'Why, Miss Otway,' said I with a bustle of voice and manner as I got up to set the kettle on the stove. 'This sort of talk is good for neither of us. Do you believe in omens? But don't be scared till danger's come, and not then. There's plenty to eat and drink in this ship and I'm for faring heartily for the sake of hoping heartily, and working heartily, should work be wanted. Come, you shall fry some ham; it's my turn to prepare the table.' Presently we were seated as before. I talked more reassuringly than I had ventured on earlier, for now that her hat was off I saw her face very clearly, how refined she was, how gentle, how well nurtured; my very heart pitied her: I felt as though commanded by God Himself to take charge of her, to watch over her, to keep her heart up; I can't express indeed how she appealed to me out of her gentleness and refinement, the horrible situation she was in, the unspeakably dreadful time she had passed through alone. And often I would catch her in the intervals of our speech eyeing me under drooping lids with an eager searching look of enquiry, as though she would comfort her poor little self by finding out what sort of a man was I who had come into this rolling hull where she was alone? I wished her to find out quickly that she might be easy; but we both needed time, I to act and she to discover. I cleared the table and went on deck. The lantern burned brightly. The night lay black, but the atmosphere was hard as when I had gone into the cabin, and you found a distance in the gloom. All was as well with the hull as one could dare hope for, and, closing the companion doors, I re-entered the cabin. It was about six o'clock then. I lighted a bull's-eye and went into the captain's berth for the log-book which I had noticed upon the table, and to overhaul a bag of charts. I brought the log-book and the chart I wanted to the cabin table: Miss Otway seeing me at this, came opposite and stood there looking on. I wished to see the last entry in the log-book; which done, I opened the chart, and was startled to observe that, supposing the drift of the vessel to have been continuously to the southward, as somehow I imagined it was, that group of islands called the South Orkneys, stretching some sixty-five miles east and west, could not be farther than twenty-five or thirty leagues. 'Are you finding out where we are?' said Miss Otway. 'I shall know exactly when I get an observation,' said I, and carried the log-book and chart back into the captain's cabin.