“Did the captain tell you we had any chance of escape, señorita?” asked the Spanish maid.
“What hope did Captain Courtenay hold out?” demanded Mrs. Somerville, who had listened to Isobel’s raving with small comprehension.
Elsie left unuttered the protest on her lips. They all thought she possessed Courtenay’s confidence in the same extraordinary degree. Well, she would try to impart consolation in that way. It was ridiculous, but it would serve.
“Of course we are in a desperate situation,” she said, “but while the ship holds together there is always a chance of rescue, and you can see quite clearly that she is far from breaking up yet.”
“Rescue! Did he speak of rescue?” cried Isobel. “That is impossible, unless we take to the boats. And the cry in the saloon was that two boats were lost long ago and a third just now. That is why we were brought on deck. Were they launching a boat?”
“I don’t know,” said Elsie. “I was here quite alone, except for Joey.”
“Ah, it was true then. He was acting secretly, and the men broke loose as soon as they heard of it.”
Elsie found this recurring suspicion of Courtenay’s motives harder to bear than the preceding paroxysm of unreasoning rage. She had heard the shooting, bellowing, and tramping on deck, and she knew that some terrible scene was being enacted there, while the mere fact that the captain himself placed the female passengers in his cabin proved that he was doing his best for all.
“I do not believe for one instant that Captain Courtenay was acting otherwise than as a brave and honorable gentleman,” she said; and then the fantastic folly of such a dispute at such a moment overcame her. She drew apart from Isobel, leaned against the wall of the cabin, and wept unrestrainedly.
Her companions in misfortune did not realize how greatly her calm self-reliance had comforted them until they witnessed this unlooked-for collapse. The Spanish maid slipped to her knees, Mrs. Somerville began to rock in her chair in a new agony, and Isobel, to whom a turbulent spirit denied the relief of tears when they were most needed, buried her face in a curtain which draped one of the windows.