Read "Alone on a Wide Sea, Volume I" by W. Clark Russell online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
A respectable-looking, pale-faced woman, attired in black, stood at the head of a staircase that descended through a large hatch in the forward part of this saloon. The young officer went up to her and said, ‘Mrs. Richards, we have just brought this poor lady off from the brig that was run down last night. The captain requests that you will take her below and make her comfortable. She has been locked up -- think of it, Mrs. Richards -- she has been locked up all night, without food or drink, in the berth of a craft that I dare say she supposed at any moment might sink under her feet. When you have thoroughly refreshed yourself,' he exclaimed, addressing me, ‘the captain will be happy to see you.'
‘I think you had better come to my berth,' said the person whom the young mate had called Mrs. Richards.