Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/57

Rh the hero. "It's my duty to save the ship. She belongs to me."

"So does Cape Horn an' the Statue of Liberty," returned the seaman soothingly. "But you don't want to play with 'em now. They'll keep all right. Nobody goes on deck. Them's orders. Just sit down an' play you're a train of cars. It's lots of fun, an' it's safe an' dry."

Valentine tried to pass him and was thrust back so violently that he fell upon a comatose passenger stretched on a settee. This victim sputtered feeble protest and other voices were raised. Valentine noticed now that several men and women were huddled in this corner of the deck-house, fled from the desolation below stairs. One of them screamed above the clamor of the wind:

"The ship is all smashed to pieces and nobody knows what to do next."

"I am going to get forward somehow, and put the first officer in command, if he's alive," cried Valentine. "It's life or death for all of us, and my word must go. Doesn't this fool sailor know who I am?"

Alas, these shivering refugees scented