ight of waters. And upon
the dead silence of the deserted ship came, ever and anon, rushings and
gurgles, and ghostly cavernous boomings, as the water rose higher and
higher within the doomed hull.

Roden's heart sprang to his throat as he felt a sudden and sickening
tremor in the planking beneath his feet. Was the vessel already heaving
up for her final plunge? Still cool-headed, his nerve as steady as
iron, he would not suffer himself to be flurried out of one single
precaution. He went straight to his own cabin, and, unlocking his
portmanteau, took out the slender stores which by such marvellous
prescience he had put up ready the evening before. If they were picked
up by one of the boats, he intended to keep this secretly for Mona's
use, should the worst befall. The boats were provisioned to a certain
extent, but provision might run short. Others might starve--perish; she
should not. Then he reached for the cork lifebelt usually stowed above
his bunk. It was gone. All the lifebelts in the cabin had been
removed.

Not many seconds had these precautions taken, nor did it take many more
to reach Mona's cabin. Standing on no ceremony he turned the handle.
The door was locked.

"Mona! Mona! Are you there? In God's name open! Open--quick!" he
cried, shaking the handle furiously in his despair. But there came no
reply.

"Mona--open! It is I! There is danger! Open--quick!" he almost
screamed, at the same time raining a succession of blows upon the door.
This time he heard a confused murmur and a sound of movement. Then the
bolt of the door was shot back.

She stood before him in some clinging white garment. Even at that awful
and critical moment he recognised it as the dressing-gown she had worn
that night at Quaggasfontein, when she had come in to soothe him in his
pain. In the faint and feeble light from the saloon lamps he could see
that her eyes were unnaturally large as she confronted him, but dull and
heavy. The drug had left its mark upon them.

"What is the matter? Where are we?" she said in a drowsy murmur,
staring in amazement at him and his wet and dripping condition. Without
a word he stepped past her into the cabin, and snatching the cork
lifebelt stowed above her bed buckled it around her.

"Come," he said. "No--just as you are!" noting a movement to turn back.
"We have not a moment to lose. Quick--trust yourself to me."

As they passed through the saloon, she with his arm a