"Here we are," Miss Greta hailed him.
The youth paused by her chair an instant and mumbled something unintelligible, his eyes goggling as they swept the saloon.
"They told me the captain was down here."
Greta took hold of Ashmole's arm and tried in vain to pull him into the vacant place. He stood there lost while she whispered. Suddenly he bent and whispered back. They had done too much whispering in these last days for that to strike any one as specially strange. What struck Newcomb was the effect on Miss Greta of whatever it was Ashmole had said.
On the face that had met with brazen defiance the news of a German defeat, was stamped something more than consternation. Ashmole's own nerves were not so shaken, but he saw that.
"It's all right," he said in the act of turning from her; "they won't get us. The lights are all out."
"Lights out, you say!" Greta had risen.
"Every port covered," Ashmole muttered over his shoulder.
"Fools! They must put the lights on. Do you hear? Instantly!" She clutched her chair back. "This isn't the boat they want—"
Nan had risen, too. But that was because she saw Julian at the door of the saloon. Without a word he held up his hand. Equally without sound, she slipped away from the table and went toward the waiting figure. As she reached the door, a dull sound came, with a long shuddering. It passed through the ship from end to end. Instead of the echo of that detonation setting the whole place instantly in motion, it had the effect of stilling for those first seconds such motion as had been. Several hundred tongues ceased wagging. Forks and spoons remained, arrested, half-way to people's mouths. The waiters stood, dish-covers in their hands, or bottles lifted to fill glass. The very engines slowed to listen.