ders and the
quick clanging of signal bells in the engine room. The sudden churning
of the screws in the angry waters told that the steamer's engines were
reversed.

A man rushed out of the cabin and took a commanding place on the
steamer's bridge.

"Where did she go down?" he shouted in the ear of the mate, who clung to
the rail and peered back into the darkness.

"About a hundred feet aft, sir," the man answered, pointing into the
blackness that enveloped the steamer.

"Lower the port lifeboat," shouted the newcomer on the scene to the men
who were collected on the forward deck.

He darted back toward the cabin as he spoke and the sound of creaking
ropes told that his orders were being rapidly carried out.

"The boat will never live in this sea," shouted the mate.

The man turned at the cabin door with a scowl.

"You heard my orders," he said, sharply. "There are lives to be saved
and it is not a question whether the boat will live. We will make her
live. Call for volunteers if the men have any scruples about trusting
themselves with me, but get the boat into the water at once. Every
minute counts."

He was gone but a second and emerged from the cabin in a heavy suit of
oilskins. He sprang nimbly down the companionway to the deck.

"Who goes with me in the boat?" he shouted to the assembled crew.

"I, sir, and I," cried the men in chorus, all anxious to be in the boat
with their commander.

"You, and you, and you," he shouted, as he designated six men with a
quick movement of his forefinger. The men tumbled over the side into the
boat that was tossing like a cockle shell in the waves that threatened
to dash her to pieces against the big steamer. The captain slipped over
the side and took his place in the stern. It was a difficult task to get
the boat safely off, but it was finally accomplished by skill and
strength; and as she rode away from the side on the top of a nasty
roller she was greeted with a cheer from the disappointed men who had
been left behind and who longed to be with their commander in his
perilous undertaking.

As they rowed away from the steamer there was no sign in the darkness of
the little boat they had run down, but the man at the tiller steered as
determinedly as if he knew for just what point in the blackness he was
headed. With his head bent slightly forward and his big body swaying
with the rock and pitch of the lifeboat he kept his eyes fixed straight
ahead.

Suddenly he h