"Elizabeth," he whispered, softly, as if he was afraid of waking her.
"Is that you, Salvé?" was the reply, in a perfectly calm voice.
"I thought you would be sitting up with the boy in this gale. She rolls so; and I—I haven't been down to see you," he said.
"I knew I had you on deck, Salvé," she replied. "The rest we must only leave to God. You have not had time to come down, poor fellow," she added, "you have been so busy."
"Elizabeth!" he exclaimed, with a sudden pang of passionate remorse, and reached over impetuously into the berth to embrace her with his wet clothes.
At that moment a crash was heard, accompanied by a violent trembling of the ship, and loud cries on deck. Something had evidently given way.
With the same movement with which he had intended to embrace her, he lifted her quickly out of the berth, and told her to dress herself and the child, and come up to the top of the cabin stairs. The words were hardly out of his mouth when the vessel heeled over, and didn't right herself again.
"Fore-topmast gone, captain; rigging hanging!" bawled Nils Buvaagen down the stair.
Salvé turned to her for a moment with a face full of mute, crushing self-reproach, and sprang up on deck.
"Keep her away, if she'll answer her helm!" he shouted to the man at the wheel. "To the axes, men!"