I slipped to the hatch on the upper deck, descended a tread or two, and softly called. In a minute I espied the white face of my dearest upturned to me amidst the well-like obscurity.
"They are gone," said I, "the danger is over."
She instantly stepped up.
"I heard you cry out 'The Flying Dutchman! Save yourselves!'" she exclaimed, with a music almost of merriment in her voice. "It was a bold fancy! What helter-skelter followed!"
I took her hand and we entered the cabin. The richly-coloured old lamp was alight, the clock ticked hoarsely, you heard the scraping of the parrot clawing about her cage.
"Oh," she cried, "what a dismal place is that they have given you to sleep in! I believed I was hardened to the dreadful flickerings upon the deck and sides, but they scared me to the heart in that cell—and the noises too in the hold! Oh, Geoffrey, how severe is our fate! Shall we ever escape?"
"Yes, my dearest, but not by ships, as I have all along told you. A chance will offer, and be you sure, Imogene, it will find me ready. Wondrous is God's ordering! Think, my dear, that in the very Curse that rests upon this ship has lain our salvation! Suppose this vessel any other craft and boarded by those villains, negroes of the Antilles, and white ruffians red-handed from the Spanish Main—'tis likely they were so and are cruising here for the rich traders—by this time where would my soul be? and you—ay, there is a virtue in this Curse! It is a monstrous thought—but, indeed, I could take Vanderdecken by the hand for the impiety that has carried you clear of a destiny as awful in its way as the doom these unhappy wretches are immortally facing."
She shuddered and wept a little, and looked at me with eyes the brighter for those tears which I dared not kiss away in that public cabin.