‘Thought as much, sir,’ said Cutbill, from whose face the perspiration was streaming, whilst his immense whiskers sparkled like a dew-laden bramble-bush in sunrise. ‘Also explain that I do not desire to leave Miss Jennings until this deafening and blinding business is over. I shall hope to carry my pipe to his berth by-and-by. But it must be very hot for you, Cutbill, in that cabin?’ ‘Melting, sir. I feel to be a-draining away. Reckon there’ll be nothen left of me but my clothes if this here lasts.’ ‘How is Sir Wilfrid?’ ‘Well, sir, to be honest, I don’t at all like what I see in him. There’s come a sing’ler alteration in him. Can’t xactly describe it, sir; sort of stillness, and a queer whiteness of face, and a constant watching of me; his eyes are never off me, indeed. The heat’ll have a deal to do with it, I dessay.’ ‘Some change may be at hand,’ said I, ‘from which he may emerge with his miserable hallucinations gone. Yet the heat should account for a deal too. Give him my message, Cutbill.’ The man knuckled his forehead and withdrew. The heat was so great owing to the companion hatch and skylight being closed, that my sweet companion seemed half-dead with it, and leaned against me with her eyes closed, almost in a swoon. But the worst of the storm was over apparently, for the rain had ceased, and though the lightning was still intensely vivid, one knew by the sound of the thunder that what was fiercest had forged ahead of us and was settling away into the north. I called to the steward to open the companion doors and report the state of the weather. The moment the hatch lay clear to the night I felt a gush of refreshing and rain-sweetened air. Laura sat upright and gave a deep sigh. ‘Does it rain, steward?’ I sung out. ‘No, sir.’ ‘Tell Captain Finn,’ said I, ‘to get some space of deck swabbed dry for Miss Jennings. The heat here is too much for the young lady.’ In a few moments I heard the slapping of several swabs and Finn’s long face glimmered through the open skylight. ‘The weather’s a-clearing, sir,’ he called down. ‘There’s a nice little air a-blowing. The lady’ll find the port side of the quarter-deck comfortable now.’ I conducted the girl up the ladder, but she kept her hand in my arm. Her manner had something of clinging in it, not wholly due to fear either. It was, in fact, as though she was influenced by an overpowering sense of loneliness, easy to understand when one thought of Wilfrid lying mad in his cabin and her sister shunning her with hate and rage.