To many on board, the idle passage was a winter holiday;
but to Weldon and Carew and a dozen more stalwart fellows, those
quiet days were the hush before the breaking of the storm. Home,
school, the university were behind them; before them lay the crash
of war. And afterwards? Glory, or death. Their healthy, boyish
optimism could see no third alternative.
For ten long days, Miss Ophelia Arthur lay prone in her berth. Her
hymnal and her Imitation lay beside her; but she read less than she
pondered, and she invariably pondered with her eyes closed and her
mouth ajar. On the eleventh day, however, she gathered herself
together and went on deck. With anxious care Weldon tucked the rugs
about her elderly frame. Then he exchanged a glance with Ethel and
together they sought the shelter of the ventilating shaft.
Nothing shows the temperature more surely than the tint of the gray
sea. It was a warm gray, that morning, and the bowl-like sky above
was gray from the horizon far towards the blue zenith. From the
other end of the ship, they could hear the plaudits that accompanied
an impromptu athletic tournament; but the inhabitants of the nearest
chairs were reading or dozing, and the deck about them was very
still.
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