The slowing engines eased their vibrations, and the side wash rolled less noisily. There was a strange stillness over the sea. The silence grew as the headway subsided.
The captain listened intently. He felt something.
There is always that strange something that a seaman feels in the presence of great danger when awake. It has never been explained. But all good—really good—masters have felt it; can tell you of it if they will. It is uncanny, but it is as true as gospel. The second officer had felt it in the air, felt it in his nerves. He felt—ice. It was danger.
Smith stood there watching the haze that seemed to deepen rather than disperse as the morning grew. The men turned out and the hose was started, the decks were sluiced down, and the gang with the squeegees followed. Two bells struck—five o'clock. Smith strained his gaze straight into the haze ahead. He fixed and refixed his glasses—a pair of powerful lenses of fifteen lines. He had bought them for fifty dollars, and always kept them near him while on watch.
A man came up the bridge steps.
"Shall I send up your coffee, sir?" he asked.
"Yes, send it up," said Smith, in a whisper. He was listening.
Something sounded out there in the haze. It was a strange, vibrating sound, a sort of whispering murmur, soft and low, like the far-away notes of a harp. Then it ceased. Smith looked at the captain who stood within the pilot-house window gazing down at the men at work on the deck below. The noise of the rushing water from the hose and their low tones seemed to annoy him. They wore rubber boots, and their footsteps were silent; but he gruffly ordered the bos'n to make them "shut up."
"Better slow her down, sir—there's ice somewhere about here," said the second mate anxiously. He was thinking of the thousand and more souls below and the millions in cargo values.
"Who's running this ship—me or you?" snarled Brownson savagely.