I was about to speak. He checked me, and said that rest was needful; that there was work to be done outside; that if he began to talk he’d keep me waking for hours, so full was his mind; then kissed and left me. CHAPTER XL SHE HELPS TO KEEP WATCH I got into the bunk, but it was long before I fell asleep. The light was brilliant. The port was open, but the wind was aft and breezed through the gangways, and but little entered the cabin. I lay thinking over Tom’s talk with the others, and my spirits danced and my heart beat with happiness. Isolation! There could be none where Tom was. And then we should be man and wife before he settled down upon that wonderful, remote, heaven-kissing island of the South Atlantic. My imagination made a paradise of it. I figured a handful of quaint cottages, a little community of people simple of heart, pure of life; I dreamed of wild-fowl gaily painted, of the huge breakers of the Atlantic roaring in foam and ramparting our ocean hiding-place, of sweet, cold fruit in volcanic hollows, and a monstrous mountain marble-topped with snow. A hundred like imaginations made up the picture. But above all--but above all--was the promise of Tom’s safety in that mid-ocean island; no other visitors than rough whale-men; in eighteen or twenty years but one man-of-war, and always the world on either hand, the Capes for choice of fresh retreats, any one of them as happy as a dream of Heaven to me whilst Tom should be at my side. I awoke exceedingly refreshed. I guessed by the colour of the light that the afternoon was far advanced. The door of the cabin opposite stood hooked open, and in the bunk in that berth lay Tom sound asleep. I crept to his side and gazed at him. His expression was wild, as though some violent dream troubled his brain; his lips stirred and he breathed hard and short, frowning sometimes, with a tremble in his eyelids as though he was about to look at me. I put my lips to his forehead, whereupon he sighed deeply, ceased to mutter, and his face took an expression of repose. Fearing to break his rest, I softly stepped out. Some cold meat, biscuit, and other food were upon the table. Through the deck-house window I spied the head of Will standing at the wheel. I was hungry, and cut some beef and quickly made a meal, meaning to relieve Will at the wheel. A bottle of wine stood on a swing tray. I drank half a wine-glass of it. It was an excellent cordial sherry or Madeira brought from the store-room, where I had observed a number of such bottles. When Will saw me he exclaimed, ‘You have had a fine sleep! Your cheeks are red with it.’ ‘How long have you been standing here?’ ‘About an hour. I relieved Butler, who is lying down in one of the cabins.’