A period of ten hours in the crowded narrowness of the boat, drifting at random in the hope of aid, had not broken down their energy.
The women showed greater desperation.

Ferragut saw in the center of a group of ladies a young English girl, blond, slender, elegant, who was sobbing and stammering explanations.

She had found herself in a launch, separated from her parents, without knowing how.

Perhaps they were dead by this time.

Her slight hope was that they might have sought refuge in some other boat and been picked up by any one of the steamers that had happened to see them.
A desperate grief, noisy, meridional, silenced with its meanings the noise of conversation.