Omaha daily bee., 1921-08-07
(Coatinued from Page Two.)

was rapid scurry Of feet along the
corridor. 1t passed, ceased definite
ly. Then, in heart-stopping con-
firmation Of his fear, the light went
out suddenly. He stood clutching at
his bunk, in an absolute darkness
that enveloped him almost tangibly.
He let go of the bunk in a dash for
where he knew the door to be,
slipped, with a sharp stab of
accentuated terror, upon wet
floor sloping permanently at an
acute angle, despite its slow rise and
it's seemingly endless subsequent
subsistence. He crawled upwards
on it, knocked his head against the
door, pulled himself upright with a
grasp upon it's handle. Then, in a
sudden access, he found his voice.
He shrieked-piercingly, shrek up
On shrek that rang through an
APPALLING silence--shrieked like a
maniac forgotten in his cell.
None came to answer him. There
was no sound in the corridor out
side. What was happening in that
deathly silence which pervaded the
great ship? He failed to bring him.
self to exact imagination. She still
rose, still subsidized, heavily. lazily.
But the list which sloped the floor
slippery under his feet remained
uncorrected. Was she still afioat-
settling, slowly but surely? He
ceased his maniac shrieks to listen.
There was no sound. This far down
corridor, remote from the general
life Of the ship, tenanted only by
emigrants on the westward voyage,
was deserted. He shook furiously at
the implacably locked door, crashed
his fists against its panels in frenzied
blows that had no result but the
f1aying of his knuckIes. He flung
himself against it like wild thing
in a cage. The door remained i'm
movable.
He stopped again, listened-lis-
tened for the rushing cataracts of
water he knew must be pouring in
to the ship, down her companion
ways, along her corridors. He heard
nothing. There was no sound per-
ceptible in that rayless blackness
which pressed upon him, save
sough and swish Of water exterior
to the ship. Then he understood. OF
course, they would have closed down
the watertight doors! He shrieked
Il curse at that unknown officer on
the bridge performing his obvious
duty, in vivid Imagination Of the
great steel doors sliding down into
their immovable positions, shutting
off the water indeed from this COM
partment, shutting him off tnexor-
ably from escape even could he
break out into the corridor.
In the horror of this realization
he relaxed his hold upon the door
tilted forward against him, slipped
and slid, in that utter blackness,
down the sloping floor to the wall
of the ship. He felt over it with
trembling, eager hands, felt for the
heavy brass fastening of the port
hole. 1t was still firm. though his
hands were wetted in the water
which welled up gently around its
rim.
Despite the complete cessation of
the crashing impacts with which the
ship had so long smashed into the
heavy seas, her, equilibrium was by
no means stable. She still rose,
though heavily and draggingly; still
sank, even more and more deeply
it seemed, in a sluggish roll which
emphasized in its swing-o back the
ugly list that the lift had failed to
correct. In that engulfing blackness
she seemed to subside ever lower
and lower. inert, incapable of right
ing herself, cradled still by motion
of the waters that swished and
washed against her flanks, sinking
with every lurch into rayless. un-
imaginable depths.
The frenzied man huddled there
in the darkness against the wall wet
with water from the leaking port
had no doubt Of it. He knew. That
internal chunk of coal had done its
work only too well. Paralyzed for
any movement his imagination
worked feverishly and yet, in that
eomplete dark. could form no def