Strangely enough, it was frail, timid Elsa who answered:
“I’ve been listening. They’re taking off the canvas. The boys are up there. The other boat is away out—yonder. See? Oh! it’s grand! grand! Doesn’t it make us all seem puny! If it would only last till everyone was humble and—adoring!”
Even while she answered, the slender girl turned again to the window and gazed through it as if she could not have enough of the scene so frightful to her mates. These watched her, astonished, yet certainly calmed by her own fearless behavior; so that, presently, all were hastily dressing.
Mabel had set the example in this, saying quaintly:
“If I’ve got to be drowned I might as well look decent when I’m picked up.”
“Mabel and her clothes! The ‘ruling passion strong in death’!” cried Dorothy, in a tone meant to be natural but was still rather shaky. Somebody laughed and that lessened the excitement, so that even Chloe remembered she had appeared without her white turban and hastily put her hands smoothing her wool, as if afraid now only of her mistress’s reprimand.
But that lady had joined Elsa at the glass; and standing with her arm about the girl, drew the slight figure within the folds of her own roomy wrapper, with a comforting warmth and pressure. For it had turned icy cold and the unusual heat of the evening before seemed like a dream.
“Dear little girl, I am glad you came. Brave soul and frail body, you’re stronger than even my healthy Dorothy. And it is magnificent—magnificent. Only, I dread what the morning will reveal. If we are damaged much it will mean the end of our trip—at its very beginning.”
“Dear lady; it won’t mean that. Even if it had to do it would be all right—for me, at least. I should have some beautiful things to remember always.”
Then the cheerfulest of whistling was heard; Cap’n Jack’s warning that he was coming down the stairs and that any feminines in night attire might take warning and flee.