he little girl was crying and he tried to soothe her.

"I want mamma," she wailed.

"Hush, baby, hush," he answered, wearily and bitterly; "so do I--more
than Heaven, but I think our chances are about even now. Are you cold,
little one? We'll go inside, and I'll make a house for us."

He removed his coat, tenderly wrapped the little figure in it, and with
the injunction: "Don't be afraid, now," placed her in the corner of the
bridge, which rested on its forward side. As he did so, the bottle of
whisky fell out of the pocket. It seemed an age since he had found it
there, and it required a strong effort of reasoning before he remembered
its full significance. Then he raised it, to hurl it down the incline of
ice, but stopped himself.

"I'll keep it," he muttered; "it may be safe in small quantities, and
we'll need it on this ice." He placed it in a corner; then, removing the
canvas cover from one of the wrecked boats, he hung it over the open
side and end of the bridge, crawled within, and donned his coat--a
ready-made, slop-chest garment, designed for a larger man--and buttoning
it around himself and the little girl, lay down on the hard woodwork.
She was still crying, but soon, under the influence of the warmth of his
body, ceased and went to sleep.

Huddled in a corner, he gave himself up to the torment of his thoughts.
Two pictures alternately crowded his mind; one, that of the woman of his
dream, entreating him to come back--which his memory clung to as an
oracle; the other, of this woman, cold and lifeless, fathoms deep in the
sea. He pondered on her chances. She was close to, or on the bridge
steps; and boat No. 24, which he was almost sure was being cleared away
as he looked, would swing close to her as it descended. She could climb
in and be saved--unless the swimmers from doors and hatches should swamp
the boat. And, in his agony of mind, he cursed these swimmers,
preferring to see her, mentally, the only passenger in the boat, with
the watch-on-deck to pull her to safety.

The potent drug he had taken was still at work, and this, with the
musical wash of the sea on the icy beach, and the muffled creaking and
crackling beneath and around him--the voice of the iceberg--overcame him
finally, and he slept, to waken at daylight with limbs stiffened and
numb--almost frozen.

And all night, as he slept, a boat with the number twenty-four on her
bow, pulled by sturdy sailors and steered by brass-buttoned officer