Other passengers were in the saloon, and more followed.  As this would be the first steamer to leave Dover that day, there was a good number of voyagers on board, in spite of adverse conditions.  I heard people talking, and the splash of waves against the vessel’s sides, and then I went to sleep.  Nothing could have kept me awake.

CHAPTER X

THE STEAMER

I awoke with a start, and with wavering eyes looked at the saloon clock.  I had slept for one hour only, but it appeared to me that I was quite refreshed.  My mind was strangely clear, every sense preternaturally alert.  I began to wonder what had aroused me.  Suddenly the ship shuddered through the very heart of her, and I knew that it was this shuddering, which must have occurred before, that had wakened me.

“Good God!  We’re sinking!” a man cried.  He was in the next berth to me, and he sat up, staring wildly.

“Rubbish!” I answered.

The electric lights went out, and we were left with the miserable illumination of one little swinging oil-lamp.  Immediately the score or so persons in the saloon were afoot and rushing about, grasping their goods and chattels.  The awful shuddering of the ship continued.  Scarcely a word was spoken.

A man flew, or rather, tumbled, down the saloon stairs, shouting:  “Where’s my wife?  Where’s my wife?” No one took the slightest notice of him, nor did he seem to expect any answer.  Even in the semi-darkness of the single lamp I distinctly saw that with both hands he was tearing handfuls of hair from his head.  I had heard the phrase “tearing one’s hair” some thousands of time in my life, but never till that moment had I witnessed the action itself.  Somehow it made an impression on me.  The man raced round the saloon still shouting, and raced away again up-stairs and out of sight.  Everyone followed him pell-mell, helter-skelter, and almost in a second I found myself alone.  I put on my overcoat, and my mackintosh over that, and seizing Rosa’s jewel-box, I followed the crowd.

As I emerged on deck a Bengal light flared red and dazzling on the bridge, and I saw some sailors trying to lower a boat from its davits.  Then I knew that the man who had cried “We’re sinking!” even if he was not speaking the exact truth, had at any rate some grounds for his assertion.

A rather pretty girl, pale with agitation, seized me by the buttonhole.

“Where are we going?” she questioned earnestly.

“Don’t know, madam,” I replied; and then a young man dragged her off by the arm.

“Come this way, Lottie,” I heard him say to her, “and keep calm.”

I was left staring at the place where the girl’s head had been.  Then the head of an old man filled that place.  I saw his mouth and all his features working in frantic endeavor to speak to me, but he could not articulate.  I stepped aside; I could not bear to look at him.