"This is a woman's, too," he said in the same breath with her.
"A woman? A woman?" he repeated, and he wondered if here was the key of the mystery of the Daphne.
CHAPTER XXIII
Together the castaways went forward to the galley, passing out of the cabin through the starboard alleyway so that Emily might not see again what was in the mate's room. As Paul stepped out on deck he mentally marked the time by the sun's ascension. It was not later than 8:30 o'clock.
Signs of hurried departure met the eye on every hand in the galley. Chief among them was a batch of bread which had been put to rising beside the range. But Paul did not pause to make any examination until he had rattled up a fire. He had picked up a box of matches in McGavock's room. There was a bin of kindling and plenty of coal in the scuttles, and it took only a few minutes to get a meal together. It was the warmest and best breakfast they had enjoyed since they had been cast away, albeit the mainstay was a porridge of canned corn which Paul had hit upon as the most promising thing in a quick search of the stores aft. For the rest there was hard tack and marmalade and coffee. This coffee, a strong brew, was really the crown of the breakfast. Its very odor was life-giving; strength-restoring.
Over the breakfast Paul related with all the gentleness at his command the facts which had been revealed by his search through the cabins. There was little to add to what Emily had seen herself.
"We are alone, Emily," he said, "except for those who will never wake again."
Fearful that similar heart-harrowing sights might be held by the forward part of the vessel as those which the sore-beset girl had discovered aft he induced her to remain in the warmth of the galley while he pressed his search in the forecastle.
"Don't—please don't stay long," she pleaded. "I feel—that—that I will never be able to bear it—to have you go out of my sight again." A shudder shook her. "When I saw you—a little while ago——Oh, the ship fell on you! The bows came down and—buried you in the water——"