"Go on," said the Commandant.

"We were due out of New York on the 27th, but missed our tide in
clearing and didn't pass the bar till early next morning. We carried
fifty-nine saloon passengers, seventy-five second, and a hundred and
twenty-five steerage, with a crew of a hundred exactly. Besides these
we had the mails--two hundred and twenty bags--and a fair amount of
dollars in specie (I needn't tell how much.) The weather was thick from
the first with a heavy sea running on the other side. We met it full
just outside Sandy Hook, and for three days I pitied the passengers.
The third night out the mischief happened. I had left the bridge soon
after four bells and was just turning in for my beauty-sleep when I
heard an unholy racket below in the engine-room, and felt the ship slow
down of a sudden. One of the rods had kicked loose from its gib and
started to flail around death and destruction. Thanks to Crosbie, our
first engineer, she was brought up before kicking our insides out, and
we hove to; but the repairs cost us close on eighteen hours. By
daybreak the weather was thickening worse than ever, though with no
great amount of wind, and we started again in a fog so thick that from
the bridge you could see her bows, and only just. Well, that's how it
was with us, all the way across. We seemed to carry the fog; and though
it lifted a bit, off and on, it never looked like giving us a chance of
an observation. All yesterday afternoon I was worried by the thought
that we'd overrun our reckoning and must be somewhere near the Islands,
and about two o'clock--though the soundings were good--I ordered the
engines to be reduced below the half-speed at which she was running.

"To ease the passengers' minds I had arranged for a concert in the
saloon after dinner, and Madame--she had booked with us under a name
that wasn't her own to dodge the New York newspaper men, but the
passengers recognized her--had promised me to sing to them. (You have
heard her, eh?--it makes you cry, and not mind, either, who sees you.)
I remember now that she looked at me pretty straight when she gave the
promise, but seeing me not minded to speak, she asked no questions.

"Well, the concert came off. At any other time I'd have given pounds to
be sitting there and listening; but the worry on my mind kept me to the
bridge, and from there I heard her, the notes lifting up through the
saloon sky-light as if heaven and earth had somehow got capsized or