Presently they had whipped all the water below and were busy in hoisting the quarter-boat aboard. Whilst this was doing, Rotch came up the deck-house steps; he looked at the island whilst he mounted the ladder, and did not observe me till he was on the roof of the house. He came to a stand very abruptly, and, after staring with many tokens of astonishment in his posture and looks, lifted his cap. I turned my head. No doubt he was surprised to find a well-dressed woman sitting on the deck-house top of that little brig of two hundred tons. Well dressed I was, as dress then went; to be sure, I had worn my gown every day during the fortnight we had been on board the _Old Stormy_, but then it was almost a new dress when I took it off and packed it up at Woolwich, and it still looked new. I remember that gown very well; it was of black merino with a velvet cape, long sleeves for which I had no wristbands, the bodice with an embroidered collar and bound to the waist by a band. My hat was narrow-brimmed with curled feathers; this sort of headgear had not long been in fashion when I purchased the thing. I was without jewelry and other finishing details, but the fellow Rotch, at a little distance, would detect no omissions; he found a well-dressed, nay, I may almost call the figure a fashionably-dressed woman viewing the proceedings of the islanders, and his bearing and prolonged stare expressed his surprise. I was unable to look at him; that is, whilst he looked at me. The devil that was in Tom was in me too. I could have shot the horrid villain as he stood there. But now, in the corners of my eyes, I beheld him approaching. I trembled violently; the throbbing of my heart made me feel ill again. Yet I thought to myself, if the man accosts me I must answer and be civil. Times are when the human instincts are preternatural in divination. The contagion of our secret may have been in the air. Such must be that villain’s conscience that, let him suspect a trap, no matter how dim and faint his suspicion, he’d fling himself into the whale-boat while she was still alongside, and Tom would lose him. Rightly or wrongly, thus I thought, in the few seconds of his approach; and now he stood close and was addressing me. ‘May I inquire,’ said he, lifting his cap again, ‘if I have the pleasure of speaking to the wife of the captain of this brig?’ I knew that my face was of a milky whiteness, my mouth was dry, my breathing laboured. I answered low and tremulously, ‘I am not the wife of the captain.’ Do not believe that I was afraid. I was sick and cold and shivered with the passion I hid. I dared not lift my eyes, lest beholding the dog with his smile and bland looks I should leap to my feet, spit in his face, strike and curse him. ‘You are, perhaps, a passenger, madam?’ said he. I slightly inclined my head, keeping my eyes fastened upon the island.