Anyhow, he had sent word that she was to change her clothes, and he must
be obeyed, as Dr. Christobal said. Then she discovered, as a quite new
and physically disagreeable fact, that her skirts were soaked up to her
knees, while her blouse was almost in the same condition owing to the
quantity of spray which had run down inside her thick ulster.
It was an absurd thing to be afraid of after all she had endured, but
Elsie cried a little when she realized that she had been literally wet to
the skin without knowing it. In truth, she had a momentary dread of a
fainting fit, and it was not until she untied the veil which held her Tam
o' Shanter in its place that she learnt how the knot had come near to
suffocating her.
The prompt relief thus afforded brought an equally absurd desire to
laugh. She yielded to that somewhat, but busied herself in procuring
fresh clothing and boots. The outcome of the pleasant feeling of warmth
and comfort was such as the girl herself would not have guessed in a
week. The mere grateful touch of the dry garments induced an
extraordinary drowsiness. She felt that she must lie down--just for a
minute. She stretched herself on the bed, closed her eyes, and was
straightway sound asleep. At the captain's suggestion, Christobal had
given her a strong dose of bromide in the wine!
It was better so. If the ship were dashed to pieces against the rocks
which unquestionably lay ahead, Elsie would be whirled to the life
eternal before she quite knew what was happening. If, on the other hand,
some miracle of the sea enabled the men to construct a seaworthy raft in
time, or the rising tide permitted the Kansas to escape, in so far as
to run ashore again in a comparatively sheltered position, she would be
none the worse for an hour's sleep. And now that the ship was afloat,
there were things to be done which only men could do. The saloon, the
decks, the forecabin, were places of the dead. Fearing lest Elsie might
pass, Christobal, before attending to Boyle, had thrown table-cloths over
the bodies of men slain in the saloon, for Gray and Tollemache had
sternly but vainly striven to repress the second revolt. Tollemache and
Walker had dragged out of the smothering spray near the port davits three
men who seemed to be merely stunned. These, with the chief officer, and
perhaps four survivers of the explosion, made up the list of living but
non-effective members of the ship's company. There was one other,
Gulielmo Frascuelo, who was bawling for dear life in his bunk in the
forecastle, but in that dark hour no one chanced to remember him, and it
needed more than a human voice to pit itself against the hurricane which
roared over the vessel. The unhappy wretch knew that something out of
the ordinary had taken place, and he was scared half out of his wits by
the continued absence of the crew. Luckily for himself, he did not
appreciate the real predicament of the ship, or he would have raved
himself into madness.