He led me down a narrow staircase with a little brown, gloomy interior, whose equipment, glorious as was the day outside, was barely revealed by the light that struggled through the frame of dirty glass overhead. The shaft of mizzenmast pierced the deck and was ringed by a number of polished harpoons which glanced in the gloom with the blue gleam of the razor. A squab square table was set in the midst of this cabin, and on either hand it was a locker, rugged and jagged, as though generations of whalemen had cut up plug tobacco upon the lid.
The captain told me to sit down, and with a stride or two of his long legs vanished inside a small berth abaft the mizzenmast. He reappeared, holding a volume which proved to be his log-book: this he placed upon the table and sat down in front of it.
'What might thy name be?' he asked whilst he turned the leaves of the book.
'Mr. Moore,' I answered.
He fastened his eyes on the page, and after reading awhile, said:
'We sighted the ship on the ice on the morning of October 13. It had been blowing a hard gale all through the night, but it slackened down airly in the morning and we put her before it; but so high a sea was running that had I seen that thar hull full of men I could have done nothing for them.' He ran his finger along the page and continued: 'The latitude in which that wreck lies is 60° and the longitude—I'm giving it thee by thy Greenwich time—will be 45° 28´ W.'
I pulled out my note-book and entered these figures.
'Though,' he went on, 'she looks to be lying on ice, it's land that cradles her. It's what's marked down as Coronation Island, and's the westermost of the South Orkneys. She lies plain in sight of the sea, onless the ice since then has come together and blocked her out.'
'Did you get a good view of her?'