“Do spare me one moment,” she pleaded. “When I have put on dry clothing, what am I to do? Where am I to go? I will do anything rather than remain alone.” Walker jammed himself in the doorway to break the violence of the unceasing deluge of spray. “Well, missie,” he said, “I’m examining the engines, Mistaw Tollemache is fi-wing up the donkey-boiler, an’ Doctaw Chwistobal is with Mistaw Boyle. You know whe-aw the captain is, so I weckon yo’ best place is the saloon.” “Dr. Christobal said you were making a raft?” “That’s wight. But when the ship got off, we tackled othaw jobs. She is ow-ah best waft.” “And—do you think—we have any chance.” “Nevah say ‘die,’ missie. Owt can happen at sea.” She made a guess at the meaning of “owt.” “May I not look after some of the injured men?” “That you can’t,” was Walker’s prompt assurance. “You’d bettaw stick to the saloon. I’ll tell the captain yo’ the-aw.” “Tell him? Are you returning to the bridge?” “Telephone!” shouted Walker, as an unusually heavy sea caused him to slam the door unceremoniously. He bolted it, too. Not if he could help it would his charge come out on that storm-swept deck unattended. The electric light glowed brightly in Elsie’s cabin, exactly as she had left it an hour ago. This was one of the anomalous conditions of the disaster. It lent a queer sense of Midsummer madness to the night’s doings. In a few days it would be Christmas, the Christmas of sunshine and flowers known only to that lesser portion of the habitable earth south of the line. In Valparaiso the weather was stifling, yet here, not so very far away, it was bitterly cold. And the ship was driving headlong to destruction, though electric bells and switches were at command in a luxuriously furnished apartment, while the engineer had just spoken of the telephone as a means of conversing with the captain. Away down in her feminine heart the girl wondered why Courtenay himself had not come to her. Why had he sent Christobal first and Walker subsequently? Oh, of course he had more urgent matters to attend to, though, in the helpless condition of the ship, it was difficult to appreciate their precise degrees of importance. Anyhow, he had sent word that she was to change her clothes, and he must be obeyed, as Dr. Christobal said. Then she discovered, as a quite new and physically disagreeable fact, that her skirts were soaked up to her knees, while her blouse was almost in the same condition owing to the quantity of spray which had run down inside her thick ulster. It was an absurd thing to be afraid of after all she had endured, but Elsie cried a little when she realized that she had been literally wet to the skin without knowing it. In truth, she had a momentary dread of a fainting fit, and it was not until she untied the veil which held her Tam o’ Shanter in its place that she learnt how the knot had come near to suffocating her.