"What's the matter? What's happened?" gasped Valentine.
"What's happened? I heard the captain had killed the first officer, or strung him up, or something awful. And now there surely is hell to pay. Why don't somebody come to our rescue?"
What passed with him for duty, even the high tide of heroic impulse in his whole life, impelled Valentine to struggle up the stairway to the "social hall" on the deck above. He believed that the risk of being washed overboard was very great, he was almost certain the crazy captain would knock him down or shoot him, but he was braced ready to meet these things. It was a desperate situation demanding a desperate remedy. He felt vague admiration and pity for himself, as he made ready for the plunge on deck. But a dripping sailor barred the way.
"I'm willing to run the risk," protested the hero. "It's my duty to save the ship. She belongs to me."
"So does Cape Horn an' the Statue of Liberty," returned the seaman soothingly. "But you don't want to play with 'em now. They'll keep all right. Nobody goes on deck. Them's orders. Just sit down an' play you're a train of cars. It's lots of fun, an' it's safe an' dry."
Valentine tried to pass him and was thrust back so violently that he fell upon a comatose passenger stretched on a set-tee. This victim sputtered feeble protest and other voices were raised. Valentine noticed now that several men and women were huddled in this corner of the deck-house, fled from the desolation below stairs. One of them screamed above the clamor of the wind:
"The ship is all smashed to pieces and nobody knows what to do next."
"I am going to get forward somehow, and put the first officer in command, if he's alive," cried Valentine. "It's life or death for all of us, and my word must go. Doesn't this fool sailor know who I am?"
Alas, these shivering refugees scented a new alarm. The poor young man had gone mad with fright, and they, too, tried to soothe him, while a woman of them sobbingly implored the sailor to take him away before he became violent. Valentine cursed them all, and clawed his way down the hand-rail to the saloon to seek some other exit. The way forward was blocked by savage men dragging tarpaulins, and they kicked him out of their path when he would argue with them. He splashed back and forth, like a rat in a trap, falling against bulk-heads and furniture, or pitched clear off his feet, until, worn out, he slunk back in sullen silence up among the little company in the deck-house who waited for they knew not what.
So much of Valentine's purpose had been hammered out of him that nausea resumed its sway, and he clung to a cushion, helpless through interminable hours. When he was able to pull himself together and make feeble effort, it seemed as if the pitching of the steamer were less terrifying, and through an after-port the daylight gleamed. He dragged himself to it, and caught a glimpse of somber sea and sky. The blizzard had passed.