[Pg 61] CHAPTER VIII THE SEALED UP CABIN "Man overboard!" The cry rang through the ship—as cries of that sort do—first uttered by the man who witnessed the happening, and then passed from mouth to mouth. As a matter of fact it was a girl—a child—who had fallen overboard, and the nurse was standing with blanched face and clasped hands, watching what looked like a bundle of clothing on the surface of the ocean, which bundle the vessel was now rapidly leaving astern. Then another cry rang out. It was literally as well as vocally a man overboard this time—a real man. For such a title is surely due to one who plunges from a liner's deck into the sea to save another's life. The gongs were ringing in the engine-room before the man touched the water, but a liner traveling at the rate of twenty knots an hour has a way on her.[Pg 62] [Pg 62] "Full speed astern" showed on the indicator, and then careful handling of the vessel became necessary. Almost directly she stopped. As she stopped, the boat which had been hanging from the outspread davits with a crew in her was rapidly lowered, and once in the water, vigorously rowed in the direction pointed out by the standing coxswain. Rescuer and rescued were promptly hauled into the boat, and carried to the waiting ship, neither of them much the worse for their ducking. The girl was seized by her mother and nurse, and speedily carried off to their own private cabin. The rescuer—Gerald Danvers, a second-class passenger—at his own request went down the stoke hole. Brave enough to dive into the sea, he yet had a dreadful fear of rheumatism, to which he was subject; hence his desire for the warmth of the stoke hole. A drink of brandy and willing hands to rub him down and the warmth of the stoke hole soon made him
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