"Aye, miss," grinned the voluble sailor. "That's wot we call 'im—Handsome Jack. Sometimes it's Gentleman Jack, cause of 'is fine manners; but 'ee's only a stoker, just the same."
The officers regained their feet and again sprang at their prisoner. The passengers fell back alarmed.
"Come here, Grace!" cried Mr. Harmon uneasily. "You'll get hurt."
But there was no danger. More officers and sailors ran quickly up, and confronted by such re-enforcements, the fireman stood no chance. Before he had time to take advantage of his temporary victory, he was again overpowered and dragged without further ado in the direction of the forecastle. Grace shrank back as he was taken past, but she could not help seeing his wild, staring eyes and white face with its expression of despair. As he disappeared, the last gong sounded, every visitor hurried ashore, the siren started its deep-toned blasts as warning that the leviathan was getting under weigh.
"I wish it hadn't happened," said Grace, as she kissed her hand in adieu to her father, who stood on the dock watching the vessel go out.
"It's made me positively ill," complained Mrs. Stuart, busy with her smelling-salts.
Long after New York's sky-scrapers had faded from view and the land was only a dim line on the horizon, Grace was still haunted by that white, set face, with its expression of utter despair.
CHAPTER III.
The Indian Ocean, a vast expanse of tossing blue water, its heaving bosom still agitated by the expiring gale, glorious in the outburst of sunshine that followed the storm, stretched away to every point of the compass. As far as the eye could carry, away to where the breaking clouds touched the fast-disappearing land line of mysterious Asia, the boisterous white-capped seas scattered showers of prisms and spray. Rolling and tumbling, their lofty crests flecked with fleecy foam, the endless waves advanced majestically, with rhythmical motion and the stateliness and precision of trained battalions, all scurrying in one direction, urged on by the whip of the southwesterly gale. The tempest had abated, the lowering clouds were rapidly dispersing, once more Nature was smiling and serene, diffusing the beauty and gladness of life through water and sky. Graceful, white-winged sea-birds uttered shrill cries of delight as they circled in the air, gorgeously colored flying fish leaped joyously from the dancing waters, which flashed like jewels in the blinding sunlight. The world was at its brightest and fairest, full of movement and color. The breeze was caressing and balmy, and as the Atlanta, now three weeks from home, plunged her way resistlessly Eastward, the great liner was sonorous with the music of wind and sea.