It was a nerve-racking moment. It demanded the leadership of a strong man, and there are few gatherings in Anglo-Saxondom which cannot produce a Caesar when required.
“Say,” shouted the American, his clear voice dominating the turmoil, “that gave us a shower-bath. If we could just stand outside and see ourselves, we should look like an illuminated fountain.”
That was the right note—belief in the ship, contempt of the darkness and the gale. The crisis passed.
“There really cannot be a heavy sea,” said Elsie, cheerfully inaccurate. “Otherwise we should be pitching or rolling, perhaps both, whereas we are actually far more steady than when dinner commenced.”
“I find these lulls in the storm most trying,” complained Isobel. “They remind me of some wild animal hunting its prey, creeping up with silent stealth, and then springing.”
“I have never before heard a fog-horn sounded so continuously,” said the missionary’s wife, a Mrs. Somerville. “Don’t you think they are whistling for assistance?”
“Assistance! What sort of assistance can anybody give us here? Unless the ship rights herself very soon we don’t know what may happen.”
Isobel seemed to have a premonition of evil, and she paid no heed to the effect her words might have on the others. Although the saloon was warm—almost uncomfortably hot owing to the closing of the main air-passages—she shivered.
Mr. Somerville drew a book from his pocket. “If that be so,” he said gently, “may I suggest that we seek aid from One who is all-powerful? We are few, and of different religions, but in this hour we can surely worship at a common altar.”
“Right!” said the taciturn Englishman, varying his adjective for once. The missionary offered up a short but heartfelt prayer, and, finding that he carried his congregation with him, read the opening verse of Hymn No. 370, “For those at Sea.”