Mrs. Somerville came, but she, too, was repulsed. Elsie spoke no word.
She hardly moved. She clung to the rail, and gazed at the deepening
shadows with the frozen stare of abiding horror. All things around her
were unreal, fantastic; she dwelt in a world peopled by her own
terrible imaginings. The smiling landscape was alive with writhing
shapes. She fancied it a monstrous jungle full of serpents and
grotesquely human beasts. The inert mass of the _Kansas_, so modern,
so perfectly appointed in its contours and appurtenances, crushed her
by its immense helplessness. The dominant idea in her mind was one of
voiceless rage against the ship and its occupants. Why should her
lover, who had saved their lives--who had plucked the eight thousand
tons of steel fabric from the sharp-toothed rocks time and again--why
should he be lying dead, disfigured by savage spite, while those to
whom he had rendered such devoted service were coolly discussing his
fate and speculating on their own good fortune? That thought maddened
her. Her very brain seemed to burn with the unfairness of it all.
When Christobal made a serious effort to lead her away, she threatened
him with the fierceness of a mother defending her child from evil.
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