Part 11 (1/2)

”I don't know,” said Elsie ”I was here quite alone, except for Joey”

”Ah, it was true then He was acting secretly, and the men broke loose as soon as they heard of it”

Elsie found this recurring suspicion of Courtenay'sparoxys, and tra enacted there, while the ers in his cabin proved that he was doing his best for all

”I do not believe for one instant that Captain Courtenay was acting otherwise than as a brave and honorable gentleman,” she said; and then the fantastic folly of such a dispute at such a moainst the wall of the cabin, and wept unrestrainedly

Her coreatly her calm self-reliance had comforted them until they witnessed this unlooked-for collapse The Spanish an to rock in her chair in a new agony, and Isobel, to whom a turbulent spirit denied the relief of tears when they were most needed, buried her face in a curtain which draped one of the s

It was thus that Courtenay found them, when he appeared at the door after a lapse of time which none of them could measure

”Now, Miss Maxwell, you first,” he said with an air of authority which betokened some new ed to ask

”You are going off in a boat It is your best chance Please be quick”

”No, Miss Baring goes before me Then the others, I shall come last”

”Have it as you will I addressed you because you were nearest the door Co”

He waited for no further words He grasped Isobel's arm and led her out into the darkness It see time before he returned

”Now, Mrs Somerville,” he said, but that unhappy lady was so unnerved that he had to carry her

”Can youthe maid?” he asked over his shoulder to Elsie This trust in her drove away the weakness which had conquered her under Isobel's taunts She stooped over the ht with her in frantic dread of the passage along the deck and of facing that howling sea in a small boat

Elsie herself was almost worn out when Courtenay calance He picked up the shriekingfor me,” he said to Elsie

”Don't attempt to co to do, but she smiled at him to show that she could still repay his confidence

”I shall wait,” she said siain, without even the dog to bear her company

CHAPTER VI

--BUT GOES ON AGAIN INTO THE UNKNOWN

This final waiting for the chance of succor seemed to be the hardest trial of all The door had been hooked back to keep it wide open, so wind and sea invaded the trim privacy of the cabin Spray leaped over the shi+p in such dense sheets that a considerable quantity of water quickly lodged on the port side where Courtenay's bunk was fixed

There was no le at which the _Kansas_ lay would permit a depth of at least two feet to accuh the door to the starboard

At the great crises of existence the streae eddies Courtenay, when the shi+p struck, and it was possible that each second ister his last conscious i various explanations of the existence of an uncharted shoal in a locality situatehalf-consciously to the highest tension by the affrighting probability of being set adrift in a s without--a sea which pounded the steel hull of the _Kansas_ with such force that the great shi+p seemed to flinch from each blow like a creature in pain--Elsie, then, faced by such an intolerable prospect, was a prey to real anxiety because the wearing apparel scattered by Courtenay on the floor was beco soaked in brine