eamship _Everest_, very recently gone to the
bottom. Isn't that right?"

Dick acknowledged the truth of his companion's statement, whereupon the
latter resumed.

"Very good," he said. "Now, I suppose you've never heard of Wilfrid
Earle, of New York, the man who undertook to hunt his way from Cairo to
the Cape--"

"Oh! but of course I have," interrupted Dick. "I've read about you in
the papers--and, come to think of it, I've seen your photograph also in
the papers. Somehow your face seemed familiar when I noticed you a
while ago on the boat deck--"

"Sure!" cut in the other. "That's me--Wilfrid Earle, the eccentric New
Yorker, all right, all right. Only arrived home from Cape Town little
more than a fortnight ago, with a whole caravan load of skins, horns,
tusks, and so on; and now I guess they're about half a mile down, in the
hull of the _Everest_. Gee! Guess you're thinking me a heartless brute
for talking so lightly about the awful thing that's just happened; but,
man, I've got to do it--or else go clean crazy with thinking about it.
Or, better still, not think about it at all, since thinking about it
won't mend matters the least little bit. Say! what are all those little
lights dotted about over there?"

"Oh!" answered Dick, "they are the lights of the _Everest's_ boats.
Each boat was provided with a lantern, in order that they might keep
together, and be the more easily found when the rescuing ships come up."

"Ah!" returned Earle. "A very excellent arrangement. But say! what
about us? We have no lantern. How are we going to make our whereabouts
known? Those boats are a good mile away, and--"

"I don't think we need worry very greatly about that," answered Dick.
"Naturally, the _Bolivia_--or whatever the coming craft may be--will
pick up the people in the boats directly she arrives; but she'll lower
her own boats, too, and send them away to search the sea in the
immediate neighbourhood for people who may be floating about in
lifebuoys or cork jackets. There must be quite a number of them at no
great distance from us--though how long they are likely to survive,
drifting about in the ice-cold water, I should not like to say. But I
think we may take it for granted that, once they have arrived, the
rescuing ships will not quit the scene of the disaster until they have
made quite sure that they have got all the survivors. They will wait
about until daylight comes, without a shadow of doubt."