He seemed to have departed for good, so the Princess followed his example—at least, so far as the eating was concerned; only, she washed the knives, forks, and plates before she used them.
‘I wonder if he’ll see any difference in the size of the joints?’ she thought to herself. ‘If he does, he won’t know how it is, so that’s all right.’
So she made a hearty meal, and then replaced the things just as he had put them.
The question now was—how to pass away the time?—and it was a very difficult one to answer. There were no books to read—at least, she was not able to find any on deck. So she tried playing cat’s-cradle by herself; but that was not a very great success, because there was no one to take it up. She next attempted going to sleep, but that was not a success either. Then she tried counting how many times the ship rolled in the course of an hour; but she always forgot how many hundreds she had counted. At last she went and sat on one of the bulwarks and watched the porpoises as they played about the ship’s bows. So the day passed away and evening came, and just as the sun set Wopole came on deck yawning and stretching himself.
He looked at the vane, which was blown out nearly straight in the evening wind.
‘A nice breeze,’ the Princess heard him say to himself. ‘If the wind holds good like this it won’t take more than a fortnight.’
‘Thank goodness,’ the Princess said to herself; for she was beginning already to grow rather tired of the adventure. ‘I think I’ll go down and see what the vessel is like below-stairs.’
So she descended the dark hatchway as well as she could, though it was no easy matter, for the boat was beginning to roll in a most unpleasant manner; for, you see, the wind was freshening a good deal, and Wopole had not yet hoisted the sails. However, she managed to get to the bottom without tumbling down more than four steps at a time.
It was not quite dark in the cabin below, for an open port-hole let in the last rays of daylight.