She looked at her watch. 'Twenty minutes after two.'
'A weary long time yet to wait for the dawn!' said he. 'And it is Sunday morning—a day of rest for all the world save for the mariner. But it is God's own day, and when next Sabbath comes round we may be worshipping Him ashore, and thanking Him for our preservation.'
As he pronounced these words, Helga, as I will henceforth call her, giving me a glance of invitation, quitted the berth, and I followed her into the cabin, as I may term the interior of the deck-house. She picked up the bull's-eye lamp and trimmed the mesh of it, and, arming herself with the sounding-rod, stepped on to the deck. I watched her movements with astonishment and admiration. I should have believed that I possessed fairly good sea-legs, even for a wilder play of plank than this which was now tossing us; nevertheless, I never dared let go with my hands, and there were moments when the upheaval was so swift, the fall so sickening, that my brain reeled again, and to have saved my life I could not have stirred the distance of a pace until the sensation had passed. But excepting an occasional pause, an infrequent grasp at what was next to her during some unusually heavy roll, Helga moved with almost the same sort of ease that must have been visible in her on a level floor. Her figure, indeed, seemed to float; it swayed to the rolling of the deck as a flame hovers upright upon the candle you sharply sway under it.
After the comparative calm of the shelter I stepped from, the uproar of the gale sounded as though it were blowing as hard again as at the time of our quitting the deck. The noise of the rushing and roaring waters was deafening; as the vessel brought her masts to windward, the screaming and whistling aloft are not to be imagined. The wind was clouded with spray, the decks sobbed furiously with wet, and it was still as pitch black as ever it had been at any hour of the night. Helga threw the light of the bull's-eye upon the pump-brake or handle, and we then fell to work. At intervals we could contrive to hear each other speak—that is to say, in some momentary lull, when the barque was in the heart of a valley ere she rose to the next thunderous acclivity, yelling in her rigging with the voice of a wounded giantess. For how long we stuck to that dismal clanking job I cannot remember. The water gushed copiously as we plied the handle, and the foam was all about our feet as though we stood in a half-fathom's depth of surf. I was amazed by the endurance and pluck of the girl, and, indeed, I found half my strength in her courage. Had I been alone I am persuaded I should have given up. The blow of the wheel that had dashed me into unconsciousness, coming on top of my previous labours, not to speak of that exhaustion of mind which follows upon such distress of heart as my situation and the memory of my foundered boat and the possible loss of all her people had occasioned in me, must have proved too much but for the example and influence, the inspiriting presence of this little Danish lioness, Helga.
In one of those intervals I have spoken of she cried out, 'We have done enough—for the present;' and so saying she let go of the pump-handle and asked me to hold the lamp while she dropped the rod. I had supposed our efforts insignificant, and was surprised to learn that we had sunk the water by some inches. We returned to the deck-house, but scarcely had I entered it when I was seized with exhaustion so prostrating that I fell, rather than seated myself, upon the locker and hid my face in my arms upon the table till the sudden darkness should have passed from my eyes. When, presently, I looked up, I found Helga at my side with a glass of spirits in her hand. There was a wonderful anxiety and compassion in her gaze.
'Drink this!' said she. 'The work has been too hard for you. It is my fault—I am sorry—I am sorry.'
I swallowed the draught, and was the better for it.
'This weakness,' said I, 'must come from the blow I got on deck. I have kept you from your father. He will want your report,' and I stood up.
She gave me her arm, and but for that support I believe I should not have been able to make my way to the captain's berth, so weak did I feel in the limbs, so paralyzing to my condition of prostration was the violent motion of the deck.
Captain Nielsen looked eagerly at us over the edge of his cot. Helga would not release me until I was seated on the locker.