That was all her message to me, yet quite enough.

Although we had never spoken, although our names were yet unknown, I was no criminal to her mind, no unrecognized prisoner beneath contempt, but a human being in whom she already felt a personal interest, and to whom she extended thought and sympathy.

The blow of the gun-stock bruised my back, yet it was with a smile and a light heart that I descended the ladder, deeply conscious of a friend on board--one totally unable to serve me, perhaps, yet nevertheless a friend.

Even in our isolation, guarded in those narrow quarters, much of the ship gossip managed in some way to reach our ears.

How it drifted in was often a mystery, yet there was little going on aboard we failed to hear.