"Mr. Royle, you are a dear good friend to me. God knows how lonely I should have been without you--and yet--I made you angry." "Do not say that. What I do I do for your safety--for your ultimate happiness--so that when we say farewell to each other on shore, I may feel that the trust which God gave me in you was honourably and faithfully discharged. I desire, if our lives are spared, that this memory may follow me when all this scene is changed, and we behold it again only in our dreams. I should have told you my meaning just now, but one cannot always express one's thoughts." "You have told me your meaning, and I shall not forget it. God bless you!" she exclaimed, in her calm, earnest voice, and went slowly down into the cuddy. CHAPTER VII. The wind still continued a brisk gale and the sea very heavy. Yet overhead it was a glorious night, and as the glass had risen steadily, I was surprised to find the wild weather holding on so long. I busied my head with all kinds of schemes to save the ship, and believed it would be no hard matter to do so if the water did not come into her more quickly than she was now making it. Unfortunately, there were only two parts of the ship's hold which we could get into: namely, right forward in the fore peak, and right aft down in the lazarette. If she had strained a butt, or started any part of her planking or outer skin, amidships or anywhere in her bottom between these two points, there would be no chance of getting at the leak unless the cargo were slung out of her. But the leak could not be considered very serious that did not run a greater depth of water into the ship than under a foot an hour; and with the Bermudas close at hand and the weather promising fair, I could still dare to think it possible, despite the hopes and fears which alternately depressed and elevated me, to bring the vessel to port, all crippled and under-manned as she was. These speculations kept me busily thinking until half-past eleven, on which I bawled to the steward, who got up and called the boatswain and Cornish, though I only wanted the boatswain. Cornish thought it was midnight and his turn to take the wheel, so he came aft. I resigned my post, being anxious to get on the main-deck, where I found the bo'sun in the act of sounding the well, he having lost some time in re-lighting the lamp, which had burnt out. He dropped the rod carefully and found the water thirteen inches deep,--that was, nine inches high in the pumps. "Just what I thought," said he; "she's takin' of it at a foot an hour, no better and no worse." "Well, we must turn to," I exclaimed. "We mustn't let it rise above a foot, as every inch will make our work longer and harder." "If it stops at that, good and well," said the boatswain. "But there's always a hif in these here sinkin' cases. However, there's time enough to croak when the worst happens."