Young midshipman Percival Keene finds himself adrift with the drunken bumboat woman Peggy Pearson after the rope securing their small craft to Percival's frigate breaks.
But although I was cold and shivering, and worn out with watching, and tired with holding the lines by which the wherry was steered, I felt almost happy at the return of day. I looked down upon my companion in the boat; she lay sound asleep, with her head upon the basket of tobacco-pipes, her bonnet wet and dripping, with its faded ribbons hanging in the water, which washed to and fro, at the bottom of the boat, as it rolled and rocked to the motion of the waves; her hair had fallen over her face, so as almost to conceal her features; I thought that she had died during the night, so silent and so breathless did she lie. The waves were not so rough now as they had been, for the flood tide had again made; and as the beams of the morning sun glanced on the water, the same billows which appeared so dreadful in the darkness appeared to dance merrily.
I felt hungry; I took up a red herring from one of the baskets, and tore it to pieces with my teeth. I looked around me in every quarter to see if there was any vessel in sight, but there was nothing to be seen but now and then a screaming sea-gull. I tried to rouse my companion by kicking her with my foot; I did not succeed in waking her up, but she turned round on her back, and her hair falling from her face, discovered the features of a young and pretty person, apparently not more than nineteen or twenty years old; her figure was slight and well formed.
Young as I was, I thought it a pity that such a nice-looking person — for she still was so, although in a state of disorder and very dirty — should be so debased by intoxication; and as I looked at the bladder, still half full of spirits, I seized it with an intention to throw it overboard, when I paused at the recollection that it had probably saved my life during the night, and might yet be required.
— Frederick Marryat, Percival Keene
