'Pray sit, both of you,' cried Captain Nielsen; 'pray rest. Helga, have you seen to the gentleman's comfort? Has he had any refreshment?' She answered him, and seated herself upon a little locker, inviting me with a look to sit beside her, for there was no other accommodation in that cabin than the locker. 'I wish I could persuade your daughter to take some rest,' said I. 'Her clothes, too, are soaked through!' 'It is salt water,' said Captain Nielsen; 'it will not harm her. She is very used to salt water, sir;' and then he addressed his daughter in Danish. The resemblance of some words he used to our English made me suppose he spoke about her resting. 'The pumps must be worked,' said she, looking at me; 'we must keep the barque afloat first of all, Mr. Tregarthen. How trifling is want of sleep, how insignificant the discomfort of damp clothes, at such a time as this!' She opened her jacket and drew a silver watch from her pocket, and then took a bottle of medicine and a wineglass from a small circular tray swinging by thin chains near the cot, and gave her father a dose. He began now to question us, occasionally in his hurry and eagerness speaking in the Danish language. He asked about the masts--if they were sound, if any sails had been split, if the _Anine_ had met with any injury apart from the loss of her two boats, of which he had evidently been informed by his daughter. A flush of temper came into his white cheeks when he talked of his men. He called the carpenter Damm a villain, said that had he had his way the barque never would have brought up in that bay, that Damm had carried her there, as he now believed, as much out of spite as out of recklessness, hoping no doubt that the _Anine_ would go ashore, but of course taking it for granted that the crew would be rescued. He shook his fist as he pronounced the carpenter's name, and then groaned aloud with anguish to some movement of his limbs brought about by his agitation. He lay quiet a little and grew calm, and talked, with his thin fingers on his breast. He informed me that the _Anine_ was his ship, that he had spent some hundreds of pounds in equipping her for this voyage, that he had some risk in the cargo, and that, in a word, all that he was worth in the wide world was in this fabric, now heavily and often madly labouring, unwatched, amid the blackness of the night of hurricane. 'Your daughter and I must endeavour to preserve her for you,' said I.