The afternoon closed into early evening, and it was as black as a wolf's throat at the hour of sundown. Through the windows you could see the light of the foam, sudden pallid glares, rushes of dim phosphoric gleams which merely made the darkness visible. The brig was a drunken vision, and the yells of her rigging might be likened to the screams of a tipsy slut who is being thrashed by her man in a thunder-storm. The two sweethearts ate some biscuit, and Julia held a lighted match whilst Hardy mixed some rum and water for them both. They drank out of the same glass, and neither of them apologised. Then Hardy felt and wound up his watch, for he wanted time, though he couldn't see it then except by striking a match. They sat together and I dare say he put his arm round her waist, and possibly she supported her head upon his shoulder after removing her hat. It was a ticklish sitting-ground and they sometimes slided, which was a very good reason why Hardy should hold her by the waist, and why Julia should cling lovingly with her head. And in this posture they entered the night and passed perhaps a couple of hours, so that when Hardy struck a match he found the time nine. He made for the mattress, felt and found it, and the north-country apparel which was to form the bedclothes. He then lurched back to Julia, who did not want to lie down, but he was her lord in resolution and her love consented. Always groping, for despite the sea-flash it was inside here of a midnight blackness, he pillowed her head with a garment of north-country measurement, and then carefully covering her to the neck with the skipper's coat, he pressed his lips to the brow of the girl who was to be his wife, and who was therefore sacred to him, and bade her sleep and leave him to watch and nod and watch. And now all that followed was sickening, sloppy, howling, reeling, foaming hours of darkness, with nothing in them but the drunken vision of brig, and the noisy rage of her straining heart. But at half-past three o'clock by Hardy's watch the weather was undoubtedly moderating; by five it was blowing a little fresh; by six it was daylight and the wind northeast, a pleasant breeze, and the green sea rolled in foamless swells, cutting the wake of the sun, which shone brightly out of every blue lagoon 'twixt the clouds. The girl was up and sitting at the table. She had slept a little, but that little was sound and good. Hardy brought the telescope out of the berth: it was a poor glass, but you could see more through it than with the naked eye. The brig was rolling ponderously on the swell, whose heave was sometimes too sudden for her, and she would stagger with a scream of white water from her side. Her canvas was blowing out, and the sodden old cask may have had some way on her.