At seven minutes past three in the afternoon, Cecily Thorogood, that very self-possessed and prettily-clad young woman, was seated in a deck-chair on the saloon-deck of a 6,000-ton liner; an American magazine was open in front of her, under cover of which she was exploring the contents of a box of chocolates with the practised eye of the expert, in quest of a particular species which contained crystallised ginger and found favour in her sight. At nineteen minutes past three Cecily Thorogood, still self-possessed, but no longer very prettily clad, was submerged in the chilly Atlantic up to her shoulders and clinging to the life-line of an upturned jolly-boat. To the very young Fourth Officer who clung to the boat beside her with one arm and manoeuvred for a position from which he could encircle Cecily's waist protectingly with the other, she announced as well as her chattering teeth would allow that she (a) was in no immediate danger of drowning; (b) was not in the least frightened; (c) was perfectly capable of holding on without anybody's support as long as was necessary. The chain of occurrences that connected situation No. 1 with situation No. 2 was short enough in point of actual time, but so crowded with unexpected and momentous happenings that it had already assumed the proportions of a confused epoch in Cecily's mind. There were gaps in the sequence of events that remained blanks in her memory. Faces, insignificant incidents, thumbnail sketches and broad, bustling panorama of activity alternated with the blank spaces. The heroic and the preposterous were indistinguishable.... At the first sound of the explosion of the torpedo Cecily jumped to her feet, scattering the chocolates broadcast over the deck. The ship seemed to lift bodily out of the water and then heeled over a little to port. There were very few people on the saloon deck and there was no excitement or rushing about. The shrill call of the boatswain's mate's pipe clove the silence that followed that stupendous upheaval of sound. A clean-shaven, middle-aged American, wearing a collar reminiscent of the late Mr. Gladstone's and a pair of pince-nez hanging from his neck on a broad black ribbon, had been walking up and down with his hands behind his back; he paused uncertainly for a moment and then began laboriously collecting the scattered chocolates. That was the only moment when hysteria brushed Cecily with its wings. She wanted to laugh or cry--she wasn't sure which. "It doesn't matter! It doesn't matter!" she cried with a catch in her breath. "Don't stop now--we've been torpedoed!" The American stared at the handful he had gathered.