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 protesting against such a racking; and everywhere there were vehement noise and violent motion, for now the "Duumvir" rode into the full strength of the storm.

All day wind and ocean struck the ship more and more heavily until late in the afternoon, when a climax seemed to be reached. Ogle clung weakly to the bars at the head of his bed and wondered if even a great liner couldn't be lost at sea. The "Duumvir" was the pride of Italy, he knew;—at least, it was the pride of the Italian mercantile marine, and although he thought of Christopher Columbus he wondered if Italians were still good mariners; for he remembered nervously that Columbus sailed the seas more than four hundred years ago, and a race can lose its cunning. Other people shared his doubts, he discovered, when the rollings and pitchings and howlings were at their worst. All day he had heard nothing from his neighbours, perhaps because other noises prevented; but now, after a protracted outrageousness of motion and commotion, something of great weight, probably a trunk, crashed sonorously against the separating door, and the voice of the mother of the rebellious girl screamed into the corridor.