"Is there anything the matter?" she cried, springing up as he
appeared. "Is there any danger?"
"I trust not; still, it is well to be prepared."
"For what? Do you mean that we may be lost, drowned--here, in sight of
port--all of us--my dear general and myself? It is too dreadful! Why
does not the captain run inside the harbour and put us on dry ground?"
"I fear it would be too great a risk to try and make the mouth of the
harbour in this gale."
"Then why don't you seek help from some of the other ships--the
men-of-war? There are plenty of them all around."
"Every ship outside Balaclava is in the same stress as ourselves. They
could spare us no help, even if we asked for it."
"What, then, are we to do?--in Heaven's name!"
"Trust in Providence and hope for the best! But I think--if I might
suggest--it would be as well to keep the general in ignorance of our
condition, which is not so very desperate after all."
"How do you mean?"
"'Our cables are stout,' Captain Trejago says, and we ought to be able
to ride out the storm."
And the _Arcadia_ did so gallantly all that day, in the teeth of the
hurricane, which blew with unabated fury for many more hours, and in
spite of the tempest-torn sea, which now ran mountains high.
All through that anxious day Trejago kept the deck, watching the sky
and the storm.
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