"You are beautiful and good and a sailor's child, my dearest," said I.
"And friendless."
"No! bid me say I love thee?"
She bade me whisper, drawing closer to me. I swiftly kissed her cheek that was cold with the evening wind. Great Heaven! what a theatre was this for love-making. To think of the sweetest, in our case the purest, of emotions having its birth in, owing its growth to, the dreaded fabric of the Death Ship! Yet I, that a short while ago was viewing the vessel with despondency and fear and loathing, now for a space found her transfigured! The kiss my darling had permitted, her gentle speech, the caress that lay in her drawing close to me, had kindled a light in my heart, and the lustre was upon the ship; a faint radiance viewless to the sight, but of a power to work such transformation, that instead of a gaunt phosphoric structure sailing through the dusk, there floated under the stars a fabric whose sails might have been of satin, whose cordage might have been formed of golden threads, whose decks might have been fashioned out of pearl!
We were silent for awhile, and then she said, in a coyly-coquettish voice with a happy note of music in it, "What were you saying, Mr. Fenton, when you interrupted yourself?"
"Dear heart!" cried I, "you must call me Geoffrey now."
"What were you saying, Geoffrey?" said she.
"Why," I replied, "that even were it possible for me to secure one of those boats, and launch it unperceived, my love would not suffer me to expose you to the perils of such an adventure."
"My life is in your keeping, Geoffrey," said she. "You need but lead—I will follow. Yet there is one thing you must consider: if we escape to the land, which seems to me the plan that is growing in you——"
I said, "Yes," watching the sparkling of the stars in her eyes, which she had fixed on mine.