Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/115

 She motioned to someone who gave Ruth hot, strong tea to drink. Gerry turned with Ruth and led her up the stairs down which he had just carried her; he saw her to the door of her cabin, which had not been wrecked; he saw that a stewardess was there to aid her. Then he went.

The stewardess helped Ruth undress and rubbed her and put on warm and heavy things. Milicent Wetherell came to the cabin; she had escaped uninjured, and she aided also.

The rifles on the Ribot's deck rang out suddenly; they fired twice; again twice; and were still. Ruth had on warm, dry clothes now; and she ran out with Milicent Wetherell to the deck. While the Ribot had been under shell fire, passengers had been kept from the decks; but now that the sole danger was from torpedoes, the decks had become the safest place.

The gun crews had seen—Ruth was told—what they thought was a periscope and had fired. There was nothing in sight now near the Ribot but the wreckage which had fallen during the fight. Far off to the right, the U-boat which had continued to run on the surface, had withdrawn beyond the range of the Ribot's guns and was fleeing away to the south, fighting as it fled. The morning light had quite cleared the mist from the surface of the ocean and Ruth could see the low line of the German boat obscuring itself with gun-gases as its rifles fired. But its shells no longer burst aboard the passenger vessel or spurted up spray from the sea alongside. Far, far to the east and north appeared a speck—a gray, sea-colored speck, sheathing itself in the sparkling white of foam