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. 'He'll be frozen,' cried Mrs. Burke. 'He's a-watching of an ice-mountain out over the bows,' said a man. I clasped my hands, and felt the blood forsake my heart on hearing this. One of the men observed me, and in a voice that went through the straining noises, like the sound of the sawing of wood, cried: 'There's no call to frighten the ladies, Jim. That there block ain't agoing to hurt us, anyhow.' They then settled who should cook; a man undertook the job; the steward cut the ham into rashers, and after a little the place was full of the smell of frying. They had their orders, and went to work. You would not have guessed from their behaviour that we were a dismasted hull, low down past the Horn, ice near us, ourselves rolling helpless on a mountainous sea, a hurricane blowing, often blind with snow, our situation so frightful that every next lurch, every next drive, might carry us headlong out of hand. They fried the bacon, they boiled plenty of coffee, they overhauled the pantry, and got out biscuit and jam and such things; but all very quietly; I saw respect in their behaviour; yet what I best remember was their easy, unconcerned way of going about this business of getting supper. Whilst one cooked and others prepared the table, others again rolled the wet carpet off the deck and stowed it away in a corner. All this while poor Mrs. Burke kept straining her weak eyes at the companion way. At last she jumped up and shrieked out: 'Why doesn't the captain come down? He'll be frozen to death or washed overboard. Which of you'll go and tell him to come to me?' The boatswain instantly went. He was absent five minutes, then returned followed by the captain, who merely saying in a voice I should not have known but for seeing him, 'Get on with your supper, my lads, get on with your supper. 'Tis a bad job,' came to the stove and stood before it warming his hands.