in solid sheets, beating against the thick glass windows until we had to raise the wooden storm sashes to keep them from breaking. The spume of the waves, whipped from their crest by the wind, blew across our decks in torrents, and high above the funnels. Every time she rose to take the sea in her teeth I drew my breath for the dip and surge of water that followed. Every time she plunged downward it seemed as though it must be her last. Again and again she buried her nose in the seething vortex, and then, trembling in every fiber, she would shake herself clear and rise to clinch the next sea that swept upon her. I stood there for hours watching the struggle. Puny man and the fragile creation of his hand against the forces of nature. Alone and in the blackness of night, we fought it out to the tune of the howling wind and the crash of water dashing itself to spray against our decks. Hour after hour passed and still she responded to the gallant little engines that never faltered. Half the time the screw would be beating air, the engines racing and shaking the boat as in an ague. The engineers clung desperately to the iron frame of the engine as they dropped in the oil on the working bearings. The firemen in the stoke hole braced themselves against the bulk-head as they heaved the coal. [Illustration: WHEN THE FRANCE ENTERED ODESSA HARBOR AFTER THE STORM SHE WAS PRETTY WELL SHAKEN UP] [Illustration: SULINA—THE MOUTH OF THE DANUBE RIVER] The struggle lay in steam and the endurance of the engines, and they knew it, and each man shut his teeth and did his part. Two o’clock came, three o’clock, four o’clock, and still we struggled on. Suddenly the wind stopped, the sea began to subside and the moon came out. All was lovely, only cold, so cold that one’s marrow seemed to freeze. Three hours more and the sun rose red in the east, flanked by two sun-dogs that justified the cold we felt. It was a perfect winter’s day. Way off on the port bow a great bluff began to loom up, and little by little the towers of a great city were discernible. An hour later, cased in ice, with icicles hanging from every part, the _France_ crept into port. We were wreathed in ice from stem to stern. The thermometer marked ten degrees below zero. I did not speak Greek, but the grip old man Gileti gave my hand, spoke his relief louder than words as we rounded to behind the breakwater in the haven, for which we had struggled for sixty-five hours—Odessa! CHAPTER VI _We Land in Odessa on the Day Set by the Revolutionists for a General Massacre, but Because of Effective Martial Law, Secure Only a “General Situation” Story_