'The report in the paper is true, then?' said I.
'I grieve to say it is,' he replied.
I so trembled with grief I could scarcely speak to the man.
'Are we to entertain no hope whatever?' I said, leaning upon the table for support. He placed a chair; I sank into it and proceeded: 'Surely we need not certainly conclude the dismasted ship sunk after the long-boat left her merely because——' and here, forgetting the names, I brought out the newspaper to refer to—' the "Planter" failed to find her after a few hours' search in, perhaps, thick weather, and amongst the ice, which may have been numerous?'
'Oh, of course,' he exclaimed, 'we must not abandon hope. As you justly put it, the "Planter's" search counts for little, considering how brief it was, and the state of the weather. I'll not pretend I have much hope myself, but the sea provides many chances. Again and again you hear of rates rising, till no further risk is taken; then the ship is posted, her end made sure of, and one fine morning she's signalled off some Channel station, blowing leisurely along with the loss of her foretop-mast and her bottom beach-like with weed. I don't despair, sir; yet I must honestly own my hope is not strong.' He paused, then said, 'I believe one of the crew of the "Lady Emma's" in the front office.' He walked to the door and looked out. 'Would you like to see him? He was the boatswain of the ship. His name is Wall.'
I eagerly begged him to bring him in. He called, and the big sailor I had noticed entered. I immediately recollected that Marie, in the fragment of journal she had sent us, had described and praised him for his civility and his qualities as a seaman. He stood before us, cap in hand, his back slightly arched by years of stooping and hauling and curling of his body over yards and booms; his weather-coloured face was hard as leather, and rugged and knotted with muscle; one of those seafaring faces, impenetrable to the chisel of ocean experience which fifty tragedies of the deep would no more mark than the human anguish in shipwreck alters the face of the rock which stares through the salt smoke down upon the scene.
'This gentleman,' said Mr. Hobbs, 'is Mr. Archibald Moore. The young lady passenger aboard the "Lady Emma" was——' he dropped his head and was silent.
I gazed at the seaman with consuming interest; he had been among the last—he might have been the last—who had seen, who had spoken to Marie.
'You'll not tell me,' said I, in a broken voice, 'there's no hope for the three you left behind you?'
'No, sir, I'll not tell you that,' answered the man in deep tones, which trembled upon the ear with the power of their volume. 'I've said all along that if the ice only lets the hull keep afloat, there was nothen to prevent her being fallen in with. She wasn't so far south,' continued he, looking at Mr. Hobbs, 'as to be out of the way of half a dozen chances a week if the weather opened out the sea, and gave a view of her as she lay flat, with but twelve foot of foremast standing.'