I shut the companion doors that the girl might be warm below, and, that I might move with security, went to work to stretch lines along the deck. A great plenty of gear lay frozen all about; I got hold of an end and worked a length into some sort of suppleness, and with much hard labour succeeded in setting up life-lines in short scoops, so as to bring them taut, for the winch and capstan were frozen motionless, and I could do nothing with them.
This business carried me abreast of the galley, where I saw with a sudden recoil once again the body of the captain's wife. She seemed asleep, so fresh, living and breathing she looked, with even a sort of colour in her face, and the expression of her mouth easy and placid. But since she was dead it was fit she should be buried, and as her presence added to the ghastliness of this picture of wreck, and weighed like an assurance of doom upon the spirits, I resolved to turn her over the side without ado; so, with averted face--for I could not bear to look upon her, she lay so life-like: it was like drowning rather than burying her--I took the body under the arms, and with all reverence gently dragged it to a great gap of smashed bulwark, when, just whispering, 'May God receive you, poor woman, and may He have mercy upon those who are left,' I slided her overboard, and instantly quitted the side, not choosing to get a memory of her as she lay floating ere the drenched clothes sucked her under.
Constantly I cast my eyes into the north for a sight of the sun; but he never showed himself. There stood about twelve foot of splintered foremast. I meant to fly a flag by day and hoist a lighted lantern by night; but how to shin up so as to secure a block at the head?
I mused a bit, and then went in search of the carpenter's chest, which I found in the forecastle. It was a huge chest, cleated and lashed down against the bulk-head that divided the men's sea-parlour from the hold, and it lay in such gloom that I could make nothing of it, so I returned to the cabin for a lantern. I found a couple of bull's-eye lamps in the pantry. Whilst I filled and trimmed one of them, Miss Otway came from the stove to the door and stood looking in.
'Is there anything in sight?' she shrieked.