knees in the cabin. How thankful they must have been to see the Adamant."
On all sides there was the profoundest sympathy for the unfortunate passengers of the Vulcan. Cheeks paled at the very thought of the catastrophe that might take place at any moment within sight of the sister ship. It was a realistic object lesson on the ever-present dangers of the sea. While those on deck looked with new interest at the steamship plunging along within a mile of them, the captain slipped away to his room. As he sat there there was a tap at his door.
"Come in," shouted the captain.
The silent Englishman slowly entered.
"What's wrong, captain," he asked.
"Oh, the Vulcan has had a hole stove in her and I signalled——"
"Yes, I know all that, of course, but what's wrong with us?"
"With us?" echoed the captain blankly.
"Yes, with the Adamant? What has been amiss for the last two or three days? I'm not a talker, nor am I afraid any more than you are, but I want to know."
"Certainly," said the captain. "Please shut the door, Sir John."
* * * * *
Meanwhile there was a lively row on board the Vulcan. In the saloon
Capt. Flint was standing at bay with his knuckles on the table.
"Now what the devil's the meaning of all this?" cried Adam K. Vincent, member of Congress.
A crowd of frightened women were standing around, many on the verge of hysterics. Children clung, with pale faces, to their mother's skirts, fearing they knew not what. Men were grouped with anxious faces, and the bluff old captain fronted them all.
"The meaning of all what, sir?"
"You know very well. What is the meaning of our turning-round?"
"It means, sir, that the Adamant has eighty-five saloon passengers and nearly 500 intermediate and steerage passengers who are in the most deadly danger. The cotton in the hold is on fire, and they have been fighting it night and day. A conflagration may break out at any moment. It means, then, sir, that the Vulcan is going to stand by the Adamant."
A wail of anguish burst from the frightened women at the awful fate that might be in store for so many human beings so near to them, and they clung closer to their children and thanked God that no such danger threatened them and those dear to them.
"And dammit, sir," cried the Congressman, "do you mean to tell us that we have to go against our will—without even being consulted—back to Queenstown?"
"I mean to tell you so, sir."
"Well, by the gods, that's an outrage, and I won't stand it, sir. I must be in New York by the 27th. I won't stand it, sir."
"I am very sorry, sir, that anybody should be delayed."
"Delayed? Hang it all, why don't you take the people on board and take 'em to New York? I protest against this. I'll bring a lawsuit against the company, sir."
"Mr. Vincent," said the captain sternly, "permit me to remind you that I am captain of this ship. Good afternoon, sir."
The Congressman departed from the saloon exceeding wroth, breathing dire threats of legal proceedings against the line and the captain personally, but most of the passengers agreed that it would be an inhuman thing to leave the Adamant alone in mid-ocean in such terrible straits.
"Why didn't they turn back, Captain Flint?" asked Mrs. General Weller.
"Because, madam, every moment is of value in such a case, and we are nearer Queenstown than New York."
And so the two steamships, side by side, worried their way toward the east, always within sight of each other by day, and with the rows of lights in each visible at night to the sympathetic souls on the other. The sweltering men poured water into the hold of the one and the pounding pumps poured water out of the hold of the other, and thus they reached Queenstown.
* * * * *
On board the tender that took the passengers ashore at Queenstown from both steamers two astonished women met each other.
"Why! Mrs.—General—WELLER!!! You don't mean to say you were on board that unfortunate Vulcan!"
"For the land's sake, Mrs. Assistant Brownrig! Is that really you? Will wonders never cease? Unfortunate, did you say? Mightily fortunate for you, I think. Why! weren't you just frightened to death?"
"I was, but I had no idea anyone I knew was on board."
"Well, you were on board yourself. That would have been enough to have killed me."
"On board myself? Why, what do you mean? I wasn't on board the Vulcan. Did you get any sleep at all after you knew you might go down at any moment?"
"My sakes, Jane, what are you talking about? Down at any moment? It was you that might have gone down at any moment or, worse still, have been burnt to death if the fire had got ahead. You don't mean to say you didn't know the Adamant was on fire most of the way across?"
"Mrs.—General—Weller!! There's some horrible mistake. It was the Vulcan. Everything depended on her bulkheads, the captain said. There was a hole as big as a barn door in the Vulcan. The pumps were going night and day."
Mrs. General looked at Mrs. Assistant as the light began to dawn on both of them.
"Then it wasn't the engines, but the pumps," she said.
"And it wasn't the steam, but the fire," screamed Mrs. Assistant. "Oh, dear, how that captain lied, and I thought him such a nice man, too. Oh, I shall go into hysterics, I know I shall."
"I wouldn't if I were you," said the sensible Mrs. General, who was a strong-minded woman; "besides, it is too late. We're all safe now. I think both captains were pretty sensible men. Evidently married, both of 'em."
Which was quite true.
The Departure of Cub Mclean.
Of course no one will believe me when I say that Mellish was in every respect, except one, an exemplary citizen and a good-hearted man. He was generous to a fault and he gave many a young fellow a start in life where a little money or a few encouraging words were needed. He drank, of course, but he was a connoisseur in liquors, and a connoisseur never goes in for excess. Few could tell a humorous story as well as Mellish, and he seldom dealt in chestnuts. No man can be wholly bad who never inflicts an old story on his friends, locating it on some acquaintance of his, and alleging that it occurred the day before.
If I wished to write a heart-rending article on the evils of gambling, Mellish would be the man I would go to for my facts and for the moral of the tale. He spent his life persuading people not to gamble. He never gambled himself, he said. But if no attention was paid to his advice, why then he furnished gamblers with the most secluded and luxurious gambling rooms in the city. It was supposed that Mellish stood in with the police, which was, of course, a libel. The idea of the guardians of the city standing in with a gambler or a gambling house! The statement was absurd on the face of it. If you asked any policeman in the city where Mellish's gambling rooms were, you would speedily learn that not one of them had ever even heard of the place. All this goes to show how scandalously people will talk, and if Mellish's rooms were free from raids, it was merely Mellish's good luck, that was all. Anyhow, in Mellish's rooms you could have a quiet, gentlemanly game for stakes about as high as you cared to go, and you were reasonably sure there would be no fuss and that your name would not appear in the papers next morning.
One night as Mellish cast his eye around his well-filled main room he noticed a stranger sitting at the roulette table. Mellish had a keen eye for strangers and in an unobtrusive way generally managed to find out something about them. A stranger in