His oil-skins were glittering with water, and his red face dripping too.
He shook the drops from his brown beard and sat down, with a strange uneasy kind of smile on his face.
"Not much to be done, is there, Morgan?"
"Nothing," replied the mate. "Seems to me we've just got to sit here and wait for death."
"Is that the view you take?"
A terrible wave at that moment dashed over the vessel, shaking her from stern to stem.
"Hark, sir! Isn't that the view you take?"
"While there is life there is hope, my friend."
The mate laughed half scornfully.
"There won't be much of either half an hour after this," he said solemnly.