him, rang its tiny
bell.

Vandover drew his rug about him and went up to the main deck, dragging
his shoelaces after him. The wind was stronger here, but he bent his
head against it and went on toward the smoking-room, for the idea had
occurred to him that he could shut himself in there and pass the rest of
the night upon the cushions; anything was better than returning to the
cabin downstairs.

The deck was jerked away from beneath his feet, and he was hurled
forward, many times his own length, against a companionway, breaking his
thumb as he fell. A second shock threw him down again as he rose;
everything about him shook and danced like glassware upon a jarred
table. Then the whole ship rose under his feet as no wave had ever
lifted it, and fell again, not into yielding water, but upon something
that drove through its sides as if they had been paper. A deafening,
crashing noise split the mournful howl of the wind, and far underneath
him Vandover heard a rapid series of blows, a dreadful rumbling and
pounding that thrilled and quivered through all the vessel's framework
up to her very mast-tips. On all fours upon the deck, holding to a cleat
with one hand, he braced himself, watching and listening, his senses all
alive, his muscles tense. In the direction of the engine-room he heard
the furious ringing of a bell. The screw stopped. The _Mazatlan_
wallowed helplessly in the trough of the sea.

Vandover's very first impulse was a wild desire of saving himself; he
had not the least thought for any one else. Every soul on board might
drown, so only he should be saved. It was the primitive animal instinct,
the blind adherence to the first great law, an impulse that in this
first moment of excitement could not be resisted. He ran forward and
snatched a life-preserver from the pile that was stored beneath the
bridge.

As he was fastening it about him, the passengers began to pour out upon
the deck, from their staterooms, from the companionways, and from the
dining saloon. In an instant the deck was crowded. Men and women ran
about in all directions, pushing and elbowing each other, calling
shrilly over one another's heads. Near to Vandover a woman, clothed only
in her night-dress, clung to the arm of a half-dressed man, crying again
and again for a certain "August." She wrung her hands in her excitement;
at times the man shouted "August!" in a quavering bass voice. "August,
here we are over _here_!" "Oh, where _is_ Gussi