I motioned to Cornish and the steward to carry the stretcher away, and waited for Miss Robertson to rise; but she remained for some minutes on her knees, and when she rose, the deck was clear. She gave me her hand, and smiled softly, though with a heart-broken expression in her eyes, at the boatswain by way of thanking him for his sympathy, and I then conducted her below and left her at the door of the cabin, saying-- "I have no words to tell you how I feel for you. Pray God that those who are still living may be spared, and be sure that in His own good time He will comfort you." CHAPTER VIII. All that morning the gale continued fresh and the sea dangerous. We found that the ship was regularly making nine to ten inches of water an hour; and after the funeral we turned to and pumped her out again. But this heavy work, coupled with our extreme anxiety and the perils and labour we had gone through, was beginning to tell heavily upon us. The steward showed signs of what strength he had coming to an end, and Cornish's face had a worn and wasted look as of a man who has fasted long. The boatswain supported this fatigue best, and always went cheerfully to work, and had encouraging words for us all. As for me, what I suffered most from was, strange to say, the eternal rolling of the ship. At times it completely nauseated me. Also it gave me a racking headache, and occasionally the motion so bewildered me that I was obliged to sit down and hold my head in my hands until the dizziness had passed. I believe this feeling was the result of over-work, long wakefulness, and preying anxiety, which was hourly sapping my constitution. Yet I was generally relieved by even a quarter of an hour's sleep, but presently was troubled again, and I grew to dread the time when I should take the wheel, for right aft the motion of the ship was intensely felt by me, so much so that on that morning, the vessel's stern falling heavily into a hollow, I nearly fainted, and only saved myself from rolling on the deck by clinging convulsively to the wheel. At a quarter-past eleven I had just gone into the cuddy, after having had an hour's spell at the pumps with the boatswain and the steward, when I heard Cornish's voice shouting down the companion, "A sail! a sail!" But a minute before I had felt so utterly prostrated, that I should not have believed myself capable of taking half-a-dozen steps without a long rest between each. Yet these magical words sent me rushing up the companion ladder with as much speed and energy as I should have been capable of after a long night's refreshing slumber. The moment Cornish saw me he pointed like a mad man to the horizon on the weather beam, and the ship's stern rising at that moment, I clearly beheld the sails of a vessel, though in what direction she was going I could not tell by the naked eye.