"But they have boats and may escape."
"Not half enough of them; and then what they have got will be seized by the crew, as they always do at such times."
"Look! you can see them jumping over. The poor wretches hang fast till they are so scorched that they have to let go."
"It's mighty lucky yees are here," said Tim, "for every mother's son that can swim will be hugged by a half-dozen that can't, which would be bad for me."
"Why so; can't you swim?"
"Not a bit of it."
"And nothing but this bench to keep us from sinking."
"And be the same towken isn't that good enough, if it only kaaps us afloat? Can't ye be satisfied?"
"Look! how grand!"
It was indeed a fearful sight, the steamer being one pyramid of roaring, blazing fire, sweeping upward in great fan-like rifts, then blowing outward, horizontally across the deep, as if greedy for the poor beings who had sprung in agony from its embrace. Millions of sparks were floating and drifting overhead and falling all around. The shrieks of the despairing passengers, as with their clothes all aflame they sprung blindly into the ocean, could be heard by our friends, and must indeed have extended a far greater distance.