Around-the-world luxury liner is wrecked. Out of the panic of passengers and the frantic energy of officers and men, Author Herm draws a subtle analysis of the emotion of fear.

As a convincing portrayal of the gripping suspense which holds all the souls on the disabled liner, stranded out in the lonely South Pacific Ocean while her hold slowly fills with water during several long days, the book is a very good job. There is the usual assortment of widely unlike characters common to these one-scene stories: A German professor of sociology, a rich and impressionable American lady, an interesting captain, a ship's officer of the nature's nobleman variety, and others.

When the story opens the professor has just succeeded in seducing (by a lecture!) the American lady, which richly compensates him for the inferiority he feels because of a crippled arm. As the book closes, the professor is fervently praising God for his escape from the sea.

The author has in mind the power of human faith in the providence of God, and by exemplifying its force in the proper characters, throws into puny relief the petty human science of the learned professor. The novel is therefore of considerable interest as an example of the neo-religious tendency in certain modern French and German writers, affording certain relief from the monotony of the steady paganism of the contemporary novel. It is, at the same time, intrinsically fine. The author squeezes quite respectable and unhackneyed drama from the rather obvious situation in which he lays his story.

There are occasional evidences of unconsidered translation, where the translator has reached for the easiest word. But the over-all result is quite satisfactory.