat caught in the
pitiless current of Niagara glide towards the brink of the cataract
with cunning smoothness.
And then, while the occupants of the saloon were endeavoring to
persuade each other that all was well, the loud wail of the siren
thrilled them with increased foreboding. It was not the warning note
of a fog, nor the sharp course-signal for the guidance of a passing
ship, but a sustained trumpeting, which announced to any steamer hidden
in the darkening waste of waters that the Kansas was not under
control. It was a wild, sinister appeal for help, the voice of the
disabled vessel proclaiming her need; and the answer seemed to come in
a fiercer shriek of the gale, while the added fury of the blast brought
a curling sea over the poop. The Kansas staggered and shook herself
clear. The wave smashed its way onward; several iron stanchions
snapped with reports like pistol-shots, and there was an intolerable
rending of woodwork. But, whatever the damage, the powerful hull rose
triumphantly from the clutch of its assailant. Shattered streams of
water poured off the decks like so many cascades. Loud above the
splash of these miniature cataracts vibrated the tense boom of the
fog-horn.
It was a nerve-racking moment. It demanded the leadership of a strong
man, and there are few gatherings in Anglo-Saxondom which cannot
produce a Caesar when required.