ease of the leviathan, seems
a tiny craft and almost helpless in the chopped seas that give to the
ship a complex motion so difficult, even for old sailors, to anticipate.
Tidal wave follows tidal wave in rapid succession. Both trough and crest
are whipped into whitecaps like tents afield, till sea and storm seem
leagued to deluge the world again.

Captain Morgan, lashed to the bridge, has full confidence in himself, his
doubled watch ahead, his compasses, and the throbbing engines below.
Dangers have now aroused the man and his courage grows apace. Moments
supreme come to every captain at sea, the same as to captains who wage
wars on the land.

The decks are drenched, great waves pound the forward deck and life-boats
are broken from their moorings. Battened hatches imprison below a
regiment of souls, some suffering the torments of stomachs in open
rebellion, others of heads swollen, while others lose entire control
of an army of nerves that center near and drive mad the brain.

To the uninitiated, words are powerless to reveal the torments of the
imprisoned in a modern steel inquisition, rocking and pitching at the
mercy of mighty torrents in a mid-ocean cyclone. Mephistopheles, seeking
severest punishment for the damned, displayed tenderness in not adopting
the super-heated and sooted pits where stokers in storms at sea are
forced to labor and suffer.

All that terrible second day and night at sea, the Harrises and others
tossed back and forth in their unstable berths, some suffering with
chills and others with burning heat. Some, Mrs. Harris and daughter among
them, lay for hours more dead than alive, their wills and muscles utterly
powerless to reach needed and much coveted blankets.

The dining saloon was deserted except by a few old sea-travelers. Before
dinner, Leo ventured above and for a moment put his head outside. The
gale blowing a hundred miles an hour hit him with the force of a club.
When he went below to see Alfonso, his face was pale, and his voice
trembled as he said, "Harris, before morning we shall all sink to the
bottom of the Atlantic with the 'Majestic' for our tomb." Half undressed,
Leo dropped again into his berth where he spent a miserable night.

CHAPTER VI

HALF-AWAKE, HALF-ASLEEP

Few persons find life enjoyable in a great storm at sea, for the
discomfitures of mind and body are many. The ship's officers and crew are
always concerned about the welfare of the passengers and