Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/111

 the vessel vibrated only at the firing of its own guns or at the detonation of a German shell.

Ruth took a towel which she found at her hand—she was in the wreck of someone's cabin—and, after soaking it, she bound it about her head and crept back through the smoke to where the steel chute of the floor slanted sheer.

She dropped and fell upon a heap of sharp, shattered things which cut her ankles and stumbled her over on hands and knees upon débris, not flaming itself, but warm from a fire which burned lower. She lifted the towel from her eyes to try to see; but the smoke blinded her; she could not breathe; and she bound the towel again and crawled off the heap of smoldering things upon a linoleum. She heard a moan; but she could not find anyone in the smoke, though she called thickly several times. A current of air was sweeping over the floor and, following it, she came to a huge rent in the ship's side where water washed in and out as the vessel rolled. The water had ceased to move from bow to stern; the vessel was merely drifting. A man floated, face downward, upon a wave which washed him almost to the ship's side. Ruth reached out to seize him; she touched his shoulder—a blue-clad shoulder, the uniform of the French; but she could get no hold; the sea drew him slowly away.

"Gerry Hull! Gerry!" she called, as though that form in the French coat, with head under the water, could hear. The next wash brought it back toward the ship; but also drifted it farther to the stern. Now Ruth found among the rubbish washing at her feet a floating thing—a lifejacket. She thrust her arms in it and when the waves washed that blue-clad form nearer the next time, she