nst him,--what she had just seen had loosed fear from its
leash.

"I'm frightened," she moaned. "Oh, Mr. Coxeter, I'm so horribly
frightened of those men! Are they all gone?"

"Yes," he said grimly, "most of them managed to get into the boat. Don't
be frightened. I think we're safer here than we should be with those
ruffians."

Another man would have found easy terms of endearment and comfort for
almost any woman so thrust on his protection and care, but the very
depth of Coxeter's feeling seemed to make him dumb,--that and his
anguished fear lest by his fault, by his own want of quickness, she had
perhaps missed her chance of being saved.

But what he was lacking another man supplied. This was the captain, and
Nan, listening to the cheering, commonplace words, felt her nerve, her
courage, come back.

"Stayed with your husband?" he said, coming up to them. "Quite right,
mum! Don't you be frightened. Look at me and my men, we're not
frightened--not a bit of it! My boat will last right enough for us to be
picked off ten times over. I tell you quite fairly and squarely, if I'd
my wife aboard I'd 'a kept her with me. I'd rather be on this boat of
mine than I would be out there, on the open water, in this fog." But as
he walked back to the place where stood the rocket apparatus, Coxeter
heard him mutter, "The brutes! Not all seconds or thirds either. I wish
I had 'em here, I'd give 'em what for!"

* * * * *

Later, when reading the narratives supplied by some of the passengers
who perforce had remained on the doomed boat, Coxeter was surprised to
learn how many thrilling experiences he had apparently missed during the
long four hours which elapsed before their rescue. And yet the time of
waiting and suspense probably appeared as long to him as it did to any
of the fifty odd souls who stayed, all close together, on the upper
deck waiting with what seemed a stolid resignation for what might next
befall them.

From the captain, Coxeter, leaving Mrs. Archdale for a moment, had
extracted the truth. They had drifted down the French coast. They were
on a dangerous reef of rock, and the rising of the wind, the lifting of
the fog, for which they all looked so eagerly, might be the signal for
the breaking up of the boat. On the other hand, the boat might hold for
days. It was all a chance.

Coxeter kept what he had learnt to himself, but he was filled with a
dull, aching sensation of suspense