‘None.’
She took my arm with a firm clasp, and hardly seemed willing to release me at the hatch, though the aperture was too narrow to admit of our descending together. When we had gained the lower deck, she again seized my arm and stood staring and hearkening.
‘Oh, Mr. Dugdale,’ she cried, ‘it is very lonely down here!’
‘Yes; but you are not alone. You must have courage. I would rather you should be next me than overhead next the captain.’
Yet, as I spoke, my heart was full of pity for her. It was indeed lonely, as she had said, with a sense of imprisonment besides, all that way down, thinking of where we stood, I mean, with reference to the poop. The stowed cases in the forepart seemed to stir as though to some internal throes to the weak light that swung in my hand; the atmosphere was charged with an unpleasant smell of cargo and the mingled fumes of a ship’s hold; and there was something of the heat of an oven also in the air that felt to rest with a sort of weight upon the head, due perhaps to the fancy begotten by the nearness of the upper deck or ceiling as you may term it. Small straining noises stole upon the ear from round about in stealthy notes, as though they were giants below moving warily. I say I was full of concern for the poor girl. Somehow the misery of her condition had not before affected me as it now did.
‘It will not last long. It will be a thing of the past very shortly: meanwhile, keep up your heart, and trust me as your protector whilst God leaves me a hand to lift,’ I exclaimed with a tenderness of which I was insensible until a little later on, when the tones of my voice recurred to me in memory.
She looked at me as though she were about to speak, yet said nothing; and releasing my arm, she stepped to her cabin door and peeped in.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ said I, keeping at a respectful distance.
She peered awhile, and then answered: ‘I think not. But that candle will not last long, and I shall be in darkness. Or if I should extinguish it, how am I to light it again?’