'There are but two, and one of them a girl,' I heard him say, lifting his eyes to the deck above as he spoke. The night was a dreadful time to look forward to. While there was daylight, while one could see, one's spirits seemed to retain a little buoyancy; but, speaking for myself, I dreaded the effect upon my mind of a second interminable time of blackness, filled with the horrors of the groaning and howling gale, of the dizzy motion of the tormented fabric, of the heart-subduing noises of waters pouring in thunder and beating in volcanic shocks against and over the struggling vessel. Well, there came round the hour of nine o'clock by my watch. Long before, after returning from a spirit-breaking spell of toil at the pump, we had lighted the deck-house and binnacle lamps, had eaten our third meal that day to answer for tea or supper, and at Helga's entreaty I had lain down upon the deck-house locker to sleep for an hour or so if I could, while she went to watch by her father and to keep an eye upon the ship by an occasional visit to the deck. We had arranged that she should awaken me at nine, that we should then apply ourselves afresh to the pump, that she should afterwards take my place upon the locker till eleven, I, meanwhile, seeing to her father and to the barque, and that we should thus proceed in these alternations throughout the night. It was now nine o'clock. I awoke, and was looking at my watch when Helga entered from the deck. She came up to me and took my hands, and cried: 'Mr. Tregarthen, there are some stars in the sky. I believe the gale is breaking!' Only those who have undergone the like of such experiences as these I am endeavouring to relate can conceive of the rapture, the new life, her words raised in me. 'I praise God for your good news!' I cried, and made a step to the barometer to observe its indications. The rise of the mercury was a quarter of an inch, and this had happened since a little after seven. Yet, being something of a student of the barometer in my little way, I could have heartily wished the rise much more gradual. It might betoken nothing more than a drier quality of gale, with nothing of the old fierceness wanting. But then, to be sure, it might promise a shift, so that we stood a chance of being blown homewards, which would signify an opportunity of preservation that must needs grow greater as we approached the English Channel.