Eliza had suspected very early that the one-armed man might be some sort of a godsend, and was now convinced of it. She hitched up her skirt, snaked a leg under her bed, caught her bag-handle on the point of her slipper, and jerked it out. Turning to the open window, she paused for a few moments to time her breathing, and the rolling of the seas; then she tossed out the bag, and it landed square in the middle of the rowboat. Then she turned around. Flail-arm, it seemed, had fastened his gaze upon Brigitte with a look that seemed to say, "I mean to throw you out next, mademoiselle," and she had declined the honor. Now he was trying to get one arm about her waist (a factitious narrowing of Brigitte’s midsection, owed to laces and whalebones). Few men were big, strong, and reckless enough to pick up Brigitte and toss her, when she was not of a mind to be. This fellow had been , prior to the loss of his arm. As matters stood, they were evenly matched, unless he elected to beat her senseless with the terrible flail first. And this he was not of a mind to do; though he was plainly enough tempted, Eliza thought she could see a tenderness about his eyes. And so a dire, ungainly, loud struggle, destructive of property and of the dignity of the participants, ranged all across the cabin.