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 threats. He was anxious to reach Gerald's state-room and to find out what had happened. Before he had gained the middle of the cabin doors were opening. Loud exclamations came from one side and the other. He caught glimpses of semi-arrayed occupants either scrambling into their clothes or hastily appearing and looking out in terror, now this way, now that. The explosion, or whatever it was, had sounded unmistakably from the forward part and below the deck of the steamer, judging from the peculiar thickness of the sound and the dull violence of the shock. By two and three a crowd was already centering forward.

He unlocked the state-room door with trembling fingers. Gerald was sitting up on the edge of the lower berth, looking about him with an alarmed air, but plainly not at all sure that any thing in particular had waked him.

"Say—Philip," he questioned, rubbing one of his eyes rather sleepily, "did you hear any thing just now? It's awfully funny. But I waked up—with such a start, and now I can't tell what on earth could have frightened me."

"You must have heard what we all heard," answered Philip, striving to speak composedly,