A little before twelve I looked at my companion, and perceived that she was asleep. On the eve, as I believed we were, of God alone knew what sort of events, the spectacle of the slumbering unconscious girl, whose beauty was never so affecting as when softened, and I may say spiritualised by the expression of placid repose, moved me to the heart. What a strange association had been ours! How intimate had we become! what confidences had our common suffering caused us to exchange! what condition of shoregoing life was there that could have brought this girl and me together as we had been and still were? How I loved her, I was now knowing; I could dwell upon my passion with delight as I looked at her, though on the threshold of a future that might prove terrible and destructive to us both. What was the secret of her heart, so far as I was concerned? I gazed at her lips with some unintelligible hope of witnessing them shape the syllables of my name; then the clear chimes of eight bells floated aft. With a sigh and a prayer, I dimmed the cabin lamp and went softly to the companion steps. On my emerging, the carpenter came up to me. ‘It’s been blowing a steady air o’ wind,’ said he; ‘allowing for this here improvement in our pace, what time d’ye reckon the island’ll take to show itself?’ ‘If it exists,’ I answered, ‘it might be in sight now. The captain’s description showed that there was no height of side to make a loom of. If you’re going forward, see that a couple of hands are stationed on the forecastle, and tell them to keep a bright lookout. We don’t want to run the reef down, if it’s there.’ ‘Ay, ay, sir,’ he exclaimed in the rough off-hand voice of a sailor receiving an order, and left the poop.