"You look alarmed, Harold!" cried Sir George. "Ammunition all right?"
"Yes, sir," he stammered, "but I am looking for my wife. She went on deck at nine bells, and I've not seen her since."
"Oh, she's safe somewhere," was the reassuring answer. "You could not lose a woman on the North King."
"You might lose one off, though, in a storm like this," said the captain, chaffing the young benedict. "I've known more than one woman to drop overboard—and men by the dozen."
"Stuff!" exclaimed Sir George, who saw that Harold was taking it seriously.
"Fact," returned the officer. "We just lighted ship after each battle was over." He laughed merrily, but Harold was off toward the soldier's quarters. A new idea had seized him; perhaps she had gone to visit the other women. Only the evening before, she had remarked that they had not been on deck since the storm began. And he knew that some of them were ill.
"Is Mrs. Manning here?" he asked of a seaman, as he rushed down the stairway to their cabin.
"Yes, sir; Ahh think so," was the answer. "Corporal Jenkins' wife is pretty low, and one of the wimmin fetched her. Theer she is at end o' t' cabin under t' fo'castle."
Harold hurried on. Owing to the storm the hatchways had been fastened down for days. The portholes were closed and the air of the densely peopled compartment was impure. Still a couple of men at the far end were again singing:
'Eave-oh-haw, 'eave-oh-hoh, 'eave-oh-haw, yo-hee! Sally come out to the wishing gate, To the wishing gate with me.