A junior engineer saluted Captain Trigger and left the group.
"There is land ahead,--a long way off," he announced as he passed through the throng in the saloon deck.
Up above the clamour of questions shouted from all sides as the crazed people flocked behind the messenger of hope, rose the voice of Morris Shine.
"Land ahoy! Ahoy-yoy-yoy!" he yelled over and over again, his chin raised like that of a dog baying at the moon.
Every person on deck was either carrying a life-belt or was already encased in one.

Grim orders of the night just past.

Here and there were to be seen men who clutched tightly the handles of suitcases and kit bags! Evidently they were expecting to step ashore at once.

In any case, they belonged to the class of people who never fail to crowd their way down the gang-plank ahead of every one else.

The fashionable ocean liners always have quite a number of these on board, invariably in the first cabin.
Percival ranged the decks in quest of Ruth Clinton.