to live, now she had a friend to protect from calumny; but
should use her own judgment as to the means.

Yet women will be women. She had carefully taken a copy of his advice
before she cast it out with scorn.

He replied, "Live with whatever motive you please; only live."

To this she vouchsafed no answer; nor did this unhappy man trouble her
again, until an occasion of a very different kind arose.

One fine night he sat on the deck, with his back against the mainmast, in
deep melancholy and listlessness, and fell, at last, into a doze, from
which he was wakened by a peculiar sound below. It was a beautiful and
stilly night; all sounds were magnified; and the father of all rats
seemed to be gnawing the ship down below.

Hazel's curiosity was excited, and he went softly down the ladder to see
what the sound really was. But that was not so easy, for it proved to be
below decks; but he saw a light glimmering through a small scuttle abaft
the mate's cabin, and the sounds were in the neighborhood of that light.

It now flashed upon Mr. Hazel that this was the very quarter where he had
heard that mysterious knocking when the ship was lying to in the gale.

Upon this a certain degree of vague suspicion began to mingle with his
curiosity.

He stood still a moment, listening acutely; then took off his shoes very
quietly, and moved with noiseless foot toward the scuttle.

The gnawing still continued.

He put his head through the scuttle, and peered into a dark, dismal
place, whose very existence was new to him. It was, in fact, a vacant
space between the cargo and the ship's run. This wooden cavern was very
narrow, but not less than fifteen feet long. The candle was at the
further end, and between it and Hazel a man was working, with his flank
turned toward the spectator. This partly intercepted the light; but still
it revealed in a fitful way the huge ribs of the ship, and her inner
skin, that formed the right-hand partition, so to speak, of this black
cavern; and close outside those gaunt timbers was heard the wash of the
sea.

There was something solemn in the close proximity of that tremendous
element and the narrowness of the wooden barrier.

The bare place, and the gentle, monotonous wash of the liquid monster, on
that calm night, conveyed to Mr. Hazel's mind a thought akin to David's.

"As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, there is but a step between
me and death."

Judge whether that thought grew