Vandover drew his rug about him and went up to the main deck, dragging his shoelaces after him.  The wind was stronger here, but he bent his head against it and went on toward the smoking-room, for the idea had occurred to him that he could shut himself in there and pass the rest of the night upon the cushions; anything was better than returning to the cabin downstairs.

The deck was jerked away from beneath his feet, and he was hurled forward, many times his own length, against a companionway, breaking his thumb as he fell.  A second shock threw him down again as he rose; everything about him shook and danced like glassware upon a jarred table.  Then the whole ship rose under his feet as no wave had ever lifted it, and fell again, not into yielding water, but upon something that drove through its sides as if they had been paper.  A deafening, crashing noise split the mournful howl of the wind, and far underneath him Vandover heard a rapid series of blows, a dreadful rumbling and pounding that thrilled and quivered through all the vessel’s framework up to her very mast-tips.  On all fours upon the deck, holding to a cleat with one hand, he braced himself, watching and listening, his senses all alive, his muscles tense.  In the direction of the engine-room he heard the furious ringing of a bell.  The screw stopped.  The Mazatlan wallowed helplessly in the trough of the sea.

Vandover’s very first impulse was a wild desire of saving himself; he had not the least thought for any one else.  Every soul on board might drown, so only he should be saved.  It was the primitive animal instinct, the blind adherence to the first great law, an impulse that in this first moment of excitement could not be resisted.  He ran forward and snatched a life-preserver from the pile that was stored beneath the bridge.

As he was fastening it about him, the passengers began to pour out upon the deck, from their staterooms, from the companionways, and from the dining saloon.  In an instant the deck was crowded.  Men and women ran about in all directions, pushing and elbowing each other, calling shrilly over one another’s heads.  Near to Vandover a woman, clothed only in her night-dress, clung to the arm of a half-dressed man, crying again and again for a certain “August.”  She wrung her hands in her excitement; at times the man shouted “August!” in a quavering bass voice.  “August, here we are over here!” “Oh, where is Gussie?” wailed the woman.  “Here, here I am,” another voice answered at length; “here I am, I’m all right.”  “Oh,” exclaimed the woman with a sob of relief, “here’s Gussie; now let’s all keep together whatever happens.”

All about the decks just such scenes were going on; most of the women wore only their night-gowns or dressing-gowns, their hair tumbling down and blowing about their cheeks, their bare feet slipping and sliding on the heaving wet decks.  The men were in shirt and drawers, standing in the centre of their family groups, silent, excited, very watchful; others of them ran about searching for life-preservers, shouting hoarsely, talking to themselves, speaking all their thoughts aloud.