Among the listeners was our friend Edgar Berrington. Seated, as usual, in front of the great crank, with bare muscular arms folded on his broad chest and a dark frown on his forehead, he riveted his eyes on the crank as if it were the author of all his anxieties. Suddenly the terminating lines, “I cannot sing the old songs, they are too dear to me,” rising above the din of machinery, floated gently down through iron lattice-work, beams, rods, cranks, and bars, and smote upon his ear.
Like a galvanised man he sprang on his legs and stood erect. Then, if we may say so, like a human rocket, he shot upwards and stood on the margin of the crowd. Being head and shoulders over most of them he observed a clear space beside the singer. The night was dark, features could not be discerned, even forms were not easily recognisable. He glided into the open space, and silently but promptly sat down on the deck beside Aileen. His elbow even touched one of the folds of her garment. He went straight into paradise and remained there!
As for Aileen, if she observed the action at all, she probably set it down to the enthusiasm of a more than usually musical member of the ship’s crew.
While she was still dwelling on the last note, a grinding sound was heard and a slight tremor felt that not only stopped the song abruptly but checked the applause that was ready to burst from every lip and hand. Edgar vanished from the spot where he sat quite as quickly as he had appeared, and in a moment was at his station. The captain’s voice was heard on the bridge. The signal was given to stop the engines—to back them—to stop again. Eager inquiries followed—“What’s that? Did you feel it? Hear it? Could it be a rock? Impossible, surely?” No one could answer with knowledge or authority, save those who were too busy to be spoken to. Accustomed as they all were for many weeks past to the ceaseless motion of the engines, the sudden stoppage had a strange and solemnising effect on most of the passengers. Presently the order was given to steam ahead, and once more they breathed more freely on hearing again the familiar grinding of the screw.
To the anxious inquiries afterwards made of him, the captain only smiled and said he could not tell what it was—perhaps it might have been a piece of wreck. “But it did not feel like that, captain,” objected one of the passengers, who, having frequently been to sea before, was regarded as being semi-nautical; “it was too like a touch on something solid. You’ve heard, I suppose, of coral reefs growing in places where none are marked on our charts?”
“I have,” answered the captain drily.
“Might it not be something of the kind?”
“It might,” replied the captain.
“We are not far from the coast of China, are we?” asked the semi-nautical passenger.
“Not very far.”