Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/282

256 The crew cheered, and the chief engineer stepped forward and began:

"Beg pardon, captain, but when we remember the Elbe and the Bourgogne, we have a right to think"

The captain silenced him with a gesture and left them. Now, first he could think of his own crushing disaster, which, in his thoughts, eclipsed the great deliverance he had wrought by grace of his own courage and loyalty. He did not see that he had done anything to merit praise, rather was his plight almost worse than if he had gone down with the Wasdale. Brooding and unnerved, he did not rouse himself until the battered tramp was in the Mersey, and then he sent a tug ashore with tidings for his company, bidding them meet and succor his helpless people.

The melancholy procession had filed ashore before he gripped his resolution, and, coatless and ragged, sought his superintendent to make report of what had happened. This interview was brief, for the formal investigation must wait the captain's written word. The superintendent was also a man among men, and he