y on her part. She knew there was imminent danger
and probably had some notion of its nature.

"You stayed here waiting for what would come," he murmured admiringly.

"Wasn't that the best thing to do?" she asked.

He didn't know. Perhaps. He confessed he could not have done it. Not
he. His flesh and blood could not have stood it. He would have felt he
must see what was coming. Then he remembered that the flare might have
scorched her face, and expressed his concern.

"A bit. Nothing to hurt. Smell the singed hair?"

There was a sort of gaiety in her tone. She might have been frightened
but she certainly was not overcome and suffered from no reaction. This
confirmed and augmented if possible Mr Powell's good opinion of her as
a "jolly girl," though it seemed to him positively monstrous to refer in
such terms to one's captain's wife. "But she doesn't look it," he
thought in extenuation and was going to say something more to her about
the lighting of that flare when another voice was heard in the
companion, saying some indistinct words. Its tone was contemptuous; it
came from below, from the bottom of the stairs. It was a voice in the
cabin. And the only other voice which could be heard in the main cabin
at this time of the evening was the voice of Mrs Anthony's father. The
indistinct white oval sank from Mr Powell's sight so swiftly as to take
him by surprise. For a moment he hung at the opening of the companion
and now that her slight form was no longer obstructing the narrow and
winding staircase the voices came up louder but the words were still
indistinct. The old gentleman was excited about something and Mrs
Anthony was "managing him" as Powell expressed it. They moved away from
the bottom of the stairs and Powell went away from the companion. Yet
he fancied he had heard the words "Lost to me" before he withdrew his
head. They had been uttered by Mr Smith.

Captain Anthony had not moved away from the taffrail. He remained in
the very position he took up to watch the other ship go by rolling and
swinging all shadowy in the uproar of the following seas. He stirred
not; and Powell keeping near by did not dare speak to him, so
enigmatical in its contemplation of the night did his figure appear to
his young eyes: indistinct--and in its immobility staring into gloom,
the prey of some incomprehensible grief, longing or regret.

Why is it that the stillness of a human being is often so impressiv