Mr Zachariah Lathrope, who made light of his injuries, albeit his left arm was in a sling--confessing, too, that his side "felt kinder painful, as if some coon had given him a sockdolager in the ribs, or a grizzly bar put his hug on"--was seated at the replaced table, pitching into a sort of heavy lunch, to make amends for his missed breakfast, while the steward was cutting up a plentiful supply of ham for him on his plate, so that he could use his solitary hand with a fork and so feed himself. Mrs Major Negus was busily engaged in her cabin, and with the assistance of Mary Llewellyn, the stewardess, was rearranging all her numerous goods and chattels that had been so ruthlessly banged about in the night; and Master Maurice, whom the turmoil had not disturbed in the least, was still sleeping in the top bunk as composedly as he had continued doing all through the period of his mother's struggles on the floor and narrow escape from suffocation, unawakened either by the noise or her loud calls for help--the worthy lady as soon as she came to herself having earnestly cautioned Kate and the stewardess not to arouse her darling boy, for "he would be so frightened, you know, if he saw me like this!" Kate herself, recovered from her faint, but yet feeling weak and languid from the effects of all she had gone through, was mechanically assisting Florry to dress, wondering the while, in a dull apathetic way, whether she would ever again have to tender the same offices to her little sister, for she was prepared for the worst and believed that the ship was in imminent danger--although she hoped still, with the ardent nature of youth, that they might be delivered, trusting to the loving mercy and watchful care of that God to whom she had prayed during the night, even before her earthly father's counsel, and before whose footstool she had already that morning bent the knee more than once. As for Mr Meldrum--who had remained below from the consciousness that he could not be of any service in the immediate present on deck and from an unwillingness to having the appearance even of shoving himself forward and interfering with the management of the ship after what Captain Dinks had said--he had tumbled out a portmanteau in his state- room in order to overhaul some old papers; and he presently came out into the cuddy with a chart in his hand. "Hillo, mister," said the American as soon as he noticed him, "jest roused up, hey? I thought you wer havin' a bit of snooze, and wondered when you were goin' to turn out!" "Ah," said Mr Meldrum gravely, "it's no time for sleeping now for any one on board. The ship is in far too perilous a position for that!" "Is she?" asked Mr Lathrope, most unconcernedly apparently. "She really is," replied Mr Meldrum.