Everything round her was dark.

The sky was overcast, and the night seemed unusually sombre.

Figures were moving all around her, there was noise and confusion of voices, and a general pushing and shouting which seemed strangely weird in this gloom.

Here among the poorer passengers, there had not been thought any necessity for a light, one solitary lantern fixed to a mast only enhanced the intense blackness of everything around.

Now and then a face would come within range of this meagre streak of yellow light, looking strangely distorted, with great, elongated shadows across the brow and chin, a grotesque, ghostly apparition which quickly vanished again, scurrying off like some frightened gnome, giving place other forms, other figures all equally grotesque and equally weird.
Marguerite watched them all half stupidly and motionlessly for awhile.
She did not quite know what she ought to do, and did not like to ask any questions: she was dazed and the darkness blinded her.