uptly, as a strange and curious sensation
seized him. It seemed as though the deck suddenly heaved upward--very
much like the feeling he would have if, sitting in a hammock, someone
sat down beside him. Immediately following this came a terrific
explosion, numbing in its intensity, and a wall of maddened water leaped
past the rail for a hundred feet into the air. In a twinkling Tim
dragged him through the door, as a shower of debris came down upon the
place where they had been sitting. The huge smoke funnel crashed to the
deck, scattering soot in all directions, then balanced an instant, and
plunged into the sea.

In the midst of this confusion, even before the funnel disappeared, Tim
was bellowing a command. His captain, at his side, waited as the men
poured up to them, then said drily:

"Belts on the nurses; see that everyone's on deck, and belt yourselves!"

Life belts were everywhere within easy reach and, as the men scattered,
Tim stopped an instant to hand one of them to his captain, who smilingly
took it but was later seen tying it on Dr. Barrow.

The sergeant then dashed below, hurrying toward the staterooms to be
sure that everyone got up to deck. In his reckless determination to make
Jeb see this duty through, he had not let go of his sleeve.

"Take the doors on thot side," he now yelled at him in a voice of
thunder, "an' I'll take this! Smash 'em down where they're jammed, an'
look clost iverywhere inside! Sometimes women faints!"

With this he released his hold; but Jeb, trying to go on, could not--he
could only cross his arms against the panels and press his head there to
shut out the terror. When Tim, kicking in a door three staterooms away,
saw this he made one spring back and landed his next kick on a spot that
made Jeb flinch. This was followed by another, and still another, while
a string of lurid oaths poured from his lips which burned like a lash of
fire. Jeb sprang around, one fist drawn back to kill, his eyes
glittering as points of iron; but the sergeant's eyes were as points of
steel. The next moment Jeb had started on the work of rescue. Tim worked
across from him--and smiled.

When Tim had become satisfied that no one remained below, they began
their retreat. By now the ship was listing to a degree which made it
necessary for them to walk with one foot on the panelled wall, and to
jump the cross halls. The stairs upward they negotiated with one foot on
the balusters. At the landing above