"We shall do our best, for our own sakes, and you would be our first care if there was any mishap.

Women and children first always.

I will send the stewardess to you; she goes, of course." I sat down on one of the couches, listening for a few minutes to the noises about me.

The masts were groaning, and the planks creaking under the heavy tramp of the sailors, as they got ready to start, with shrill cries to one another.

Then the steam-engine began to throb like a pulse through all the vessel from stem to stern.