O’Shea made him comfortable and withdrew to keep an eye on events. Order had been restored. The passengers were once more closely guarded, and as a new precaution sentries were stationed in the halls. O’Shea waited until the men with revolvers were relieved at midnight and another squad took their places. Then he heard one of them say to another that there was serious trouble below. The ship had run over a bit of submerged wreckage or somehow damaged her bottom plates. She was leaking. The water was making into the midship compartments. To O’Shea this was the best news in the world. With an easier mind, he went to his room. The hateful inaction, the humiliating imprisonment, were almost over. God helping him, he would whip this crew of outlaws on the morrow and win the mastery of the _Alsatian_. Before daybreak Johnny Kent turned over in his bunk and growled: “She’s slowed down, Cap’n Mike. The engines are no more than turnin’ over. That means the water is almost up to the furnaces and the men are desertin’ their posts. You can’t keep firemen below when the black water is sloshin’ under their feet. It gets their nerve.” “The whole crew will go to pieces if the panicky feeling once takes hold of them, Johnny. They have never worked together. A lot of them are no seamen at all. And Vonderholtz will not be able to hold them.” The _Alsatian_ moved more and more sluggishly, like a dying ship. The water was pouring into her faster than the pumps could lift it overside. It was only a question of hours before the fires would be extinguished, the machinery stilled, and the liner no more than a sodden hulk rolling aimlessly in the Atlantic. The passengers were no longer under guard. They walked the decks as they pleased. The communal brethren, who had found it so easy to capture the ship, were now at their wits’ ends. Once or twice their leader passed hastily between the bridge and the engine-room. The confident, sneering egotism no longer marked the demeanor of the man. Nervously twisting his blond beard, he moved as one without definite purpose. His elaborate enterprise was in a bad way. The war against society had suffered an unexpected reverse. O’Shea and Johnny Kent watched him gloatingly. The advantage was all theirs. They were waiting for the right moment to strike, and to strike hard. They saw Vonderholtz halt to speak to Miss Jenness, who stood apart and alone. He argued with fiery gestures. She protested earnestly, her face sad and tragic. It was as though they had come to the parting of the ways. At length the _Alsatian_ ceased to forge ahead. The water conquered her. The long, black hull rode low, sagging wearily to starboard. The bulkheads still held firm, but it seemed inevitable that she must shortly plunge to the bottom.