"'Mate, that fellow is more like a devil than a human being,' whispered Bob Jenner to me, echoing my own thoughts, as we clung together to the belaying pins abaft the mainmast.
"He spoke in a low whisper; but in an instant the eyes of Urbain were on him.
"'Ah!' said he, showing his serrated teeth, 'a maladroit speech, messmate.'
"'No messmate of yours,' growled Bob, unwisely.
"'Shipmate, then,' suggested the other, with a strange glance, between a grin and a scowl, for his black, glittering eyes wore one expression, and his cruel mouth another.
"'Well, mayhap, for so it must be,' said Bob, bluntly.
"'Ah,' said Urbain, with his horrible smile, as he held the wheel with one hand, and—even at that terrible time—felt for his sheath-knife with the other; 'ah! you think me a mauvais sujet, do you?"
"'I doesn't know what "mavy suggey" may be, and I doesn't care if I never does,' replied Bob, sturdily; 'but once I catches you ashore, mounseer, I'll teach you not to grip your knife when speaking to me.'
"'No quarrelling, lads,' said I, while my teeth chattered in the cold of that awful morning atmosphere. 'I only wish we were ashore.'
"'Then have your wish. Land ho!' sung out Urbain; and at that moment the grey wrack around us parted like a curtain; there was a dreadful crash, which tumbled us all right and left; the breakers which he had seen ahead were now boiling around us; and the brig lay bulged and broken-backed upon a reef, close to a lofty line of rocky coast, a helpless wreck, with the ice closing round her; and with a sound between an oath and a laugh, Urbain quitted the now useless wheel, which oscillated, as if in mockery, to and fro.