She did not use the brush, nor did she read the almanac, but they reminded her of home and the world which was real.
But when she did make up her mind to look out of the windows, she became greatly interested, especially at the bow, where she could gaze out into the water illuminated by the long lane of light thrown out by the search-light.

Here she continually imagined she saw things, and sometimes greatly startled the men on lookout by her exclamations.

Once she thought she saw a floating corpse, but fortunately it was Sammy who was by her when she proclaimed her discovery, and he did not believe in any such nonsense, suggesting that it might have been some sort of a fish.

After that the idea of fish filled the mind of Mrs.Block, and she set herself to work to search in an encyclopaedia which was on board for descriptions of fishes which inhabited the depths of the arctic seas.

To meet a whale, she thought, would be very bad, but then a whale is clumsy and soft; a sword-fish was what she most dreaded.