As I stood at the wheel I considered how I should act when the storm had passed. And I was justified in so speculating, because now the sky was clear right away round, and the stars large and bright, though a strong gale was still blowing and keeping the sea very heavy.

Indeed, the clearness of the sky made me think that the wind would go to the eastward, but as yet there was no sign of it veering from the old quarter.

We had been heading west ever since we hove to, and travelling broadside on dead south south-east. Now, if wind and sea dropped, our business would be to make sail if possible, and, with the wind holding north north-west, make an eight hours' board north-easterly, and then round and stand for Bermuda.

This, of course, would depend upon the weather.

It was, however, more than possible that we should be picked up very soon by some passing ship. It was not as though we were down away in the South Pacific, or knocking about in the poisonous Gulf of Guinea, or up in the North Atlantic at 60°. We were on a great ocean highway, crossed and re-crossed by English, American, Dutch, and French ships, to and from all parts of the world; and bad indeed would our fortune be, and baleful the star under which we sailed, if we were not overhauled in a short time and assistance rendered us.

A great though unexpressed ambition of mine was to save the ship and navigate her myself, not necessarily to England, but to some port whence I could communicate with her owners and ask for instructions.

As I have elsewhere admitted, I was entirely dependent on my profession, my father having been a retired army surgeon, who had died extremely poor, leaving me at the age of twelve an orphan, with no other friend in the world than the vicar of the parish we dwelt in, who generously sent me to school for two years at his own expense, and then, after sounding my inclinations, apprenticed me to the sea.

Under such circumstances, therefore, it would be highly advantageous to my interests to save the ship, since my doing so would prefer some definite claims upon the attention of the owners, or perhaps excite the notice of another firm more generous in their dealings with their servants, and of a higher commercial standing. Whilst I stood dreaming in this manner at the wheel, allowing my thoughts to run on until I pictured myself the commander of a fine ship, and ending in allowing my mind to become engrossed with thoughts of Mary Robertson, whom I believed I should never see again after we had bidden each other farewell on shore, and who would soon forget the young second mate, whom destiny had thrown her with for a little time of trouble and suffering and death, I beheld a figure advance along the poop, and on its approach I perceived the boatswain.

"I've been sounding the well, Mr. Royle," said he. "I roused up on a sudden and went and did it, as I woke up anxious; and there's bad news, sir, twelve inches o' water."

"Twelve inches!" I cried.

"It's true enough. I found the bull's-eye on the cuddy table, and the rod don't tell no lies when it's properly used."

"The pumps suck at four inches, don't they?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then that's a rise of eight inches since half-past nine o'clock. What time is it now?"

"Twenty minutes arter ten."

"We must man the pumps at once. Call Cornish. You'll find the steward on a mattress against the companion ladder."

He paused a moment to look round him at the weather, and then went away.

I could not doubt now that the ship was leaky, and after what we had endured, and my fond expectation of saving the vessel—and the miserable death, after all our hopes, that might be in store for us—I felt that it was very very hard on us, and I yielded to a fit of despair. What struck most home to me was that my passionate dream to save Mary Robertson might be defeated. The miseries which had been accumulated on her wrung my heart to think of. First her shipwreck, and then the peril of the mutiny, and then the dreadful storm that had held us face to face with death throughout the fearful day, and then the death of her father, and now this new horror of the ship whereon we stood filling with water beneath our feet.

Yet hope—and God be praised for this mercy to all men—springs eternal, and after a few minutes my despair was mastered by reflection. If the ship made no more water than eight inches in three-quarters of an hour, it would be possible to keep her afloat for some days by regular spells at the pump, and there were four hands to work them if Miss Robertson steered whilst we pumped. In that time it would be a thousand to one if our signal of distress was not seen and answered.

Presently I heard the men pumping on the main-deck, and the boatswain's voice singing to encourage the others. What courage that man had! I, who tell this story, am ashamed to think of the prominence I give to my own small actions when all the heroism belongs to him. I know not what great writer it was who, visiting the field of the battle of Waterloo, asked how it was that the officers who fell in that fight had graves and monuments erected to them, when the soldiers—the privates by whom all the hard work was done, who showed all the courage and won the battle—lay nameless in hidden pits? And so when we send ships to discover the North Pole we have little to say about poor Jack, who loses his life by scurvy, or his toes and nose by frost-bites, who labours manfully, and who makes all the success of the expedition so far as it goes. Our shouts are for Jack's officer; we title him, we lionize him—his was all the work, all the suffering, all the anxiety, we think. I, who have been to sea, say that Jack deserves as much praise as his skipper, and perhaps a little more; and if honour is to be bestowed, let Jack have his share; and if a monument is to be raised, let poor Jack's name be written on the stone as well as the other's; for be sure that Jack could have done without the other, but also be sure that the other couldn't have done without Jack.

Chained to my post, which I dared not vacate for a moment, for the ship pitched heavily, and required close watching as she came to and fell off upon the swinging seas, I grew miserably anxious to learn how the pumping progressed, and felt that, after the boatswain, my own hands would do four times the work of the other two.

It was our peculiar misfortune that of the four men on board the ship three only should be capable; and that as one of the three men was constantly required at the wheel, there were but two available men to do the work. Had the steward been a sailor our difficulties would have been considerably diminished, and I bitterly deplored my want of judgment in allowing Fish and the Dutchman to be destroyed; for though I would not have trusted Johnson and Stevens, yet the other two might have been brought over to work for us, and I had no doubt that the spectacle of the perishing wretches in the long-boat, as she was whirled past us, would have produced as salutary an effect upon them as it had upon Cornish; and with two extra hands of this kind we could not only have kept the pumps going, but have made shift to sail the ship at the same time.

The hollow thrashing sounds of the pump either found Miss Robertson awake or aroused her, for soon after the pumping had commenced she came on deck, swathed in the big warm overcoat and fur cap.

Such a costume for a girl must make you laugh in the description; and yet, believe me, she lost in nothing by it. The coat dwarfed her figure somewhat, but the fur cap looked luxurious against her fair hair, and nothing could detract from the exquisite femininity of her face, manner, and carriage. I speak of the impression she had made on me in the daytime; the starlight only revealed her white face now to me.

"Is the water still coming into the ship?" she asked.

"The bo'sun has reported to me that eight inches deep have come into her since half-past nine."

"Is that much?"

"More than we want."

"I don't like to trouble you with my questions, Mr. Royle; but I am very, very anxious."

"Of course you are; and do not suppose that you can trouble. Ask me what you will. I promise to tell you the truth."

"If you find that you cannot pump the water out as fast as it comes in, what will you do?"

"Leave the ship."

"How?" she exclaimed, looking around her.

"By that quarter-boat there."

"But it would fill with water and sink in such waves as these."

"These waves are not going to last, and it is quite likely that by this time to-morrow the sea will be calm."

"Will the ship keep afloat until to-morrow?"

"If the water does not come in more rapidly than it does at present, the ship will keep afloat so long as we can manage to pump her out every hour. And so," said I, laughing to encourage her, "we are not going to die all at once, you see."

She drew quite close to me and said—

"I shall never fear death while you remain on board, Mr. Royle. You have saved me from death once, and, though I may be wicked in daring to prophesy, yet I feel certain—certain," she repeated, with singular emphasis, "that you will save my life again."

"I shall try very hard, be sure of that," I answered.

"I believe—no, it is not so much a belief as a strong conviction, with which my mind seems to have nothing to do, that, whatever dangers may be before us, you and I will not perish."

She paused, and I saw that she was looking at me earnestly.

"You will not think me superstitious if I tell you that the reason of my conviction is a dream? My poor father came and stood beside me: he was so real! I stretched out my arms to him, and he took my hand and said, 'Darling, do not fear! He who has saved your life once will save it again. God will have mercy upon you and him for the prayers you offered to Him.' He stooped and kissed me and faded away, and I started up and heard the men pumping. I went to look at him, for I thought ... I thought he had really come to my side.... Oh, Mr. Royle, his spirit is with us!"

Though my mind was of too prosaic a turn to catch at any significance in a dream, yet there was a strange, deep, solemn tenderness in her voice and manner as she related this vision, that impressed me. It made my heart leap to hear her own sweet lips pronounce her faith in me, and my natural hopes and longings for life gathered a new light and enthusiasm from her own belief in our future salvation.

"Shipwrecked persons have been saved by a dream before now," I replied, gravely. "Many years ago a vessel called the Mary went ashore on some rocks to the southward of one of the Channel Islands. A few of the crew managed to gain the rocks, where they existed ten or twelve days without water or any kind of food save limpets, which only increased their thirst without relieving their hunger. A vessel bound out of Guernsey passed the rocks at a distance too far away to observe the signals of distress made by the perishing men. But the son of the captain had twice dreamed that there were persons dying on those rocks, and so importuned his father to stand close to them that the man with great reluctance consented. In this way, and by a dream, those sailors were saved. Though I do not, as a rule, believe in dreams, I believe this story to be true, and I believe in your dream."

She remained silent, but the ship presently giving a sudden lurch, she put her hand on my arm to steady herself, and kept it there. Had I dared I should have bent my head and kissed the little hand. She could not know how much she made me love her by such actions as this.

"The boatswain has told me," she said, after a short silence, "that you want to save the ship. I asked him why? Are you angry with me for being curious?" "Not in the least. What did he answer?"

"He said that you thought the owners would recompense you for your fidelity, and promote you in their service."

"Now how could he know this? I have never spoken such thoughts to him."

"It would not be difficult to guess such a wish."

"Well, I don't know that I have any right to expect promotion or recompense of any kind from owners who send their ship to sea so badly provisioned that the men mutiny."

"But if the water gains upon the ship you will not be able to save her?"

"No, she must sink."

"What will you do then?"

"Put you on shore or on board another ship," I replied, laughing at my own evasion, for I knew what she meant. "Oh, of course, if we do not reach the shore we shall none of us be able to do anything," she said, dropping her head, for she stood close enough to the binnacle light to enable me to see her movements and almost catch the expression on her face. "I mean what will you do when we get ashore?"

"I must try to get another ship."

"To command?"

"Oh dear no! as second mate, if they'll have me."

"If command of a ship were given you would you accept it?"

"If I could, but I can't."

She asked quickly, "Why not?"

"Because I have not passed an examination as master."

She was silent again, and I caught myself listening eagerly to the sound of the pumping going on on the main-deck and wondering at my own levity in the face of our danger. But I could not help forgetting a very great deal when she was at my side.

All at once it flashed upon me that her father owned several ships, and that her questions were preliminary to her offering me the command of one of them.

I give you my honour that all recollection of who and what she was, of her station on shore, of her wealth as the old man's heiress, had as absolutely gone out of my mind as if the knowledge had never been imparted. What she was to me—what love and the wonderful association of danger and death had endeared her to me as—was what she was as she stood by my side, a sweet and gentle woman whom my heart was drawing closer and closer to every hour, whose life I would have died to preserve, whose danger made my own life a larger necessity to me than I should have felt it. A momentary emotion of disappointment, a resentment whereof I knew not the meaning, through lacking the leisure or the skill to analyse it, made me turn and say—

"Would you like me to command one of your ships, Miss Robertson?"

"Yes," she answered, promptly.

"As a recompense for my humane efforts to preserve you from drowning?"

She withdrew her hand from my arm and inclined her head to look me full in the face.

"Mr. Royle, I never thought you would speak to me like that."

"I want no recompense for what I have done, Miss Robertson."

"I have not offered you any recompense."

"Let me feel," I said, "that you understand it is possible for an English sailor to do his duty without asking or expecting any manner of reward. The Humane Society's medals are not for him." "Why are you angry with me?" she exclaimed, sinking her head, and speaking with a little sob in her voice.

I was stirred to the heart by her broken tones, and answered—

"I am not angry. I could not be angry with you. I wish you to feel that what I have done, that whatever I may do is ... is...."

I faltered and stopped—an ignominious break down! though I think it concealed the true secret of my resentment.

I covered my confusion by taking her hand, and resting it on my arm again.

"Do you mean," she said, "that all you have done has been for my sake only—out of humanity—that you would do as much for anybody else?"

"No," said I, boldly.

Again she withdrew her hand and remained silent, and I made up my mind not to interrupt her thoughts. After a few moments she went to the ship's side, and stood there; sometimes looking at the stars, and sometimes at the water that stretched away into the gloom in heavy breaking seas.

The wind was singing shrilly up aloft, but the sounds of the pumping ceased on a sudden.

I awaited the approach of the boatswain with inexpressible anxiety. After an interval I saw his figure come up the poop ladder.

"Pumps suck!" he roared out.

"Hurrah!" I shouted. "Down with you for grog all round," for the other two were following the boatswain. But they all came aft first and stood near the wheel, blowing like whales, and Miss Robertson joined the group.

"If it's no worse than this, bo'sun," I exclaimed, "she'll do." "Aye, she'll do, sir; but it's hard work. My arms feel as though they wos tied up in knots."

"So do mine," said the steward.

"Shall I take the wheel?" asked Cornish.

"No; go and get some grog and turn in, all of you. I am as fresh as a lark, and will stay here till twelve o'clock," I replied.

The steward at once shuffled below.

"Boatswain, ask Mr. Royle to let me take the wheel," said Miss Robertson. "He has been talking to me for the last half-hour and sometimes held the wheel with one hand. I am sure I can hold it."

"As you won't go below, Miss Robertson, you shall steer; but I will stop by you," I said.

"That will be of no use!" she exclaimed.

Cornish smothered a laugh and walked away.

"Now, bo'sun, down with you," I cried. "I'll have you up again shortly to sound the well. But half an hour's sleep is something. If you get knocked up, I lose half the ship's company—two-thirds of it."

"All right, sir," he replied, with a prodigious yawn. "You an' the lady 'll know how to settle this here business of steering."

And off he went.

"You see how obedient these men are, Miss Robertson. Why will you not obey orders, and get some sleep?"

"I have offended you, Mr. Royle, and I am very, very sorry."

"Let us make peace then," I said, holding out my hand.

She took it; but when I had got her hand, I would not let it go for some moments.

She was leaving the deck in silence when she came back and said—

"If we should have to leave this ship suddenly, I should not like—it would make me unhappy for ever to think of poor papa left in her."

She spoke, poor girl, with a great effort.

I answered immediately—

"Any wish you may express shall be carried out."

"He would go down in this ship without a prayer said for him," she exclaimed, sobbing.

"Will you leave this with me? I promise you that no tenderness, no reverence, no sincere sorrow shall be wanting."

"Mr. Royle, you are a dear good friend to me. God knows how lonely I should have been without you—and yet—I made you angry."

"Do not say that. What I do I do for your safety—for your ultimate happiness—so that when we say farewell to each other on shore, I may feel that the trust which God gave me in you was honourably and faithfully discharged. I desire, if our lives are spared, that this memory may follow me when all this scene is changed, and we behold it again only in our dreams. I should have told you my meaning just now, but one cannot always express one's thoughts."

"You have told me your meaning, and I shall not forget it. God bless you!" she exclaimed, in her calm, earnest voice, and went slowly down into the cuddy.