and the stern, upraised with the screw motionless, met the high wash of a wave, and went down with it and disappeared.
No man had shown himself; no shout had been heard; no little boat was seen or signalled.
The second officer, who had gone below to ascertain the damage done to the ferry, came up to report. Two of the compartments, those which had taken the crush of the collision, had flooded instantly; the bulkheads were holding—only leaking a little, the officer declared. Water was coming into a third compartment, that at the stern; the pumps were fighting this water. The shock had sprung seams elsewhere; but if the after compartment did not fill, the pumps might handle the rest.
Soddenness already was coming into the response of Number 25 to the lift of the waves; the ferry rolled less to the right as she came about, beam to the waves, and she dropped away more dully and deeply to the left; the ship was listing to port and the lift of the ice-heaped bow told of settling by the stern. Slowly Number 25 circled about, her engines holding bare headway; the radio, Alan heard, was sending to the Richardson and to the shore stations word of the finding and sinking of the ship and of the damage done to Number 25; whether that damage yet was described in the dispatches as disaster, Alan did not know. The steam whistle, which continued to roar, maintained the single, separated blasts of a ship still seaworthy and able to steer and even to give assistance. Alan was at the bow again on lookout duty, ordered to listen and to look for the little boats.
He gave to that duty all his conscious attention; but
