I looked along the deck, and as before, so now, I beheld nothing moving. I tried to reason with my terrors by supposing that the captain had again gone below to shovel up more coal, and that his wife waited in the forecastle to help him. But whilst I looked and strained my ears I heard a moan; again and yet again it came; I could not be mistaken. I went forward and heard the moaning whilst I advanced, and when I was close to the galley I saw a figure on the forecastle and heard the moaning again. I stepped close, my heart almost stopped, my blood almost frozen. The white of the deck made a light of its own, as I have told you, and I saw Mrs. Burke lying on her side. She lay close to the fluke of an anchor that was stowed upon the forecastle on the starboard, or right-hand side. She moaned and continued to moan; I dropped on my knees, and grasping her hand cried, with my face close to hers to see if her eyes were open, for her moaning was that of a dying person: 'It is I. What has happened? Are you ill? Where's your husband?' She answered feebly, moaning at every other word: 'He has fallen overboard. He went on to the bowsprit with a lantern and slipped. Oh, God, my heart breaks, my heart breaks! I ran and fell and I cannot rise. I have lost him--oh, my heart!' I cried in a passion of horror and terror, 'Captain Burke drowned!' and then, figuring him battling for life alongside, I sprang to my feet and went to the rail and looked over. But there was nothing to be seen save an inky cloudiness of moving waters, shaping and dissolving, and a dim light of foam when the ship's bows pitched, and there was no other sound but that of the washing of brine pouring along the side, and a noise of wind overhead. I went back to Mrs. Burke and knelt by her again, and cried: 'Cannot you rise that I may help you to get to the cabin?' She moaned, but did not speak. Then my heart gave way wholly, and as I knelt by her side I clasped my hands, and looked up into the darkness, and cried out of my loneliness: 'What shall I do? What shall I do?' CHAPTER XII MR. SELBY TAKES UP THE STORY. Having been blown considerably to the southward of our course by a succession of hard northerly gales, the barque 'Planter,' from London to Adelaide, on a dark, bitter, raw morning of July 1860, was breaking the seas close hauled, looking up for as much northing as the seating of the wind would allow. Our long topgallant masts were down on deck, and we showed nothing above the topmast cross-trees. Under single-reefed topsails and reefed foresail we rolled sluggishly onwards, making small way; the swell was wide and strong, but the wind blew without spite, save for its edge, and the seas ran small.