His wife gave me a look as though she would entreat me not to talk to him. Now and again he lifted up his eyes to a tell-tale compass that hung exactly over his chair; almost as regular as the beat of a clock was the plunge of the ship from right to left, from left to right. The blinding green sense of one side and then the other of the cabin portholes, and a loud yearning thunder of water washing past. After a little the captain went to his cabin. I said I would like to see the ship under sail, and when we had clothed ourselves for the deck Mrs. Burke and I went to the companion-steps. A seaman, clad in oilskins and swathed about the neck till he showed nothing of his face but a pair of eyes, stood at the wheel. Some delicate stars and darts of snow were falling, but they did not cloud the view. The square of white canvas was stretched by a fresh following breeze of bitter coldness, beyond frost itself: the sea was feathering upon the swell, and a number of grey and white petrels skimmed the flashes as they moulded their flight to the wind-furrowed rounds. The white sail looked like a wild and sickly light when the hull swung it athwart the soot over the horizon, but there could be no doubt that the vessel was in motion. We durst not leave the holding place of the companion-hood to look over the taffrail or side, but you saw she had steerage way by the manner in which the fellow twirled the wheel. A group of seamen with their hands deep buried, some of them sea-booted fisherman-like to their knees, trudged the white frozen deck opposite the galley. It was wonderful to see them keep their feet; the rumbling hum of their strong, lungs stole aft against the wind; they swayed in earnest talk, and minded us not when they faced our way, again and again staring round at the sea as though for a sail. Now we had not been looking about us above five minutes when, happening to glance aft past the helmsman, I saw the ocean not above half a mile distant, white as milk, the forestretch of it was about two miles long; how wide it went back I could not say, nor could I guess what it was; there was no snow nor any particular blackness of cloud over it, nor uncommon wildness of flight in the vapour overhanging us. Before I could call Mrs. Burke's attention to the wonder, the seaman at the helm turned and spied it, and instantly roared out in a voice that swept past the ear like the wind of something heavy swiftly flying.