"You sleep like the dead; we shall all go to the bottom and you will never find it out till the fish begin to nibble."
I realise sleepily there's a great commotion without; hurried feet fly about the decks; loud orders are shouted under our window, and with a mighty trembling and throbbing, the ship's engine seems to stop suddenly. Mrs. Steele is scrambling into her robe de chambre, and has her head out of the porthole, while I, hardly awake even yet, lean in a bewildered way over the side of my berth to listen.
"What has happened?" Mrs. Steele calls out.
"Man overboard," answers one of the sailors; "we're lowering a boat."
"Dthere ees no fear, Madame," says the Peruvian's voice outside.
I am so sleepy I gladly take his word for it, and am off again to the Land of Nod. Mrs. Steele's voice comes to me from afar off, with some question about a pistol, but the real soon mixes with a dream, and I know no more.
The next morning I hear that for two hours the whole ship was in a commotion. A drunken passenger of the intermediate class had tumbled overboard, been sobered by his bath, and swam valiantly till the ship's engine could be reversed and a boat lowered to his rescue. This occupied so much time that he was sinking from exhaustion when finally the sailors pulled him in. The passengers were in a panic during the outcry and subsequent stoppage of the machinery. Many believed the last hour was at hand, and appeared on deck in ascension robes, and faces by no means expressive of joy at the immediate prospect of Heaven. It was great fun hearing the various experiences at breakfast. Every one had some joke on his neighbour—only the Peruvian was quiet and rather pale. As we sat on deck in the later morning sunshine, he said to me in German:
"You face danger bravely. I heard Madame Steele cry out last night, but no word from you."
"Good reason for that; I was asleep nearly all the time."