Her intensity had created a really strange atmosphere. Nothing louder than a whisper could be heard in the room, and even whispering soon ceased. “Now, captain--or father--take your place on the bridge, where you belong.” Clifton proceeded with the utmost seriousness to climb up on Thomason’s table. He stood at one end, so that there would be room for Bonnie May also. “The sailors will now take their places on the raft,” was the next order. “You know, you’re not supposed to be visible until you hear the line, ‘the ship is sinking,’ and then you want to remember that you are in a violent storm.” Jack and Thomason climbed to the middle of the bed and sat down awkwardly, both looking in the same direction, like rowers in a boat. “And remember you have paddles in your hands,” reminded Bonnie May. “I have a paddle,” responded Jack. “I ain’t,” objected Thomason. “Oh, yes, you have,” declared Jack, “one just like mine.” He took a stroke with an imaginary paddle, held suitably. “Well--I have a paddle,” conceded Thomason. Bonnie May then was helped to the “bridge,” beside Clifton. Clifton began. He was not quite sure about the lines, but he recalled the situation clearly enough. “Best go below, my daughter,” were the words which filled the room with a ringing effect. “I have not seen a gull since the second watch ended, and they do not hide from ordinary storms. I fear we may be caught in a tempest.” [Illustration: “Look at them!” she screamed. “Look! Look!”] Bonnie May clasped her hands in a frenzy of earnestness. Her words came with intense eloquence: “Let me stay with you, father. I fear no storm while I am by your side.” Her voice filled the room with tones which were intense, even, resonant, golden. Mrs. Harrod, regarding her incredulously, put out a hand and touched Flora on the arm. No one else stirred. There came Clifton’s response: “But, child, I tell you Davy Jones’s locker fairly gapes in gales like this. I bid you go below.” The response came with even greater intensity: “But tell me first, father: Would a raft live in such a sea as this?” So the rather silly lines were repeated, back and forth. But they scarcely seemed silly. The two players were putting a tremendous earnestness into them, and the “audience” felt no inclination at all to smile. The two players came to the point in the story where the ship struck a rock, and their intensity was more than doubled. The raft began its part in the scene, but nobody looked at it for a time. Clifton was trying to compel Bonnie May to consent to board the raft. He had seized her arm roughly and was threatening her. She screamed her refusal. Then it came time for her to behold the murderous looks on the faces of the two men on the raft. “Look at them!” she screamed. “Look! Look!” She pointed at the raft, her eyes wide with terror. The “audience” could not refrain from looking at the raft.