Omaha daily bee., 1921-08-07

ouiysrins vibration which pervaded the ship At
the back Of his consciousness somewhere was
perception of the steady rise and fall Of the floor
beneath his feet, the slightly marked lateral
cant, slowly righting itself, which spoke of the
fact that they were already far out at sea- But
he concerned himself not with their position.
, The whirr Of that machinery which drove
them unfaggingly onward, which might at any
moment cease, held him fascinated. At each
moment he expected the all-shaking roar. Yet
those whirring revolutions continued until their
vibrations seemed to enter into him. to set his
head whirling dizzly in a spin that was coinci-
dent with their own beyond his control.
His brain worked feverishly, as with an in
dependent WILL placing before him again and
again pictures that he could not banish--the up
rush of sheet of flame, the headlong plunge
beneath waves dotted with human heads Of the
great liner, decks ripped open and tunnels awry
himself in the cabin clinging to the bunk as
she sank sickeningly in utter darkness Again
and again these pictures came before him, in
merciless repetition, curiously exterior to him.
self, as though he stared at maddening re-
iteration Of the sefsame scenes upon the screen
of a cinematograph--in his head the whirring.
identical with the whrling Of the turbines, OF
the machine that would not stop.
He flung himself down upon his bunk in an
exasperated effort to escape this involuntary
INSTALLATION Of the terror to come, to sleep II
possible But still the whirring in his head con-
again and again those pictures of impending
doom at which the sweat came clammy on his
brow. Like machine 1t was, he thought. half
delirious under his obsession, an internal cine
ma machine-yes, that was 1.-THE fever mount
ed in HMM his head a whirring cinema
machine over which he had no control He sank
at last into an uneasy sleep in a dream where
that cinema in his head was geared somehow to
the whirring turbines, was itself that Internal
machine that should explode.
He was awakened from a nightmare where
he was clutched by nameless things by the two
detectives standing over him.
'Time for exercise jake" said one of them.
as the prisoner stared blankly into his face.
He reused himself stupidity, grasping only
two outstanding facts. He was still alive That
Internal whirring in his head had stopped.
The three Of them passed out of the cabin
into the long corridor tenanted only by cleaners
and an occasional hurrying steward, climbed
stairways and again stairways, and finally
emerged into the damp early morning chill of
the open air. They passed aft to the steerage
deck, where few sailors were busy with hose
and swabs. No other passengers had yet made
their appearance.
His terror woke alive again in the wretched
prisoner as, between his captors, he walked up
and down that deck at pace which they die
tated to him. In his sleep down below there. the
menace of his existence, although ever at the
back Of his consciousness, had lost actuality-
seemed unbelievable when he awoke Up here.
on the deck Of the great ship whose white super
structure lifted and sank against the grays of a
stormy sky, her shrouds moaning In the cold
wind which smote him like douche. he was
brought sharply back to contact with reality 1t
was real-terribly real-this ship solitary upon
the vast ocean where great waves rolled with
foaming whiteness under the torn clouds OF an
incipient gale. Even her immensely dipped to
their turbulence. D..
He glanced along to the rows Of boats swing
ing high up above the terraced promenade
decks. ready for the most unthinkable catastro-
phe glanced still higher to where the four enor-
nous tunnels poured out volumes Of black
smoke that mingled with the low clouds. They
fascinated him, those tunnels. He could scarce
ly turn his back upon them when the limit OF
the deck was reached and he faced aft once
more. He looked at them again with strange
relief when yet once again they turned. They
were still vomiting their smoke. voiute upon
volute in endless succession Of emergenoe.