'I've known three whalers taken off a piece of ice four or five days before the lump they floated on would have melted under their feet,' said the captain.
Mr. Owen viewed him with a smile. The captain abruptly left us, and standing at the wheel directed his eyes earnestly round the sea and up at the sky. Mrs. Burke said:
'My husband's uneasy. I hope we are not going to have any very bad weather.'
'Miss Otway,' said Mr. Owen, 'do you know, those birds are the souls of dead ballet-girls? Observe the exquisite time and grace of their measures and curvings, as though they held their white skirts out and revolved to unheard music.'
Here Captain Burke called out sharply:
'Get the main-topgallant sail furled and all three topsails single-reefed.'
In a few minutes the ship was clamorous with singing men and busy with running figures; a pale ray of sunshine glanced just then at no great height above the horizon and flashed up our ice-glazed rigging and flamed in the spears of ice at the catheads: it touched the iceberg and the cathedral-like phantasy that was now abeam whitened out into a glaring brilliance which flung a sheen of its own round about it; the sky hung pale above and on its left, but to the right of it snow was falling thickly. In a few minutes the whole mass vanished, a deeper gloom closed in upon the sea, and the swell ran with an increased weight.
It was an 'all hands' job as sailors call it, and while the watches were on the topsail yards, the captain bawled out 'two reefs,' and when some hands went on to the mizzen topsail yard he cried out to them to close-reef the sail, which, before the men came down, was clewed up and furled. Even whilst I remained on deck a sort of vapourish thickness had gathered round the horizon, as though the several draperies of snow-cloud had compacted into a huge circular wall, blotting out everything a mile off, whilst overhead the sooty stuff, like scud held in suspense, floated low down till the sweep of the dog vane at the royal mast-head seemed to rend it.
It began to snow in large soft flakes. I went down the companion steps, and Mrs. Burke and Mr. Owen followed me. I heard Mr. Owen say softly, as though he would not have me overhear,