Even after the general movement began in the saloon, it was quiet movement and curiously undramatic; no crying out, no mad rush for the deck.
Some people looked about as if for information. Others tried to smile.
"It's come," said the congressman.
"What—what has come?" demanded Lady Neave through the rising hum.
Out of all the growing murmur and movement Newcomb heard Greta's tense whisper: "That—a torpedo?"
The captain's order traveled with a superhuman quickness:
"Life-belts first! Women and children to the boats!"
"Plenty of time for everybody to get a life-belt," was another form that ran from mouth to mouth. Whether that insistence calmed the people, certainly it was a strangely well-behaved company that made its way, in spite of the ship's increasing list to starboard, along corridors and up companionways. Scarcely a breach in the general self-control till, on the lifeboat-deck, parties were broken up, and all men told to stand back. Though the great majority accepted the order in silence, it broke the courage of some among the women. Certain men tried persuasion. There were dumb partings; there was agonized resistance. Two or three evidently meant to stand out to the bitter end against being saved, or lost, apart from their men-folk. For a minute the morale of the crowd was in grave danger. A young wife's recurrent sob: "I can't! I can't!" rose to wildness with, "They'll have to kill me first!"
Newcomb, looking vainly about for Nan Ellis, saw a different face. Oh, yes, it belonged to that voice he had been hearing under all the rest, patient, gentle, tireless—the voice saying now in its foreign-sounding English "It is for your husband's safety that you go first." More than the words, the motherly kindness on the blunt-featured face of the old German lady, prevailed upon the distracted girl. She let go her husband's arm and clung to Mrs. Mohrenheim.