Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/267

Rh staterooms came screams of women and the wails of little children. The few stewards on watch were first to join the seamen on deck and those who had been flung from their bunks forward by the shock of collision. Into the ruck began to pour firemen and coal-passers from below, already flooded out of their compartments. It was perhaps three minutes before a welter of men began to flow in eddies toward the boats.

Meantime a wonderful thing was being done. The compelling personality of one man rose dominant as if he had been given the strength of ten. Panic was on tiptoe, ready to make an inferno of these decks, when it was routed because a hundred and forty men in the Wasdale had learned by the hard drill of experience that what this man said must be done on the instant. Captain Arendt called for light, and four sailors came running with the globe lamps snatched from the steerage and the wheel-house. He swung one of these over the hole in the ship's side, and there was no need to wait for the reports of those sent below to make examination. Her