'There are two more inches of it,' she answered, 'than the depth I found in the hold last night when I first sounded. We ought to free her somewhat.'
'I am willing,' I exclaimed; 'but are you equal to such labour? A couple of hours should not make a very grave difference.'
'No, no!' she interrupted, with a vehemence that put her air of weariness to flight. 'A couple of hours would be too long to wait,' saying which she grasped the brake and we went to work as before.
No one who has not had to labour in this way can conceive the fatigue of it. There is no sort of shipboard work that more quickly exhausts. It grieved me to the soul that my associate in this toil should be a girl, with the natural weakness of her sex accentuated by what she had suffered and was still suffering; but her spirited gaze forbade remonstrance. She seemed scarcely able to stand when utter weariness forced her at last to let go of the brake. Nevertheless, she compelled her feeble hands again to drop the rod down the well. We had reduced the water to the height at which we had left it before, and, with a faint smile of congratulation, she made a movement towards the deck-house; but her gait was so staggering, there was such a character of blindness, too, in her posture as she started to walk, that I grasped her arm and, indeed, half carried her into the house.
She sat and rested herself for a few minutes, but appeared unable to speak. I watched her anxiously, with something of indignation that her father, who professed to love her so dearly, should not come between her and her devotion, and insist upon her resting. Presently she rose and walked to his cabin, telling me with her looks to follow her.
CHAPTER VI.
CAPTAIN NIELSEN.
Captain Nielsen, was veritably corpse-like in aspect viewed by the cold gray iron light sifting through the little windows out of the spray-shrouded air. The unnatural brightness of his eyes painfully defined the attenuation of his face, and the sickly, parchment-like complexion of his skin. He extended his hand, but could hardly find time to deliver a greeting, so violent was his hurry to receive his daughter's report. He shook his head when he heard that his topgallant-mast and jibbooms were wrecked, and passionately exclaimed in Danish, on his daughter telling him of the increase of water in the hold.
'She must be taking it in from below,' he then cried in English. 'She has strained herself. Should this continue, what is to be done? She will need to be constantly pumped—and ah, my God! you are but two.'