"Open the hatch..." he shouted a string of foul language.
Nan Ellis started up, and turned with horror to face the incredible apparition.
"Lash him down," ordered the second officer, calmly.
It was a horrible performance. The girl hid her eyes till Grant had put her in his own place, but facing the other way, while he helped the engineer, the cabin-boy, and Newcomb to overpower the man. The girl sat crouched at Greta's side, each looking a different way. In an interval in his grim business Newcomb watched for the moment of recognition between the two, a moment strangely long delayed. Presently it dawned upon him that each was intimately aware of the other's presence and that neither meant to make a sign.
In the little breeze that at last was springing up the second officer, with help of Gillow and the cabin-boy, was getting up the sail. For the space of a good hour the boat sped over the water. At dusk the wind freshened, the sail was reefed down for the night under a sky all nimbus near the horizon, the zenith full of drab-colored cumulus moving sullenly northeast.
"It's below freezing all right," some one said.
Another spoke of the effect of icebergs drifting down.
"It's the time of year that happens."
"I wish it would freeze the stoker's tongue," said the cabin-boy.
An hour went by, longer than the longest day. Newcomb was dropping into a painful doze when something brought him back to a yet more painful consciousness. What was it? He was too much reduced to take the smallest initiative in finding out. He sat huddled, staring at the moon risen well above the nimbus and for the moment riding clear even of the scattered cumulus. Engineer Gillow had the watch. The second officer sat in the bow, with rigid back and open eyes. The stoker moaned. Every one else slept or seemed to sleep. No, not the two women sitting together with eyes averted.