Sailors came hurrying down the deck to fulfil his orders. Nina heard, but did not see them, for her tortured eyes were fixed on the jet-black spot growing fainter and fainter in the distance. Something that was not fear, that was rather exultant pride and agitation, swelled her heart almost to bursting. The tears streaming down her cheeks, she fell on her knees and sent to heaven a frantic, earnest prayer that the strength of his arm might not fail, that his heart might be strong.
But what was this? In one instant, as effectually as if giant hands from the sky had lowered and folded around them a heavy blanket, everything beyond the bulwarks of their ship was cut off from their vision, swallowed up in the fog.
“O God,” she muttered, “why must this one day be darkened?”
Then she rose from her knees, hard and unbelieving, now that her petition was about to be denied her. There was no hope now, and what would her life be? Through the sullen folds of the fog she saw stretching out before her a long, black, solitary road leading to an open grave. And she must walk that road alone.
She groped her way across the deck and struggled into her room. Broken-hearted and despairing, her whole soul rebelling with a dull, human protest against the fate that follows us, overshadows and dogs us to the tomb, she stood motionless till out of the terrible hush outside rose a shriek like that of a lost soul.
It was only the fog-horn; but it put into her head a new and ghastly thought. The other was terrible enough,—a vision of feeble, weakening hands, beating helplessly against the waves; but this,—the sickening thought drove her mad. That dear head in the maw of a monster of the deep,—a blessed oblivion came over her.
One quarter of an hour went by, then another, and at the end of the second Nina turned feebly and murmured, “What is it, Merdyce?”
Ever since the day that he repulsed her in her quest for her husband, the boy had been her faithful, devoted attendant, ready in every case to fulfil her wishes, sometimes even to anticipate them. He was gently shaking her arm now. Never on the face of the great deep would there be a more delighted face rising above a black jacket and brass buttons.
“Have I been asleep?” she whispered. “Why, the sun is shining; it must be morning. And have I been all night on the floor?”
Bit by bit the day came back to her, as he spluttered and gurgled confused sentences.