"Could I return in this ship?"
"We'll see," he answered, smiling at her. "A dinner and champagne to the head of the firm of agents might help us, and nature did not intend that you should ever plead in vain."
As he said this the captain came on deck, followed by Sailor. The Newfoundland, with the critical eye of an old salt, took a view of the horizon, and in a minute rushed forward on to the forecastle and reported two ships in sight on the port bow by a number of barks, which made the men, who were lounging about the knight-heads, laugh heartily. On seeing the captain, the mate touched his cap and walked right aft on the lee-side, where with folded arms he seemed to watch the sea, though he kept the captain and Julia in the corner of his eye.
The poor man approached the girl, who received him with a smile.
"Has Mr. Hardy looked after you?" he said, kindly and gently.
"Oh, yes, Captain Layard, I am very happy and comfortable, and thank you over and over again for your goodness. I believe I should have died by this time in that open boat, and I owe my life to you and this noble ship."
"I am very dull and lonely," he said in a musing way, clearly inattentive to her words. "Those ships yonder break the continuity of this everlasting circle, but they'll vanish shortly, and the full desolation of the night will encompass us. It is the night that I fear—it is the night that I fear!" he continued, almost whispering, and gazing at her as a man looks at another whose pity and help his heart is yearning for. "I miss him! If I dream of him I shall go mad to find it a dream. But you know where he is."
She hoped to divert his thoughts, and said: "I do not find the sea desolate, Captain Layard. On fine nights I could stand for hours looking at the stars; and is desolation on the sea when the sun is shining? If I were a man I would be a sailor, for, although it has nearly destroyed me, I have learnt to love the ocean."
She looked toward Hardy. The dog, having barked his report of two sail in sight, came trotting aft, and stood beside his master. The captain looked at him a little while in silence, his brow contracted in meditation.