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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A List To Starboard, by F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A List To Starboard
+       1909
+
+Author: F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+Illustrator: F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+Release Date: December 3, 2007 [EBook #23702]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LIST TO STARBOARD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+A LIST TO STARBOARD
+
+By F. Hopkinson Smith
+
+1909
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+A short, square chunk of a man walked into a shipping office on the East
+Side, and inquired for the Manager of the Line. He had kindly blue eyes,
+a stub nose, and a mouth that shut to like a rat-trap, and stayed
+shut. Under his chin hung a pair of half-moon whiskers which framed his
+weather-beaten face as a spike collar frames a dog's.
+
+"You don't want to send this vessel to sea again," blurted out the
+chunk. "She ought to go to the dry-dock. Her boats haven't had a
+brushful of paint for a year; her boilers are caked clear to her
+top flues, and her pumps won't take care of her bilge water. Charter
+something else and lay her up."
+
+The Manager turned in his revolving chair and faced him. He was the
+opposite of the Captain in weight, length, and thickness--a slim,
+well-groomed, puffy-cheeked man of sixty with a pair of uncertain, badly
+aimed eyes and a voice like the purr of a cat.
+
+"Oh, my dear Captain, you surely don't mean what you say. She is
+perfectly seaworthy and sound. Just look at her inspection--" and he
+passed him the certificate.
+
+"No--I don't want to see it! I know 'em by heart: it's a lie, whatever
+it says. Give an inspector twenty dollars and he's stone blind."
+
+The Manager laughed softly. He had handled too many rebellious captains
+in his time; they all had a protest of some kind--it was either the
+crew, or the grub, or the coal, or the way she was stowed. Then he added
+softly, more as a joke than anything else:
+
+"Not afraid, are you, Captain?"
+
+A crack started from the left-hand corner of the Captain's mouth,
+crossed a fissure in his face, stopped within half an inch of his stub
+nose, and died out in a smile of derision.
+
+"What I'm afraid of is neither here nor there. There's cattle
+aboard--that is, there will be by to-morrow night; and there's a lot of
+passengers booked, some of 'em women and children. It isn't honest to
+ship 'em and you know it! As to her boilers send for the Chief Engineer.
+He'll tell you. You call it taking risks; I call it murder!"
+
+"And so I understand you refuse to obey the orders of the Board?--and
+yet she's got to sail on the 16th if she sinks outside."
+
+"When I refuse to obey the orders of the Board I'll tell the Board, not
+you. And when I do tell 'em I'll tell 'em something else, and that is,
+that this chartering of worn-out tramps, painting 'em up and putting 'em
+into the Line, has got to stop, or there'll be trouble."
+
+"But this will be her last trip, Captain. Then we'll overhaul her."
+
+"I've heard that lie for a year. She'll run as long as they can insure
+her and her cargo. As for the women and children, I suppose they don't
+count--" and he turned on his heel and left the office.
+
+On the way out he met the Chief Engineer.
+
+"Do the best you can, Mike," he said; "orders are we sail on the 16th."
+
+*****
+
+On the fourth day out this conversation took place in the smoking-room
+between a group of passengers.
+
+"Regular tub, this ship!" growled the Man-Who-Knew-It-All to the Bum
+Actor. "Screw out of the water every souse she makes; lot of dirty
+sailors skating over the decks instead of keeping below where they
+belong; Chief Engineer loafing in the Captain's room every chance he
+gets--there he goes now--and it's the second time since breakfast. And
+the Captain is no better! And just look at the accommodations--three
+stewards and a woman! What's that to look after thirty-five passengers?
+Half the time I have to wait an hour to get something to eat--such as it
+is. And my bunk wasn't made up yesterday until plumb night. That bunch
+in the steerage must be having a hard time."
+
+"We get all we pay for," essayed the Travelling Man. "She ain't rigged
+for cabin passengers, and the Captain don't want 'em. Didn't want
+to take me--except our folks had a lot of stuff aboard. Had enough
+passengers, he said."
+
+"Well, he took the widow and her two kids"--continued the
+Man-Who-Knew-It-All--"and they were the last to get aboard. Half the
+time he's playing nurse instead of looking after his ship. Had 'em all
+on the bridge yesterday."
+
+"He _had_ to take 'em," protested the Travelling Man. "She was put under
+his charge by his owners--so one of the stewards told me."
+
+"Oh!--_had to_, did he! Yes--I've been there before. No use
+talking--this line's got to be investigated, and I'm going to do the
+investigating as soon as I get ashore, and don't you forget it! What's
+your opinion?"
+
+The Bum Actor made no reply. He had been cold and hungry too many days
+and nights to find fault with anything. But for the generosity of a few
+friends he would still be tramping the streets, sleeping where he could.
+Three meals a day--four, if he wanted them--and a bed in a room all to
+himself instead of being one in a row of ten, was heaven to him. What
+the Captain, or the Engineer, or the crew, or anybody else did, was
+of no moment, so he got back alive. As to the widow's children, he
+had tried to pick up an acquaintance with them himself--especially
+the boy--but she had taken them away when she saw how shabby were his
+clothes.
+
+The Texas Cattle Agent now spoke up. He was a tall, raw-boned man, with
+a red chin-whisker and red, weather-scorched face, whose clothing looked
+as if it had been pulled out of shape in the effort to accommodate
+itself to the spread of his shoulders and round of his thighs. His
+trousers were tucked in his boots, the straps hanging loose. He
+generally sat by himself in one corner of the cramped smoking-room, and
+seldom took part in the conversation. The Bum Actor and he had exchanged
+confidences the night before, and the Texan therefore felt justified in
+answering in his friend's stead.
+
+"You're way off, friend," he said to the Man-Who-Knew-It-All. "There
+ain't nothin' the matter with the Line, nor the ship, nor the Captain.
+This is my sixth trip aboard of her, and I know! They had a strike among
+the stevedores the day we sailed, and then, too, we've got a scrub lot
+of stokers below, and the Captain's got to handle 'em just so. That kind
+gets ugly when anything happens. I had sixty head of cattle aboard here
+on my last trip over, and some of 'em got loose in a storm, and there
+was hell to pay with the crew till things got straightened out. I ain't
+much on shootin' irons, but they came handy that time. I helped and I
+know. Got a couple in my cabin now. Needn't tell me nothin' about the
+Captain. He's all there when he's wanted, and it don't take him more'n a
+minute, either, to get busy."
+
+The door of the smoking-room opened and the object of his eulogy
+strolled in. He was evidently just off the bridge, for the thrash of
+the spray still glistened on his oilskins and on his gray, half-moon
+whiskers. That his word was law aboard ship, and that he enforced it
+in the fewest words possible, was evident in every line of his face
+and every tone of his voice. If he deserved an overhauling it certainly
+would not come from any one on board--least of all from Carhart--the
+Man-Who-Knew-It-All.
+
+Loosening the thong that bound his so'wester to his chin, he slapped it
+twice across a chair back, the water flying in every direction, and then
+faced the room.
+
+"Mr. Bonner."
+
+"Yes, sir," answered the big-shouldered Texan, rising to his feet.
+
+"I'd like to see you for a minute," and without another word the two men
+left the room and made their way in silence down the wet deck to where
+the Chief Engineer stood.
+
+"Mike, this is Mr. Bonner; you remember him, don't you? You can rely on
+his carrying out any orders you give him. If you need another man let
+him pick him out--" and he continued on to his cabin.
+
+Once there the Captain closed the door behind him, shutting out the
+pound and swash of the sea; took from a rack over his bunk a roll of
+charts, spread one on a table and with his head in his hands studied
+it carefully. The door opened and the Chief Engineer again stood beside
+him. The Captain raised his head.
+
+"Will Bonner serve?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, glad to, and he thinks he's got another man. He's what he calls
+out his way a 'tenderfoot,' he says, but he's game and can be depended
+on. Have you made up your mind where she'll cross?"--and he bent over
+the chart.
+
+The Captain picked up a pair of compasses, balanced them for a moment in
+his fingers, and with the precision of a seamstress threading a needle,
+dropped the points astride a wavy line known as the steamer track.
+
+The engineer nodded:
+
+"That will give us about twenty-two hours leeway," he said gravely, "if
+we make twelve knots."
+
+"Yes, if you make twelve knots: can you do it?"
+
+"I can't say; depends on that gang of shovellers and the way they
+behave. They're a tough lot--jail-birds and tramps, most of 'em. If
+they get ugly there ain't but one thing left; that, I suppose, you won't
+object to."
+
+The Captain paused for a moment in deep thought, glanced at the pin
+prick in the chart, and said with a certain forceful meaning in his
+voice:
+
+"No--not if there's no other way."
+
+The Chief Engineer waited, as if for further reply, replaced his cap,
+and stepped out into the wind. He had got what he came for, and he had
+got it straight.
+
+With the closing of the door the Captain rolled up the chart, laid it
+in its place among the others, readjusted the thong of his so'wester,
+stopped for a moment before a photograph of his wife and child, looked
+at it long and earnestly, and then mounted the stairs to the bridge.
+With the exception that the line of his mouth had straightened and
+the knots in his eyebrows tightened, he was, despite the smoking-room
+critics, the same bluff, determined sea-dog who had defied the Manager
+the week before.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+When Bonner, half an hour later, returned to the smoking-room (he, too,
+had caught the splash of the sea, the spray drenching the rail), the Bum
+Actor crossed over and took the seat beside him. The Texan was the only
+passenger who had spoken to him since he came aboard, and he had already
+begun to feel lonely. This time he started the conversation by brushing
+the salt spray from the Agent's coat.
+
+"Got wet, didn't you? Too bad! Wait till I wipe it off," and he dragged
+a week-old handkerchief from his pocket. Then seeing that the Texan took
+no notice of the attention, he added, "What did the Captain want?"
+
+The Texan did not reply. He was evidently absorbed in something outside
+his immediate surroundings, for he continued to sit with bent back, his
+elbows on his knees, his eyes on the floor.
+
+Again the question was repeated:
+
+"What did the Captain want? Nothing the matter, is there?" Fear had
+always been his master--fear of poverty mostly--and it was poverty in
+the worst form to others if he failed to get home. This thought had
+haunted him night and day.
+
+"Yes and no. Don't worry--it'll all come out right. You seem nervous."
+
+"I am. I've been through a lot and have almost reached the end of my
+rope. Have you got a wife at home?" The Texan shook his head. "Well,
+if you had you'd understand better than I can tell you. I have, and a
+three-year-old boy besides. I'd never have left them if I'd known.
+I came over under contract for a six months' engagement and we were
+stranded in Pittsburg and had hard work getting back to New York. Some
+of them are there yet. All I want now is to get home--nothing else will
+save them. Here's a letter from her I don't mind showing you--you can
+see for yourself what I'm up against. The boy never was strong."
+
+The big Texan read it through carefully, handed it back without a
+comment or word of sympathy, and then, with a glance around him, as if
+in fear of being overheard, asked:
+
+"Can you keep your nerve in a mix-up?"
+
+"Do you mean a fight?" queried the Actor.
+
+"Maybe."
+
+"I don't like fights--never did." Anything that would imperil his safe
+return was to be avoided.
+
+"I neither--but sometimes you've got to. Are you handy with a gun?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Nothing--I'm only asking."
+
+Carhart, the Man-Who-Knew-It-All, here lounged over from his seat by the
+table and dropped into a chair beside them, cutting short his reply. The
+Texan gave a significant look at the Actor, enforcing his silence, and
+then buried his face in a newspaper a month old.
+
+Carhart spread his legs, tilted his head back on the chair, slanted his
+stiff-brim hat until it made a thatch for his nose, and began one of his
+customary growls: to the room--to the drenched port-holes--to the brim
+of his hat; as a half-asleep dog sometimes does when things have gone
+wrong with him--or he dreams they have.
+
+"This ship reminds me of another old tramp, the _Persia_," he drawled.
+"Same scrub crew and same cut of a Captain. Hadn't been for two of the
+passengers and me, we'd never got anywhere. Had a fire in the lower hold
+in a lot of turpentine, and when they put that out we found her cargo
+had shifted and she was down by the head about six feet. Then the crew
+made a rush for the boats and left us with only four leaky ones to go
+a thousand miles. They'd taken 'em all, hadn't been for me and another
+fellow who stood over them with a gun."
+
+The Bum Actor raised his eyes.
+
+"What happened then?" he asked in a nervous voice.
+
+"Oh, we pitched in and righted things and got into port at last. But the
+Captain was no good; he'd a-left with the crew if we'd let him."
+
+"Is the shifting of a cargo a serious matter?" continued the Actor.
+"This is my second crossing and I'm not much up on such things."
+
+"Depends on the weather," interpolated a passenger.
+
+"And on how she's stowed," continued Car-hart. "I've been mistrusting
+this ship ain't plumb on her keel. You can tell that from the way she
+falls off after each wave strikes her. I have been out on deck looking
+things over and she seems to me to be down by the stern more than she
+ought."
+
+"Maybe she'll be lighter when more coal gets out of her," suggested
+another passenger.
+
+"Yes, but she's listed some to starboard. I watched her awhile this
+morning. She ain't loaded right, or she's loaded _wrong,-purpose_. That
+occurs sometimes with a gang of striking stevedores."
+
+The noon whistle blew and the talk ended with the setting of everybody's
+watch, except the Bum Actor's, whose timepiece decorated a shop-window
+in the Bowery.
+
+*****
+
+That night one of those uncomfortable rumors, started doubtless by
+Carhart's talk, shivered through the ship, its vibrations even reaching
+the widow lying awake in her cabin. This said that some hundreds of
+barrels of turpentine had broken loose and were smashing everything
+below. If any one of them rolled into the furnaces an explosion would
+follow which would send them all to eternity. That this absurdity was
+immediately denied by the purser, who asserted with some vehemence that
+there was not a gallon of turpentine aboard, did not wholly allay the
+excitement, nor did it stifle the nervous anxiety which had now taken
+possession of the passengers.
+
+As the day wore on several additional rumors joined those already
+extant. One was dropped in the ear of the Texan by the Bum Actor as the
+two stood on the upper deck watching the sea, which was rapidly falling.
+
+"I got so worried I thought I'd go down into the engine room myself,"
+he whispered. "I'm just back. Something's wrong down there, or I'm
+mistaken. I wish you'd go and find out. I knew that turpentine yarn was
+a lie, but I wanted to be sure, so I thought I'd ask one of the stokers
+who had come up for a little air. He was about to answer me when the
+Chief Engineer came down from the bridge, where he had been talking to
+the Captain, and ordered the man below before he had time to fill his
+lungs. I waited a little while, hoping he or some of the crew would
+come up again, and then I went down the ladder myself. When I got to the
+first landing I came bump up against the Chief Engineer. He was standing
+in the gangway fooling with a revolver he had in his hand as if he'd
+been cleaning it. 'I'll have to ask you to get back where you came
+from,' he said. 'This ain't no place for passengers'--and up I came.
+What do you think it means? I'd get ugly, too, if he kept me in that
+heat and never let me get a whiff of air. I tell you, that's an awful
+place down there. Suppose you go and take a look. Your knowing the
+Captain might make some difference."
+
+"Were any of the stokers around?" "No--none of them. I didn't see a soul
+but the Chief Engineer, and I didn't see him more than a minute."
+
+The big Texan moved closer to the rail and again scrutinized the
+sky-line. He had kept this up all the morning, his eye searching
+the horizon as he moved from one side of the ship to the other. The
+inspection over, he slipped his arm through the Actor's and started him
+down the deck toward the Cattle Agent's cabin. When the two emerged the
+Texan's face still wore the look which had rested on it since the
+time the Captain had called him from the smoking-room. The Actor's
+countenance, however, had undergone a change. All his nervous timidity
+was gone; his lips were tightly drawn, the line of the jaw more
+determined. He looked like a man who had heard some news which had first
+steadied and then solidified him. These changes often overtake men of
+sensitive, highly strung natures.
+
+On the way back they encountered the Captain accompanied by the Chief
+Engineer. The two were heading for the saloon, the bugle having sounded
+for luncheon. As they passed by with their easy, swinging gait, the
+passengers watched them closely. If there was danger in the air these
+two officers, of all men, would know it. The Captain greeted the Texan
+with a significant look, waited until the Actor had been presented,
+looked the Texan's friend over from head to foot, and then with a nod to
+several of the others halted opposite a steamer chair in which sat the
+widow and her two children--one a baby and the other a boy of four--a
+plump, hugable little fellow, every inch of whose surface invited a
+caress.
+
+"Please stay a minute and let me talk to you, Captain," the widow
+pleaded. "I've been so worried. None of these stories are true, are
+they? There can't be any danger or you would have told me--wouldn't
+you?"
+
+The Captain laughed heartily, so heartily that even the Chief Engineer
+looked at him in astonishment. "What stories do you hear, my dear lady?"
+
+"That the steamer isn't loaded properly?"
+
+Again the Captain laughed, this time under the curls of the chubby boy
+whom he had caught in his arms and was kissing eagerly.
+
+"Not loaded right?" he puffed at last when he got his breath. "Well,
+well, what a pity! That yarn, I guess, comes from some of the navigators
+in the smoking-room. They generally run the ship. Here, you little
+rascal, turn out your toes and dance a jig for me. No--no--not that
+way--this way-r-out with them! Here, let me show you. One--two--off
+we go. Now the pigeon wing and the double twist and the rat-tat-tat,
+rat-tat-tat--that's the way, my lad!"
+
+He had the boy's hands now, the child shouting with laughter, the
+overjoyed mother clapping her hands as the big burly Captain with his
+face twice as red from the exercise, danced back and forth across the
+deck, the passengers forming a ring about them.
+
+"There!" sputtered the Captain, all out of breath from the exercise, as
+he dropped the child back into the widow's arms. "Now all of you come
+down to luncheon. The weather is getting better every minute. The glass
+is rising and we are going to have a fine night."
+
+Carhart, who had watched the whole performance with an ill-concealed
+sneer on his face, muttered to the man next him:
+
+"What did I tell you? He's a pretty kind of a Captain, ain't he? He's
+mashed on the widow just as I told you. Smoking-room yarn, is it? I bet
+I could pick out half a dozen men right in them chairs who could run
+the ship as well as he does. Maybe we'll have to take charge, after
+all--don't you think so, Mr. Bonner?"
+
+The Texan smiled grimly: "I'll let you do the picking, Mr. Carhart--"
+and with his hand on the Actor's arm, the two went below.
+
+A counter-current now swept through the ship. If anything was really
+the matter the Captain would not be dancing jigs, nor would he leave
+the bridge for his meals. This, like all other counter-currents--wave or
+otherwise--tossed up a bobble of dispute when the two clashed. There
+was no doubt about it: Carhart had been "talking through his
+hat"--"shooting off his mouth"--the man was "a gas bag," etc., etc. When
+appeal for confirmation was made to the Texan and the Actor, who now
+seemed inseparable, neither made reply. They evidently did not care to
+be mixed up in what Bonner characterized with a grim smile as "more hot
+air."
+
+All through the meal the Captain kept up his good-natured mood; chatting
+with the widow who sat on his right, the baby in her lap; making a pig
+of a lemon and some tooth-picks for the boy, who had crawled up into
+his arms; exchanging nods and smiles down the length of the table with
+several new arrivals, or congratulating those nearest to him on their
+recovery after the storm, ending by carrying both boy and baby to the
+upper deck--so that he might "not forget how to handle" his own when he
+got back, he laughed in explanation.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+Luncheon over, the passengers, many of whom had been continuously in
+their berths, began to crowd the decks. These soon discovered that the
+ship was not on an even keel; a fact confirmed when attention was called
+to the slant of the steamer chairs and the roll of an orange toward the
+scuppers. Explanation was offered by the Texan, who argued that the
+wind had hauled, and being then abeam had given her a list to starboard.
+This, while not wholly satisfactory to the more experienced, allayed
+the fears of the women--there were two or three on board beside the
+widow--who welcomed the respite from the wrench and stagger of the
+previous hours.
+
+Attention was now drawn by a nervous passenger to a gang of sailors
+under the First Officer, who were at work overhauling the boats on the
+forward deck, immediately under the eyes of the Captain who had returned
+to the bridge, as well as to an approaching wall of fog which, while he
+was speaking, had blanketed the ship, sending two of the boat gang on
+a run to the bow. The fog-horn also blew continuously, almost without
+intermission. Now and then it too would give three short, sharp snorts,
+as if of warning.
+
+The passengers had now massed themselves in groups, some touch of
+sympathy, or previous acquaintance, or trait of courage but recently
+discovered, having drawn them together. Again the Captain passed down
+the deck. This time he stopped to light a cigarette from a passenger's
+cigar, remarking as he did so that it was "as thick as pea soup on the
+bridge, but he thought it would lighten before morning." Then halting
+beside the chair of an old lady who had but recently appeared on deck,
+he congratulated her on her recovery and kept on his way to the boats.
+
+The widow, however, was still anxious.
+
+"What are they doing with the boats?" she asked, her eyes following the
+Captain's disappearing figure.
+
+"Only overhauling them, madam," spoke up the Texan, who had stationed
+himself near her chair.
+
+"But isn't that unusual!" she inquired in a tremulous voice.
+
+"No, madam, just precaution, and always a safe one in a fog. Collision
+comes so quick sometimes they don't have time even to clear the davits."
+
+"But the sailors are carrying up boxes and kegs and putting them in
+the boats; what's that for?" broke in another passenger, who had been
+leaning over the forward rail.
+
+"Grub and water, I guess," returned the Texan. "It's a thousand miles to
+the nearest land, and there ain't no bakery on the way that I know of.
+Can't be too careful when there's women and babies aboard, especially
+little fellows like these--" and he ran his hand through the boy's
+curls. "The Captain don't take no chances. That's what I like him for."
+
+Again the current of hope submerged the current of despair. The slant of
+the deck, however, increased, although the wind had gone down; so
+much so that the steamer chairs had to be lashed to the iron hand-hold
+skirting the wall of the upper cabins. So had the fog, which was now so
+dense that it hid completely the work of the boat gang.
+
+With the passing of the afternoon and the approach of night, thus
+deepening the gloom, there was added another and a new anxiety to the
+drone of the fog-horn. This was a Coston signal which flashed from the
+bridge, flooding the deck with light and pencilling masts and rigging in
+lines of fire. These flashes kept up at intervals of five minutes, the
+colors changing from time to time.
+
+An indefinable fear now swept through the vessel. The doubters and
+scoffers from the smoking-room who stood huddled together near the
+forward companion-way talked in whispers. The slant of the deck they
+argued might be due to a shift of the cargo--a situation serious, but
+not dangerous--but why burn Costons? The only men who seemed to be
+holding their own, and who were still calm and undisturbed, were the
+Texan and the Actor. These, during the conference, had moved toward the
+flight of steps leading to the bridge and had taken their positions near
+the bottom step, but within reach of the widow's chair. Once the Actor
+loosened his coat and slipped in his hand as if to be sure of something
+he did not want to lose.
+
+While this was going on the Captain left the bridge in charge of the
+Second Officer and descended to his cabin. Reaching over his bunk, he
+unhooked the picture of his wife and child, tore it from its frame,
+looked at it intently for a moment, and then, with a sigh, slid it into
+an inside pocket. This done, he stripped off his wet storm coat, thrust
+his arms into a close-fitting reefing jacket, unhooked a holster from
+its place, dropped its contents into his outside pocket, and walked
+slowly down the flight of steps to where the Texan and the Actor stood
+waiting.
+
+Then, facing the passengers, and in the same tone of voice with which he
+would have ordered a cup of coffee from a steward, he said:
+
+"My friends, I find it necessary to abandon the ship. There is time
+enough and no necessity for crowding. The boats are provisioned for
+thirty days. The women and children will go first: this order will be
+literally carried out; those who disobey it will have to be dealt with
+in another way. This, I hope, you will not make necessary. I will also
+tell you that I believe we are still within the steamer zone, although
+the fog and weather have prevented any observation. Do you stay here,
+madam. I'll come for you when I am ready--" and he laid his hand
+encouragingly on the widow's arm.
+
+With this he turned to the Texan and the Actor:
+
+"You understand, both of you, do you not, Mr. Bonner? You and your
+friend will guard the aft companion-way, and help the Chief Engineer
+take care of the stokers and the steerage. I and the First Officer will
+fill the boats."
+
+The beginning of a panic is like the beginning of a fire: first a curl
+of smoke licking through a closed sash, then a rush of flame, and then a
+roar freighted with death. Its subduing is along similar lines: A sharp
+command clearing the way, concentrated effort, and courage.
+
+Here the curl of smoke was an agonized shriek from an elderly woman who
+fell fainting on the deck; the rush of flame was a wild surge of men
+hurling themselves toward the boats, and the roar which meant death was
+the frenzied throng of begrimed half-naked stokers and crazed emigrants
+who were wedged in a solid mass in the companion-way leading to the
+upper deck. The subduing was the same.
+
+[Illustration: Back, all of you ]
+
+"Back, all of you!" shouted the Engineer. "The first man who passes
+that door without my permission I'll kill! Five of you at a time--no
+crowding--keep 'em in line, Mr. Bonner--you and your friend!"
+
+The Texan and the Bum Actor were within three feet of him as he
+spoke--the Texan as cool as if he were keeping count of a drove of
+steers, except that he tallied with the barrel of a six-shooter instead
+of a note-book and pencil. The Bum Actor's face was deathly white and
+his pistol hand trembled a little, but he did not flinch. He ranged the
+lucky ones in line farther along, and kept them there. "Anything to
+get home," he had told the Texan when he had slipped Bonner's other
+revolver, an hour before, into his pocket.
+
+On the saloon deck the flame of fear was still raging, although the
+sailors and the three stewards were so many moving automatons under
+the First Officer's orders. The widow, with her baby held tight to her
+breast, had not moved from where the Captain had placed her, nor had
+she uttered a moan. The crisis was too great for anything but implicit
+obedience. The Captain had kept his word, and had told her when danger
+threatened; she must now wait for what God had in store for her. The boy
+stood by the First Officer; he had clapped his hands and laughed when he
+saw the first boat swung clear of the davits.
+
+Carhart was the color of ashes and could hardly articulate. He had edged
+up close to the gangway where the boats were to be filled. Twice he had
+tried to wedge himself between the First Officer and the rail and twice
+had been pushed back--the last time with a swing that landed him against
+a pile of steamer chairs.
+
+All this time the fog-horn had kept up its monotonous din, the Costons
+flaring at intervals. The stoppage of either would only have added to
+the terror now partly allayed by the Captain's encouraging talk, which
+was picked up and repeated all over the ship.
+
+The first boat was now ready for passengers.
+
+"This way, madam--you first--" the Captain said to the widow. "You must
+go alone with the baby, and I--"
+
+He did not finish the sentence. Something had caught his ear--something
+that made him lunge heavily toward the rail, his eyes searching the
+gloom, his hand cupped to his ear.
+
+"Hold hard, men!" he cried. "Keep still-all of you!"
+
+[Illustration: Hold hard men ]
+
+Out of the stillness of the night came the moan of a distant fog-horn.
+This was followed by a wild cheer from the men at the boat davits. At
+the same instant a dim, far-away light cut its way through the black
+void, burned for a moment, and disappeared like a dying star.
+
+Another cheer went up. This time the watch on the foretop and the men
+astride the nose sent it whirling through the choke and damp with an
+added note of joy.
+
+The Captain turned to the widow.
+
+"That's her--that's the _St. Louis!_ I've been hoping for her all day,
+and didn't give up until the fog shut in."
+
+"And we can stay here!"
+
+"No--we haven't a moment to lose. Our fires are nearly out now. We've
+been in a sinking condition for forty-eight hours. We sprung a leak
+where we couldn't get at it, and our pumps are clogged.
+
+"Stand aside, men! All ready, madam! No, you can't manage them
+both--give me the boy,--I'll bring him in the last boat."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A List To Starboard, by F. Hopkinson Smith
+
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