The daylight was small, but the snow along the decks made a whiteness in the air, so that perhaps even in the darkest hour you would be able to detect anything in motion betwixt the rails. Here and there about the leaden rolling ocean broke sudden glares of froth. The shadow had blended the sea-circle with sky, and nothing was visible save a smoky thickness of vapour breaking up to windward where it soared, and ashy in places with rain or snow. I stood in the hatch and looked along the deck and saw nobody. This so frightened me that I shrieked out Mrs. Burke's name. Nothing answered. I trembled with dread and the bitter cold of the wind, and crossing the deck that I might have something to hold by, went forward, occasionally screaming out the name of Mrs. Burke, but never getting an answer.
The galley door was open: nobody was in it. I was half fainting with terror; I could not imagine what had become of my companions. Was I alone in the ship? Oh, never could I make you understand what my feelings were whilst I stood running my eyes first forward and then aft, straining along the ghostly slanting glimmer of the decks for a sight of one or another of my friends, hearing nothing but a strange moaning noise of wind in the sky, and the long rolling thunder of moving mountains of water, the early night darkening fast down all round, the closing in upon the ghastly, weary, tumbling hull, lifting its bowsprit and splintered stumps of masts in postures of agony defined as existence itself could make them!
I had just sucked in my breath to send forth another scream, when I saw a figure in the little hatch called the forescuttle, which led into the forecastle.
'Who is that?' I cried.
'Is that you, Miss Marie?' called the voice of Mrs. Burke, and she rose through the hatch.
'I thought you were lost. I thought I was alone,' I cried, beginning to sob with a sudden passion of hysteric relief.
'My husband went down into the forepeak to get some coal,' said she, not perceiving that I cried. 'He asked me to help him by pulling up some buckets as he filled them. We are not quite done, but do not stay on deck, my dear. We shall be with you in a very few minutes now.'
On this I returned to the cabin, but much shaken, and so low-spirited, I had never before felt more miserable.
I entered the cabin with eyes a-search for the rat, and could not sit still beside the stove for thinking of the beast, for at every moment I was coining the lights of its eyes, the gaunt crouched shape of it, out of some shadow here or there; and if I saw it not in imagination, I figured it as under my chair. However, soon after I had returned, the captain and Mrs. Burke entered the cabin, the captain bearing two buckets and his wife one, full of coals.