Hardy carefully put away the good things he had discovered, and then made a pork sandwich with biscuits, and poured out a little rum which he mingled with water, and they both made a meal.
Had she been alone she would have been dying of fear; her lover was with her, and the sea had no terrors. They talked as they ate.
"I foresaw heavy weather," said he, "but not the loss of three men. We shall lose the ship, I fear; there are no signs of the weather clearing. My God! how this beast wallows! Why, you'd think the sun had burst out!"
For just then the air was whitened by a great sheet of water.
"If the boat forward is carried away—" He checked himself, and then continued, "If we lose the York we shall be picked up by something else. These old north-countrymen are born to live."
"I am seeing life on the ocean," said Julia, smiling at him.
"Why, it has come as thick as cockroaches," he answered. "When you get home you shall write your story, and the critics who take shipping on a summer day from Putney to Henley will exclaim as one man, 'What a lie!'"
"Who rang the bell?" said Julia. "That question will worry me whilst I live."
A sea struck the deck-house and blinded the weather-windows. The sturdy structure quivered. Hardy waited until the water had roared away overboard, and then said: