"Stop!" Julian flung up an arm. "It's an impossible barbarity! Look!" He swung round. "You haven't seen—there's a lady in the boat!"
"Oh, is there?" The flash of white teeth showed in that diffused light spreading upward from the hatch. "The lady has only herself to blame."
"To blame? How is she to blame?"
"She disobeys the order."
"What order?" Grant couldn't yet see he had nothing to hope from the man. "You can't abandon us," he hurried on, "not a woman, anyway, to the torture of slow starvation."
"I'm not sure that I can." The captain's hand had gone up as though to stroke the absent mustache. When the hand came down, it showed his teeth again as he half turned toward the men behind him.
At those words, "I'm not sure that I can," the reaction in the lifeboat was so great that, with the snapping of the tension, Grant had wavered dizzily, and Nan sprang up with a cry—a cry that Newcomb took for relief till he saw her gesture toward Julian Grant. But nearer hands laid hold on him as he called out in hoarse triumph, "What did I tell you fellows!" and fell into the place they made for him. The commander turned from some humorous interchange with his officers.
"Yes, it's a fact, I can't bring myself to abandon the lady." He took up that position again near the edge of the conning-tower. With heels together he made a sharp inclination from the hips. "I have a cabin below, not luxurious, but more comfortable than—" he broke off with a curt gesture. "I place it at the lady's disposal."