The ship had now the appearance of a wreck; and yet in her mutilated condition was safer than she had been at any moment since the gale first sprang up. The easing her of all this top-weight seemed to make her as buoyant as though we had got a hundred tons of cargo out of her. Indeed, I was now satisfied, providing everything stood, and the wind did not increase in violence, that she would be able to ride out the gale. Cornish (as well as the boatswain and myself) was soaked through and through; we therefore arranged that the boatswain and I should go below and shift our clothes, and that the boatswain should then relieve Cornish. So down we went, I, for one, terribly exhausted, but cheered all the same by an honest hope that we should save our lives and the ship after all. I stepped into the pantry to swallow a dram so as to get my nerves together, for I was trembling all over with the weariness in me, and cold as ice on the skin from the repeated dousings I had received; and then changed my clothes; and never was anything more comforting and grateful than the feel of the dry flannel and the warm stockings and sea-boots which I exchanged for shoes that sopped like brown paper and came to pieces in my hand when I pulled them off. The morning was far advanced, a little past eleven. I was anxious to ask Miss Robertson how she did, and reassure her as to our position before going on deck to take observations, and therefore went to her cabin door and listened, meaning to knock and ask her leave to see her if I heard her voice in conversation with her father. I strained my ear, but the creaking and groaning of the ship inside, and the bellowing of the wind outside, were so violent, that had the girl been singing at the top of her voice I do not believe that I should have heard her. I longed to see her, and shook the handle of the door, judging that she would distinguish this sound amid the other noises which prevailed, and, sure enough, the door opened, and her sweet face looked out. She showed herself fully when she saw me, and came into the cuddy, and was going to address me, but a look of agonized sorrow came into her face; she dropped on her knees before the bench at the table and buried her head, and never was there an attitude of grief more expressive of piteous misery than this. My belief was that the frightful rolling of the ship had crazed her brain, and that she fancied I had come to tell her we were sinking. Not to allow this false impression to affect her an instant longer than could be helped, I dropped on one knee by her side, and at once told her that the ship had been eased, and was riding well, and that the gale, as I believed, was breaking. She shook her head, still keeping her face buried, as though she would say that it was not the danger we were in that had given her that misery.