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Jan groped his way to where the life-raft was lashed to the deck. He ordered Mrs. Goles to sit down on the raft. Goles sat down beside her. Goles seemed bereft of all volition. "You wait here till I come back," Jan said to him and turning to go below, bumped into another man. "Hello! Is this you?" said the other man. "I thought I saw you come up here.
"No, no," said Jan to himself, and reinspected the lone life-raft on the top deck. Two cigar-shaped steel air-cylinders with a thin connecting deck was the life-raft. Jan had seen better ones; but a raft, at least, would not capsize. He descended to the main deck, to where, in the gangway between house and rail, he could find a little quiet and think things over.
"They've overlooked the life-raft," he said. "Let's have a try at that. There's not much time now." The starboard scuppers were letting in sea water and the flames were creeping close, as we turned together, holding to the shadows of the superstructure, and ran forward. We were tearing our fingers raw over stiffened knots when a rush of feet interrupted us.
Larry saw, standing before him, framed in the doorway from which streamed the glare from a big reading lamp, the man of mystery the fellow who had escaped from the tumble-down tenement the man he and Bailey had pulled ashore on the life-raft. "Are you Mah Retto?" asked Larry again, rather at a loss for something to say, when he saw the strange man confronting him.
"Are there no more boats?" I shouted. He turned his head. "What! A girl left?" he cried. "No. The fire has cut off the other boats. We must all get on the raft. Stand by with the girl, and I'll see you safe." The life-raft was a big affair that Rectus and I had often examined. It had two long, air-tight cylinders, of iron, I suppose, kept apart by a wide framework.
But no harm; she had speed enough to sail the Channel sidewise and still bring us in by morning. The night grew older and cooler. The last of the people who had paid toll to the steward for a chair and rug went inside. Only one couple were left; and they had not hired any chair. He was a young officer, and they sat under his olive-drab blanket, on a life-raft bench athwartship.
It was a man I'd like to have a chance to talk to," Larry went on. "Would he give you er a 'story'? Is that what you call it?" "That's right. Yes, I believe he could give me a story," and Larry looked in the direction the man had gone. He was no longer to be seen. "A very good story," he added, for the man was the same one he had surprised in the tenement the night before the man of the life-raft.
Many persons had escaped soon after the breaking out of the fire by means of the small boats and life-raft carried by the packet; while still others, comprising nearly half the ship's company, were lost.
I sprang aside, endeavoring to pull father with me. A moment later the funnel was swept overboard and the body of father went with it. "I sprang overboard and swam through the ice to a life-raft, and was pulled aboard. There were five men and one woman on the raft. Occasionally we were swept off into the sea, but always managed to crawl back.
"There's that passenger who came ashore on the life-raft. I wonder who he was? I'll ask Mrs. Angelino." But she did not know. She was not aware that any one had come ashore on a raft, for, in the confusion of the breaking up of the ship in the storm, she thought only of her husband, her baby and herself. "I can find out later," Larry thought. He gave the list back to Mrs.
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