'Oh yes, she's tight enough. We've lost Green and four men.'
'Oh, Edward, don't say it! Mr. Green—four men! How did it happen?'
'How does anything happen at sea on a black night aboard a dismantled ship with hills of ink and foam rolling over her? How it happened ask of God who did it. They're not aboard.'
He talked with jerking movements of the head, snapping his speech at her, and his blue eyes were on fire. A look of fear of him gave a new colour to the expression of horror and consternation in his wife's face. I sat white and speechless, listening to him and to the booming artillery of the sea, entering with ceaseless secret terror into the motions of the ship, all so violent, so extravagantly wild at times that I would say to myself, 'Now she is gone!'
'Where are the crew?' asked Mrs. Burke.
'Forward in their quarters. There's nothing to keep a look-out for except daylight. The wreck's gone clear. The wheel's lashed, and whatever comes must come. Is this the meaning of Old Stormy's visit, miss?' said he to me with another of his desperate forced grins. 'My apparition, you know, with a wet face! At sea omens are omens; the fired part is, you never can tell what form the mischief means to take so that you can provide against it.'
His wife hid her face.
'None of that!' he roared. 'There must be no breaking down in spirit here. Miss Otway's to be returned safe and sound to her father. There's no virtue in snivelling to help that, with all three masts gone and the night like a wolf's throat, and ice islands close aboard. Where's Owen?'
I said that he was in his cabin. He got up, opened the door, and looked at him. There was no lamp in the doctor's berth, but the sheen of the cabin light lay upon the interior. The captain entered the cabin, but if he spoke I did not hear him. He returned and said: