My escape and flight had been so unexpected, so unhoped for, that it had bewildered me, and it was almost a pleasure to lie still and listen to the din and uproar of the sea and the swoop of the wind rushing down upon it.  Was I myself or no?  Was this nothing more than a very coherent, very vivid dream, from which I should awake by-and-by to find myself a prisoner still, a creature as wretched and friendless as any that the streets of London contained?  My flight had been too extraordinary a success, so far, for my mind to be able to dwell upon it calmly.

I watched the dawn break through a little port-hole opening upon my berth, which had been washed and beaten by the water all the night long.  The level light shone across the troubled and leaden-colored surface of the sea, which seemed to grow a little quieter under its touch.  I had fancied during the night that the waves were running mountains high; but now I could see them, they only rolled to and fro in round, swelling hillocks, dull green against the eastern sky, with deep, sullen troughs of a livid purple between them.  But the fury of the storm had spent itself, that was evident, and the steamer was making way steadily now.

The stewardess had gone away early in the night, being frightened to death, she said, to seek more genial companionship than mine.  So I was alone, with the blending light of the early dawn and that of the lamp burning feebly from the ceiling.  I sat up in my berth and cautiously unstitched the lining in the breast of my jacket.  Here, months ago, when I first began to foresee this emergency, and while I was still allowed the use of my money, I had concealed one by one a few five-pound notes of the Bank of England.  I counted them over, eight of them; forty pounds in all, my sole fortune, my only means of living.  True, I had besides these a diamond ring, presented to me under circumstances which made it of no value to me, except for its worth in money, and a watch and chain given to me years ago by my father.  A jeweller had told me that the ring was worth sixty pounds, and the watch and chain forty; but how difficult and dangerous it would be for me to sell either of them!  Practically my means were limited to the eight bank-notes of five pounds each.  I kept out one for the payment of my passage, and then replaced the rest, and carefully pinned them into the unstitched lining.

Then I began to wonder what my destination was.  I knew nothing whatever of the Channel Islands, except the names which I had learned at school—­Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark.  I repeated these over and over again to myself; but which of them we were bound for, or if we were about to call at each one of them, I did not know.  I should have been more at home had I gone to Paris.