He addressed her in weak and broken tones in Danish, then turned his head and slightly raised his arm, as though he wished to point to something up in the sky, but was without power of limb to do so. On this Helga withdrew the portrait, and I put down the lamp, first searching the dark line of ocean, now scintillant with stars, before sitting again. As the moon sank, spite of her diffusing little or no light, a deeper dye seemed to come into the night. The shooting-stars were plentiful, and betokened, as I might hope, continuance of fair weather. Here and there hovered a steam-coloured fragment of cloud. An aspect of almost summer serenity was upon the countenance of the sky, and though there was the weight of the ocean in the swing of the swell, there was peace too in the regularity of its run and in the soundless motion of it as it took us, sloping the raft after the manner of a see-saw. In a boat, aboard any other contrivance than this raft put together by inexpert hands, I must have felt grateful--deeply thankful to God indeed, for this sweet quietude of air and sea that had followed the roaring conflict of the long hours now passed. But I was without hope, and there can be no thankfulness without that emotion. These were the closing days of October; November was at hand; within an hour this sluggish breathing of air might be storming up into such another hurricane as we were fresh from. And what then? Why, it was impossible to fancy such a thing even, without one's spirits growing heavy as lead, without feeling the presence of death in the chill of the night air. No! for this passage of calm, God forgive me! I could not feel grateful. The coward in me rose strong. I could not bless Heaven for what affected me as a brief pause before a dreadful end, that this very quiet of the night was only to render more lingering, and fuller, therefore, of suffering. Captain Nielsen began to mutter. I did not need to listen to him for above a minute to gather that he was delirious. I could see the outline of Helga against the stars, bending over the cot. The thought of this heroic girl's distress, of her complicated anguish, rallied me, and I broke in a very passion of self-reproach from the degradation of my dejection. I drew to the cot, and Helga said: 'He is wandering in his mind.' She added, with a note of wailing in her voice, 'Jeg er nu alene! Jeg er nu alene!' by which she signified that she was now alone. I caught the meaning of the sentence from her pronunciation of it, and cried: 'Do not say you are alone, Helga! Besides, your father still lives. Hark! what does he say?' So far he had been babbling in Danish; now he spoke in English, in a strange voice that sounded as though proceeding from someone at a distance.