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Updated: June 25, 2025
"Can I stay on board to lunch with you?" he asked easily. "Goodness only knows when we shall run against each other again. It was the merest chance. We only got in last night. I was just going ashore to report when we saw the old Croonah come pounding in. That" he paused and drew his cloak closer "is why I am in my war-paint! We are going straight home." "Stay by all means," said Luke.
The Croonah seemed to climb up into the air, then she stopped dead, and below inside her there was a long, rumbling crash, as if all that was inside her had been cast forward in confusion. She had run on to the sunken rocks that lie north-west of the Farilhoes. A great silence followed and immediately the pattering of bare feet.
The Croonah had groped her way up Channel through a snowstorm of three days' duration, and the brunt of it had fallen by right of seniority on the captain and his second officer. Luke FitzHenry was indefatigable, and, better still, he was without enthusiasm. Here was the steady, unflinching combativeness which alone can master the elements. Here was the true genius of the sea.
All his care, all his keen, fearless judgment were required; for the Croonah ran through a misty channel into a boisterous Atlantic. He stood motionless at his post, as was his wont, keen and alert for the moment, but living in the past. He saw again Mrs. Harrington's drawing-room as he had last seen it, with Agatha sitting in a low chair near the fire, while Mrs.
He glanced at his watch he had to go to the wheel-house to do this, and the binnacle-lights showed his face to be still and pale. He moved and had the air of a man upon whose shoulders an immense responsibility was weighing. He was going to wreck the Croonah, but he had two hundred and ninety lives to save. He carefully studied the eastern sky. He did not want daylight yet.
In twenty-four hours I'd have fifty thousand done on the Croonah in London, Glasgow, Liverpool, New York, Paris, and Germany- -spread about, you know. In four or five days the Croonah goes to the bottom, and we scoop in, your name never appearing see?" There was a little pause. "See?" repeated Carr, in little more than a whisper. Luke looked up.
The smaller fry of Channel shipping have crept into Dungeness or the Downs. Some of them have gone to the bottom. Two of them are breaking up on the Goodwins. The Croonah Indian liner is pounding into it all, with white decks and whistling shrouds. The passengers are below in their berths.
The look-out on the forecastle did not "sing out" the lights on board the Croonah, but sent a companion aft to the bridge with the report. This was done for the comfort of the passengers. Luke altered the course half a point. From the wheel-house the men could not see the light, which was hidden by the fore-mast. Luke went aft and looked at the patent log. His calculations were all correct.
He did not fear for Fitz to meet Agatha, he really dreaded Agatha seeing Fitz. The Croonah moved into her anchorage with that gentle strength which in a large steamer seems to indicate that she is thinking about it and doing it all herself.
There were a thousand matters to be attended to, for the Croonah was enormous, unwieldy. In the execution of his duties Luke began presently to forget himself. He did not attempt to define his thoughts. He did not even reflect that he knew so little of his brother that this meeting could not possibly cause him this sudden uneasiness, this foreboding care, from THAT side of the question.
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