When they awoke, next morning, the engines were at work again, and their heavy thud, thud, was mingled with the swash of water, as the Bengali boys washed down decks, while a rattling of spars and creaking of cordage showed that sails were being set, or lowered.
Hope, always wide awake at once, sprang from her little white couch to find that it was difficult to keep her footing on the sliding plane of her stateroom floor, but slipping into gown and ulster as quickly as possible, and bracing herself with extended hands through the narrow passageway to the deck, she was soon outside, gasping a little in the fresh wind that met her full in the face and caught her breath away. For the ship was now headed for the Straits, and steaming almost in the teeth of the brisk northeaster.
There was not a hint of land, as far as the eye could see, and the waters, of a deep, cold blue, were white-capped to the horizon's edge. She felt dizzy, and most uncertain on her feet, but not six feet distant was a heap of low camp-chairs, huddled together out of the way of the still dripping deck planks. If she could reach one and get to leeward of that capstan—but what should she hold on to meanwhile?
And, even as she asked herself the question, the goodly steamer, happening to dip her lowest courtesy to a rude in-coming wave of giant proportions, shipped its combing crest, that poured through the latticed guard-rail and swirled across the deck, with a force, that sent poor Hope a drenched, doubled-up little heap of helplessness, pounding right into the midst of the chair-stack.
Before she had time to cry out, however, she was caught up, and her father's voice, hoarse and frightened, asked quickly,
"Are you hurt, love?—Are you hurt?"
As she looked up into his anxious face, pale beneath the sun-bronze, Hope fully realized how deeply her father loved her, and answered in a much subdued voice,
"No, papa—not much. I think I've barked my knees and bumped my head, but I guess that's all—except the wetting!" shivering a little.
"Yes, you mustn't take cold. I'll help you right back, and send Martha to you. You'd better crawl into your little nest again as soon as you're thoroughly dry, and don't venture outside again until I come and get you, my storm-bird."
"Father," she said, as he was about leaving her at the cabin door, "do you never sleep? I left you up at midnight, and I find you up at dawn."