The same performance was going on, down there on the crowded deck, that I'd seen the first day, and Sally Woodburn and I, who had been walking--counting the times we went round, to make two miles--stopped to glance at the show.
"There's that good-looking man Cousin Katherine classifies as a hulking animal," said Sally. "I must really consult the dictionary for a definition of the word 'hulking.' I don't know whether it's a verb or adjective, do you?"
"No, I don't," said I. "But whichever it is, I'm sure he doesn't or isn't. He's a gentleman, and something strange has happened or he wouldn't be there. I do think it's a shame. It must be horrible."
"Don't you think Cousin Katherine knows more about such persons than you?" asked Sally, and there was such a funny quaver in her voice that I turned to see what it meant. She was laughing, but whether at me or at Mrs. Ess Kay, or at the man with the Lobster-Claw nose, I couldn't tell; and before I could answer her question by asking another, something happened which put the whole conversation out of my mind.
The ship curtseyed to a wave of more importance than any that had gone before, then righted herself quickly. We slid a little, everybody who could catching hold of the rail or of some friend's arm, laughing; but down on the steerage deck there rose a cry which wasn't laughter.
"Child overboard!" someone screamed. And I realised with a horrid feeling like suffocation, that a tiny boy down below, who had climbed up on the rail to watch the dancing, was missing.
It was a woman who had screamed, and everything followed so quickly that my mind was confused, as if a whirlwind had rushed through it and blown all the impressions on top of one another, in a heap. There was a babel of voices on the steerage deck, more cries, and shouts, and screams, and people surged in a solid wave toward the rail to look over. But out of that wave sprang one figure separating itself from the other atoms; and then I heard myself give a cry, too, for the man who had been in my thoughts had thrown off his coat and vaulted over the rail into the sea.
"Jove! he'll be caught by the propeller!" I heard somebody near me say.
I turned sick. The thought of his life being crushed out while we all looked on, helpless, was awful. The sea was terrible enough in itself--the great, wide, merciless, blue water, which sparkled so coldly, and laughed in its power--but to be crunched up by the jaws of a monster--I shut my eyes, and couldn't open them until I heard men saying the strong wind to starboard might save him. I believe I must have been unconsciously praying, and my hands were clasped so tightly together that afterwards my fingers ached.
People on our deck made a rush towards the stern, on the port side, for the ship had been steaming so fast that already we were forging away from the child who had fallen and the man who had jumped after him. Sally and I were carried along with the rush. She seized me by the hand, but we didn't speak a word. If dear friends, instead of two strangers in a far remote sphere of life, had been in deadly danger, I don't think the sickness at my heart could have been worse. I would have given years if at that moment I could have had the magical power to stop the ship instantly, with one wave of my hand.