'Why,' cried Mrs. Burke--but the rest of the sentence was clipped sheer off her lips in a yell of squall, a very hurricane blast; the air was dark with spray, in the midst of which I just caught sight of the jury-mast and sail disappearing--not abruptly, but in a dissolving way, as a snowflake dies on water. The whole thing went in the shriek of the blast, with a single report and a snowstorm of flying tatters; the next instant Mrs. Burke was dragging me down the companion-steps and we both got into the cabin dazed, frozen to the marrow, as much confounded and terrified by that sudden meteoric shock and blast of wind, with its burthen of white brine and its noise of fierce yells and whistlings, as though we had scarcely escaped with our lives. The captain heard, or guessed what had happened; he rushed from his berth on to the deck, but the squall pinned him in the companion-way for a minute, and he stood struggling as though some man had taken him by the throat. In five minutes, however, the furious outburst was spent or had flown ahead; I could tell that by glancing at the cabin windows whenever they lifted clear. The steward came below to trim the lamp. Mrs. Burke asked him what was doing on deck. He answered, nothing, and told us what we knew, that the jury-mast and sail had blown over the bows. It was now to be felt by the distressful, horrid, jerky motion, that the hull had taken up her old situation in the trough. 'What has happened?' said Mr. Owen, coming out of his berth. Mrs. Burke told him. He groaned, and sat down close beside the stove, folding his arms tightly, and said: 'What is to become of us? This is distracting. I am prepared to meet my Maker, but it is the suspense--it is the suspense--it is the having to wait for death that crazes.' 'I am surprised at you,' exclaimed Mrs. Burke, drawing herself up. 'How, as a man, can you talk so before this young lady? As for me, I don't mind what you say; I am the wife of a sailor, and it's not in you to improve my spirits or make me despair. But you have no right to forget yourself as a man before Miss Otway.' He slapped his knee violently, crying out, 'Poor as I am, I would give five hundred pounds had I never heard of your husband or his ship.' The poor woman looked at him with her flat eyes and curled her lip, then gave me an expressive glance when he arose and began to move about the cabin, holding on and looking at the windows to left and right as they soared blind with the foam dazzle. It was dark as midnight on deck before the captain came below, and yet it may not have been three o'clock. He approached the fire and stood before it, his wife and myself sitting on either hand of him. He seemed to steadfastly regard Mr. Owen, who was on a locker at the after end of the cabin, but did not offer to speak. Presently his wife said: 'Are the mast and sail lost for good, Edward?' 'Ay.' 'What was the whiteness that swept them away?'