“Suddenly I thought of the other passengers.  Had they been left behind?  I ran down below, and I had scarcely reached the bottom of the steps when I met Miss Minturn’s maid.  ‘It seems to me,’ she said, sharply, ’that the people on this ship are neglecting their duty.  There’s nobody in the kitchen, and I want some gruel.’  ‘My good woman,’ said I, ’who do you want it for?’ ‘Who!’ she replied; ’why, for Mr. Minturn, of course; and Miss Minturn may like some, too.’

“Then I knew that all the passengers had been left behind!

“‘If you want any gruel,’ said I, ’you will have to go into the galley and make it yourself’; and then in a low tone I told her what had happened, for I knew that it would be much better for me to do this than for her to find it out for herself.  Without a word she sat right down on the floor, and covered her head with her apron.  ’Now don’t make a row,’ said I, ’and frighten your master and mistress to death; we’re all right so far, and all you’ve got to do is to take care of Mr. and Miss Minturn, and cook their meals.  The steamer is tight and sound, and it can’t be long before some sort of a craft will come by and take us off.’  I left her sniffling with her apron over her head, but when I came back, ten minutes afterward, she was in the galley making gruel.

“I don’t think you will be surprised, my friends,” continued the marine, “when I tell you that I now found myself in a terrible state of mind.  Of course I hadn’t felt very jovial since the steamer had been so wonderfully stopped; but when the captain and all the crew were aboard, I had that sort of confidence which comes from believing that when there are people about whose duty it is to do things, when the time comes to do the things, they will do them; but now, practically speaking, there was nobody but me.  The others on board were not to be counted, except as encumbrances.  In truth, I was alone,—­alone with the Water-devil!

“The moment I found no one to depend upon but myself, and that I was deserted in the midst of this lonely mass of water, in that moment did my belief in the Water-devil begin to grow.  When I first heard of the creature, I didn’t consider that it was my business either to believe in it, or not to believe in it, and I could let the whole thing drop out of my mind, if I chose; but now it was a different matter.  I was bound to think for myself, and the more I thought, the more I believed in the Water-devil.

“The fact was, there wasn’t anything else to believe in.  I had gone over the whole question, and the skipper had gone all over it, and everybody else had gone all over it, and no one could think of anything but a Water-devil that could stop a steamer in this way in the middle of the Bay of Bengal, and hold her there hour after hour, in spite of wind and wave and tide.  It could not be anything but the monster the Portuguese had told us of, and all I now could do was to wonder whether, when he was done counting his million claws, he would be able to pull down a vessel of a thousand tons, for that was about the size of the General Brooks.