A huge wave broke right over their heads. The boat, which had nearly reached the level of the water, was overturned, and the air seemed full of the screaming of women, the loud shouting of orders from the bridge, where the captain was standing with his hands upon the fast sinking rail. The water was up to their waists now. In a moment they ceased to feel anything beneath their feet. Geraldine found herself suddenly buoyant. Thomson, swimming with one arm, locked the other in their raft. “Push yourself away from everything as well as you can,” he whispered, “and, Geraldine--if anything should happen to us, I never changed--not for a moment.” “I don’t believe I ever did, either,” she sobbed, holding out her hand. Another wave broke over them. They came up, however. He gripped her wet hand for a moment. All around them were articles of ship’s furniture, broken planks, here and there a man swimming. From close at hand came the shriek of the vanishing siren. “Look!” Geraldine cried. Barely fifty feet away from them was the submarine. The captain and four or five of the men were on deck. Thomson shouted to him. “Can’t you save some of these women?” The answer was a laugh--hoarse, brutal, derisive. The submarine glided away. Thomson’s face as he looked after it, was black with anger. The next moment he recovered himself, however. He had need of all his strength. “Don’t listen to anything, Geraldine,” he begged her. “They will nearly all be saved. Can’t you hear the sirens already? There are plenty of ships coming up. Remember, we can’t go down so long as we keep hold here.” “But you’ve no lifebelt on,” she faltered. “I don’t need it,” he assured her. “I can keep afloat perfectly well. You’re not cold?” “No,” she gasped, “but I feel so low down. The sky seems suddenly further away. Oh, if some one would come!” There were sirens now, and plenty of them, close at hand. Out of the mist they saw a great black hull looming. “They’re here all right!” he cried. “Courage, Geraldine! It’s only another five minutes.” Thirty miles an hour into a fog of mist, with the spray falling like a fountain and the hiss of the seawater like devil’s music in their ears. Then the haze lifted like the curtain before the stage of a theatre, and rolled away into the dim distance. An officer stood by Conyers’ side. “Hospital ship Princess Hilda just torpedoed by a submarine, sir. They’re picking up the survivors already. We’re right into ‘em sir.” Even as he spoke, the moonlight shone down. There were two trawlers and a patrol boat in sight, and twenty or thirty boats rowing to the scene of the disaster. Suddenly there was a shout. “Submarine on the port bow!”