Chapter XII

Most of the passengers awoke next morning with a bewildering feeling of vague apprehension. The absence of all motion in the ship, the unusual and intense silence, had a depressing effect. The engines had not yet started; that at least was evident. Kenyon was one of the first on deck. He noticed that the pumps were still working at their full speed, and that the steamer had still the unexplained list to port. Happily, the weather continued good, so far as the quietness of the sea was concerned. A slight drizzle of rain had set in, and the horizon was not many miles from the ship. There would not be much chance of sighting another liner while such weather continued.

Before Kenyon had been many minutes on deck, Edith Longworth came up the companion-way. She approached him with a smile on her face.

'Well,' he said, 'you, at least, do not seem to be suffering any anxiety because of our situation.'

'Really,' she replied, 'I was not thinking of that at all, but about something else. Can you not guess what it is?'

'No,' he answered hesitatingly. 'What is it?'

'Have you forgotten that this is Sunday morning?'

'Is it? Of course it is. So far as I am concerned, time seemed to stop when the engines broke down. But I do not understand why Sunday morning means anything in particular.'

'Don't you? Well, for a person who has been thinking for the last two or three days very earnestly on one particular subject, I am astonished at you. Sunday morning and no land in sight! Reflect for a moment.'

Kenyon's face brightened.

'Ah,' he cried, 'I see what you mean now! Miss Brewster's cable message will not appear in this morning's New York Argus.'

'Of course it will not; and don't you see, also, that when we do arrive you will have an equal chance in the race. If we get in before next Sunday, your telegram to the London people will go as quickly as her cable despatch to New York; thus you will be saved the humiliation of seeing the substance of your report in the London papers before the directors see the report itself. It is not much, to be sure, but, still, it puts you on equal terms; while if we had got into Queenstown last night that would have been impossible.'

Kenyon laughed.

'Well,' he said, 'for such a result the cause is rather tremendous, isn't it? It is something like burning down the house to roast the pig!'

Shortly after ten o'clock the atmosphere cleared, and showed in the distance a steamer, westward bound. The vessel evidently belonged to one of the great ocean lines. The moment it was sighted there fluttered up to the masthead a number of signal-flags, and people crowded to the side of the ship to watch the effect on the outgoing vessel. Minute after minute passed, but there was no response from the other liner. People watched her with breathless anxiety, as though their fate depended on her noticing their