If he had minded me at that moment we should have been lost together, ship and all. She began to broach to, as they call it, and the supplementary wheel had to be used at once to stop it, and just then our lives hung upon a hair. The decks were filled to the brim, and I could hear the deluge thudding down through the shattered skylight upon the table set for dinner. And she rolled all but bottom upwards, the broken rail going under and I dangling in air above it, and--and, in short, if any one but Tom had been her captain she would never have been heard of from that day. I am quite convinced of that. No man born could have accomplished what he did--he says, "Nonsense," but I know what I am talking about--although I was just as sure that _he_ would accomplish it as I was that the sun would rise next morning. I calmly held on to my supports, and waited and watched. Sometimes I clenched my teeth and shut my eyes, while I prayed for his preservation in the perils he did not seem to see. He called to me at short intervals, "Are you all right?" and I called back, "All right!" And when the worst was over for the moment, he scrambled to where I was, and fixed me up afresh. Never shall I forget the look on his face and the ring in his voice when he spoke to me. "Brave girl! Brave girl!" I think it was the happiest moment of my life. "But I don't understand it," he said to me, later, when there was time to breathe and talk. "Why are you not frightened? When you were first on board, crying because you were seasick----" "I did _not_ cry because I was seasick," I indignantly interposed, "but because I was lonely and miserable. You would have cried if you had been in my place." "I thought," he continued, heedless of the interruption, "that you were a poor little baby creature, without an ounce of pluck in you. But you've got the courage of a grenadier. How is it?" "It is because I am with you," I answered promptly. I don't know what feeling I allowed to get into my voice, but something struck him. Motionless where he stood, he stared at the great waves silently, for what seemed a long time; then abruptly walked forward to give an order, and did not come back.