For upward of half an hour I remained where the captain had placed me, drenched by the spray, listening to the dull thud of the seas as they broke upon the deck below, and watching with an interest that amounted almost to a pain the streams of water that sluiced backward and forward across the bridge every time she rolled. Then, summoning all my courage, for I can assure you it was needed, I staggered toward the ladder and once more prepared to make my way below. I had not reached the deck, however, and fortunately my hands had not quitted the guide rails, when a wave larger than any I had yet seen mounted the bulwark and dashed aboard, carrying away a boat and twisting the davits, from which it had been suspended a moment before, like pieces of bent wire. Had I descended a moment earlier, nothing could have prevented me from being washed overboard. With a feeling of devout thankfulness in my heart for my escape, I remained where I was, clinging to the ladder long after the sea had passed and disappeared through the scuppers. Then I descended and, holding on to the rails as before, eventually reached the saloon entrance in safety. To be inside, in that still, warm atmosphere, out of the pressure of the wind, was a relief beyond all telling, though what sort of object I must have looked, with my hair blown in all directions by the wind and my clothes soaked through and through by the spray that had dashed upon me on the bridge, is more than I can say. Thinking it advisable I should change as soon as possible, I made my way to my own cabin, but, before I reached it, the door of that occupied by the Fräulein Valerie opened and she came out. That something unusual was the matter I saw at a glance. "Mr. Forrester," she said, with a scorn in her voice that cut like a knife, "come here. I have something curious to show you." I did as she wished, and forthwith she led me to her cabin. I was not prepared, however, for what I found there. Crouching in a corner, almost beside himself with fear, and with the frightened face of the monkey Pehtes peering out from beneath his coat, was no less a person than Pharos, the man I had hitherto supposed insensible to such an emotion. In the presence of that death, however, which we all believed to be so imminent, he showed himself a coward past all believing. Terror incarnate stared from his eyes and rendered him unconscious of our scorn. At every roll the vessel gave he shrank farther into his corner, glaring at us meanwhile with a ferocity that was not very far removed from madness. At any other time and in any other person such an exhibition might have been conducive of pity; in his case, however, it only added to the loathing I already felt for him. One thing was very certain, in his present condition he was no fit companion for the woman who stood clinging to the door behind me. I accordingly determined to get him either to his own cabin or to mine without delay.