“The quarter you have just invoked twice will take care of that—never fear. Now go and waken Lily. I’ll wait for you here.”
Hardly had she left him than the bugle rang out. Its notes, almost like the trump of doom to some of the more frightened, came pealing down the companion-way, and immediately the saloon was filled with a scuffling crowd making for the upper air. Now more distant, in different quarters of the ship, its blast sounded again and again. Still Wagram sat motionless in his chair.
“Hallo! ain’t you going up?” cried one of the last, thus seeing him. “Man, but the bugle’s gone again and again.”
“I know it has,” said Wagram calmly, finishing off his glass; “I’m waiting for Mrs Colville.”
The other went his way without another word. Wagram, thinking it about time to hurry up his protégé, started in the direction of her cabin, and as he did so a pealing shriek of utter and complete despair brought his pulses to a momentary standstill.
The while, on deck, the more or less scared passengers were quickly lined up in rows—the women and children apart. They, for their part, noticed two things: that the surface of the sea was much nearer than it had been the last time they had stood here—in fact, appallingly near; and that beside each boat stood its crew, just as they had seen them at ordinary Saturday afternoon fire drill. A thick, sickly murk had settled overhead, shutting out the stars—and by the glare of the lanterns it might be seen that the ship was very low down in the stern indeed. The roaring of the steam had now ceased, and the great funnels towered above, white and ghostly. And now what had actually happened began to be whispered around. The propeller rod had snapped, and in snapping had fallen through the keel, ripping away plates, and tearing open a tremendous leak, through which the water had rushed with alarming rapidity. Then it was found that the watertight bulkheads were of no use. The doors had somehow got jammed, and would not close. During all the time that the coolness and forethought of the captain and officers had utilised by sending the passengers below for some final refreshment the ship had been slowly settling.
The expedient had been a good one. To that degree invigorated, the passengers, lined up there, were less susceptible to panic, and the work of loading the boats and lowering went on with clockwork regularity and order.
That shriek had the effect upon Wagram of the lash on a racehorse. He sprang in the direction whence it proceeded. Mrs Colville’s cabin was at the end of a long passage out of which other cabins opened, and now he found her standing in the doorway of hers with an awful look upon her ashy face.
“Lily. My little one. She’s gone!” she screamed at sight of him.
“Gone?”