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: 'He is drunk! I will have a little talk with him by and by. I put you two into his care and he gets drunk!' He drew on his sou'wester and stood up, holding by a stanchion. 'Are you going on deck, Edward?' asked his wife. 'Certainly I am.' 'You'll be swept overboard.' 'Not I. I'll rout out a couple of the men and we'll have this carpet up. Pah! how the salt water stinks! They shall light ye a fire too. Boil some coffee, Mary. You shall have what you want. I doubt but the galley's stove. The longboat's safe, but the quarter boats are gone. She wants steadying--she wants steadying;' and making a step or two he sprang up the companion ladder and was gone. CHAPTER IX DISMASTED Captain Burke's manner of going persuaded me his mind was unhinged. He had talked with excitement, shouted at his wife, his eyes had been full of fire, and still it did not seem that he had fully grasped the whole dreadful meaning of the disaster. After he had been gone a little while two men came into the cabin with fuel for the stove. One had a bloodstained bandage round his forehead under his sou'wester. The snow fell in pieces of white crust from the oilskins of the seamen as they reeled with their hands full to the stove. In the instant of their descent the sweep of the black gale followed, and filled the atmosphere with darting needles of stinging cold. 'Is any water coming into the ship?' cried Mrs. Burke.