as was the face of my companion, who had stumped over to the rail
and was gazing with a like intentness in the direction of the
invisible danger.

Then everything happened, and with inconceivable rapidity. The fog
seemed to break away as though split by a wedge, and the bow of a
steamboat emerged, trailing fog-wreaths on either side like seaweed
on the snout of Leviathan. I could see the pilot-house and a
white-bearded man leaning partly out of it, on his elbows. He was
clad in a blue uniform, and I remember noting how trim and quiet he
was. His quietness, under the circumstances, was terrible. He
accepted Destiny, marched hand in hand with it, and coolly measured
the stroke. As he leaned there, he ran a calm and speculative eye
over us, as though to determine the precise point of the collision,
and took no notice whatever when our pilot, white with rage,
shouted, "Now you've done it!"

On looking back, I realize that the remark was too obvious to make
rejoinder necessary.

"Grab hold of something and hang on," the red-faced man said to me.
All his bluster had gone, and he seemed to have caught the
contagion of preternatural calm. "And listen to the women scream,"
he said grimly--almost bitterly, I thought, as though he had been
through the experience before.

The vessels came together before I could follow his advice. We
must have been struck squarely amidships, for I saw nothing, the
strange steamboat having passed beyond my line of vision. The
Martinez heeled over, sharply, and there was a crashing and rending