"Mr. Barclay," he answered, "if the weather do but moderate, I shall have no fear. Our case ain't hopeless yet by a long way, sir. The water's to be kept under by continuous pumping, and there are hands enough and to spare for that job. We're not in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, but in the mouth of the English Channel, with plenty of shipping knocking about. But the weather's got to moderate. Firing that there gun 'ud only terrify the young lady, and do no good. If a ship came along no boat could live in this sea. In this here blackness she couldn't kept us company, and our rockets wouldn't be visible half a mile off. No, sir, we've got to stick to the pump, and pray for daylight and fine weather," and, having no more to say to me, or a sudden emotion checking his utterance, he pulled his head out and disappeared in the obscurity. Grace asked me what Caudel had been talking about, and I answered with the utmost composure I could master that he had come to tell me the yacht was making a noble fight of it and that there was nothing to cause us alarm. I had not the heart to respond otherwise, nor could the bare truth, as I understood it, have served any other end than to deprive her of her senses. Even now, I seemed to find an expression of wildness in her beautiful eyes, as though the tension of her nerves, along with the weary endless hours of delirious pitching and tossing, was beginning to tell upon her brain. I sought to comfort her, I caressed her, I strained her to my heart, whilst I exerted my whole soul to look cheerfully and to speak cheerfully, and, thank God! the influence of my true, deep love prevailed; she spoke tranquilly; the brilliant staring look of her eyes was softened; occasionally she would smile as she lay in my arms, whilst I rattled on, struggling, with a resolution that now seems preternatural when I look back, to distract her attention from our situation. At one o'clock in the morning she fell asleep, and I knelt by her sleeping form, and prayed for mercy and protection. It was much about this hour that Caudel's face again showed in the hatch. I crawled along the deck and up the steps to him, and he immediately said to me in a voice that trembled with agitation: "Mr. Barclay, good noose, sir. The gale's ataking off." I clasped my hands, and could have hugged the dripping figure of the man to my breast. "Yes, sir," he continued, "the breeze is slackening. There's no mistake about it. The horizon's opening too." "Heaven be praised. And what of the leak, Caudel?" "'Taint worse than it was, sir, though it's bad enough." "If the weather should moderate--"