He looked at her with a lack-lustre eye, and in a low voice addressed a few words to her in Danish. She answered in that tongue, glancing down at her dress, and then at me, and added, in English, 'It was time, father. The hard work is over. I may be a girl now;' and looking along the sea she sighed bitterly. Her father brought his knitted hands together to his brow, and never could I have imagined the like of the look of mental anguish that was on his face as he did this. But what I am here narrating did not occupy above a minute or two. Indeed, a longer delay than this was not to have been suffered if we desired the raft to hold together. I let go the line that held the little structure to the barque, and getting the small studdingsail boom over--that is, the boom we had shipped to serve as a signal-mast--I thrust with it, and, Helga helping me, we got the raft clear of the side of the vessel. The leewardly swell on which we rode did the rest for us and not a little rejoiced was I to find our miserable fabric gradually increasing its distance from the _Anine_; for if the barque foundered with us close alongside, we stood to be swamped in the vortex, the raft scattered, and ourselves left to drown. It now wanted about twenty minutes to sundown. A weak air still blew, but the few clouds that still lived in the heavens floated overhead apparently motionless; yet the swell continued large, to our sensations at least, upon that flat structure, and the slope of the platform rapidly grew so distressing and fatiguing to our limbs, that we were glad to sit and obtain what refreshment we could from a short rest. Among the things we had brought with us was the bull's-eye lamp, together with a can of oil, a parcel of meshes, and some lucifer-matches. I said to Helga: 'We should step, or set up, our mast before it grows dark.' 'Why?' she inquired. 'The flag we hoist will not be seen in the dark'--knowing that the mast was there for no other purpose than to display a flag on. 'But we ought to light the lamp and masthead it,' said I, 'and keep it burning all night--if God suffers us to live through the night. Who can tell what may come along?--what vessel invisible to us may perceive the light?' She answered quickly: 'Yes. Your judgment is clearer than mine. I will help you to set up the mast.' Her father again addressed her in Danish. She answered him, and then said to me, 'My father asks why we are without a sail.' 'I thought of a sail,' I replied, speaking as I went about to erect the mast, 'but without wind it could not serve us, and with wind it would blow away like a cobweb. It would have occupied too much time to rig and securely provide for a sail. Besides, our hopes could never lie in the direction of such a thing. We must be picked up--there is no other chance for us.' The Captain made no response, but sat, propped up on his pillows, motionless, his eyes fixed upon the barque.