“Yes, that’s like him, too,” Hildegarde said to herself, as one welcoming one more of a cloud of witnesses. She fell upon the piano with redoubled vigor. Loud and fast she hammered out the wildest jig she could remember. Miss Pinckney coming back, music in hand, stopped with a scream. Bang! Bang! Grit! Grind! went the ice. Josephine shrieked without intermission till Cheviot, having found a chair with more than three legs, anchored her securely in that haven. With the first words of Miss Pinckney’s song, Cheviot was flying back to the deck. Bang! Grit! Grind! Was she awake, Hildegarde asked herself, or was this fetid room and were these harsh, assailing sounds a form of nightmare? Steadily she played on. Cheviot looked in again, but it was to Mrs. Locke he whispered: “We must break up the Kangaroo Court. Musical talent going to waste there.” She followed him out. In passing Hildegarde he had bent his head. “Keep it up,” he said. “Whatever you do, don’t stop.” She reflected a little enviously that she could be quite as happy running about the deck with Louis as pinned to the moth-eaten music-stool, grinding out cheap airs. Then she found herself smiling. Not the least strange part of this strange evening that Louis should be sending Mrs. Locke on errands, and that Mrs. Locke should be going. The room was filling. Upon the lady’s reappearance with the banjo boy and the cross-eyed flute-player, the concert was in full swing. Now Mrs. Locke was telling Hildegarde to play the “Battle Hymn,” and presently several of the men were helping Miss Pinckney to send John Brown’s soul marching on. Oh, for a little air! Surely there wasn’t room for any more people in this overcrowded space. But still they came. It was curious to watch the new faces at the door peering over the shoulders of those who stood about the piano. Little by little you could see the strain going out of the tense features. Not that their anxieties vanished, but they were softened, humanized through the humble agency of a ramshackle piano and an untrained voice in a song. Even the steps, from the very top to the bottom of the companionway, were crowded now. That fact of itself made for quiescence on the decks. People could no longer run freely up or down. While they paused and wormed their way, they were laid hold of by their ears. The little room was packed to suffocation. Deserted by his audience, even Gedge came down to see what was up. Thicker and more stifling grew the air. In a pause between songs a scrap of conversation floated over Hildegarde’s shoulder, “Lucky there’s no wind.” “God, yes! If there was wind—” “Shut up!” “What then, if there was wind—?” a third insisted, barely audible.