Cheered by this conviction, I pushed forwards, clawing along by the pins in the rail, by whatever else came to my hand, till I was abreast of the galley, whose port sliding-door lay half open, and going to it and looking in, there on the deck I saw lying on her back the body of a woman. I peered close, the light being weak. The body was warmly but plainly clothed; the colour of the face fresh as though she slept. I should not have guessed her dead by her looks: it was her lying there that made me know it. She seemed a woman of between forty and forty-five, flat of face, treble-chinned, and she showed as a person that had been fat and heavy in life. The sight startled me: I had not thought to find anything dead. Had she been the wife of the captain? Where was _he_? And where the young lady that had sailed as passenger with them? Were they both lying frozen in other parts of the vessel? But there yet remained two or three cabins below to look into. I came out of the galley shocked and low-spirited, and, still pushing forward, came to the forecastle and called down the hatch. I got no answer and descended. Here I found a number of hammocks, a few sea chests, and some odds and ends of seamen's apparel scattered about the deck. The forecastle lamp swung black under its grimy beam. I could scarcely see. Water--though no depth of it--seethed over the planks as the vessel pitched and rolled: this water I reckoned had tumbled down the forecastle hatch, and when I returned on deck I drew the slide of the scuttle over. I went to the stump of foremast that was ringed with some pins, and holding on by one of them, looked round and round the sea, waiting for every lofty heave to dart my glances; but there was nothing in sight save ice, the peaks of bergs afar, coming and going past the rounds of the swell, and the rush of the surge flickering into foam. It was blowing half as strong again as it had been an hour before, and the seas were racing with a weight and spite of headlong yeast which must have drowned me out of hand in the jolly-boat. A low sky of thick black cloud coiling, revolving, like sooty pourings from countless factory chimneys, was sweeping southwards. I crawled aft for the shelter of the cabin--the wind was marrow-freezing; and scarce was I within the comparative warmth and stillness of the interior, when slumber again oppressed me; and nature now giving out I stretched myself upon a cushioned locker and was asleep in a minute. When I awoke I started instantly into an upright posture, beholding a figure gazing at me; in some muddled fashion I seemed to realise my situation, whilst I imagined that the cabin was half full of people who had come to save me. Then, getting my wits fully, I made out that the person who stood close was a young woman. Her figure was inclined towards me, and so she stood despite the swaying of her with the motions of the deck: it was a posture of fear, incredulity, amazement, incommunicable in words.