I thought over the sentence lazily for a time, and then--surely there was a red lamp in the air somewhere--an intolerable glare that singed the shut eyelids. I opened my eyes and looked forward. The lascar was asleep, his face bowed on his knees, though he ought to have been roused by the hum of a rapidly approaching city, by the noises of men and women talking and laughing and drinking. I could hear it not half a mile away: it was strange that his ears should be closed. The night was so black that one could hardly breathe; and yet where did the glare from the red lamp come from? Not from our ship: she was silent and asleep--the officers on the bridge were asleep; there was no one of four hundred souls awake but myself. And the glare of the red lamp went up to the zenith. Small wonder. A quarter of a mile in front of us rolled a big steamer under full steam, and she was heading down on us without a word of warning. Would the lookout man never look out? Would their crew be as fast asleep as ours? It was impossible, for the other ship hummed with populous noises, and there was the defiant tinkle of a piano rising above all. She should have altered her course, or blown a fog-horn. I held my breath while an eternity went by, counted out by the throbbing of my heart and the engines. I knew that it was my duty to call, but I knew also that no one could hear me. Moreover, I was intensely interested in the approaching catastrophe; interested, you will understand, as one whom it did in no wise concern. By the light of the luminous sea thrown forward in sheets under the forefoot of the advancing steamer I could discern the minutest details of her structure from cat-head to bridge. Abaft the bridge she was crowded with merrymakers--seemed to be, in fact, a P. & O. vessel given up to a ball. I wondered as I leaned over the bulwarks what they would say when the crash came--whether they would shriek very loudly--whether the men and women would try to rush to our decks, or whether we would rush on to theirs. It would not matter in the least, for at the speed we were driving both vessels would go down together locked through the deeps of the sea. It occurred to me then that the sea would be cold, and that instead of choking decently I might be one in a mad rush for the boats--might be crippled by a falling spar or wrenched plate and left on the heeling decks to die. Then Terror came to me--Fear, gross and overwhelming as the bulk of the night--Despair unrelieved by a single ray of hope.