When at first they had been left alone together he had tried to speak to her: but unlike so many Dutchmen he did not know a word of English. He could just move his head, and he kept turning his eyes first on a very sharp knife which some idiot had dropped in a corner of the cabin floor, then on Emily. He was asking her to get it for him, of course.

But Emily was terrified of him. There is something much more frightening about a man who is tied up than a man who is not tied up⁠—I suppose it is the fear he may get loose.

The feeling of not being able to get out of the bunk and escape added the true nightmare panic.

Remember that he had no neck, and the cigar-reek.

At last he must have caught the look of fear and disgust in her face, where he had expected compassion. He began to act for himself. First gently rocking his bound body from side to side, he set himself to roll.