"I would like to get up and go on deck when I've had breakfast. Surely the ship is not so tilted as it was."
"Not quite so bad, but I'm afraid it will never come quite right side up again. It's hard and fast on the shore at present. I could wade across."
"I must see it. I will get up as soon as I have had my breakfast."
"Can you manage?" he asked doubtfully. "You must keep that arm quiet, you know."
"I'll try anyway. If I get stuck I will call," and in due course she called, and he found that she had managed to get her blankets round her, and that as gracefully as ever in some marvellous fashion, but she had doubted her power of getting out of the bunk in its lopsided state without his help.
He stepped up on to the lower bunk, and worked his arms under her.
"Now, if you wouldn't mind steadying yourself with your usable hand on my shoulder—so! There you are!" and he lifted her gently to her feet on the floor. "Now, hang on to my arm.... But your shoes?—you had better have them on. In your own room of course. Wait and I'll get them," and he climbed up and got them, and put them on and tied them for her. "I've pegged some slats across the slope for better foot-hold. You can't slip," and he got her safely out on to the deck.
"It is delightful to be in fresh air again," she said, as she drank it in. "I wish the good weather would last for ever."
"We'll hope for a good long spell anyhow. Doesn't it feel odd to be so close to the shore? We'll have rabbit for dinner. You must almost have forgotten what it tastes like."
"I can still just remember," she laughed.