e upon which they have been
placed. Steam is kept up in the engine-room, that there may be no delay
should an opportunity for escape present itself. The Captain is in
exuberant spirits, though he still retains that wild "fey" expression
which I have already remarked upon. This burst of cheerfulness puzzles
me more than his former gloom. I cannot understand it. I think I
mentioned in an early part of this journal that one of his oddities is
that he never permits any person to enter his cabin, but insists upon
making his own bed, such as it is, and performing every other office for
himself. To my surprise he handed me the key to-day and requested me to
go down there and take the time by his chronometer while he measured
the altitude of the sun at noon. It is a bare little room, containing
a washing-stand and a few books, but little else in the way of luxury,
except some pictures upon the walls. The majority of these are small
cheap oleographs, but there was one water-colour sketch of the head of a
young lady which arrested my attention. It was evidently a portrait, and
not one of those fancy types of female beauty which sailors particularly
affect. No artist could have evolved from his own mind such a curious
mixture of character and weakness. The languid, dreamy eyes, with their
drooping lashes, and the broad, low brow, unruffled by thought or care,
were in strong contrast with the clean-cut, prominent jaw, and the
resolute set of the lower lip. Underneath it in one of the corners was
written, "M. B., aet. 19." That any one in the short space of nineteen
years of existence could develop such strength of will as was stamped
upon her face seemed to me at the time to be well-nigh incredible. She
must have been an extraordinary woman. Her features have thrown such
a glamour over me that, though I had but a fleeting glance at them, I
could, were I a draughtsman, reproduce them line for line upon this page
of the journal. I wonder what part she has played in our Captain's
life. He has hung her picture at the end of his berth, so that his eyes
continually rest upon it. Were he a less reserved man I should make
some remark upon the subject. Of the other things in his cabin there
was nothing worthy of mention--uniform coats, a camp-stool, small
looking-glass, tobacco-box, and numerous pipes, including an oriental
hookah--which, by-the-bye, gives some colour to Mr. Milne's story about
his participation in the war, though the connect