They were all down there—the whole engineer's staff of the Mooroo—in their shirt-sleeves, lying among the bright steel rods—busy at their craft—working against time for their lives.
It was unfortunate that the engines should have held good right across the Arabian Sea, through the Red Sea, through the trying “fast” and “slow” and “stand by” and “go ahead” of the Canal—right through to the Pointe de Raz light, which was blinking down upon them now.
The ship had been got round with difficulty. Her sails, all black with coal-dust and the smoke of many voyages, had been shaken out. They served to keep the vessel's bluff prow pushing into the gale, but that was all. The Mooroo was drifting—drifting.
While the passengers were at dinner the engines had suddenly stopped, and almost before the fact had been realized, the captain, having exchanged glances with his officers, was out of the saloon.
“Something in the engine-room,” said the doctor and the fifth officer—left at table. The engineer had probably stopped to replace a worn washer or something similarly simple.
The stewards hurried to and fro with the dishes. And the passengers went on eating their last dinner on earth in that sublime ignorance which is the prerogative of passengers.
Mrs. Judge Barrowby, who, in view of the captain's vacant chair on her left hand, took, as it were, moral command of the ship, was heard to state in a loud voice that she had every confidence in the officers and the crew.
Young Skeen, of the Indian Intelligence, who sat within hearing of Mrs. Judge Barrowby, for his own evil ends and purposes, thereafter said that he could now proceed with his dinner—that his appetite was beginning to return.
“Of course,” he went on to say, “if Mrs. Judge Barrowby says that it is all right—”
But he got no farther than this. For a young lady with demure eyes and twitching lips, who was sitting next to him, whispered that Mrs. Judge Barrowby was looking, and that he must behave himself.