When the sea had gone down a little, and the waves came with less force, but long before it was quite safe for him to leave his holding, he let go the shrouds, and began to climb the inclined deck, holding by anything that he could lay his hands on, until he reached the cabin door. It was a feat of gymnastics to get down the companion ladder, and when he had safely reached the bottom, he inadvertently lost his footing, and slid all the way down the leaning floor, until he was stopped by the opposite partition. There he arose to his feet, stood ankle deep in water, and looked around. But he could see nothing; it was nearly dark in the cabin, the dead lights being up, as they had been put at the commencement of the storm. He listened; but he could hear nothing except the beating of the waves that still broke over the wreck, though with decreasing force. Again he called out: “McKenzie! Breton! Ely! Where are you? For Heaven’s sake, answer!” But there was no reply. His anxiety became intolerable. He climbed the leaning floor again, and scaled the companion ladder, and with great difficulty succeeded in taking down the dead-lights and letting daylight into the cabin. Then he returned to the cabin, and clearly saw its condition. From the foot of the ladder, the floor inclined at an angle of about forty-five degrees. The highest part near the ladder was free from water, commenced around the pedestal of the center-table, and became deeper as the floor was lower, until at the partition wall it was two feet deep. The chairs and all the movable furniture had slidden down the sloping floor, and lay half submerged and piled against the wall. The doors of the staterooms were open, and the furniture within them was in the utmost confusion. And yet everything there—the women’s clothing, hanging on the pegs or dropped upon the berth; the little workbasket fallen upside down upon the floor; the scattered books, the flute—all was suggestive of life; but it was of desolate life, for all was chaos—still life, for not a living creature was to be seen. A shock of alarm, almost of conviction, that his three companions had been lost, struck like an icebolt through his heart. He went into all the staterooms, one by one. They all exhibited the wild disorder he had partly seen through the open doors; not only that of small sleeping apartments hastily evacuated, but that consequent upon the hurricane. The two staterooms to the right and left of the companion ladder, being in the highest part of the leaning cabin, were comparatively dry; the other two, lower down, were partly submerged. No human being was to be found, either; but on the upper berth of the spare staterooms lay Judith Riordan’s cat, quietly and comfortably nursing her three kittens. On seeing Justin’s face leaning over, she began to purr with delight. What a contrast was this picture to all the desolation around?