'Can you lay your hands upon what we may want in the pantry?'
'Oh, yes. I know what's there. Shall I boil some coffee?'
'If you please,' said I, smiling to find her talking with a show of life. 'I am going to the captain's cabin to look to one or two matters,' and with that I left her.
I entered the berth I had shifted myself in, and which I knew had been the captain's by its appointments, and first I looked at the chronometers, and, finding them still going, carefully wound them afresh, guessing by the revolutions of the key that they would have stopped shortly. I then sought for and found the ship's papers, and overhauled them to gather the character of the supplies aboard. The cargo consisted of stout, brandy, and whiskey; samples of preserved potatoes and articles of potted food, a quantity of theatrical scenery, builders' stuff, such as doors and window frames; patent fuel, oil cake, india rubber, and certain other commodities. I observed that amongst the samples was a quantity of preserved milk: there was also a consignment of one hundred iron cases, each containing two hundred and fourteen biscuits, weighing one pound each, and specified as six inches square by one and a half inches thick.
In short the paper indicated half a shipload of food and liquor. But I made nothing of this then. Such a plenty was not likely to seem of any use to two people who looked to be taken off the wreck in a few days at the outside, and for whom therefore a single cask of beef, a single barrel of ship's bread, along with the little stock of delicacies I had observed in the pantry, would be more than enough.
I lingered to overhaul the nautical appliances, intending, should a phantom of sun show, to get an observation. It was very gloomy here. I found a small brass clock ticking stoutly, and this I wound up, the plain silver watch in my pocket having stopped when the jolly-boat capsized: the time by the little clock was a quarter after eleven. I went out and set a clock under the skylight to this hour. I guessed it would comfort the girl's eye to see the time. Nothing in such a situation as ours could make one feel more outcast, more hopelessly removed from human reach and sympathy, than a lifeless clock silently telling the same hour always. It would be as though time itself had abandoned one.
The ice was melted and the kettle boiling, and Miss Otway was making a potful of coffee. She had lifted the fiddles and spread a cloth, and put some preserved meat, cheese, jam, biscuit, and the like upon the table. The lamp and the flames in the grate made a light like noon, and, now looking round, I beheld a very rosy interior, a quantity of books, mirrors for decoration, comfortable armchairs and couches, and sundry fal-lals; all designed, no doubt, to render the voyage of Miss Otway cheerful and pleasant.
Turning, she cried out: 'Oh, Mr. Selby, you cannot imagine what it is to see someone—to have someone to speak to. Only God could say how lonely I have felt. The dreadfully long nights; the endless hours of darkness——' Her voice broke and her head drooped.
'No need to tell me what you have undergone,' said I. 'Never in all sea story did any girl suffer upon the ocean as you have. But you've a brave look. You'll keep up your tears now. I'm a sailor and I give you my word we are very well off. We need but patience, and faith in that God who has watched over us both.'