Most of the passengers had gathered here in an attitude of tense expectancy. A man stood at a speaking-tube and, with a lordly urgency, was insisting that the Captain should take immediate measures to put the passengers ashore in the yawl. It was no moment to relish a conspicuous pose, and Floyd-Rosney was too well habituated to the first place to give it undue value, but he was obviously in his element and carrying all before him. It was a one-sided conversation, but the comprehension of his listeners was quickened by their personal interest in its progress and result. “No danger?” a sarcastic laugh. “We take the liberty of differing as to that. The boat may go to pieces on the sand-bar.” “A shelter? yes,--as long as she lasts, but how long will that be? The boat not much injured except in the furnishings and glass? You think not?” very sarcastically. “Oh, you guarantee? Now what is your guaranty worth to people drowned in one hundred feet of water?” “No, we won’t wait to be taken off by the next packet. The river is rising, and the sand-bar might be covered. We demand it,--the passengers _demand_ to be set ashore in the yawl.” “Well, then, we will hold you and the owners liable.” “We are not prisoners. What’s that? Responsibility? humanity?--shelter? I’ll take care of the shelter. Duciehurst mansion is scarcely ten miles down the river. I own it, and the yawl could put us in it in a trice.” “Yes,--we will risk it,--we will risk the wind and the current. _All_ right. All _right_.” He had carried his point against every protest according to his wont. As he turned, triumphant and smiling, to the anxious, disheveled, drenched group, he had all the pomp and port of a public benefactor. Absorbed in himself and the prospect of his speedy extrication from this uncomfortable and dangerous plight he was utterly unaware that his wife and only child had had urgent need of the succor that they had received from a stranger.