I knocked off the head of a bottle and handed her a draught. She looked at the rough drinking-vessel for a little, and then said with a painful smile: ‘A desperate change, Mr. Dugdale, from the table of the Indiaman! Will this wine hurt me?’
‘I will drink first, to reassure you, if you please,’ said I.
‘No,’ she exclaimed; ‘I must not be too cowardly;’ and she drank.
I took a good drain myself, and found it the same noble wine that the poor lieutenant had tasted.
‘Try one of these biscuits, Miss Temple,’ said I; ‘they are but coarse eating for you, I fear; they are the bread that poor Jack is fed on.’
She took one and nibbled at it.
‘Ha!’ said I, ‘this is an ocean experience indeed. This is being shipwrecked. You will have a deal more to talk about when you get home than Colledge could have dreamt of in proposing this excursion for that purpose. Can you bite that biscuit?’
‘Yes,’ she answered.
‘It is rather flinty,’ said I, munching. ‘There should be something more relishable than this to be come at below. I will make another hunt.’
‘No, if you please,’ she cried vehemently; ‘do not leave me, Mr. Dugdale.’