'Is she accessible?'
'Haow?'
'Is she to be got at by the people of a ship sighting her, or sent to her?'
'There was a mighty biling of water all along under where she was,' he answered. 'Thee'd need a quiet day; but quiet days are to be had, bar the swell. Folks have landed afore and they'll land again. Ho, yes! If thy friends are locked up in that thar hull, they're to be got out of her.'
'Suppose her there since July; will you believe she has been boarded and the people released?'
'Why,' he answered, 'if she's been lying fair and square, clear in sight as she now is, since that month thee names, it's more'n likely the folks are out of her. But no vessel was ever put by herself in the situation of that craft. I reckon she's been worked up into it arter having lain ice-locked, which may sinnify that for months she's been hid, so that for all we're to know that thar hull may have been the first that passed close in with the island since the ice broke away and exposed her.'
I listened with a feverish passion of attention, devouring every syllable his drawling tongue dropped.
'Have you a chart of that island?' I asked.
He nodded gravely and stood up.