All this she spoke softly. She then inquired of the mate how the weather was on deck.
'Why, not so fine as it is down here, mum,' he answered. 'There's a vast of stars, but 'tis black till the moon comes up.'
'Where are we now?'
'The Girdler ain't far off,' he answered, masticating slowly.
'Is the tug still towing us?'
'Oh, certainly yes, mum!'
He did not seem disposed to talk, and answered with grimaces and the awkward air of a man ill at ease.
I was looking at his square sturdy figure, with his weather-ploughed face and the muscles all about it working like vigorous pulses to the movement of his jaws, when I felt a slight motion of the ship, a gentle, cradling heave of the deck: the lamp and all things pendulous swayed; creaking noises arose from all parts; a sudden giddiness took me. The movement was repeated with the regularity of a clock's tick.
'Isn't the sea getting up?' exclaimed Mrs. Burke, staring at the gleaming ebony of the skylight windows and then around her.