The Last Passenger

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Title:     The Last Passenger
Author: James B. Connolly [More Titles by Connolly]

Meade was having his coffee in the smoking-room. Major Crupp came in and took a seat beside him.

A watchful steward hurried over. "Coffee, sir?"

"Please."

"Cigarette, Major?" asked Meade.

"I will--thanks."

Lavis came in. Both men passed the greetings of the evening with him, and then Meade, at least, forgot that he existed. Only interesting people were of value to Meade, and he had early in the passage appraised Lavis--one of those negligible persons whose habit was to hover near some group of notables and look at them or listen to them, and, if encouraged, join in the conversation, or, if invited, take a hand in a game of cards.

"Seen Cadogan since dinner, Major?" asked Meade.

"He's patrolling the deck right now."

"With the beautiful lady?"

"Nope--alone."

"Thank God! And where is she?"

"Oh, she's nicely enthroned, thank you, in an angle of the loungeroom with that sixty-millionaire coal baron, Drissler."

"It's bath-tubs, and he's only got twenty millions."

"The poor beggar! Well, Meade, if ever she gets within shelling distance of his little twenty millions they'll melt like a dobey house in the rain."

"No doubt of that, I guess. And yet--and yet up to late this afternoon, at least, she appeared to be delighting in the presence of Cadogan."

"She surely did. But"--Major Crupp eyed Meade quizzically--"what are you worrying about?"

"I'm afraid she hasn't really shook him. I know too much about her. The twenty millions would be nice to draw upon, but her one unquenchable passion is man, and in build, looks, age, and temperament Cadogan is just one rich prize. But how do you account for Cadogan? He's certainly bright enough in other matters."

Crupp projected three smoke rings across the table at Meade. "I was stationed in the wilds of the Philippines one time. The native women where I was were unwashed, bow-legged, black creatures about four feet high. After three years of it I returned home in a government transport. I landed in San Francisco. At first I thought it was a dream."

"Thought what was a dream, Major?"

"The women going by. I posted myself on the corner of two streets, and there I stood transfixed, except every ten minutes or so, when I'd run into the hotel bar behind me and have another drink. And I'd come out again, and I'd take another look at those big, beautiful, upstanding creatures floating by, hosts and hosts of 'em, and I'd whisper to myself: 'Cruppie, you're dead. You've been boloed on outpost and gone to heaven, and you don't know it.' And googoo-eyed I kept staring at 'em, investing every last one of 'em with a double halo, till a long, splayfooted, thin-necked hombre in a policeman's uniform came along and says: 'Here, you, I've been pipin' you off for about four hours now. About time you moved on, ain't it?' Lord, and not one of 'em that couldn't have married me on the spot, I held 'em in such respect."

"Thick, wasn't he?"

"I thought so--then. But I wonder if Caddie would think we were thick, too, if we told him to move on? He's just back, remember, from two years in the jungle, and her eyes haven't changed color and her hair still shines like a new gold shoulder-knot at dress parade. She is still beautiful--and clever."

"Clever? She's surely that; but he's only a boy, Major."

"M-m--twenty-six!"

"What's twenty-six? He's still a dreaming boy. I'd like to say what I really thought of her."

"Don't. They'd be having a squad of stewards in here to police the place after you got through."

"Why don't you give him a hint?"

"Huh! No, no, Mister Meade--I'm still young and fair. You break it to him. Who knows, your age may save you from being projected through the nearest embrasure!" Crupp crushed the smoking end of his cigarette against the ash-tray. "I'll have to run along now."

"Back soon?"

"After I've said good night to two or three dear old ladies in the loungeroom before they go below."

"And two or three dear young ladies who won't be going below."

"Don't be saucy, Meade. You look out of uniform when you try to be saucy. Exactness as to fact and luminosity of language--that's you, if you please."

"Bring Vogel on your way back."

"If I can detach him from his beloved maps. Forty millions in railroads he's got now. And colored maps of 'em he's got. He gloats over 'em--- gloats, every night before he turns in."

"Hurry him up, anyway. And drive Cadogan in. I'll get him going on a few adventures, and make him forget his beautiful lady."

* * * * *

Lavis had been sitting on the transom. He always seemed to be sitting on the transom--a long, lean, huddled-up figure in the corner, looking out with half-closed eyes on the life of the smoking-room.

Cadogan came in. Meade revolved the chair next to him at the table, so that Cadogan had only to fall into it. Cadogan abstractedly nodded his thanks. Catching sight of Lavis, he nodded and smiled.

With eyes staring absently into space Cadogan was drumming on the table with his fingers.

"Sounds like some tom-tom march you're trying to play," interrupted Meade, and proffered a cigar. Cadogan shook his head.

"No?" Meade dropped his cigar placidly back into its case. "But listen here, Cadogan. As a writer and newspaper man, my main business in life is to discover people who know more than other people about some particular thing, and then get it out of them. What about this ocean-liner travelling of to-day--is it perfectly safe?"

"The safest mode of travel ever devised--or should be."

"But lives are lost?"

"Surely. And probably will be. But they should not be--not on the high sea--except in a collision, and then probably one ship or the other is to blame. Even inshore, if they keep their lead and foghorn going, and steam up to kick her off, nothing will happen either, unless"--he shrugged his shoulders--"they've gone foolish or something else on the bridge."

Meade questioned further. And Cadogan answered briefly, abstractedly, until--Meade growing more cunning and subtle--he was led into citing one experience after another from out of his own life in proof of this or that side of an argument.

Cadogan had begun in short, snappy sentences, and in a tense, rather high-keyed voice; but once warmed up he swung along in rounded, almost classic periods; and his voice deepened and softened and, as he became yet more absorbed in his subject, grew rhythmical, musical almost, the while his words took on added color and glow.

Once in full swing it was not difficult for Meade to get him to run on; and he ran on for an hour, and would have gone on indefinitely only, suddenly coming to himself and looking around, he discovered that half the room had gathered in a semicircle behind his chair. He flushed, cut his story short, and said no more. The crowd dispersed to their various seats.

Presently Meade observed: "How did you ever find time in your young life for the half of it? And how you do suggest things--possibilities that try a man's spirit even to contemplate!"

Cadogan did not respond; but from Lavis, the man on the transom, came: "And now you are suggesting the really great adventuring!"

Meade turned in surprise. "What is that?"

"Isn't it in the spirit we have the really great adventures?"

Meade studied him curiously. "You mean that the most thrilling adventures are those we only dream about, but which never happen?"

"I didn't mean exactly that, for they do happen. What I meant was that to try your body was nothing, but to try your soul--try it to the utmost--there would be something."

"To risk it or try it?" asked Meade.

"Oh, to try it only. To risk it, would not that be sinful?"

Cadogan's instinctive liking for Lavis had led him from the beginning of the voyage to take a keen interest in whatever he might do or say; but until to-night he had found him a most unobtrusive and taciturn man. He had a feeling that this man, who before to-night had barely said more than good morning and good night to him, understood him much better than did Meade, the professional observer, who was forever questioning him. The answer to Meade's last question stirred him particularly, because he felt that it was meant, not for Meade, but for himself.

Thinking of Meade, who was a famous author and journalist, Cadogan said hesitatingly and shyly: "I've often thought I'd like to be a writer." He meant that for Lavis, but it was Meade who took it to himself to ask him why.

"If I were a writer, I'd have hope right now of taking part in one of the greatest adventures that could befall a man."

"Where, Cadogan?"

"Right aboard this ship. How? Here we are tearing through the iceberg country trying to make a record. If ever we piled up head on to one of those icebergs, where would we be?"

"But it is a clear night. And the lookouts."

"Never mind the clear night--or the lookouts if they are not looking out."

"But this ship can't sink."

"No? But suppose she can sink, and that she is sinking. There are four thousand people aboard--and down she goes. Wouldn't that be an experience?"

With meditative eyes directed down to the ashes at the end of his cigar, Meade mulled over the question. "A great adventure it surely would be," he at length emitted from behind a puff of smoke. "The right man, a great writer, for instance, if he could live through that, would make a world's epic of it."

Cadogan wondered what the man on the transom was thinking of. He put his next question directly to him. "There would be some great deaths in such an event, don't you think, sir?" His own eyes were glowing.

"Some great deaths, surely--and some horrible ones, doubtless, too."

"Oh, but men would die like gods at such a time!"

"No doubt--and like dogs also."

Meade did not relish losing control of the conversation to an undistinguished outsider. "Look here, Cadogan," he interjected; "could a man live through that--go down with the ship and survive?"

"He could survive the sinking--yes; but he would not live long--not in water near icebergs. The numbness soon creeps up to your heart, and then----"

"But how could a man do it and live?"

"Why, sir, do you insist that he should live?" It was Lavis who had spoken.

Meade's eyebrows rose above the tops of his horn glasses. "Eh!" Cadogan, too, stared at Lavis.

"To live after it would be only to half complete the adventure. We began by speaking of an adventure in the spirit. To make a real, a great adventure of it, should not the man die?"

Meade now smiled with obvious tolerance. "But a man dead and buried in the depths of the sea!"

"That would only be his body, and we were speaking of an adventure of the spirit--of the soul. The man should experience every physical dread, every nervous fear, every emotional horror of those last few minutes, share the bitterness of the disillusionment inevitable when three or four thousand ordinary, every-day human beings are dying in despair, because, as they would judge it, dying so needlessly. To get the full measure of it, and to share also in the sweetness and resignation of great souls in the hour of death, would not his mortal body have to meet death, even as the others?"

Meade readjusted his horned spectacles. He would have to revise his notes of the man, that was plain. Forty, or forty-five possibly, he was. Tall and large-framed, but spare, thin-cheeked, and hollow-templed, with white streaks among the close-clipped, very black, and very thick hair which showed from under his cap. A worn-looking man, a student. M-m--he had him now--a teacher of the classics in some college, possibly a young women's college.

"To get back to our steamer and your extraordinary proposition," suggested Meade; "you say that the man should actually die?"

"Surely die. And he should face death even as our highly vitalized young friend here faces life. Mr. Cadogan, coming back to us from perilous experiences, makes us share with him in every tremor, every dread, every thought he himself felt in his adventure. And how does he manage to do that? Isn't it because in the perilous moment his soul remains tranquil? If death comes, well and good--it cannot be helped; if not, then a glorious adventure. He meets danger with every faculty keyed up to the highest. Now, if a man would meet his death, as this steamer went down, in the same mood, would he not march into the shadows with a soul ennobled?"

"And then what?"

"Then? If we are heirs in spirit even as in body will God ever allow a great spirit to become extinct?"

Meade abandoned his young-ladies'-teacher supposition. He speared the man with another glance. "Pardon me, you are not a scientist?"

Lavis smiled--for the first time. "Do I talk like one?"

"You do not believe, then, in present-day scientific methods?"

"I believe in any constructive method, but"--he betrayed a shadow of impatience--"why limit our beliefs to what can be proved with a surgeon's knife?"

Meade thought he remembered that Roman Catholic priests were on special occasions allowed to travel without the outer garb of their calling; but would a priest talk so freely to a stranger? And yet--"You must have had a religious training at some time in your life?"

Lavis smiled again, but more slowly. "You are persistent, Mr. Meade."

"I beg your pardon. It is the journalist's interviewing habit. And I thought I recalled, also----"

Lavis seemed to be waiting for Meade to finish, but Meade, who suddenly realized to what he was leading, did not finish; and Lavis turned his head so as to look squarely at Cadogan. Through the half-closed, wistful eyes Cadogan caught a gleam that he again felt was an answer to Meade's unfinished question, and yet was again meant, not for Meade, but for himself.

"But to return," persisted Meade; "how is the world to benefit by your theory that God does not allow a great spirit to die?"

"Well, call it theory. After the mortal death of a man whose dying was a tremendous experience, there will be born again a great soul. And if the being in whom that soul is enshrined is but true to the best in himself, he will attain to the utterance of a great message, compel the world to listen to his message; and the world, having listened, will be for all time the better."

"I suppose"--Meade was by now not wholly free of self-consciousness--"a man should have had a training as a writer to best fit him for such an experience?"

"Writer, sculptor, painter, musician, lawgiver--anything, so that he possesses the germ, the potential power to make others see, hear, or feel things as he does."

"But who aboard this ship possesses such a gift?"

Lavis turned to Cadogan. "Here is the man."

"Who!" Cadogan bounded in his seat; and then, smiling at himself: "That's a good one--I took it seriously."

"Take it seriously, please."

Cadogan instantly sobered. "But I'm not aching to die. And the Lord never intended me for a martyr."

"Are you sure you know what the Lord intended you for? You have done great deeds in one way. You could do great deeds in another way. A great deed is never more than a great thought in action. You need but the great thought to give the great deed birth."

"But I never originated a great thought in my life."

"What man ever did? The seeds of great thoughts are born in us, which means that they come from God. But great deeds are man's. And if it should come to pass in your adventurous life that you go to a calamitous death, it may not be altogether a pity. If your heart remains pure as now, it surely would not be. You have every qualification, if you could but be born again."

"Why wouldn't you yourself be the man for such a thing?" It was Meade, eying the man from under contracted eyebrows, who put this question.

"Thanks!" Lavis's smile was almost perceptible.

"I did not mean----"

"No harm. It would require the creative genius. I am no longer creative."

"But you have an intellect."

"Meaning that I have a well-developed muscle in the brain? The man who lifts heavy weights in the circus has also a well-developed muscle in his arm, or back, or legs, but what does he teach us that is for the betterment of the race? But Mr. Cadogan here has the flaming soul. And the last passenger on this ship should be such as he, a strong man with the innocence of the child." He turned from the older to the younger man. "You are creative in thought, powerful, direct, tireless in action, Mr. Cadogan. Every new experience still comes to you with the dew of the morning on it. You should die hard, with your eyes open to the last. Nothing would escape you. And you would know what dying was, because for you to give up life would be a great renunciation."

Cadogan shook his head. "Even if all the rest of it were true, I have nothing in life to renounce."

"How can you know that? You would be renouncing a limitless capacity for enjoyment, if nothing more." Lavis rose to his feet. "I hope I haven't bored you too much? I think I will go out and get some fresh air." He bowed and smiled to Meade, smiled more warmly on Cadogan, wrapped his top-coat over his evening clothes, and went out on deck.

Meade saw that Cadogan was gazing thoughtfully on the seat which Lavis had vacated. "What do you make of him, Cadogan?"

Cadogan's face, when he swung his chair around, was flushed, his dark-blue eyes more glowing than usual. "I don't know, except that he had me thinking. He made me feel that he was reading my mind, and before he left I was saying to myself, 'When I grow older I'll be something like him,' only, of course, with less brains than he's got."

"You'll have brains enough, don't fear. He made me think of the head of a religious order who went wrong some years ago. But that was before I knew much of the inside of Continental affairs. A woman, as I recall it. However, he's gone--he made my head ache trying to follow him, and--but there is the major and Vogel passing the port-hole. I'll call them in and we'll have our little rubber."

* * * * *

They sat in to their little rubber, and while they played a passenger of importance was auctioning off the pool on the ship's run for the next day.

He stood on a table to see and be seen, a short, fat, bearded man who sometimes had to pause for breath. "Here she is, gentlemen, the largest ship of all time making marine history. What d'y' say, gentlemen? We all know what we did up to noon to-day. We did even better, impossible though it may seem, this afternoon. Now, what am I offered for the high field? Come now, gentlemen. By Tuesday morning, at ten o'clock, are we to be abreast of Sandy Hook or not? It will be a record run if we make it, but whether we are a few minutes late or early, every indication points to a grand day's run for to-morrow. Come, gentlemen, bid up!"

"What of the rumors of icebergs?" asked a voice.

"Pray do not joke, gentlemen. I beg of you, do not joke. Has any person here observed any notice of icebergs posted on the ship's board? I fancy not. To-day I myself put the question to the man whose word is law on this ship. Do I have to name him, gentlemen? No need, is there? No. 'Are we going to slow down?' was my question. 'On the contrary, we are going to go faster,' was the reply."

There was a laugh. "Seventy pounds!" was called.

"That's the spirit, gentlemen. Seventy pounds for the high field. The gentleman who shall be fortunate enough to win this pool will have something to brag about in future days. Come, now, how much for the high field? Seventy-five? Good! Gentlemen, I am offered----"

"What's the high field worth, Cadogan?" asked Vogel.

"All you want to bid, if nothing goes wrong. But with ship's officers spending more time with distinguished passengers than on the bridge, I wouldn't give a nickel for it."

"I won't bid, then."

The voice of the man on the table was increasing in volume. "Eighty-five pounds I am offered for the high field. It is not enough, not enough by far, gentlemen--eh! Eh, I say."

The ship heaved, not violently; gently rather, under them. There was an easy, slight roll to port, a dull, almost noiseless bumping, a slow, heavy resistance, as of a heavy object being forced over a stubbornly yielding surface.

To either side of him and in the mirrors Cadogan could see a dozen men peer inquiringly up over cards or books or glasses. Meade stared around the room. "What the devil's that?" he asked, and held a card high, with eyes directed to the nearest deck door.

There was a recoil of the ship, which slowly and gently, but surely and almost comically, to Cadogan's way of thinking, urged the stout waist of Meade against the edge of the table.

Cadogan waited his last turn to play, laid down his card, and scooped in the trick. "Forty on points, eight on honors, Major," he said, and set it down. "If nobody minds, I'll step out on deck and see what stopped her."

"Stopped! Is she stopped?" exclaimed Vogel.

"She is." Cadogan strolled out of the smoking-room. Three or four had preceded him; half a dozen, who had nothing else to do, strolled out after him.

In a few minutes those who had gone out were beginning to return. "Well, what do you know about that?" whooped the first one. "Hit a lump of ice! Lucky for the ice we didn't hit it fair, with this forty-five-thousand-tonner going along at twenty-five or six knots an hour like she is!"

Several laughed at that, and Major Crupp, who was patiently riffling the cards, called out to the last speaker: "Did you see Mr. Cadogan out there?"

"I saw him going toward the bow of the ship, Major," was the answer.

"Investigating, I suppose. Well, suppose we play dummy--what do you-all say?--till Caddie comes back. He's possessed of a demon for finding out things. Your deal, Mr. Vogel."

A steward stepped in from the deck. "Major Crupp, sir?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Cadogan told me to say not to wait till he came back, sir, but to go on with the game, sir."

Vogel picked up his cards. "How long will we be delayed, steward?"

"Oh, not more than an hour or two, they say, sir."

"H-m-m"--Vogel stared reflectively at the table--"I'll have to buy Cadogan a good smoke when he comes back. He saved me ninety or a hundred pounds on that high field."

They resumed play.

II

Lavis was pacing the wide promenade deck and sniffing the air as he paced. It was as if a breath of the north were on them, and yet--having reached the uncovered part of the deck astern he looked up to observe the steamer's smoke--the wind was not from the north.

Such passengers as were still making their rounds were doing so determinedly, in sweaters or top-coats. Without halting in their rapid walking they, too, at times drew short, sharp breaths through high-held nostrils. It surely was growing colder. But why? A group held up an officer who was smoking his pipe in the lee of the canvas forward to ask him why. He at once set them right about it. Why, surely it should be cool--on the North Atlantic, in April, and well on in the evening!

A couple that Lavis knew for bride and groom turned out to lean over the rail. He was pointing down by the ship's side. "Hardly a ripple on it--see!" he exclaimed. "Only for the bubbling up from underneath, none at all. Like an endless belt sliding by so smoothly, isn't it? And above--see, sweetheart--a clear sky."

"Ah-h, a beautiful night!" she murmured. "On such a night--" Lavis, as he turned the corner of the house, saw him snatch her close and kiss her.

In lounge and smoking rooms all was cosey, cheerful, lively company. Lavis in passing had only to glance into air-ports to be sure of that. It was card-playing and easy gossip in the one, and not infrequent drinks being brought to impatient men by alert, deferential, many-buttoned servants in the other. In the grill those who must have a special little bite before turning in were having it; and, this being a chilly sort of a night, there were those who were also having a warming drink, with the bite or without it.

It was growing late. The deck was now almost deserted. Lavis took a last look over the rail, a last gulp of the cooling air, and went into the loungeroom. Here he got from the steward paper and envelopes, sat down and wrote:

Now see that you make no attempt to lure him back.

There was no address, no signature. He sealed the envelope and went below to where, at the end of a passageway, he found a stewardess on watch. "Miss Huttle hasn't come down yet, Hannah?"

"No, sir, Mr. Lavis."

"No? Well, there is a party in Mr. Drissler's suite."

"Mr. Drissler, sir?"

"The wealthy man in the royal suite."

"Oh, yes, sir."

"Miss Huttle is there. You take this note to her there, and let me know that it has been delivered, please."

Lavis went to his room, got out a long, loose linen duster from his wardrobe, removed his top-coat, pulled the duster over his evening clothes, found an old cloth cap, and waited for the return of the stewardess.

She came presently. "I gave it to Miss Huttle, Mr. Lavis. Into her own hand, sir."

"Thank you, Hannah."

* * * * *

Lavis left his room and descended deep down into the ship, to where a man in dungarees, but with an officer's cap of authority, was perched on a horizontal grating poring over the speed register. Over his shoulder Lavis watched the numerals shift--seven, eight, nine, thirty. One, two--eight, nine, forty. Click, click, click, click--he watched them until the officer turned and saw him.

"Ho, I was beginning to think you'd given me the go-by for to-night." They shook hands.

"Isn't it the most beautiful mechanism ever made by the hand of man!" exclaimed the officer. "A watch is nothing to it. And what you see here cost more than twenty thousand watches--twenty thousand of 'em, and every danged watch in a gold case."

He drew out his own gun-metal stop-watch. "I'll time her now for a hundred revolutions."

He caught the time, set it down in a little notebook, and from it slowly but surely reckoned her speed. "Grand, grand!" he said softly. "Will you come along? Good!"

They descended and ascended many narrow iron ladders and made their way through many narrow, grimy passageways. Oilers, stokers, coal-passers, water-tenders straightened up to give them a greeting as they passed. In one boiler-room a stoker was scooping a dipper through the water-pail at his feet as they entered.

"Are we holding our own this watch, Mr. Linnell?" He held the dipper respectfully in suspense for the answer.

"Holding it? Yes, and more."

"Hi, hi! an' that gang went off watch before us, Mr. Linnell--an' I fancy they rate themselves a competent watch--among themselves, sir--they threw it at us as how we'd do mighty well to hold our own." By this time his chief had passed on, but Lavis, lingering, saw the stoker gulp a mouthful of water, hold it a moment, and squirt it, s-s-t! contemptuously into a heap of hot ashes.

Linnell continued his rounds, sparing a nod here; a nod there, almost a full smile at times, and at times, too, a sharp snap of criticism. Lavis in his rear caught the pursuing comment. He was the kind, was the chief, to soon let you know where you stood. And right he was. And no one would begrudge him what he could make of the passage, if so be he could make a bit more of reputation out of it, for surely his heart was in his work. Never one to loaf, by all reports, but this time!--not a single watch without his full rounds below.

Lavis followed the engineer up a narrow iron ladder, and thence up a wide iron ladder, to where, from a heavily grated brass-railed platform, Linnell surveyed his engines.

He laid a hand on Lavis's shoulder and extended an eloquent arm. "Worth looking at, aren't they? The largest engines ever went into a ship, those engines you are looking at now, Mr. Lavis. It is something to have charge of the likes of them. Wait till I see some of my old mates!" His was a low, chuckling laugh. "I'll be having a word to say, they better believe, of ship's engines! Talking of their ten and twenty thousand tonners--ferry-boats, river ferry-boats, that's what I'll tell 'em they have alongside o' this one. And everything working beautifully"--he hesitated a moment--"leastwise in my division. An' why shouldn't it, Mr. Lavis, after four days and three nights now of never closing an eye for more than two hours together? But two nights and another day now, an' 'twill be all behind us. And something to put behind a man, that--a record-breakin' maiden passage of the greatest ship ever built. And--but I'm gassin' again. We'll be moving on."

Lavis followed Linnell to where a man in grimy blue dungarees was standing silent watch. Before him was a row of levers and beside him a dial on which were words in very black letters: FULL SPEED, HALF SPEED, and so on. To one side was a disk around which two colored arrows, one red and one green, were racing. A gong was at the man's ear. At his feet was a pit into which a great mass of highly polished steel was driving in and out, in and out, up and down ceaselessly.

Linnell studied the colored arrows as they sped around the disk. "Port engine a bit the best of it?" He had to speak into the man's ear to make himself heard.

The man in dungarees nodded. "A wee bit, sir."

"How's all else?"

"Couldn't be better, sir." He had to yell to make himself heard. "Are we holding our own, sir?"

"A full revolution better than any watch since we left port."

The man nodded as if he had been expecting it, but presently chuckled and swung one foot playfully toward the glittering gray cross-head as it went driving down into the pit. "A full revolution!" he echoed--"t-t-t"--and spat with obvious significance into the pit.

"T-t-t--" mimicked Linnell, and slapped him lightly on the shoulder before he turned to Lavis.

"Will you go farther or wait here?"

"I'll wait here, if you don't mind, and stand part of the watch with Andie."

"Very good! I'll pick you up later."

Lavis, standing beside Andie and gazing into the pit, pointed to the great cross-head driving by. "If that were to fly out and go through the bottom of the ship, Andie, would it sink her?"

Andie projected his lower lip. "It might sink her, sir, though it don't seem possible-like. But if it did sink her, 'twould be about the only way to sink her, sir."

Lavis let his eyes roam above and about him. Andie observed the direction of his gaze. "A wonderful sight, aren't it?" he commented. "What wi' so many polished rods an' shafts all whity-gray, an' all them many beams an' bars so beautiful green an' red-painted!"

Lavis, still interested in the wonderful machinery, felt the deck lifted the least bit under him. It was as if the ship had risen to a rolling head sea. He laid hold of a handy stanchion to steady himself, but he saw Andie, unsupported, go sliding easily, gently, irresistibly to the bulkhead behind them. Lavis saw Andie brace his legs, and then, remindful and resentful, bound back to his station and set a hand to each of two levers. The iron deck beneath them was still rolling easily; from beneath the deck came a chafing noise, a slow, heavy grinding.

Lavis saw that with hands to levers, eyes on indicator, and ears to gong, the man in dungarees had become oblivious to all but the expected order from the bridge. It came after a time--the warning clang and the needle pointing to ASTERN SLOW.

Andie shifted his levers. Rods and shafts reversed. Andie, eyes set on the bridge dial, waited.

Lavis could hear Linnell's voice sharply hailing somebody in the boiler-room passage. Presently he saw him running by the bulkhead door; and then, from the far end of the passage, his voice cracking out like a whip: "Back, I say! Back, you dogs, back to your stations! I'll tell you when you're to go."

He came bounding in and past Lavis and Andie, up the narrow iron ladder, up the wider one above it. Again Lavis heard him: "You thought to forelay me, eh--and breed panic above? You misbegotten spawn, I'd kill you as I'd kill a cockroach--and every last one of you, if you force me. You dogs--go back!"

Cries and oaths, then the thud of a heavy weapon on bone and flesh, the falling of stumbling bodies on the iron grating above. A silence, and then Linnell's voice again, now more controlled: "You there, Wallace? Well, stay there. An' let not a single one of 'em pass without my orders. Shoot 'em down if you have to, but keep 'em below."

The ship was still backing. Wh-r-r-i-ng! went the gong. Stop! commanded the indicator. Andie shifted the levers. The tremendous machinery hung motionless.

All was quiet. Not a quiver from out of the great compartment. Through the grating over his head Lavis saw the figure of the chief hurriedly descending. He saw him turn, pause a moment at the head of the narrow ladder, and then come sliding down.

"Doing our best, some of 'em will get up above," he said quietly. "But we've enough left for a watch." He stepped to Andie's side, all the while with his eyes roaming over the machinery. "She answered her bells promptly, Andie?"

"To the stroke, sir."

"Good! Stay by her. Pass the word to me if aught goes wrong."

He was through the bulkhead door and into the passageway before he had completed the order.

Lavis saw Andie pout his lower lip, and with a "T-t-t--" shift his gaze to the pit. "The blind bats!" burst from him, and he spat into the pit. "See there, sir!" he called out to Lavis.

Lavis nodded. He had already noticed it. There was a foot or so of water in the pit.

"How the devil came it there?" Andie stooped and scooped a handful of it, tasted it, and held it up for Lavis to view. "Salt! And cold. T-t-t--" Andie let his breath whistle softly through his parted teeth.

The water was rising. By and by it was over the top of the pit and crawling across the shiny deck. Andie looked about for relief.

"I'll tell him," volunteered Lavis.

"Thank you, sir. An' you might say, sir, there must be somethin' wrong wi' the bulkhead doors. They aren't closed yet."

Lavis met Linnell returning in the passageway. "Buttons in place of eyes in their heads aloft!" he was muttering. "An' for all o' forty mechanics brought specially to set things right, they can't close the doors below."

Together they waded in to where Andie was now to his knees in water. "Let be your levers, Andie, an' take a spell o' rest for yourself," commanded Linnell.

Andie slowly relaxed his fingers, pulled a bunch of waste from his hip pocket, and wiped his hands.

"She's hard hit," said Linnell to Lavis, "though there's few know it yet. And won't in a hurry."

"Then I'd better be going above?"

"That's right, do. Will you be back this way again?"

Lavis let his hand rest lightly on Andie's head. "I'm not sure." He extended his hand to Linnell. "If I don't see you again, good-by."

"Good-by, Mr. Lavis." The engineer stepped closer and whispered: "If any honest chance offers to leave the ship, leave her."

* * * * *

Lavis found his way through the crew's quarters to the lowest sleeping deck of steerage. Here a few old people and some children, too discouraged, too indifferent, or too helpless, were clinging to their bunks. On the next deck he found a gathering in the open space surrounding a freight hatch. One whom he knew for a Polish woman, with her baby at her breast, was on the edge of the crowd, and, like most of the others, glancing up to see what was doing on the higher decks. The Polish woman was too concerned with her baby to see exactly what they were doing on that high deck where all the boats were, but another woman was telling her how it was.

Lavis stepped closer and listened. She was telling, the tall one, how there were many men running about excitedly--ship's men with only shirts above their trousers some, and others with coats buttoned up. And they were pulling and hauling and knocking away blocks. Such a clear night one could see them--see their forms--and hear, too, their blows and shouts. The woman with the baby nodded. Without looking up she could hear the blows. And now the electric light had come, resumed the tall one; she could see that many women had gathered there, and some were pushing forward and others pushing back, and now women--yes, and a man--were being put into a boat.

"And now the boat is lowered," resumed the tall one.

"I can hear them," said the young mother. "And now it is rowing away from the ship in the dark."

"And there is another," informed the tall one by and by.

"I can hear that, too, rowing away in the dark. And from the water--do you hear it, too, baby--such a lonesome cry in the darkness?"

At that moment Lavis spoke to her in her own language. The young mother greeted him warmly. "Ah-h, baby," she said, "here is the good gentleman who lives in the country where your father is waiting." She turned from the baby to ply Lavis with rapid questions in Polish.

What did that mean--the boats leaving the great ship? Surely it must be true what the men had said, the ship's men--that there was no danger? Surely it must be true that such a monster of a ship, it could not sink? Surely it could not! And yet why were all the rich ladies being sent away and the gates to the upper decks closed, so that the poor people in the steerage could not get out? Was it really true there was no danger? Surely those officers would not deceive poor, friendless people! And yet here the oily men, the greasy ones who worked deep down in the ship, rushing every moment from below! And saying nothing but low-spoken words to each other, and into their rooms and out again in no time, but with more and heavier clothes upon them! Did men dress more warmly to work where the engines and hot fires were?

"Wait. I will return," said Lavis to her, and stepped over to where two stewards were on guard over a gate. One, observing him, turned to the other and remarked, with vast negligence: "A silly lot, steerage, ain't they? Always airin' a growl about something or other, as if ship's rulin's was a-goin' to be changed for the likes o' them!"

"I would like to get to the upper deck," interrupted Lavis.

"You would like to get to the upper deck, would you? And who, may I ask, do you take yourself for, a-trying to speak like a toff?" The man turned his back to Lavis. "Swine!" he repeated to his mate.

Lavis glanced down at himself. He had overlooked the effect of the old linen duster and the old cap.

"When he gets to 'arbor, of course there will be tugboat visitors and customs officers arskin' for 'im, won't they?"

The other cast half an eye on Lavis. "When the clarss will look down on the tops o' their heads and remark: 'What a mob of 'em there! How many of 'em did you cart along this time, Captain?' I fancy he'll have only to cock his ear up to hear 'em."

"Bloody foreigners, most of 'em."

Lavis returned to the Polish mother. "Come," he said. "There is another way out of here."

"Please, sir, the big, jolly Irisher--what is she saying?"

Lavis listened to the big, jolly Irish girl, who, however, was not now so jolly. Lavis had seen a thousand like her gathering kelp on the west Irish coast--tall, deep-bosomed, barefooted girls with black hair to the waist, and glorious dark eyes. She was standing on the covered hatch, and pointing at the moment to one of the ship's men who had passed.

"Wet to his knees. Where is it he should be getting wet to his knees? And another one. And where is it they are going? And is it we that has to stay here till that kind"--she pointed to the two stewards on guard at the steerage gate--"are pleased to let us out? Haven't we as much right to our lives as them that lives higher up? Five hundred of us here, women and childther, and which of them above cares whether we live or die?"

She pointed to a woman with her brood clinging to her hands and skirts. "Look at that poor woman with her five childther. And that poor little thing"--she indicated the Polish woman--"that has a husband waiting for herself and her baby in New York. And that other one, and that one, and that one. God in heaven, mothers with their children to their breasts, and not to be given a chance to live at all! If 'tis a mother I was, and a child to my breast, it's not images of men in uniforms would hinder me from saving my baby this night! And myself with my baby, if my baby was in need of me, an' I could."

The two ship's men on guard were gazing, not at the steerage, but up at the higher decks, when a dozen or more of the steerage women swept across the deck. "Grand work for strong men," the Irish girl cried, "preventin' poor women and childther from looking out for themselves. It's not even shadows of men ye are!" and with that bowled the near one over; and her companions, sweeping up behind her, bowled the other one over. The two stewards had a look up and a look down, and then, with an outraged look at each other, they flew after the disappearing steerage women.

"Come, now." Lavis took the Polish mother's hand.

"Sh-h!" she warned. "He is sleeping."

Lavis, nodding that he saw, helped her carefully to her feet, and led her through the now unguarded gate, and by way of several ladders, to that high deck where the boats were.

A boat was all but ready for lowering. The last woman had been crowded into it. The Polish woman removed her shawl and wrapped it around her baby. "Baby!" Lavis could hear her saying over and over again in Polish. "Oh, my baby! my baby boy!" but softly, so as not to waken him. She stepped into the circle of light which surrounded the boat and the ship's people. "Sa-ave beb-by," she said in English, and held shawl and baby up at the end of her outstretched arms.

A rough hand gripped her by the shoulder.

"Stand back! Stand back, you! You've no right here! Saloon goes first, don't y' understand?"

She stepped back in discouragement.

The men, busy at the falls, had swung the boat clear and were about to lower away. "Now!" said Lavis sharply in her ear, and pointed to the boat.

"Ah-h," she murmured, and darted under the arms of the ship's men and thrust her baby into the bosom of the nearest woman in the life-boat. "Save beb-by!" she breathed, and darted back into the crowd.

"I meant yourself also," said Lavis reproachfully.

"No, no, no--they would take baby, but me--no." Her eyes followed the lowered boat.

III

When Cadogan went forward he wished to see something other than the loom of the low-lying, misty, white berg against the sky. He peered down over the bow. He bent low his ear to catch the purr of eddying waters.

He turned sharply on his heel, and went below--deep below.

* * * * *

When he reappeared he went straight to his stateroom. Here, in the cabin sleeping quarters below the promenade deck, nothing disturbing had happened. When such passengers as were about to turn in became aware of that slow lurch and easy stoppage, they had stepped out into the passageways, and asked each other what was the matter; which question was answered almost immediately by ship's people who came hurrying among them with reassuring words. "It's nothing, ladies and gentlemen. If you will go back to your rooms, ladies and gentlemen--it's nothing." And they had gone back to their rooms.

Cadogan turned on the light in his room, and hauled out his suit-case. He found a pad of paper, found also a fountain pen, shook the pen to make sure there was ink in it, let down the covering of the wash-basin for a desk, laid thereon a small photograph of a beautiful face and head en profile, and began to write. He set down "Dear," and paused. He smiled faintly, wrote "Helen" after it, and went unhesitatingly on:

This afternoon, over our tea, as I concluded one of my almost endless monologues, you may remember you said, "You'd better watch out or some day you will be having your last adventure." Well, I have had it. Not with this ship--no, no. My last adventure was a dream of you. I was on the dock, about to board a steamer for South America, when I saw you step out of your cab. And so I came aboard here. I am glad I came.

You brushed me in passing, as I stood beside the gangplank trying not to stare at you; but you did not know that--did you?--although for an instant I thought you did. It was the conceit of youth, that thought.

Cadogan held up his pen. The sound of hurrying feet from the passageway, the noise of fists pounding on doors, of high-pitched voices asking and answering questions, broke on his ears. He listened, stared at the air-port for a moment, and resumed his writing:

About this time a steward is pounding on your door and hinforming you that you are to go on deck and be ready to go into the boats. Nothing serious, he is probably saying. The poor man who tells you so, I am sure, does not suspect, but whoever told him to carry that message knew better. Perhaps it is just as well he does not suspect.

When the steamer stopped that time, it was because she struck on the submerged shelf of an iceberg. In three hours--or less--she will go down, and all who happen to be on board will go with her. They should be able to stow a thousand women and children in the boats, and these should be picked up soon after daylight, if the sea stays smooth and the weather clear. To-night's indications were clear weather and a calm sea for at least another day, so that will be all right.

You will be in one of the boats, and--safe. It would be like you not to want to go. If I hear that you do not, then some one will see that you do go. But I shall not be by you when you leave the ship, for I do not want you to read in my face that I know I am not to see you again--nor to bother you in any way. I shall be looking on as you leave, and what you said to-night will not then matter. As you go over the side my prayer will go with you.

There came a sharp knock on the door.

"Come!" he called. It was his own steward, who thrust his head past the door's edge. "Saloon passengers are to go on deck, Mr. Cadogan."

"Why?"

"I 'ave no idea, sir. Orders, sir. I was to hinform the saloon passengers as how they were to go on deck, and women and children into boats."

"All right. Thank you. And, Hames."

"Yes, sir?"

"You hunt up Miss Huttle's maid, and have her tell Miss Huttle to be sure to wrap up warm. Be sure she gets that right--to wrap up warm. Two sets of everything all round. Got that right?"

"Two sets--yes, sir."

"That's all, Hames."

"'K you, sir."

He resumed writing:

And so it has come to write the adieu which I would dread to have to speak. Four days only have I known you, but a man may build his life anew in four days, and this last adventure of mine has been such as in my visionary boyhood days I used to mark out for myself in rosy dreams.

I have the little snapshot you gave me yesterday. I will have it with me to the end, and your face in it will be the last thing I kiss this side of eternity. And so good-by, dear heart, and don't worry for me. Who lives by the sword, et cetera. It had to come to some such ending, I suppose, though rather a joke, isn't it, to be lost on an ocean liner crossing the Atlantic in these days?

To-day with you I saw the sun go down 'twixt purple bars, and what is the little matter of dying to that? And it is a consolation to know you will not mourn me. Good night, dear heart, and may God have ever a tender eye on you.

He sealed the envelope, and very carefully addressed it: "Miss Helen Huttle," placed it in his inside coat-pocket, kissed the little photograph, and placed that also in his inside coat-pocket.

He gazed about to see what else. His top-coat lay where he had last thrown it--across the edge of the berth. He shook his head at it, and from his wardrobe took a heavy ulster, scanned it approvingly and put it on. He hauled his steamer trunk out from under his berth, and from a corner of it dragged a thick wallet. He ran his thumb along the edge of the bills within it. Large banknotes they were mostly. He stuck the wallet into his hip pocket. The handle of a magazine pistol peeped up at him. He took it up, laid it flat in the palm of his hand, shook his head, and tossed it back. He took one more look around the room, waved his hand to the walls, and stepped out into the passageway.

A hurrying steward almost bumped into him. It was Hames. "Miss Huttle was told, sir."

"Good! Now, something else. Later on Miss Huttle will be going into a boat. Before she goes, be sure you give her this letter. Not now--no. But up on deck, just before she goes."

"Yes, sir."

Cadogan sought the upper deck by way of the second-cabin quarters. On the wide staircase he overtook an old couple who, at sight of him, began talking volubly. She was a little old lady with a confiding smile, and he a bent and round-backed man with a long, forked beard.

"Vot you t'ink, Mr. Cadogan? He tell me I shell go in der boads."

"And why not, Mrs. Weiscopf?"

"Und vere shell he go?"

"A man of Mr. Weiscopf's age--they may let him go with you."

"I go in der boads?" The old man tried to straighten up. "I shell not go in der boads. I, mit childrun und grandchildrun, to go in der boads? It is der foolishness--all der foolishness--dose boads."

"Why, then, shell I go in der boads, Simon?"

"For mens I say der foolishness. All der womans go in der boads, Meenie."

"I shell not go in der boads mitout you, Simon."

"Go in the boat, and take him with you, if you can, Mrs. Weiscopf," whispered Cadogan, and hurried on.

He came onto the boat-deck in the rear of the saloon passengers already gathered there. The first boat was clear. An officer stood at the stern of it. "Women and children!" he was calling out, and there was a rush to fill it.

"I don't see many children," said a voice.

"Do you ever--in saloon?" retorted another.

Cadogan, recognizing the second voice as Meade's, and seeing that he was also in the rear of the crowd, stepped over beside him.

The boat was filled, and lowered in jumps and jerks. The passengers moved to the next boat. Half a dozen ship's men and an officer stood by.

"They're taking enough of the crew along," observed Meade.

"Not much gets by you," commented Cadogan.

"It's my business. I'll have to write a story about this later."

"Women and children!" called the officer.

The boat was filled, except for a space for ship's men and the officer in charge, who stepped quickly in. This boat went down likewise in jumps and jerks.

In the next boat two men passengers jumped in at the last moment. The officer in charge seemed not to see them. The crew said nothing.

"Must have friends at court," muttered Meade. "Though why anybody should choose the staying out all night, half frozen, in those boats I don't understand, do you? But look--there's the Major marshalling his battalions. Old ladies and young, pretty and otherwise--instinctively gallant, the Major," observed Meade.

"We'll remember your friends in New York, Major!" two of the younger ones chorussed.

"Be sure you do!" he retorted. "And pay your bet with a box of candy when you're back aboard in the morning. But take care you keep those rugs around your feet in the meantime." He waved them smilingly down the side of the ship, but he was not smiling when he had turned his back to the ship's side, and made his way into the crowd of passengers.

Cadogan shrank back of Meade. It was Miss Huttle who had stepped into the light, with Drissler in attendance. And not alone Drissler. She was fully dressed, with heavy furs in addition. Her smile was not less frequent, and apparently her tongue no less ready than usual, when she replied to the sallies of her escorts.

The blocks were knocked away clumsily, the falls overhauled bunglingly for the next boat. Cadogan ached to jump in and show them how to do it.

"The worst of standing here, Meade"--Major Crupp had taken his position by the side of the journalist--"is that no matter how matters are handled, we can no more interfere than if we were children in steerage. And yet some of us, Cadogan here especially, could help out a lot."

"Why can't you jump in there and help?" inquired Meade.

"Discipline. A man whose trade calls above all things for discipline must be the last of all to interfere with it. There's an officer there foolishly displaying a revolver, frightening people needlessly. Some foolish woman--did you hear her?--just said: 'How brave!' Brave! When his boat is loaded he goes off with it."

"Well, he's welcome, Major. I wouldn't care to be out there all night. What do you say, Cadogan?"

Cadogan made no answer. He was not losing a finger's crook of Miss Huttle's actions; and yet he was listening to and studying Meade and Crupp, old Mrs. Weiscopf and her husband, the ship's officers and men, a steerage woman with her baby in a shawl--however she came to be there--everybody and everything within sight and hearing. He could not help it. If he were one of a file of prisoners to be taken out and shot, his last curiosity would be to know what everybody was saying and doing--the executioners, the executed, himself, the spectators.

He noted the parting of bride and groom, and wondered what that groom would have given to go with her into the boat. He was taking note of the women who went reluctantly from the sides of their men-folk, and those who could hardly be held back until their turn came. He studied the faces of the men who by some mysterious dispensation were allowed to go into the boats. Some, as they stepped under the cluster of electric lights, betrayed to him that they knew. Some one in authority had told them, or, like himself, they had found out for themselves.

It was then that he saw Lavis. A woman with a baby in the shawl had, with a sublime gesture, abandoned her baby to a woman already in the boat, so that it might be saved. Lavis was standing behind her when she did it, and as she lost herself in the crowd, Lavis had looked after her with such an expression of pity that Cadogan's attention was attracted anew to him.

When Lavis turned to the circle of light again, his eyes met Cadogan's. "And you, too, know," thought Cadogan. Lavis came over to him.

"I was wishing I could give that poor woman this big coat of mine," began Cadogan; "it might make things a little less miserable for her."

Lavis's eyes thanked him. "I will find her and give it to her." Cadogan took it off. "I will see you again," said Lavis, and, went off with the coat.

Cadogan turned in time to see--and it thrilled him--old Mrs. Weiscopf refusing to go when her turn came. She pointed to the old man. "No, no," was the impatient answer from the officer. "But he iss so old," she pleaded again. She was roughly told to hurry up and get into the boat or stay behind. She marched back to her old husband, and gripped him tightly by the arm. The boat left without her.

Cadogan saw these things, and a hundred others, without ever losing sight of Miss Huttle. On the other side of the ship he knew that a gang of ship's men were fighting for the possession of a boat for themselves. He could hear them--half-smothered murmurs, cries, blows. He thought of going to his room, and getting his automatic pistol, and jumping in among them. But what good would it do? was his next thought. It would be only to substitute one set of dead men for another; and, doing it, he would lose sight of her.

At last she walked over to where the boat was ready to lower. Before she stepped in she cast a long look above the heads of the crowd. The thought that she might be looking for him set Cadogan to trembling. She was pale. He drew farther back into the shadows. He saw her face peering out again from the crowded hats, toques, and hoods of the close-packed women as the boat was lowered.

She appeared to be still searching for some one in the crowd as the boat disappeared below the deck rail. Cadogan forced his way to the rail to watch it. It was rolled from side to side, bumped against the ship's side, swung in and out as it descended. While yet some distance above the water, it stuck. Cadogan could just make it out. The falls had fouled. With a jerk the stern dropped several feet on the run, and the boat hung again in air, now with bow up and stern down. There were screams and shouts. Cadogan was at the rail, ready to leap, when the bow unexpectedly dropped. The boat was level again. It was in the water and floating. She was safe away.

Cadogan remained by the rail, tracing the course of the little boat on the sea. When he could no longer see the shadow of it, nor hear the voices from it, he still stayed, pursuing in his imagination her course and position out there on the waters.

When he faced inboard, all the boats were away, and Meade and Crupp were no longer on deck. He guessed they had gone into the smoking-room.

IV

Many other passengers had returned to the smoking-room by the time Cadogan got there. Meade, Crupp, and Vogel were already seated at the corner table. Cadogan sat down with them.

From the farther corner of the room came a strident voice. "They were all of them foolish to go at all, that's what I say. They will be out there all night, and in the morning we will be laughing at them when they return aboard. See here. Please see here."

The speaker opened and held up an illustrated advertising booklet. No one in the room could fail to see it. "Thirty-eight water-tight compartments. See, there it is. Non-sinkable. Non-sinkable--that's the word. See for yourself, whoever cares. But there's people who fancy they know more about ships than the men who make a trade of building 'em." He stared around the room to see who would gainsay him. Nobody seemed to care to.

Crupp turned around to see who it was. "It's that chap was auctioning off the ship's pool an hour or two ago," explained Vogel. "He never stops."

Major Crupp's questioning eyes roamed from Cadogan to the assertive man at the farther corner and back to Cadogan. "What d'you make of him, Cadogan?"

Cadogan shrugged his shoulders. "It is faith like his that builds empires. And stupidity like his that loses them."

The man with the booklet had not abated the fervor of his reading announcements; but those who were listening were listening without comment. Thus far no one in the room had spoken aloud of danger except the man with the booklet. The effect of his loud insistence was to increase the unvoiced uneasiness.

A steward, with a face into which a white frost seemed to have bitten, burst into the smoking-room, revolved rapidly once in the middle of the room, and vanished through the door by which he came.

Everybody turned toward the door through which he disappeared, and then every head seemed to turn toward every other. The voice of the man with the booklet was lowered. Presently he ceased reading.

One man stood up and went silently out. The door closed behind him. Another stood up. One, two, three men followed him to the door. Several got up together. Another group was on its way when suddenly there was a rush for the door. The man with the booklet, whiskered, fat, and red-necked, stared down at his printed page in amaze. He gulped, blinked, heaved himself up, and lumbered after the others. Only the four gathered around the corner table remained in the smoking-room.

Crupp, with his thumbs hooked into his trousers pockets, was staring down between his knees. On Crupp's left was Vogel, the millionaire of the railroads. He was a tall, slope-shouldered man of fifty-five, bald at the top of his head. His forehead sloped back from speculative eyes. "Hi, wake up there, Major!" he bawled, most unexpectedly. "That steward who came running in that time, you'd think he thought the ship was going down. What d'y' imagine he wanted, Major?"

Crupp raised his head and stared abstractedly at Vogel. "Huh," repeated Vogel, "what was he after, Major?"

"Lord knows"--Crupp suddenly smiled--"perhaps it was a tip."

On the table was a siphon of soda and some empty glasses. Crupp selected one that had not been used, and, carefully gauging, poured about an inch of soda into the glass. "The ship going down, Mr. Vogel? Heroes then we'd have to be"--he glanced at each in turn over the rim of his glass--"whether we liked it or not, wouldn't we? What did you learn that time you went forward, Cadogan?"

Cadogan also helped himself to some soda-water, rolled it around in his mouth, swallowed it, and set down his glass. As if he had not heard Crupp, he drew out his cigar-case and offered it to the soldier.

Crupp nodded his thanks, took a cigar, bit off the end, and, without looking away from Cadogan, lit up. Vogel took one, but as if by way of courtesy only, for he indicated no desire to light it. Meade, waving Cadogan away, lit a cigarette of his own rolling. "Shortening my life smoking cigars," he explained.

The door opened. It was Lavis. With a pause and a bow, as if to ask their permission, he took the corner seat on the transom. Cadogan, waiting until he saw Lavis seated, tendered him the cigar-case. Lavis shook his head.

"If you're afraid it's my last--" suggested Cadogan.

"It's years since I've smoked."

"That saves me, for it is my last." With the word Cadogan threw the empty cigar-case on the table.

Meade picked up the case, a gun-metal one, with Cadogan's monogram in thin, flat silver letters on the side. "You throw that down, Cadogan, as if you wanted to give it away."

"Did it look that way?" Cadogan took it from Meade's extended hand. "I've carried that a good many years." He stood up as he finished speaking, to reach for some matches from the next table. After lighting up he remained standing.

"Clear, settled weather, and a smooth sea." He was gazing reflectively through the weather air-port as he spoke.

"Cadogan"--Meade was speaking--"give us some more of your adventures."

Cadogan drew out his watch, also of gun-metal. "And I've carried that a good many years, too." He spoke as if to himself. He looked at the face. "No, it's too late, Mr. Meade. It's too late to begin now."

"It's never too late. Just think, in your short life you have lived more volumes than I have written. You know more, ten times more, about real life than I do, and I'm sixty. I wonder"--he fanned the smoke from him--"would you mind dying after all you've been through?"

Cadogan was still standing. He set his left foot on the seat of his chair, his left elbow on his knee, and his chin in the heel of his left hand. By extending two long, supple left fingers he could hold his cigar while he blew rings of smoke toward the air-port. He blew them now--once, twice, three times. "I don't know any healthy men who are eager to die, do you?" he said, half smiling, presently.

"Meaning you don't want to go yourself?"

"Just that. And yet, if I had to go, any time now, I don't see where I could have any kick coming. Somewhere, sometime, it had to come. And yet I was wondering, only to-night, queerly enough--" Between the first two fingers and thumb of his right hand he was somersaulting the gun-metal cigar-case against the table-top. Tap--tap--tap--one end, then the other--tap--tap--tap--it went.

While Cadogan paused Meade was making mental notes of him. How wide and powerful the shoulders loomed, how trim the waist, the grace of the long white fingers, the smooth curves of the strong face, all brown below the eyes and all white above! "What a fight you could put up!" thought Meade. "And what a pity if anything should happen to you before you should have had your chance!"

Cadogan ceased somersaulting the cigar-case. "Wouldn't it be queer, now, I was thinking--here I've drawn lots with Death a hundred times--a few more or less--and then to think of him coming along and grabbing a fellow off the deck of an ocean liner!"

"That would be a joke," commented Meade.

"Wouldn't it?" Cadogan carefully knocked his cigar-ashes onto the tray. His eyes and Crupp's met.

With his eyes now focussed on the ash-tray, Cadogan continued: "If I have left anybody worrying, or guessing, I can tell him where there is a collapsible life-boat which will be safe in smooth water."

"There are women still aboard," said Crupp.

"Eh, what's that?" Meade sat straight up.

"Yes"--Cadogan's response was directed to Crupp--"there are many women aboard. But when that life-boat is launched, there is going to be a grand fight to see who will get on it. A half-dozen armed men could hold it for themselves, but not for anybody else--women or men. What do you say, Major? Would you be for that kind of a fight in the event of her sinking?"

Crupp shook his head firmly. "I'd better shoot myself--or any other army or navy officer--than be saved where a ship-load of women went down."

"What do you say, Mr. Vogel?"

Vogel smiled uneasily. "You gentlemen of the sword and pen, how you do try our nerve at times! But in my circle neither do men honor the craven. With many women still aboard, would I get into a boat and leave the ship? Why, no."

"Do you mean, Cadogan"--all was silence when Meade spoke up--"do you mean there is a possibility that this ship will founder?"

Cadogan nodded--twice--slowly.

"But for God's sake, when?"

"See"--he pointed to the deck at their feet--"the slant. Her bow is settling now."

No one spoke, and only Meade moved, and he to interlock his fingers and, pressing his hands together, to rest them on the edge of the table, and lower, for a moment, his head.

Only Cadogan seemed to remember that Lavis was on the transom seat. During all the time that he was speaking and acting, Cadogan knew that Lavis had never ceased to study him.

Cadogan addressed him directly. "The raft?" asked Cadogan. Lavis shook his head indifferently.

The soldier dropped the butt of his cigar straight down between his knees. Meade laid the ends of his fingers on the edge of the table, and stared at his nails.

Vogel sat a little higher in his chair. "Well, there's one thing. For three generations now our family have pursued a constructive policy. My son is almost of age. I hope he will not forget his responsibilities."

Major Crupp stood up. "Shall we go outside?"

Vogel stood up promptly. Meade got more slowly to his feet. "It doesn't seem real," he said to Cadogan; "so quiet! Do men die so easily?" Without waiting to hear the answer he walked after Crupp and Vogel.

Lavis had not moved from his transom seat. Cadogan walked half-way to the door and returned. "You set me thinking to-night, Mr. Lavis, but I see now that it is you the Eternal Verities should select to go down into the depths."

"No, no! Never immortality for me. I had my chance. I threw it away. I was dedicated to a sacred calling, Mr. Cadogan. I had almost achieved the heights, when I--fell. I sinned not only in body, but in spirit. To sin in body is to scorch the soul; but to sin in spirit is to consume the soul. Mine is but ashes. Yours is still a burning flame. And--but there is somebody at the door, I think, who wishes to speak to you."

It was a man in a steward's uniform. As Cadogan reached the door, the man retreated to the shadows of the deck. Cadogan followed. It was Hames, with a square envelope in his hand. "Miss Huttle, Mr. Cadogan," he whispered, "said I was to give you this. When there was nobody about, she said, sir. I've been trying ever since, sir, to find you alone."

Cadogan stepped to the light of a smoking-room air-port, held the sheet close up to the glass, and read:

It was all a mistake after dinner to-night. I will explain when next we meet--if ever we do meet. But you must see that we do meet. You must. The passengers do not know, even you may not know, but it is true--the ship is going to sink. I am frightened--dreadful thoughts--if you were only near!

You must save yourself. You can, if you will. You can do the impossible. You have done it before in play. Do it to-night for the woman who loves you.

I know you will never go into the boats, but after they are gone, when you can no longer help another, I ask you to save yourself--save yourself not for yourself, but for me.

A woman who loves--remember you said it yourself--hers is the call that no man has the choice of refusing. A woman who loves you and whose love is all for you, will be calling calling, calling, as you read this, from out on the dark sea.

Come, come, come, O Beloved, to me at the last. If you do not come, I shall believe always that you did not care. But I know you will come to me. HELEN.

Cadogan stared at the sea about him, at the sky above him. He rubbed his forehead. "'Come, come, oh, come!'" he murmured. He drove his clinched fist against the air-port. "I'll come! I'll come!"

"Mr. Cadogan?" It was the steward.

"What is it?"

"There's queer talk going about between decks, sir. There will be desp'rate work doing to-night, if what they say is true, sir. I've a family in Southampton, sir, and I always tried to do my duty, sir."

"I never knew a better steward, Hames. Listen."

"'K you, sir. Yes, sir?"

"On the boat deck for'ard, port side--get that right now."

"Port side for'ard, sir. Yes, sir. Believe me, sir, I won't forget such directions as you are pleased to give, sir."

"There's a collapsible life-boat there under a tarpaulin. Somebody is saving that for the finish--for a favored few."

"I believe you, sir."

"Stand by it, and when they launch it jump on."

"But they will have spanners and wrenches, and such weapons, sir."

"They surely will. In the steamer trunk in my room you will find a magazine pistol."

"Yes, sir. 'K you, sir."

"But you must hurt nobody, mind, except those who try to hurt you."

"I'll promise, sir. An' I'll remember also I 'ave a missus an' three kiddies in Southampton, sir."

"And don't forget you have them, either."

"No, sir. 'K you, sir. But I never 'andled a magazine one. Any complications, sir?"

"Not many. You find the trigger, curl your finger around it, put the muzzle to the man's head who means you harm, and, if he persists, pull the trigger. It's very simple."

"Quite so, sir."

"Good luck to you. And don't forget--you keep pressing the trigger as long as you want to keep shooting. And--how old are the kiddies?"

"Five, and three, and the baby, one. A grand little chap, the baby, sir."

"Is he now? Isn't that fine!" Cadogan drew from his hip-pocket the wallet with the packet of bills. "Put this in the bank--for the kiddies and missus."

"It's a hawful kindness to 'em, sir."

"All right. Good luck to you."

"Good luck to you, I s'y, sir." He vanished.

V

From his seat on the transom, Lavis had caught sight of the face of Cadogan as he read the sheet of paper held up to the air-port. His chin came down on his chest, remained there a moment, and then he stood up and slowly went out on deck, by way of the door opposite to that which Cadogan had taken.

The passengers were gathering thickly on the top deck. There was now no restriction, ship's people having ceased their supervision, and many steerage passengers were crowding up to join first and second class on the higher decks.

"In the last death plunge," mused Lavis, "steerage may go first, if so be it pleases them."

He made out a couple standing hand in hand like children. He knew them, the couple from second cabin, and of the faith of the prophets of old.

"For why should I go in der boads, Simon?" the woman was saying. "No, no, mein husband. Fifty yahres together we hafe been now. Together we shell go now also."

"Surely God will welcome thee," murmured Lavis, and touched their clasped hands in passing.

He halted. A young man was staring out on the wide sea. Lavis remembered the bride and groom who had been so rapturously gazing out on the sea together before the collision. This was the groom, and he was speaking to another young man who was treading the deck restlessly, four paces one way, four paces back. "They said there was a lantern in the boat she was put in. I think I see it--a small light."

"Do you?"--the restless one halted--"I don't. How long were you married?"

"Four months."

"Oh-h! We were only ten weeks." With short, quick steps he resumed his striding.

Lavis leaned beside the young man at the rail. "I think I see the light you were looking for--there." He pointed.

"Yes, yes--that's it. See here!" He turned to address the pacing man. "Why, he's gone!" He peered into Lavis's face. "There were ten of us, you see, with our wives, returning from our wedding trips. We were going to have a supper together when we reached New York."

"But you are not afraid?"

"I am. And I wish I could have gone in the boat too. But look there!" He pointed to the hundreds of steerage passengers who were still crowded together three decks below. "What chance did they give those women to-night? what chance do they ever get? And my old mother came over steerage. And she is still alive. And she would stand me up before her and she'd say--I know how she would say it: 'Dannie, boy, do you tell me you came away from a sinking ship, and women and children behind you?'"

"But you are not sorry?"

"God, man, no! But only the night before last my wife all at once came close to me and said: 'Dannie, we're going to have a little baby.' And nothing more for a long time, me holding her. And then she whispers: 'And I hope he'll be a boy, and grow up to be a man like you, Dannie,' she said.

"And God help me! Already I had him grown up and was taking him out to see the Giants play."

"God help us all!" said Lavis; and gripped the other's hand swiftly, and passed on to the lowest open deck, where, by way of the long gangway, he might reach the after end of the ship. Already the deck was taking on a more noticeable forward slant. He saw a man lashing together some chairs. He paused long enough to see that it was Cadogan, but, without discovering himself, he passed on to where an isolated man in dungarees leaned with folded arms across the rail.

It was Andie, with his chin resting on his arms, and his face turned toward the placid sea. Once he lifted his head to gaze up at the sky.

Lavis touched him on the arm. "How did you leave Mr. Linnell, Andie?"

Andie unfolded his arms and faced around. "Eh? Oh! How do you do, sir? He comes to me, Mr. Lavis--an' 'twas somethin' beyond the fear o' death was in his eyes--an' he says: 'Andie, your work's done. 'Twas her death-blow they give her, an' she'll not live much longer now. Go above you now, Andie,' he says, 'and I'll stay here.' 'If you don't mind, I'll stay with you, sir,' I says. 'Don't be foolish, Andie,' he says. 'There's small reputation goes with eight pounds in the month. There's none will be lookin' in the papers to see did you desert your post, but there's many will be sayin' what a grand fool you was you didn't go when you could.'

"'I know you mean that, sir, for the wharf-rats that ships an' shirks for one voyage, and stays drunk ashore for three more,' I says. 'I've no call to leave this ship while one passenger is aboard of her. An' more, Mister Linnell, many an' many's the watch I've stood under you, an', 'less you forbids it, I'll stand this last watch wi' you. Only, if you won't forbid me, sir, I'll go up on deck at the last, an' have a look at God's own sky before she goes.'"

"And what did he say to that, Andie?"

"He said naught to that, sir, excep' to shake hands wi' me. I was that embarrassed wi' the grup o' the hand he gave, I takes out my pipe an' baccy from the locker where the sea wasn't yet reached to, an' I cuts myself a pipeful an' lights up. An' he says, smilin'-like: 'Andie, is it the same old Buccaneer brand you're smokin'?' An' I says: 'The same, sir.' 'Well,' says he, 'I've always maintained it was the most outrageousest-smellin' baccy ever was brought into an engine-room. An' I won't change my opinion now, but if you will spare me a pipeful I'll risk my health to ha' a smoke wi' you now, Andie.'

"An' while we was smokin', sir, man to man like he says: 'Andie, did ever you get it into your head you'd like to be marryin'?' And I answers, 'I did, sir,' an' I told him o' the Brighton lass I'd once courted, unobtrusive-like, between voyages, goin' on two year, and I would 'a' been most pleased to marry her, till of an evenin' we was sittin' out by the end o' the long pier, wi' the little waves from the Channel cooing among the pilin's where the long skelps o' sea-grass was clingin' to 'em under the planks at our feet. She was a doctor's wife's maid. An' I axed her, an' she says: 'The marster, an' my missus, too, says when ye're gettin' your twelve pound in the month, Andie, I'm to marry you.'

"'Wherever will I be findin' twelve pound in the month?' I says. 'Your danged old doctor himsel' is collectin' but little more nor that of his bills in the month, him wi' his red herrin' an' oatmeal porridge for breakfast every mornin' of his life!' I says. She'd told me herself o' the red herrin'. An' I left her clickin' her fancy high heels together under her penny chair, an' I'd paid tuppence each for the two of us at the gate comin' in. 'But you wasn't ever thinkin' o' gettin' marrit yourself, Mr. Linnell?' I says.

"'Maybe you noticed a large photograph, Andie, above my desk whenever you come to my room?' he asks. I said as how I did. 'And you had no suspicions?' he says. 'Well, sir,' I says, 'I did make suspicion it wasn't altogether by way of exercisin' o' your muscles you dusted the gold frame of it so frequent.'

"'I was only waitin',' he says, 'till I'd made a bit more reputation, and only to-night it was, me makin' my rounds, that I was thinkin' at last I had made it.' And he stop there, an' lets his pipe go out the while he looks down at his beautiful engines, an' then he has the loan of another match of me, an' he says: 'Andie, but it does seem hard that your life an' mine must be smashed through the misbehavior of others.' An' I thought myself it was, without meanin' to cast blame, sir, on others.

"An' we finished our pipeful together, an' he stands up an' says, 'Good luck to you, Andie, lad,' and I knew he was wishful to be alone. An' so, 'Good luck to you, Mister Linnell,' I says, an' we gave each other another long grup o' the hand. I was wantin' to tell him he was the best chief ever I worked under, but he wasn't ever the kind, you see, sir, to be praisin' to his face. An' at the top of the ladder I looks down, an' there he was wi' his arms folded across the shiny brass railin', an' he lookin' down, aweary-like, at his engines."

Lavis took Andie's hand. "A good man, Andie. And a good man yourself, Andie. Good-by, and God bless you!"

"Thank you, sir. Good-by, sir. And the same to you." Andie turned to the rail and with folded arms set his face to the impassive sea.

Lavis passed on to where from a tarpaulined hatch a Catholic priest was saying a litany, while around him a body of kneeling men and women were responding. He had donned his cassock, and a shining silver crucifix was on his breast, and his biretta at his feet. His voice was even and unhurried, his features composed.

"Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world----"

"Spare us, O Lord!" came the response.

"Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world----"

"Graciously hear us, O Lord!"

"Lamb of God, Who takest away the sins of the world----"

"Have mercy on us!"

"Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God----"

"That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ!"

The priest rose from his knees. "And bear in mind, my children, that no matter what sin you may have committed, God will forgive you. No one born into this world of sin but has sinned at some time, so do not despair. Offer up your prayers, your heart, to God. He will hear you. He could save us, any one of us, or every one of us even now, if he so willed. If he does not, it is because it is better so. But merely to be saved in the body--what is that? A passing moment here, but the next world--for eternity. It is your soul, not your body, which is to live in eternity. Prepare your soul for that. And now our time is growing short, compose your minds and your hearts, and all kneel and say with me an act of contrition: O my God----"

"O my God--" came from them like a chanted hymn.

"I am most heartily sorry for all my sins----"

"I am most heartily sorry for all my sins----"

Lavis knelt and prayed also. When he rose from his knees it was to go to the side of the Polish woman, who was also kneeling at the edge of the crowd. He found her weeping.

"Why do you weep? Do you fear death so very much?"

"I weep for my baby."

"But your baby is safe--out there in the boat. They will bring him to his father, who will be there waiting on the dock in New York."

"Yes, yes; but who will be there to give him the breast when he wakes?"

"Who will give--Father in heaven! Come--come with me." Lavis helped her to her feet.

VI

Cadogan looked into the smoking-room. Lavis was gone. He hesitated, wheeled quickly, returned to the deck, sought the nearest gangway, and rapidly descended four decks. He traversed one passageway, another, and entered what looked like a carpenter's shop, where, he knew, was a thick-topped wooden table with its legs held by small angle-irons to the wooden planking over the steel-deck floor.

Cadogan crawled under the table, hunched his shoulders, straightened his legs, and had the table up by the roots. He stepped out from under it, grasped it across the beam, raised it high, brought two of the legs down against the deck, once, twice; reversed the ends and brought the other two legs down to the deck, once, twice. The legs were gone.

He set the table top on his head. A man stood in the doorway. Cadogan motioned him out of the way. "Where yuh goin' with that?" snarled the man. Cadogan set the end of his plank against the man's chest, walked straight ahead, and stepped over the man's body. In the passageway some one seized his table from behind. Cadogan let go entirely, wheeled sharply, caught the man by the collar and trousers, smashed him against the bulkhead, and, as the other dropped his hold of the table top, threw him a dozen feet down the passage. The man, rising to his feet, ran the other way. Cadogan picked up his plank and resumed his way.

At a place where a boat-falls dropped past the ship's rail Cadogan laid down his burden. This was on the lowest open deck, where not many people would be coming to bother him; but, to reduce the chance of loss, he set his table top up on edge in the shadow of the rail, while he went off for an armful of steamer chairs.

He needed lashings for his chairs. A transverse passageway opened on to the deck near by. Staterooms opened off either side of the passage. The door of the nearest room was locked. "Bright people," he muttered, "who didn't intend anybody should steal anything while they were gone!" He set one foot under the door-knob, rested his back against the bulkhead across the narrow aisle, and straightened his leg. The lock gave way; the door swung open. "When they return I hope you won't miss the fine bed sheets," he murmured, and swished them--one, two--from the berths, with the blankets and one pillow. He slit the hemmed edges of the sheets and tore them into strips lengthwise. With these strips he lashed his chairs compactly together. The chairs in turn he lashed to the heavy plank.

Cadogan had taken off dinner coat, waistcoat, collar, tie, and linen shirt to work more freely. Now he looked about for the coat. All the while he had been working he was not unaware that forms of men had flitted by him, and that more than one had stopped as if curious to know what he was at. He knew that more than one of these were now prowling within leaping distance and that from them were coming muffled words of comment. Also he was not unaware that the ship was nearing her end. He could detect the first pitching of her hull, the settling of the deck under his feet, even as he could hear the half-tones of the menacing voices from out of the shadows. He was aware, too, that a despairing multitude were massing on the decks above him.

Up there, he knew, they were preparing to meet the end in a hundred different fashions. Up there would be those who smiled and those who cried, those who joked or moaned, who prayed or blasphemed, those who were going with pity in their hearts and consumed with bitterness others; forgiving whoever it was that had brought it on, or wishing, the others, that they had the negligent ones to coldly and calmly wring their necks before they went themselves.

Cadogan, having found his coat, laid it on a bitt near by while he should launch his little raft. He balanced it on the rail, inserted a hook under one of his lashings at each end, folded his blankets on top, and, a boat-falls in each hand, paid out carefully, slowly. He could not have lowered a human body more tenderly. Easily, gently, he felt it settle on the bosom of the sea. He took a turn of his falls around the bitt, and, always with one eye peeping sidewise into the shadows, reached for his coat. In the pocket of that coat was the photograph of his beloved.

"You've everything fixed nicely, have you, matie?"

Cadogan had had his eye out for him, and was expecting some such salutation; and the revolver within two feet of his head was also not unexpected. A man could not attend to everything at once.

"Everything nice, yes," responded Cadogan, now with his coat in his hand.

"I'm glad o' that, matie, because, you see, I'm needing it."

"Would you take that from a man after all the work he put in on it?" He was kneading the coat into a ball in his right hand. With his left hand he was taking in a hole or two in his belt.

"You are a soft un! And a swell toff, too. You'll 'ave to st'y aboard, matie. I'm needing that tidy little floatin' thing you've moored below, and I'm plannin' to take it."

"Well, why don't you take it?"

"No larkin'. I'm fightin' for my life."

"I've been fighting for more than my life, or yours, and----"

His right arm had been hanging loosely down by his side. He snapped his right wrist against his hip. The coat, in a tight ball, was jolted into the man's face, just as Cadogan's left arm shot up and caught the man's pistol wrist. His open right hand followed the coat and gripped the man's throat. He had no mind for a scuffle which would attract attention, nor did he wish the man when he dropped overboard to fall too near his raft; so, with his finger to the man's windpipe, he bore him along the passageway toward the stern of the ship. The tide was setting that way. The man was kicking out with both legs, striking out with his free hand. Cadogan held the man's arm over the rail the while he twisted the pistol wrist. The revolver dropped overboard. Cadogan took a fresh hold of him, spun around with him, and let him fly. He went where the revolver went.

Cadogan, arrived back at his raft, found a man standing by the falls and calling down to somebody below: "How is it now?"

There was no answer. The man by the falls repeated his question. Only silence from below.

Cadogan was looking for his coat, when the man grasped the falls and swiftly lowered himself over the side. Cadogan let be his coat and slid down the falls after him. His feet fetched up against the man's fingers. He pressed with all his weight. The man cursed softly, let go his hold, and fell into the sea. Cadogan dropped after him. When the man came up Cadogan gripped him by the throat and held him under water.

The dim outline of another fellow was standing erect on the end of the little raft. "Norrie, me lad," he was saying in a cold voice, "it's a tidy little floater with nice warm blankets, but it will never hold up two." Cadogan could see a long spanner, or bar, held ready on the shoulder of the man on the raft. The man in the water was now twining his legs about him, whereupon, still clinging to his man, Cadogan dived, porpoise-like, head down into the sea. When he felt his feet under he kicked once, twice, three times powerfully. Deep down he went.

He came up alone.

He clung to one of the hooks of the falls to get his breath. A cap floated up to him. Smiling grimly, he set it on his head. The man on the end of the raft poised himself above him and aimed the long spanner at the cap. Cadogan diverted the blow with his free forearm, and before the other could recover wrenched the spanner from him and dropped it into the sea.

"Oh, ho! that's how it is, is it, Norrie, me lad?" He swung one foot viciously at Cadogan's hand where it was gripped around the hook. Cadogan swooped again with his free hand, caught the man by the swinging ankle, and hauled him off the raft. He released his grip of the man's ankle, only to shift it to his throat. The man seized Cadogan's free wrist with both hands. Cadogan, hanging to the hook with one hand and gripping the man's throat with the other, continued to squeeze the man's throat. The man's legs kicked convulsively. Cadogan continued to squeeze. When the legs stopped kicking, Cadogan forced the head under water and eased up on his grip. Bubbles rose up and burst on the surface. Cadogan placed his ear close to the water to hear. When he could no longer hear the bubbles he loosed his grip.

With hands to the falls and feet against the ship's side, Cadogan climbed to the deck where he had left his coat. He found it kicked to one side and trampled upon. But the little photograph was still there--in the inside pocket.

He took off his cap, the cap of the drowned man, while he kissed the little photograph. "Coming, coming, oh, coming!" he murmured.

"Have you room for a passenger?" came in a man's voice from the dark.

Cadogan whirled. "Passenger? Passenger! I've fought and schemed and--Oh!"

It was Lavis, and, clinging to his hand, was somebody in a man's long ulster.

"It's the woman--you remember her?--who passed her baby boy into the boat so that he would be saved."

Cadogan said nothing.

"A few minutes ago I found her. She was weeping for her baby. I asked her why she should be weeping now that her baby was safe, and she answered me: 'But who will be there to give him the breast when he wakes?'"

Cadogan rested his left hand, with the fingers clinched around the cap, on the ship's rail.

"If Christ on earth were to be with us once more," went on Lavis softly, "would he not say again: 'Greater love hath no man than this'? 'Who will be there to give him the breast when he wakes?'--and she about to die. Have you room for her as a passenger on your raft?"

"It will bear only one."

Lavis waited.

Cadogan unloosed the fingers of the hand on the rail. The cap dropped into the sea.

"She shall be the one," he said presently.

In the rosy flush of a beautiful dawn a lone woman on a tiny raft drifted down to her crying baby and gave him suck.

[The end]
James B. Connolly's short story: Last Passenger

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