“I will try,” she said, and she walked to the piano which was screwed athwart the deck in front of the polished mahogany sheath of the steel mainmast. It was in her mind to play some lively excerpts from the light operas then in vogue, but the secret influences of the hour were stronger than her studied intent, and, when her fingers touched the keys, they wandered, almost without volition, into the subtle harmonies of Gounod’s “Ave Maria.” She played the air first; then, gaining confidence, she sang the words, using a Spanish version which had caught her fancy. It was good to see the flashing eyes and impassioned gestures of the Chilean stewards when they found that she was singing in their own language. These men, owing to their acquaintance with the sea and knowledge of the coast, were now in a state of panic; they would have burst the bonds of discipline on the least pretext. So, as it chanced, the voice of the English señorita reached them as the message of an angel, and the spell she cast over them did not lose its potency during some hours of dangerous toil. Here, again, was found one of the comparatively trivial incidents which contributed materially to the working out of a strange drama, because anything in the nature of a mutinous orgy breaking out in the first part of that soul-destroying night must have instantly converted the ship into a blood-bespattered Inferno. Excited applause rewarded the song. Fired by example, the dapper French Count approached the piano and asked Elsie if she could play Beranger’s “Roi d’Yvetot.” She repressed a smile at his choice, but the chance that presented itself of initiating a concert on the spur of the moment was too good to be lost, so M. de Poincilit, in a nice light tenor, told how Il était un roi d’Yvetot Peu connu dans l’histoire, Se levant tard, se couchant tôt, Dormant fort bien sans gloire. The Frenchman took the merry monarch seriously, but the lilting melody pleased everybody except “Mr. Wood.” The “Oh, Oh’s” and “Ah, Ah’s” of the chorus apparently stirred him to speech. He strolled from a corner of the saloon to the side of Gray, the American engineer, and said, with a contemptuous nod towards the singer: “What rot!” “Not a bit of it. He’s all right. Won’t _you_ give us a song next?” If Gray showed the face of a sphinx, so did “Mr. Wood,” whose real name was Tollemache. He bent a little nearer. “Seen the rockets?” he asked. “No. Are we signaling?” “Every minute. Have counted fifteen.” “You don’t say. Things are in a pretty bad shape, then?” “Rotten.” “Well, like Brer Rabbit, we must lie low and say nothing.” This opinion was incontrovertible. Moreover, Tollemache was not one who needed urging to keep his mouth shut. Indeed, this was by far the longest conversation he had indulged in since he came aboard; nor was he finished with it. “Ship will strike soon,” he said.