l. I clenched my fist upon the only dip
which remained alight (the other was somewhere in the jumble under my
feet). Then, catching hold of the door-hook I pulled myself up to the
door, where I steadied myself for a moment. While I stood there I had
a horrible feeling of the ship having died under my feet. She had been
leaping so gallantly only five minutes before. Now she lay with her
heart broken, while the seas beat her with great thumps.

Two battle-lanterns lit the after 'tweendecks. There was a great heap
of staved in casks, slopping about in an inch or two of water, all along
that side, thrown there by the smash. I could hear the men yelling on
deck. Captain Barlow was swearing in loud shouts. I could hear all this
in the lull of the squall. I heard more than that, as I stood listening.
I heard the faint crying out of a woman's voice from the steward's
pantry (next door to the captain's cabin) on the opposite side, across
the steep, tipped up slippery decks. At first I thought it must be
the poor cat; but as the wind passed, letting me hear more clearly, I
recognized that it was a woman's voice, crying out there in the darkness
with a note of pain. I did not think of Aurelia. She never entered my
head. All that I thought was "Poor creature! What a place for a woman!"
The ship was jerking, you might almost call it gasping, as the seas
struck her; it was no easy job to climb along that roof-slope of the
deck with nothing to hold on by. I got across somehow, partly by luck,
partly by fingernails. I even managed to open the pantry door, which was
another difficulty, as it opened inwards, into the cabin. As I opened
it, a suck of wind blew out my light. There I was in the dark, with a
hurt woman, in a ship which for all I knew, might sink with all hands
in twenty seconds. It is queer; I didn't mind the ship sinking. What I
disliked was being in the dark with an unknown somebody who whimpered.

"Are you much hurt?" I asked. "Hold on a minute. I'll strike a light."
I shut myself into the cabin, so as to keep out the draught. My feet
kicked among the steward's crockery. It was as dark in that cubby-hole
as in a grave. The unknown person, probably fearing me, thinking me some
rough drunken sailor, was crying out now more in terror than in pain.
She was begging me not to hurt her. I probably frightened her a good
deal by not replying. The tinder box took up all my attention for a
good couple of minutes. A tinder box is not