“Yes,” she answered, laughing, and with perfect truth.  “The fact of the matter is, I could not sleep, and so I came on deck; and very pleasant it is!”

“Yes,” said the captain, “If you want something to put into your stories you won’t find anything better than this.  The Kangaroo is showing her heels, isn’t she, Miss Smithers?  That’s the beauty of her, she can sail as well as steam; and when she has a strong wind like this abaft, it would have to be something very quick that would catch her.  I believe that we have been running over seventeen knots an hour ever since midnight.  I hope to make Kerguelen Island by seven o’clock to correct my chronometers.”

“What is Kerguelen Island?” asked Augusta.

“Oh! it is a desert place where nobody goes, except now and then a whaler to fill up with water.  I believe that the astronomers sent an expedition there a few years ago, to observe the transit of Venus:  but it was a failure because the weather was so misty—­it is nearly always misty there.  Well, I must be off, Miss Smithers.  Good night; or, rather, good morning.”

Before the words were well out of his mouth, there was a wild shout forward—­“ship ahead!” Then came an awful yell from a dozen voices—­“starboard!  Hard-a-starboard, for God’s sake.”

With a wild leap, like the leap of a man suddenly shot, the captain left her side and rushed on to the bridge.  At the same instant the engine-bell rang and the steering-chains began to rattle furiously on the rollers at her feet as the steam steering-gear did its work.  Then came another yell—­

“It’s a whaler!—­no lights!” and an answering shriek of terror from some big black object that loomed ahead.  Before the echoes had died away, before the great ship could even answer to her helm, there was a crash, such as Augusta had never heard, and a sickening shock, that threw her on her hands and knees on the deck, shaking the iron masts till they trembled as though they were willow wands, and making the huge sails flap and for an instant fly aback.  The great vessel, rushing along at her frightful speed of seventeen knots, had plunged into the ship ahead with such hideous energy that she cut her clean in two—­cut her in two and passed over her, as though she were a pleasure-boat!

Shriek upon shriek of despair came piercing the gloomy night, and then, as Augusta struggled to her feet, she felt a horrible succession of bumps, accompanied by a crushing, grinding noise.  It was the Kangaroo driving right over the remains of the whaler.

In a very few seconds it was done, and looking astern, Augusta could just make out something black that seemed to float for a second or two upon the water, and then disappear into its depths.  It was the shattered hull of the whaler.