"Why will you not let me take your place?" "Because----" "Let the steward keep near that ladder there, so that I can call to him if I want you." "Do you think I could rest with the knowledge you were alone on deck?" "You refuse because you believe I am not to be trusted," she said gently, looking down again. "If your life were not dependent on the ship's safety, I should not think of her safety, but of yours. I refuse for your own sake, not for mine--no, I will not say that. For _both_ our sakes I refuse. I have one dear hope--well, I will call it a great ambition, which I need not be ashamed to own: it is, that I may be the means of placing you on shore in England. This hope has given me half the courage with which I have fought on through danger after danger since I first brought you from the wreck. If anything should happen to you now, I feel that all the courage and strength of heart which have sustained me would go. Is that saying too much? I do not wish to exaggerate," I exclaimed, feeling the blood in my cheeks, and lamenting, without being able to control, the impulse that had forced this speech from me, and scarcely knowing whether to applaud or detest myself for my candour. She looked up at me with her frank, beautiful eyes, but on a sudden averted them from my face to the door of the cabin where her dead father lay. A look of indescribable anguish came over her, and she drew a deep, long, sobbing breath. Without another word, I took her hand and led her to the cabin, and I knew the reason why she did not turn and speak to me was that I might not see she was weeping. But it was a time for action, and I dared not let the deep love that had come to me for her divert my thoughts from my present extremity. I summoned the steward, who tumbled out of his cabin smartly enough, and ordered him to bring his mattress and lay it alongside the companion ladder so as to be within hail. This done, I gained the poop and sent Cornish below. CHAPTER VI. As I stood at the wheel I considered how I should act when the storm had passed. And I was justified in so speculating, because now the sky was clear right away round, and the stars large and bright, though a strong gale was still blowing and keeping the sea very heavy. Indeed, the clearness of the sky made me think that the wind would go to the eastward, but as yet there was no sign of it veering from the old quarter. We had been heading west ever since we hove to, and travelling broadside on dead south south-east. Now, if wind and sea dropped, our business would be to make sail if possible, and, with the wind holding north north-west, make an eight hours' board north-easterly, and then round and stand for Bermuda. This, of course, would depend upon the weather.