‘Well, well!’ he cried, ‘to think that if I’d been content to merely sing out to know whether anyone was aboard, I should have overlooked you!’
‘Regular French job it seems, to leave a poor lady locked up alone down here arter this fashion,’ exclaimed one of the sailors in a deep growling voice. ‘Couldn’t they have found time to have shoved that there cask out of the road of the door?’
The excitement of desperate emotions that had rendered my voice shrill beyond recognition of my own hearing had passed. The strange tranquillity which had visited my spirits during the night and possessed them throughout the awful hours had returned to me. Without agitation I extended my hand to the young officer, as I took him to be, and said to him in a quiet voice:
‘Take me away. I have been locked up here all night.’
He took my hand and brought me into the living-room of the little brig.
‘There is no hurry,’ said he; ‘this craft is going to make a good staunch derelict. I am here to find out if there is life to be saved. One of you men open the door of that berth there and overhaul it.’
My knees trembled and I sat down. The young mate ran his eye over the cabin, and, as though directed by peculiar oceanic instinct, walked to the locker in which Captain Regnier had been wont to keep a little stock of spirits and wine for present use, lifted the lid of the locker, and took out a bottle which he uncorked and applied to his nose.
‘This will do,’ said he. ‘Simmonds, I noticed the scuttle-butt abreast of the main hatchway. Bring the dipper full of water here.’
This was done. The young officer mixed a glass of white spirits—gin or Hollands—and I drank. Then searching the locker afresh he found a biscuit which he handed to me. ‘This will serve you,’ he exclaimed, ‘until we get you aboard, and then we will give you something warm and nourishing.’ I ate a little of the biscuit, but it was dry as saw-dust and I swallowed with difficulty.