'That harmonium is disgracefully out of tune,' said the Captain. 'The sea air affects their insides. Well, as I was saying, we settled down in the boat. The Captain's wife was unconscious; she lay in the bottom of the boat and moaned. I was glad she wasn't threshing about the boat: but what I did think was wrong, was the way the two men passengers behaved. They were useless with funk--out and out fear. They lay in the boat and did nothing. Fetched a groan now and again to show they were alive; but that was all. But the other woman was a jewel. Damn it, it was worth being shipwrecked to have that woman in the boat; she was awfully handsome, and as brave as she was lovely. She helped me bail out the boat, and she worked like a man. 'So we kicked about the sea from midnight till seven the next evening, and then we saw a steamer. “I'll--I'll give you anything I'm wearing to hoist as a signal of distress,” said the woman; but I had no need to ask her, for the steamer picked us up and took us back to Bombay. I forgot to tell you that, when the day broke, I couldn't recognise the Captain's wife--widow, I mean. She had changed in the night as if fire had gone over her. I met her a long time afterwards, and even then she hadn't forgiven me for putting her into the boat and obeying the Captain's orders. But the husband of the other woman--he's in the Army--wrote me no end of a letter of thanks. I don't suppose he considered that the way his wife behaved was enough to make any decent man do all he could. The other fellows, who lay in the bottom of the boat and groaned, I've never met. Don't want to. Shouldn't be civil to 'em if I did. And that's how the _Visigoth_ went down, for no assignable reason, with eighty bags of mail, five hundred souls, and not a single packet insured, on just such a night as this.' 'Oh, Trinity of love and power, Our brethren shield in that dread hour, From rock and tempest, fire and foe, Protect them whereso'er they go. Thus evermore shall rise to Thee Glad hymns of praise by land and sea.' 'Strikes me they'll go on singing that hymn all night. Imperfect sort of doctrine in the last lines, don't you think? They might have run in an extra verse specifying sudden collapse--like the _Visigoth's_. I'm going on to the bridge, now. Good-night,' said the Captain. And I was left alone with the steady thud, thud, of the screw and the gentle creaking of the boats at the davits. _That_ made me shudder. THE SOLID MULDOON Did ye see John Malone, wid his shinin', brand-new hat? Did ye see how he walked like a grand aristocrat? There was flags an' banners wavin' high, an' dhress and shtyle were shown, But the best av all the company was Misther John Malone. _John Malone._