The noise of the steam exhaust ceased as abruptly as it began. The ship was riding easily in spite of the heavy sea. Drifting with wind and wave is a simple thing for a big vessel. There is no struggle, no tearing asunder of resisting forces. Thus might a boat caught in the pitiless current of Niagara glide towards the brink of the cataract with cunning smoothness. And then, while the occupants of the saloon were endeavoring to persuade each other that all was well, the loud wail of the siren thrilled them with increased foreboding. It was not the warning note of a fog, nor the sharp course-signal for the guidance of a passing ship, but a sustained trumpeting, which announced to any steamer hidden in the darkening waste of waters that the _Kansas_ was not under control. It was a wild, sinister appeal for help, the voice of the disabled vessel proclaiming her need; and the answer seemed to come in a fiercer shriek of the gale, while the added fury of the blast brought a curling sea over the poop. The _Kansas_ staggered and shook herself clear. The wave smashed its way onward; several iron stanchions snapped with reports like pistol-shots, and there was an intolerable rending of woodwork. But, whatever the damage, the powerful hull rose triumphantly from the clutch of its assailant. Shattered streams of water poured off the decks like so many cascades. Loud above the splash of these miniature cataracts vibrated the tense boom of the fog-horn. It was a nerve-racking moment. It demanded the leadership of a strong man, and there are few gatherings in Anglo-Saxondom which cannot produce a Caesar when required. “Say,” shouted the American, his clear voice dominating the turmoil, “that gave us a shower-bath. If we could just stand outside and see ourselves, we should look like an illuminated fountain.” That was the right note—belief in the ship, contempt of the darkness and the gale. The crisis passed. “There really cannot be a heavy sea,” said Elsie, cheerfully inaccurate. “Otherwise we should be pitching or rolling, perhaps both, whereas we are actually far more steady than when dinner commenced.” “I find these lulls in the storm most trying,” complained Isobel. “They remind me of some wild animal hunting its prey, creeping up with silent stealth, and then springing.” “I have never before heard a fog-horn sounded so continuously,” said the missionary’s wife, a Mrs. Somerville. “Don’t you think they are whistling for assistance?” “Assistance! What sort of assistance can anybody give us here? Unless the ship rights herself very soon we don’t know what may happen.” Isobel seemed to have a premonition of evil, and she paid no heed to the effect her words might have on the others. Although the saloon was warm—almost uncomfortably hot owing to the closing of the main air-passages—she shivered.