eir state-room
doors, or even threw a wrap about them and went out into the corridors
to see what had happened, while others turned over in bed and composed
themselves to sleep, deciding to wait until the morning to hear what
was the cause of the delay.

Lower down in the ship they heard a little more. The sudden harsh clash
of the engine-room telegraph bells would startle those who were near
enough to hear it, especially as it was followed almost immediately
afterwards by the simultaneous ringing all through the lower part of the
ship of the gongs that gave warning of the closing of the water-tight
doors. After the engines stopped there was a moment of stillness; and
then the vibration began again, more insistently this time, with a
certain jumping movement which to the experienced ear meant that the
engines were being sent full speed astern; and then they stopped again,
and again there was stillness.

Here and there in the long corridors amidships a door opened and some
one thrust a head out, asking what was the matter; here and there a man
in pyjamas and a dressing-gown came out of his cabin and climbed up the
deserted staircase to have a look at what was going on; people sitting
in the lighted saloons and smoke-rooms looked at one another and said:
"What was that?" gave or received some explanation, and resumed their
occupations. A man in his dressing-gown came into one of the
smoking-rooms where a party was seated at cards, with a few yawning
bystanders looking on before they turned in. The newcomer wanted to know
what was the matter, whether they had noticed anything? They had felt a
slight jar, they said, and had seen an iceberg going by past the
windows; probably the ship had grazed it, but no damage had been done.
And they resumed their game of bridge. The man in the dressing-gown left
the smoke-room, and never saw any of the players again. So little
excitement was there in this part of the ship that the man in the
dressing-gown (his name was Mr. Beezley, an English schoolmaster, one of
the few who emerges from the crowd with an intact individuality) went
back to his cabin and lay down on his bed with a book, waiting for the
ship to start again. But the unnatural stillness, the uncanny peace even
of this great peaceful ship, must have got a little upon his nerves; and
when he heard people moving about in the corridors, he got up again, and
found that several people whom the stillness had wakened from their
sl