She sprang to Gilmore. His arm was about Basile; he was trying his pulse. The twins would have followed but in between came senator--general--all that company, moved by physical foreknowledge of an invitation whose drawing power outweighed whatever else land, water, sky, or man could offer. Suddenly it pealed in their midst: "Ringading tingalingaty, ringadang ding----" The captain stayed by his chair. "Cast off," he said to the mate beneath, and to Watson above: "Back your starboard." A jingle sounded below. The steam roared from one scape and widened aloft like a magic white tree--twice--thrice. "Stop her." It ceased. She swung. "Go ahead on both." Two white trees shot up together and trembling she went. Down in the quivering cabin, round the shining board, every one's spirit rose with the rising speed. "Senator, 'twas I sent you them hot rolls, suh." "Why, thank you! But--don't disfurnish yourself." "General, them fried bananas----" "Th-th-thank you, sir, I have a suff-fficient plenty." Only the seats of the Courteneys, the Gilmores, Ramsey, and Basile stood vacant. XXXIX FORTITUDE "Courage," the slender play was called. It is to be regretted that we cannot fully set it forth, for Gilmore was himself its author. Also because, whatever it lacked, there was in it a lucky fitness for this occasion, since, conditions being what they were on the decks above and below, the one strong apology for giving it was the need of upholding the courage of its audience. It was even a sort of kind rejoinder to the various ferments kept up by the truculent twins, the pusillanimous exhorter, and the terrified Basile. Its preachment might well have been less obvious, though lines, its author bade Hugh notice, never overbalanced action, never came till situation called them. It was to the effect, first, that courage is human character's prime essential, without which no rightness or goodness is stable or real; and, second, that as no virtue of character can be relied on where courage is poor, so neither can courage be trusted for right conduct when unmated to other virtues of character, the chiefest being fidelity--fidelity to truth and right, of course, since fidelity to evil is but a contradiction of terms. "From courage and fidelity," it was the part of one player at a telling moment to say, "springs the whole arch of character," and again, "These are the Adam and Eve of all the virtues." (Adam and Eve were decided to be quite mentionable. Mention was not impersonation.) Naturally the Gilmores knew every line of the play. "As perfectly," ventured the two young Napoleonites, "as John the Baptist knows the moral law, don't you?" "Better, I infer," said Gilmore abstractedly. They were in the ladies' cabin, awaiting its preparation as a stage, behind the curtains that screened it from the gentlemen's cabin, the auditorium. His wife smiled for him.