Thus we rushed onward, very literally indeed scudding under bare poles, as it is called; and for a long while we had neither of us a word to exchange, so present was calamity, so near was death, so dreadful were the thunderous sounds of the night, so engrossing our business of keeping the flying fabric dead before the seas. I pulled out my watch and held it hastily to the binnacle-lamp, and found the hour exactly one. The girl asked me the time. This was the first word that had passed between us for a long while. I replied, and she said in a voice that indicated extraordinary spirit, but that nevertheless sounded languishingly after her earlier utterance: 'Now that it is past midnight, the gale may break; surely such fierce weather cannot last for many hours!' 'I wish you would go,' said I, 'and get some refreshment for yourself, and lie down for awhile. I believe I can manage single-handed to keep the vessel before it.' 'If I lie down, it would not be to sleep,' she answered; 'but if you think I can be spared from the wheel for a few minutes, I will obtain some refreshment for us both, and I should also like to see how my father does.' I answered that if the helm was to prove too heavy for me, her help might hardly save me from being obliged to let go. 'Do not believe this,' she exclaimed, 'because you now know that I am a girl!' 'I have had no heart to express wonderment as yet,' said I, 'otherwise my astonishment and admiration would reassure you, if you suppose I doubt your strength and capacity now that I know you to be a girl. A little refreshment will help us both,' and I was going to advise her to seize the opportunity to attire herself in dry clothes, for I was in oilskins, whereas, so far as I was able to gather, her dress was a pea-jacket and a cloth cap; and I knew that again and again she had been soaked to the skin, and that the wind pouring on her would be chilling her to her very heart. But even amid such a time as this I was sensible of a diffidence in naming what was in my mind, and held my peace. She left the wheel, and I stood steering the barque single-handed, with my eyes fixed upon the illuminated compass-card, while I noticed that the course the vessel was taking, which always held her dead before the gale, was now above a point, nay, perhaps two points, to the southward of west, whence it was clear the hurricane was veering northwardly.