When I awoke ’twas broad day––’twas, indeed, late morning. The Shining Light was still. My uncle and the fool sat softly chatting over the cabin table, with breakfast and steaming tea between. I heard the roar of the wind, observed beyond the framing door the world aswirl and white; but I felt no laboring heave, caught no thud and swish of water. The gale, at any rate, had not abated: ’twas blowing higher and colder. My uncle gently laughed, when I was not yet all awake, and the fool laughed, too; and they ate their pork and brewis and sipped their tea with relish, as if abiding in security and ease. I would fall asleep again: but got the smell of breakfast in my nose, and must get up; and having gone on deck I found in the narrow, white-walled circle of the storm a little world of ice and writhing space. The Shining Light was gripped: her foremast was snapped, her sails hanging stiff and frozen; she was listed, bedraggled, incrusted with ice––drifted high with snow. ’Twas the end of the craft: I knew it. And I went below to my uncle and the fool, sad at heart because of this death, but wishing very much, indeed, for my breakfast. ’Twas very warm and peaceful in the cabin, with pork and brewis on the table, my uncle chuckling, the fire most cheerfully thriving. I could 320 hear the wind––the rage of it––but felt no stress of weather.
“Stove in, Dannie,” says my uncle. “She’ll sink when the ice goes abroad.”
I asked for my fork.
“Fill up,” my uncle cautioned. “Ye’ll need it afore we’re through.”
’Twas to this I made haste.
“More pork than brewis, lad,” he advised. “Pork takes more grindin’.”
I attacked the pork.
“I got your bag ready,” says he.
Then I had no cause to trouble....