“Carl,” I said to myself, “you are undoubtedly somewhat alarmed, but you are not in such an absolutely azure funk as that old chap.  Pull yourself together.”

Of what followed immediately I have no recollection.  I knew vaguely that the ship rolled and had a serious list to starboard, that orders were being hoarsely shouted from the bridge, that the moon was shining fitfully, that the sea was black and choppy; I also seemed to catch the singing of a hymn somewhere on the forward deck.  I suppose I knew that I existed.  But that was all.  I had no exact knowledge of what I myself was doing.  There was a hiatus in my consciousness of myself.

The proof of this is that, after a lapse of time, I suddenly discovered that I had smoked half-way through a cigarette, and that I was at the bows of the steamer.  For a million sovereigns I could not explain under what circumstances I had moved from one end of the ship to the other, nor how I had come to light that cigarette.  Such is the curious effect of perturbation.

But the perturbation had now passed from me, just as mysteriously as it had overtaken me.  I was cool and calm.  I felt inquisitive, and I asked several people what had happened.  But none seemed to know.  In fact, they scarcely heard me, and answered wildly, as if in delirium.  It seemed strange that anything could have occurred on so small a vessel without the precise details being common property.  Yet so it was, and those who have been in an accident at sea will support me when I say that the ignorance on the part of the passengers of the events actually in progress is not the least astounding nor the least disconcerting item in such an affair.  It was the psychology of the railway accident repeated.

I began to observe.  The weather was a little murky, but beyond doubt still improving.  The lights of the French coast could clearly be seen.  The ship rolled in a short sea; her engines had stopped; she still had the formidable list to starboard; the captain was on the bridge, leaning over, and with his hands round his mouth was giving orders to an officer below.  The sailors were still struggling to lower the boat from the davits.  The passengers stood about, aimless, perhaps terror-struck, but now for the most part quiet and self-contained.  Some of them had life-belts.  That was the sum of my observations.

A rocket streamed upwards into the sky, and another and another, then one caught the rigging, and, deflected, whizzed down again within a few feet of my head, and dropped on deck, spluttering in a silly, futile way.  I threw the end of my cigarette at it to see whether that might help it along.

“So this is a shipwreck,” I ejaculated.  “And I’m in it.  I’ve got myself safely off the railway only to fall into the sea.  What a d——­d shame!”

Queerly enough, I had ceased to puzzle myself with trying to discover how the disaster had been brought about.  I honestly made up my mind that we were sinking, and that was sufficient.