Near the girl were a young man and a woman locked in each other’s arms.  Jan judged them to be a bridal couple.  They were saying nothing—­just holding each other and waiting.  He hesitated an instant and then he saw a woman with a baby.  She was leaning heavily against a stanchion crooning to the baby.  He now saw that she was almost a middle-aged woman, a poorly dressed and toil-worn woman—­a Finnish woman probably.  Jan’s doubt was gone.  He jumped to her side.  “Want to save your baby?” The woman looked up at him and down at the baby.  “Baby!” she said, and held it toward Jan.  “Yes, save baby,” she said.  “Come!” said Jan, and grasped her hand.  Then the lights went out.

Jan had marked the ladder in his mind, and in the dark he made his way toward it; but before he could get to it there were many adventures.  He went floundering this way and that, but holding the baby in one arm and dragging the mother with the other, he held on until he bumped into a stanchion in the dark.  “It’s near here,” he thought; and, reaching out with his feet, he found the bottom step of the ladder.

He had two decks to surmount.  On the boat-deck, as he passed up, he could hear the ship’s men shouting wildly and foolishly to each other.  On the top deck he found the three just as he had left them.  He gave the woman and baby into the care of the bartender and felt about until he found a coil of rope.  He cut it loose and, carrying it back to the raft, lashed Mrs. Goles to a ring.  Then, taking off his ulster, he wrapped it round the mother and baby, and lashed her.  Then he lashed the bartender and Goles, and took a loose turn about a ring for himself.  Then he waited.

It came soon enough.  A large section of the top deck floated clear of the upper works.  Jan stayed by the floating deck until he felt that the steamer was surely sunk beneath them.  Then he cut the raft clear of everything and let her drift.

The raft was swirled from wave to wave.  The spray broke over them.  “We’ll get wet,” said Jan; “but one thing—­she won’t capsize!”

The seas curled and boomed about them; but no solid seas rolled over them.  The raft mounted every roaring white crest as if it were swinging from an aeroplane.  The spray never failed to drench them and with every heaving sea came bits of wreckage that threatened them; but at least they were living, and not a living soul besides themselves had come away.

THE RAFT

The clouds raced low above them; but by and by the clouds passed away and clear and cold shone a moon on a terrifying sea.  And so for hours—­until the moon had gone and the struggling daylight revealed a surf breaking high on a sandy shore.  They could not land there; so Jan took the long oar and wielded it over one end of the raft and held her parallel to the beach until he descried a point reaching out into the bay.  On the other side of that point would be a lee and safety; but he said nothing of that to his companions yet.