Tangrouille was sobered. Nobody is drunk in the moment of a shipwreck. He came down to the quarter-deck, went up again, and said:
“Captain, the water is gaining rapidly in the hold. In ten minutes it will be up to the scupper-holes.”
The passengers ran about bewildered, wringing their hands, leaning over the bulwarks, looking down in the engine-room, and making every other sort of useless movement in their terror. The tourist had fainted.
Clubin made a sign with his hand, and they were silent. He questioned Imbrancam:
“How long will the engines work yet?”
“Five or six minutes, sir.”
Then he interrogated the Guernsey passenger:
“I was at the helm. You saw the rock. On which bank of the Hanways are we?”
“On the Mauve. Just now, in the opening in the fog, I saw it clearly.”
“If we’re on the Mauve,” remarked Clubin, “we have the Great Hanway on the port side, and the Little Hanway on the starboard bow; we are a mile from the shore.”