"Oh, yes, I know; but of Raguet there is little question now. His wife's death has crushed him. I never saw so changed a man; he is half idiotic, I believe; and I am with him now just to keep those children from completing the work of destruction. Six little motherless ones—only think—and as bad as they can possibly be; for poor Lucilla was no manager. Isn't it strange, the influence those little cottony women get over their husbands? You and I might try forever to establish such absolute despotism, all in vain. It is your whimpering sort that rule with the waving of a pocket-handkerchief; but poor, dear little woman, she is powerless now; and I suppose the next will be like unto her. Raguet would never look at any thing feminine that hadn't white eyes and pink hair (yellow, I mean, of course)—his style, you know, being dark and stern, he likes the downy, waxy kind. All this is shockingly egotistical; but the question is, who that has a spark of individuality is otherwise? Good-night, again, and may all sweet dreams attend you; for my part, I never dream, being past the dreaming age, and realities fortunately disappear with daylight; even cross children are wheedled into quietness, and servants forget to fidget and giggle; and, for mosquitoes, there are bars. Adieu."
And thus we parted, never to meet again in mutual mood like this!
Yet, had the free agency of which some men boast been ours, we had scarcely chosen to face the awful change—to look into each other's eyes through gathering death-doom!
CHAPTER III.
Before my dreaming eyes was the terror of a hungry, crunching tooth, fixed in the vessel's side, that of the iceberg, lying black in the moonlight like a great coal crystal, grimly awaiting our approach, but the reality, as well as the figment, had disappeared when I emerged at sunrise from the suffocating cabin, to the atmosphere of the cool and quiet quarter-deck, which had just undergone its matutinal.
Armed with an orange and a biscuit for physical refreshment, I depended on sea and sky for my mental entertainment; and in my hand I bore a slender scroll, destined as a propitiatory offering to our offended helmsman.
I was glad to find again at the wheel our pilot of yesterday.
"Your iceberg has disappeared, Mr. Garth," I said, as I extended to him the sketch I had made of his noble physique the day before, "and here is a picture for your wife, which she will see was not drawn for fun. Women are sharper than men about such matters. There, I bestow it not without regret." He received my offering with a smile, and nod of his great curly head, opened it, gazed long and seriously upon it, and, with the single word "Good," rolled it up again, and consigned it to some bosom pocket in his flannel shirt, into which it seemed to glide as a telescope into its case, revealing, as he did so, glimpses of a hairy breast, and vigorous chest, more admirable for strength than beauty, certainly.