'What but a squall? This is a great ocean, and mark our luck; there were thousands of miles of water for that squall to sweep over on either hand of us, but Old Stormy bestrode it, and, scenting us, made for the hull.' 'There are other booms to rig up a mast with.' 'So there are,' he answered, speaking quietly, with his eyes fixed upon the form of the doctor as though he addressed him. 'There are other spars, but there's not another crew to do the work.' His wife gave a start at this and looked up at him with a passion of anxiety, putting her hand upon his arm. 'The men have as good as told me,' said he, 'through the bo'sun, that there's nothing to be done with jury-masts. They're willing to try their hands to-morrow on another--to oblige me--but they'd rather get my permission to prepare the long-boat for leaving the ship so as to give chase to a sail if one should show too far off to speak us: failing that, then to take advantage of a smooth in the weather and to make for the northward in an open boat--in this sea--the idiots!' 'But something must be done,' shouted Mr. Owen from his corner. 'The ship will go to pieces if she's to be left to knock about in this hollow sea.' Captain Burke took no more notice than had the doctor's voice been the creaking of a bulkhead. It was quieter on that than on the preceding night. The wind, we learnt, was a scanty breeze out of the south; here and there the vapour had thinned, and a pale star shivered in the openings: our drift that day had lifted some northward point of ice, and the dim faintness of it was visible on the port beam, as the helpless hull lay; that was all the ice to be seen, and it was far enough off to keep us easy. A large black swell was flowing north and south, but the folds were wide and regular and the motion of the hull was almost easy upon it. These matters about that scene of night outside I got from the captain and steward. The sailors remained forward. I understood they managed very well now they could keep the galley fire going. Once during this evening I asked Captain Burke, when he came below for a glass of hot grog and biscuit, why he did not burn a signal fire. 'And risk setting the hull in a blaze?' said he, 'with the chance of there being nothing within five hundred miles of us.' 'It might bring help, Edward,' said his wife. He flung from us in a passion. It was a bad sign with him now, that the merest nothings, such as my question, put him into a rage. He swallowed his glass of grog and returned on deck, and when half-way up the companion ladder he paused to shout back, 'No use in making a flare unless there's something to signal to,' and then stepped into the blackness outside.