- One still night, Jim is on watch aboard the Patna, his mind wandering as usual, when the ship's fat German captain waddles up on deck and chats with the second engineer, who is drunk.
- The two start to argue. Shmoop smells trouble.
- Sure enough, while the captain is busy yelling the ship hits something and shudders.
- Everyone is confused, since no one recalled ordering up anything ominous with a side of doom:
- "They could not understand; and suddenly the calm sea, the sky without a cloud, appeared formidably insecure in their immobility, as if poised on the brow of destruction." (3.13)
- This is totally Titanic in the tropics.