'Where's the cook?' said Mrs. Burke.
'Overboard, along with the mate and three others,' said one of the men.
Mrs. Burke tossed her hands and after a pause said:
'I'd cook a meal for you with pleasure, men, but I cannot bear this motion—I cannot stand. Steward, fetch a ham from the pantry; there's coffee there and biscuits. Get what's needed for a plentiful supper. Four overboard! How many are left?'
'Nine foremast hands, counting the bo'sun,' exclaimed the seaman with the blood-stained bandage, looking round from the stove.
Just then the rest of the seamen came below, a shaggy, snow-bleached huddle, the gale following in a howl, with the captain's voice in the frost-keen sling of it, shouting, 'Give them all they want to eat. Let them have plenty of hot coffee, and top the meal off with a dram of rum apiece.'
The companion doors were then closed, but in such wise as to be easily opened from within. After that moment's roar of ocean and volley of iron blast, the comparative calm in this interior seemed like peace itself.
'Isn't the captain coming down?' said Mrs. Burke in a voice something wild with anxiety.
'Presently, mum,' answered the boatswain, swaying easily from leg to leg, his huge form thickened out by an immensely stout pea-coat; he pulled his sou'-wester off as a mark of respect, and the snow on the hatch of it flew to the deck compact, and lay there like a white wreath on a grave.