y,
futile way. I threw the end of my cigarette at it to see whether that
might help it along.

"So this is a shipwreck," I ejaculated. "And I'm in it. I've got
myself safely off the railway only to fall into the sea. What a d----d
shame!"

Queerly enough, I had ceased to puzzle myself with trying to discover
how the disaster had been brought about. I honestly made up my mind
that we were sinking, and that was sufficient.

"What cursed ill-luck!" I murmured philosophically.

I thought of Rosa, with whom I was to have breakfasted on the morrow,
whose jewels I was carrying, whose behest it had been my pleasure to
obey. At that moment she seemed to me in my mind's eye more beautiful,
of a more exquisite charm, than ever before. "Am I going to lose her?"
I murmured. And then: "What a sensation there'll be in the papers if
this ship does go down!" My brain flitted from point to point in a
quick agitation. I decided suddenly that the captain and crew must be
a set of nincompoops, who had lost their heads, and, not knowing what
to do, were unserenely doing nothing. And quite as suddenly I reversed
my decision, and reflected that no doubt the captain was doing
precisely the correct thing, and that the crew were loyal and
disciplined.

Then my mind returned to Rosa. What would she say, what would she
feel, when she learnt that I had been drowned in the Channel? Would
she experience a grief merely platonic, or had she indeed a
profounder feeling towards me? Drowned! Who said drowned? There were
the boats, if they could be launched, and, moreover, I could swim. I
considered what I should do at the moment the ship foundered--for I
still felt she would founder. I was the blackest of pessimists. I said
to myself that I would spring as far as I could into the sea, not only
to avoid the sucking in of the vessel, but to get clear of the other
passengers.

Suppose that a passenger who could not swim should by any chance seize
me in the water, how should I act? This was a conundrum. I could not
save another and myself, too. I said I would leave that delicate point
till the time came, but in my heart I knew that I should beat off such
a person with all the savagery of despair--unless it happened to be a
woman. I felt that I could not repulse a drowning woman, even if to
help her for a few minutes meant death for both of us.

How insignificant seemed everything else--everything outside the ship
and the sea and our perilous plight!