She was adrift, helplessly adrift.

Of what avail the wheel and a patched-up rudder to the mass that lay inert, motionless on the smiling sea?
Every one on board realized, with sinking heart, that the Doraine was to go on drifting, drifting no man knew whither, until she crossed the path of a friendly stranger out there in the mighty waste.

No cry of distress, no call for help could go crackling into the boundless reaches.

That was the plight of the Doraine and her people on the mocking day that followed the disaster, and unless fate intervened that would be her plight for days without end.
Mr.Mott, temporarily in command, addressed the passengers in the main saloon, where they had congregated at his request.

He did not mince matters.