"You will," I said calmly. "You could not help it."
"Heaven knows!" he ejaculated. "The glass is falling again, fast."
"Never mind the glass. It is always falling."
"I wouldn't, if I had any sort of proper ship under me. But this——she isn't fit for women to sail in."
"If she is good enough for you," I remarked cheerfully, "she is good enough for me."
"But she isn't. I don't ask for much—at my age—but I do want a ship of some sort, not a sieve. Oh, dear! oh, dear!"—looking round him with a restless sigh—"we shall be months getting to Melbourne at this rate."
"I don't care," I said, "if we are years."
He made no comment on this statement, which I blushed to perceive was a mistake; and I hastened to remind him that Edward's illness must have been over long ago. Then he began, in an abrupt manner, to ask me how I thought the passengers were bearing the trial of short rations which he had been compelled to lay upon them.
One day we were at great peace, because the weather was beautiful and the water in the well diminished. A hammock of sailcloth had been made for me, and slung in a nice place, and I lay there almost the whole day through, swinging softly with the ship as she soared and dived over mile-long billows or swayed in the deep beam swells with the airy motion of a bird upon the wing. The Racer could feel like that at times, even yet; and I was too happy for speech or thought—that is, in a sad and pensive fashion. So, I know, was Tom, although he too had no words and hardly a look for me as he paced to and fro. It was just the consciousness that I was there—that he was there—permitted to rest together for an interval from our battle with fate. Even the sight of his substantial figure, never out of my mind's eye, while my other eyes saw only the lifting and sinking of the gunwale against the gleaming, silky sea—even the roar of his strong voice, occasionally using "language" in a professional way—could not take away the sense as of an enchanted world enveloping us, as if we were disembodied spirits in some heavenly sphere. But I can't describe it. Perhaps the reader understands.
The night was lovelier than the day—there was a moon shining—and one literally ached with the sweetness of it. Each of us was on the way to bed, and somehow we could not resist the temptation to linger by the rail a little. The ship was under command of the chief officer, and all was well for the time. We were alone where we stood.