The passage was full of people who had rushed out from their staterooms to hurry on deck.  Here it was not difficult to pass; but in the companionway there was a terrible crush.  She saw people pushing and crowding, with no thought of any one but themselves, as more than a hundred persons, all at one time, tried to rush up.  The young American woman stood holding her two children by the hand.  She looked longingly up the stairway, wondering how she could manage to press through the throng with her little ones.  The people fought and struggled, thinking only of themselves.  No one even noticed her.

Mrs. Gordon glanced anxiously about in the hope of finding some one who would take one of the boys and carry him to the deck, while she herself took the other.  But she saw no one she dared approach.  The men came dashing past, dressed every which way.  Some were wrapped in blankets, others had on ulsters over their nightshirts, and many of them carried canes.  When she saw the desperate look in the eyes of these men, she felt that it would not be safe to speak to them.

Of the women, on the other hand, she had no fear; but there was not one, even among them, to whom she would dare entrust her child.  They were all out of their senses, and could not have comprehended what she wanted of them.  She stood regarding them, wondering whether there might not be one, perhaps, who had a bit of reason left.  But seeing them rush wildly past—­some hugging the flowers they had received on their departure from New York, others shrieking and wringing their hands—­she knew it was useless to appeal to such frenzied people.  Finally, she attempted to stop a young man who had been her neighbour at table, and had shown her marked attention.

“Oh, Mr. Martens—­”

The man glowered at her with the same fixed savage stare that she had seen in the eyes of the other men.  He raised his cane threateningly, and had she tried to detain him, he would have struck her.

The next moment she heard a howl, which was hardly a howl, but rather an angry murmur, as when a strong and sweeping wind becomes bottled up in a narrow passage.  It came from the people on the companionway, whose progress had been suddenly impeded.

A cripple had been borne part way up the stairs—­a man who was so entirely helpless that he had to be carried to and from the table.  He was a large, heavy man, and his valet had with the greatest difficulty managed to bear him on his back halfway up the stairs, where he had paused to take breath.  In the meantime, the pressure from behind had become so tremendous that it had forced him to his knees; and he and his master were taking up the whole width of the stairway, thus creating an impassable obstruction.

Presently Mrs. Gordon saw a big, rough-looking man bend down, lift up the cripple, and throw him over the banister.  She also marked that, horrible as was this spectacle, no one seemed to be either shocked or moved by it.  For nobody thought of anything save to rush ahead.  It was as if a stone lying in the road had been picked up and tossed into the ditch—­nothing more.