And he wanted to think of Joan. He had not thought of much else since he had left her--but the subject never tired. He could feel her now as she had lain in his arms; he could still smell the soft fragrance of her hair. The wind was singing through the rigging, and suddenly the wonder of her came over him in a great wave and he stared over the grey sea with shining eyes. After a while he tapped out his pipe, and prepared to fill it again. It was as he stood, with his tobacco pouch open in his hand, that something in the sea attracted his attention. He grew rigid, and stared at it--and at the same moment a frantic ringing of the engine-room bell showed that the officer on the bridge had seen it too. Simultaneously everyone seemed to become aware that something was wrong--and for a brief second almost a panic occurred. The ship was swinging to port, but Vane realised that it was hopeless: the torpedo must get them. And the sea-gulls circling round the boat shrieked discordantly at him. . . . He took a grip of the rail, and braced himself to meet the shock. Involuntarily he closed his eyes--the devil . . . it was worse than a crump--you could hear that coming--and this. . . . "Quick--get it over." He did not know he had spoken . . . and then it came. . . . There was a great rending explosion--curiously muffled, Vane thought, compared with a shell. But it seemed so infinitely more powerful and destructive; like the upheaval of some great monster, slow and almost dignified compared with the snapping fury of a smaller beast. It seemed as if the very bowels of the earth had shaken themselves and irrupted. The ship staggered and shook like a stricken thing, and Vane opened his eyes. Already she was beginning to list a little, and he saw the gaping hole in her side, around which floated an indescribable litter of small objects and bits of wood. The torpedo had hit her forward, but with the headway she still had the vessel drifted on, and the litter of debris came directly underneath Vane. With a sudden narrowing of his eyes, he saw what was left of a girl turning slowly over and over in the still seething water. Then he turned round and looked at the scene on deck. The crew were going about their job in perfect silence, and amongst the passengers a sort of stunned apathy prevailed. The thing had been so sudden, that most of them as yet hardly realised what had happened. He saw one man--a funny little, pimply man with spectacles, of the type he would have expected to wring his hands and wail--take off his boots with the utmost composure, and place them neatly side by side on the deck. Then a large, healthy individual in a fur coat came past him demanding to see the Captain, and protesting angrily when he was told to go to hell. "It's preposterous, sir," he said to Vane; "absolutely preposterous. I insist on seeing the Captain. . .."