‘You have been sleeping for above two hours,’ said I. ‘I am very glad. Slumber is strength; nay, it is life. You have been safe, and you will now tell me that I was in the right in entreating you to remain here.’
‘In commanding me, you mean,’ she answered with a faint smile. ‘But how miserable I was alone until I fell asleep—constantly imagining that that door was being cautiously opened’—another strong shudder swept through her while she motioned towards the captain’s cabin, holding her face averted.
I unhooked the lantern belonging to my berth, lighted the candle in it, and, taking her by the hand, conducted her to the hatch. When we had entered the steerage, I lifted her hand to my lips in the old-fashioned salute and said: ‘Miss Temple, if I appear to command, it is with the hope of being useful as a protector to a companion whose claims upon me must needs deepen as we continue together and as the outlook darkens.’
I held open her cabin door for her, gave her my lantern; and then going to my own berth, groped my way to the bunk, and was speedily in a sound sleep.
It was eight o’clock by my watch when I awoke. I at once sprang out of bed, and, having carefully secreted the pistol I had brought with me from the captain’s cabin, I hastily sluiced my face with some salt water, and stepped to Miss Temple’s cabin door, on which I knocked. She answered me. I told her that she would find me on deck. ‘It is eight o’clock,’ I said, ‘and my turn to keep watch has come round.’ With that I ascended the steps. Wilkins was in the cuddy, as I must needs call the little living-room, though, after the Indiaman’s saloon, it seemed a big name to give to so small an interior. I said: ‘The lady will be here shortly. Get breakfast ready for us, d’ye hear? We will eat it on deck, unless there is somebody to keep my lookout whilst I come below for the meal.’ He answered, civilly enough, that he would carry it on deck to us on my letting him know when we were ready for it.
I found the carpenter on the poop talking to a couple of seamen; but on seeing me, the two fellows went forward in a sort of sheepish way. It was a fine morning, lively with flying sunshine, and the seas were running in foaming dark-blue hills, which shouldered the reflection of the sun into incessant flashings of fire as dazzling as the beams darted down by the luminary himself betwixt the edges of the streaming clouds. I sent a swift look round; there was nothing in sight. The barque was under the same canvas I had left upon her when I went below; but my first step carrying me to the compass, I perceived that she was making a more southerly course by two points than she had been heading when I left the deck; and, indeed, when I directed my eyes aloft for a second time, I perceived that the yards had been slightly braced in, and that, in short, Mr. Lush was making a fair wind of what was a foul one for Rio. I was greatly startled, but controlled my face, for the man’s eyes were upon me.
‘I presume, Mr. Lush,’ said I, crossing over to him and feigning a certain carelessness of behaviour whilst I looked with a manner of indifference past him at the weather horizon, ‘that you are aware the barque is needlessly off her course, seeing that she’ll easily look up another two or two and a half points?’
‘A ship’s course depends upon where she’s a going,’ he answered, running his eyes over my figure; ‘and nothen’s settled yet so far as we’re consarned.’
‘Oho! Is it so, indeed!’ said I, after venting myself in a short whistle. ‘What is the objection to Rio, Mr. Lush?’
‘I’ll be calling the crew aft presently,’ he exclaimed; ‘it’s a question for all hands, not for me nor you only, sir.’