Lavis was pacing the wide promenade deck and sniffing the air as he
paced. It was as if a breath of the north were on them, and yet--having
reached the uncovered part of the deck astern he looked up to observe
the steamer's smoke--the wind was not from the north.
Such passengers as were still making their rounds were doing so
determinedly, in sweaters or top-coats. Without halting in their rapid
walking they, too, at times drew short, sharp breaths through high-held
nostrils. It surely was growing colder. But why? A group held up an
officer who was smoking his pipe in the lee of the canvas forward to ask
him why. He at once set them right about it. Why, surely it should be
cool--on the North Atlantic, in April, and well on in the evening!
A couple that Lavis knew for bride and groom turned out to lean over the
rail. He was pointing down by the ship's side. "Hardly a ripple on
it--see!" he exclaimed. "Only for the bubbling up from underneath, none
at all. Like an endless belt sliding by so smoothly, isn't it? And
above--see, sweetheart--a clear sky."
"Ah-h, a beautiful night!" she murmured. "On such a night--" Lavis, as
he turned the corner of the house, saw him snatch her close and kiss
her.
In lounge and smoking rooms all was cosey, cheerful, lively company.
Lavis in passing had only to glance into air-ports to be sure of that.
It was card-playing and easy gossip in the one, and not infrequent
drinks being brought to impatient men by alert, deferential,
many-buttoned servants in the other. In the grill those who must have a
special little bite before turning in were having it; and, this being a
chilly sort of a night, there were those who were also having a warming
drink, with the bite or without it.
It was growing late. The deck was now almost deserted. Lavis took a last
look over the rail, a last gulp of the cooling air, and went into the
loungeroom. Here he got from the steward paper and envelopes, sat down
and wrote:
Now see that you make no attempt to lure him back.
There was no address, no signature. He sealed the envelope and went
below to where, at the end of a passageway, he found a stewardess on
watch. "Miss Huttle hasn't come down yet, Hannah?"
"No, sir, Mr. Lavis."
"No? Well, there is a party in Mr. Drissler's suite."
"Mr. Drissler, sir?"
"The wealthy man in the royal suite."
"Oh, yes, sir."
"Miss Huttle is there. You take this note to her there, and let me know
that it has been delivered, please."
Lavis went to his room, got out a long, loose linen duster from his
wardrobe, removed his top-coat, pulled the duster over his evening
clothes, found an old cloth cap, and waited for the return of the
stewardess.
She came presently. "I gave it to Miss Huttle, Mr. Lavis. Into her own
hand, sir."
"Thank you, Hannah."
* * * * *
Lavis left his room and descended deep down into the ship, to where a
man in dungarees, but with an officer's cap of authority, was perched on
a horizontal grating poring over the speed register. Over his shoulder
Lavis watched the numerals shift--seven, eight, nine, thirty. One,
two--eight, nine, forty. Click, click, click, click--he watched them
until the officer turned and saw him.
"Ho, I was beginning to think you'd given me the go-by for to-night."
They shook hands.
"Isn't it the most beautiful mechanism ever made by the hand of man!"
exclaimed the officer. "A watch is nothing to it. And what you see here
cost more than twenty thousand watches--twenty thousand of 'em, and
every danged watch in a gold case."
He drew out his own gun-metal stop-watch. "I'll time her now for a
hundred revolutions."
He caught the time, set it down in a little notebook, and from it slowly
but surely reckoned her speed. "Grand, grand!" he said softly. "Will you
come along? Good!"
They descended and ascended many narrow iron ladders and made their way
through many narrow, grimy passageways. Oilers, stokers, coal-passers,
water-tenders straightened up to give them a greeting as they passed. In
one boiler-room a stoker was scooping a dipper through the water-pail at
his feet as they entered.
"Are we holding our own this watch, Mr. Linnell?" He held the dipper
respectfully in suspense for the answer.
"Holding it? Yes, and more."
"Hi, hi! an' that gang went off watch before us, Mr. Linnell--an' I
fancy they rate themselves a competent watch--among themselves,
sir--they threw it at us as how we'd do mighty well to hold our own." By
this time his chief had passed on, but Lavis, lingering, saw the stoker
gulp a mouthful of water, hold it a moment, and squirt it, _s-s-t!_
contemptuously into a heap of hot ashes.
Linnell continued his rounds, sparing a nod here; a nod there, almost a
full smile at times, and at times, too, a sharp snap of criticism. Lavis
in his rear caught the pursuing comment. He was the kind, was the chief,
to soon let you know where you stood. And right he was. And no one would
begrudge him what he could make of the passage, if so be he could make a
bit more of reputation out of it, for surely his heart was in his work.
Never one to loaf, by all reports, but this time!--not a single watch
without his full rounds below.
Lavis followed the engineer up a narrow iron ladder, and thence up a
wide iron ladder, to where, from a heavily grated brass-railed platform,
Linnell surveyed his engines.
He laid a hand on Lavis's shoulder and extended an eloquent arm. "Worth
looking at, aren't they? The largest engines ever went into a ship,
those engines you are looking at now, Mr. Lavis. It is something to have
charge of the likes of them. Wait till I see some of my old mates!" His
was a low, chuckling laugh. "I'll be having a word to say, they better
believe, of ship's engines! Talking of their ten and twenty thousand
tonners--ferry-boats, river ferry-boats, that's what I'll tell 'em they
have alongside o' this one. And everything working beautifully"--he
hesitated a moment--"leastwise in my division. An' why shouldn't it, Mr.
Lavis, after four days and three nights now of never closing an eye for
more than two hours together? But two nights and another day now, an'
'twill be all behind us. And something to put behind a man, that--a
record-breakin' maiden passage of the greatest ship ever built. And--but
I'm gassin' again. We'll be moving on."
Lavis followed Linnell to where a man in grimy blue dungarees was
standing silent watch. Before him was a row of levers and beside him a
dial on which were words in very black letters: FULL SPEED, HALF SPEED,
and so on. To one side was a disk around which two colored arrows, one
red and one green, were racing. A gong was at the man's ear. At his feet
was a pit into which a great mass of highly polished steel was driving
in and out, in and out, up and down ceaselessly.
Linnell studied the colored arrows as they sped around the disk. "Port
engine a bit the best of it?" He had to speak into the man's ear to make
himself heard.