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Updated: June 25, 2025
The dark, inscrutable eyes were raised deliberately to her face. "Assuredly you must know that I do," he said. Mrs. Harrington laughed, and changed the subject. She knew this man's face well, and her knowledge told her that he was at the end of his patience. "So you saw Luke at Gibraltar?" she said, turning to Fitz. "Yes, for a short time. I had never seen the Croonah before. She is a fine ship."
There was no sound but the thud of the piston-rods and the whispering swirl of the water lashed by the huge screw. The Croonah raced on, her sails set, her engines working at full speed. Suddenly Luke FitzHenry grasped the handle of the engine- room signal. He wrenched it to one side "Stand by." Instantly the gong answered, "Stand by." "Half speed ahead." And half speed ahead it was.
Agatha's thoughts went back to the moment on the deck of the Croonah, when the sea breeze swept over her and Luke, and the strength of it, the simple, open force, seemed to be part and parcel of him of the strong arms around her in which she was content to lie quiescent. She wondered for a moment whether it had all been true.
She was telling him that their friends in Valetta had invited them to go again next year, and the Croonah was mentioned. While the hostess was attending to the teapot, Mrs. Ingham-Baker took the opportunity of disturbing Fitz of stirring him up, so to speak, and making him look at Agatha.
The Croonah arrived at Gibraltar after dark, took her mails and passengers on board, and proceeded down the Straits about eight o'clock in the evening. It was late autumn, and the breeze from the cool Atlantic still hurried in over the parched lands of Africa and Southern Europe. Tarifa light was sighted and left twinkling behind.
Each man did that which seemed to him expedient for the safety of the ship. The Croonah was fully equipped for fine weather for cleaning brasses and swabbing decks and bending awnings; but for bad weather notably for a cyclone she was perilously undermanned. Half of the native crew were paralysed by fear, many were killed, others drowned from a mere incapacity to hold on.
He turned it over with the subtle smile of a man who has a grudge against women. But he opened it before the other. "DEAR LUKE, I am glad to hear from Fitz that you are making your way in the Merchant Service. He tells me that your steamer, the Croonah, has quite a reputation on the Indian route, and your fellow-officers are all gentlemen.
Some of them and not only the ladies are sending up little shamefaced supplications to One who watches over the traveller in all places and at all times. And on the bridge of the Croonah a man all eyes and stern resolve and maritime instinct. A man clad in his thickest clothes, and over all of them his black oilskins.
He stood there alone while the ship was stripped of every awning, while the decks were cleared of all that hamper which makes the passenger an encumbrance at sea. There was no shouting, no confusion, no sign of fear. In a marvellously short time the broad decks were lying bare and clear, all loose things were stowed away or made fast, and the Croonah stood ready for her great fight.
There was a man seated in the stern enveloped in a large black boat cloak for Gibraltar harbour is choppy when the westerly breezes blow a man who looked the Croonah up and down with a curious searching eye. The boat shot alongside the vast steamer the bowman neatly catching a rope that was thrown to him and the officer clambered up the swaying gangway.
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