"What I say," replied the stewardess. "We are like as not to see Davy Jones to-night."
"Whoever is Davy Jones?" asked Tilly.
"He's the king of the bottom of the sea. They who sup with him, sup once and never again. Now don't keep me, little gurrl, see there's a poor lady like to faint in the far saloon from here. You are a bit of a coward, I take it, and I can't stay comforting cowards when there's real illness and real danger."
Then Matilda, somehow or other, forgot her deadly seasickness and her hatred of the Desmonds and shook and trembled in her narrow berth. The wind was blowing great guns and the sailors were rushing here, there, and everywhere. The captain's voice giving directions sounded to Tilly like great claps of thunder. She forgot about the pins and her fall from the horse.
Gradually, as the sea grew rougher and the danger greater, she found herself looking in imagination at one sweet, dark, sad and yet smiling face. It was the face of the little shopkeeper, whom she had tried, yes, her very best, to injure, perhaps to kill. Now she herself was face to face with death. It would be awful to go down into the depths of those wild and terrible waves. Everyone on board seemed uneasy.
The little steamer swayed from side to side and rocked and shook itself as though it knew that it was small and angry and powerless. Thrills of terror ran through Tilly's frame. The captain's voice was heard to say,
"The dangerous time is when——"
She could not catch the rest of the words. The stewardess did not come near her. Women laughed and cried and screamed. Tilly was all alone in her little cabin. She wondered how long she would take drowning. She could think of nothing but the horrors of death. Then all of a sudden she made up her mind not to die in a hole. She would creep upstairs and be on deck. She had read stories of shipwrecks and when the worst came boats were put out. The stewardess was a horrid woman and would not think of her. Well, she would think of herself. She would be one of the very first to leave the boat when the appalling hour of danger came, when they got to the—that unpronounceable name which she could not catch.
But it was all very well for Tilly to try to get out of her berth, she found she could not. The sea took her and threw her back again into it. The sea tossed her against the side of her narrow berth, and she had to cling on with one hand to an extremely narrow rail and with the other to the top of the berth. The sea roared, the winds roared. Showers of foam flung themselves against the port-hole. The combined sounds spoke of nothing but death, death, death!
Never in all her life had she been so miserable before. Even The Desmond and Malachi were nothing to this anguish. She would sink to the bottom of the deep, deep sea and no one would be very, very sorry. Why should they? Had she ever made anyone love her? Her father—had he not punished her and been cross to her all her days! Her stepmother—had she not been sly and told false things about Tilly? Well, they would not have any more trouble with her again; she would eat her last supper with Davy Jones.