But this afternoon things came to a head. Laura was trotting about behind him, striking her attitudes. Edward had at last discovered which was windward and which was leeward, and had come hot-foot to learn the first of the Sovereign Rules of Life: and Emily, with one of her wretched lapses of memory, was all agog at his elbow. Edward was duly catechised and passed. ‘Dis is the first rule,’ said the captain: ‘_Never throw anything to windward except hot water or ashes._’ Edward’s face developed exactly the look of bewilderment that was intended. ‘But _windward_ is ...’ he began: ‘I mean, wouldn’t they blow ...’ then he stopped, wondering if he had got the terms the right way round after all. Jonsen was delighted at the success of this ancient joke. Emily, trying to stand on one leg, bewildered also, lost her balance and clutched at Jonsen’s arm. He looked at her--they all looked at her. Much the best way of escaping from an embarrassing rencontre, when to walk away would be an impossible strain on the nerves, is to retire in a series of somersaults. Emily immediately started turning head over heels up the deck. It was very difficult to keep direction, and the giddiness was appalling; but she _must_ keep it up till she was out of sight, or die. Just then, Rachel, who was up the mainmast, dropped, for the first time, her marline-spike. She uttered a terrible shriek--for what _she_ saw was a baby falling to dash its brains out on the deck. Jonsen gave an ineffectual little grunt of alarm--men can never learn to give a full-bodied scream like a woman. But Emily gave the most desperate yell of all, though several seconds after the other two: for the wicked steel stood quivering in the deck, having gouged a track through her calf on the way. Her wrought-up nerves and sickening giddiness joined with the shock and pain to give a heart-rending poignancy to her crying. Jonsen was by her in a second, caught her up, and carried her, sobbing miserably, down into the cabin. There sat Margaret, bending over some mending, her slim shoulders hunched up, humming softly and feeling deadly ill. ‘Get out!’ said Jonsen, in a low, brutal voice. Without a word or sign Margaret gathered up her sewing and climbed on deck. Jonsen smeared some Stockholm tar on a rag, and bound up Emily’s leg with more than a little skill, though the tar of course was agonising to her. She had cried herself right out by the time he laid her in his bunk. When she opened her streaming eyes and saw him bending over her, nothing in his clumsy face but concern and an almost overpowering pity, she was so full of joy at being at last forgiven that she reached up her arms and kissed him. He sat down on the locker, rocking himself backwards and forwards gently. Emily dozed for a few minutes: when she woke up he was still there. ‘Tell me about when you were little,’ she said. Jonsen sat on, silent, trying to project his unwieldy mind back into the past.