The little cabin boy stood on the deck barelegged, his shirt fluttering in the wind, and beckoned to the unhappy men on the sailing vessel to come over to the steamer and save themselves. At first no one seemed to take any notice of him, but presently a big man with a red beard began motioning to him.
"Come over here, boy!" the man shouted, running to the side of the vessel. "The steamer is sinking!"
The little boy had not the faintest notion of going over to the sailing vessel. He shouted as loud as he could that the people on the doomed boat should come over to L'Univers, and save their lives.
While the other men on the three-master were working with poles and boat hooks to free their vessel from the steamer, the man with the red beard could think of nothing but the little cabin boy, for whom he had evidently conceived an extraordinary pity. He put his hands to his mouth, trumpet-like, and called: "Come over here, come over here!"
The little lad looked forlorn and cold, standing on the deck in his thin shirt. He stamped his foot and shook his fist at the men on the other boat, because they would not mind him and board the steamer. A huge greyhound like L'Univers, with six hundred passengers and a crew of two hundred men, couldn't possibly go down, he reasoned. And, of course, he could see that both the captain and the sailors were just as calm as he was.
Of a sudden the man with the red beard seized a boat hook, thrust it out toward the boy, got him by the shirt, and tried to pull him on to the other ship. The boy was dragged as far as the ship's railing, but there he managed to free himself of the hook. He was not going to let himself be dragged over to a strange vessel that was doomed.
Immediately afterward another crash was heard. The bowsprit of the three-master had snapped, and the two ships were now clear of each other. As the liner steamed ahead, the boy saw the big broken bowsprit dangling in the bow of the other vessel, and he also saw great clouds of sails drop down upon the crew.
The liner proceeded on her course at full speed, and the sailing vessel was soon lost to sight in the fog. The last thing the boy saw was the men trying to get out from under the mass of sails. Thereupon the vessel disappeared as completely as if it had slipped in behind a great wall. "It has already gone down," thought the lad. And now he stood listening for distress calls.
Then a rough and powerful voice was heard to shout across to the steamer: "Save your passengers! Put out your boats!"
Again there was silence, and again the boy listened for distress calls. Then the voice was heard as if from far away: "Pray to God, for you are lost!"