I followed him into the saloon--a long, narrow, brilliant interior with several tables ranged down the centre of it. A number of stewards were engaged in preparing the tables for breakfast. There were two or three skylights, like domes, overhead, and there were many mirrors and plated lamps, and globes in which gold and silver fish were swimming, and rows of pots containing ferns. It was like passing from a cottage into a castle to exchange the living room of the little French brig for the comfort and splendour of the saloon of this noble ship. CHAPTER VII CAPTAIN FREDERICK LADMORE A respectable-looking, pale-faced woman, attired in black, stood at the head of a staircase that descended through a large hatch in the forward part of this saloon. The young officer went up to her and said, ‘Mrs. Richards, we have just brought this poor lady off from the brig that was run down last night. The captain requests that you will take her below and make her comfortable. She has been locked up--think of it, Mrs. Richards--she has been locked up all night, without food or drink, in the berth of a craft that I dare say she supposed at any moment might sink under her feet. When you have thoroughly refreshed yourself,’ he exclaimed, addressing me, ‘the captain will be happy to see you.’ ‘I think you had better come to my berth,’ said the person whom the young mate had called Mrs. Richards. ‘May I ask who you are?’ said I. ‘I am the stewardess,’ she answered. She then conducted me down the stairs into what I afterwards learnt was called the steerage. It was a part of the ship that corresponded with the saloon, only it was not so broad, and there were but two tables in the central passage or corridor. As in the saloon so here, there were berths or sleeping compartments ranged on either hand, but these quarters compared with the saloon were gloomy, and I do not remember how daylight was obtained to illuminate the place; yet one could see fairly well even when fresh from the glare of the deck. The stewardess, opening a cabin door at the after end of the wide passage, bade me step in, and I found myself in a plain but comfortable little cabin, lighted by a large porthole, and furnished with two mahogany sleeping shelves one above the other. Upon a table were one or two account-books and a number of papers on files. ‘Please to sit down, ma’m,’ said the stewardess, speaking kindly. ‘You look very weak and ill. Only fancy being locked up all night in that sinking boat! You are English?---- Yes, the third officer addressed you in English, and yet you may be French. Let me help you to take off that heavy cloak. It is a man’s cloak and a handsome one, I declare. I suppose you snatched at the first thing you could see to wrap yourself up in when our ship struck yours?’