bonnet perched awry on her thin grey hair
suddenly began a hymn in a high quavering soprano.

"That's right, ma'am," said the Captain approvingly, as he wrung the
water out of his clothes. "There's nothing like singing to cure
sea-sickness. And we shan't be here very long." He pointed to the
high bows of a rapidly approaching ship. "One of our Armed Merchant
Cruisers, I fancy." He waved to the other boats to close nearer.

He was no mere optimist; before a quarter of an hour had elapsed the
boats were strung out in a line towing from a rope that led from the
bows of the Cruiser. A hastily improvised boatswain's stool was
lowered from a davit, and one by one the passengers, then the crew, and
finally the officers of the torpedoed liner were swung into the air and
hoisted inboard while the Armed Merchant Cruiser continued her course.

The sea-sick Cecily, swaying dizzily for the second time that day
between sky and water, looked down at the tumbling boats beneath her
and for a moment had a glimpse of the stout American and the Fourth
Officer. They were both standing gazing up after her as she was
whisked skyward. Their mouths were open, and the expression on their
faces gave Cecily a feeling of being wafted out of a world she was
altogether too good for.

The sensation was a momentary one, however. The davit swung inboard as
she arrived at the level of the rail and deposited her, a limp bundle
of damp rags--in fact what Mr. Mantalini would have described as "a
demmed moist unpleasant body"--on the upper deck of the Armed Merchant
Cruiser. With the assistance of two attentive sailors Cecily rose
giddily to her feet; most of her hair-pins had come out, and her hair
streamed in wet ringlets over her shoulders. She raised her eyes to
take in her new surroundings, and there, standing before her with his
eyes and mouth three round O's, was Armitage.

Now Cecily had gone through a good deal since seven minutes past three
that afternoon. But to be confronted, as she swayed, with her wet
clothes clinging to her body like a sculptor's model, deathly sea-sick,
red-nosed for aught she knew or cared, with the man who but for her
firmness and mental agility would have kept on proposing to her at
intervals during the past eighteen months, was a climax that
overwhelmed even Cecily's self-possession.

She chose the only course left open to her, and fainted promptly.
Armitage caught her in his arms, and as he did so was p