"I have a cabin below. I place it at the lady's disposal"
On the lifeboat for those first seconds a silence of petrification reigned. On the submarine sounded voices—voices which hadn't been heard before. For one sick instant Newcomb tried to fit those sounds to expostulation, to revolt. And then hope died, transfixed by laughter.
But the commander himself was grave, almost decorous.
"Well, what do you say?" He was looking straight at the girl. "You must make up your mind quickly. I've wasted too much time already."
"Far too much," burst from a man's throat down below.
"Unless," the German went on calmly—"unless, as seems probable, the lady hasn't understood."
No wonder that he so interpreted the lady's face, for in the circumscribed field of intense light her eyes showed wide to an incredible vision. "It is true what your own people have told you," he went on. "To stay where you are means death."
She spoke directly to him for the first time.