"Tell me what has happened?" I exclaimed. "Your troubles and trials have been very, very great--too great for you to bear, brave and true-hearted as you are. It unmans me and breaks me down to see you in this attitude. For your own sake, keep up your courage a little longer. The first ship that passes when this gale abates will take us on board; and there are three of us still with you who will never yield an inch to any danger that may come whilst their life holds out and yours remains to be saved." She upturned her pale face, streaming with tears, and said the simple words, but in a tone I shall never forget--"Papa is dead!" Was it so, indeed? And was I so purblind as to wrong her beautiful and heroic character by supposing her capable of being crazed with fears for her own life. I rose from her side, and stood looking at her in silence. I had nothing to say. However dangerous our situation might have been, I should still have known how to comfort and encourage her. But--her father was dead! This was a blow I could not avert--a sorrow no labour could remit. It struck home hard to me. I took her hand and raised her, and entered the cabin hand in hand with her. The moisture of the deck dulled the transparency of the bull's-eye, but sufficient light was admitted through the port-hole to enable me to see him. He was as white as a sheet, and his hair frosted his head, and made him resemble a piece of marble carving. His under jaw had dropped, and that was the great and prominent signal of the thing that had come to him. Poor old man! lying dead under the coarse blanket, with his thin hands folded, as though he had died in prayer, and a most peaceful holy calm in his face! Was it worth while bringing him from the wreck for this? "God was with him when he died," I said, and I closed his poor eyes as tenderly as my rough hands would let me. She looked at him, speechless with grief, and then burst into an uncontrollable fit of crying. My love and tenderness, my deep pity of her lonely helplessness, were all so great an impulse in me that I took her in my arms and held her whilst she sobbed upon my shoulder. I am sure that she knew my sorrow was deep and real, and that I held her to my heart that she might not feel her loneliness.