I turned to Wall and plied him with questions. What was the condition of the hull? What had been the state of Miss Otway's health? Did he believe, by recalling her looks when he last saw her, that she had the strength to outlive the horrors, trials, suspense, suffering, of even one week of a dismasted hull, rolling about amidst the ice in dangerous, desolate seas?--the wildest in the world and in their mid-winter? Was Captain Burke, singlehanded, aboard the wreck, as a man, capable of doing anything to help them into safety? If not, why had he stuck to the ship? What madman's nightmare of imagination could have induced him to remain with two women aboard a vessel he could do nothing with? I almost raved my questions at the man, so wild grew my heart with grief whilst I listened to his plain answers, full of an old practical seaman's good sense, though several times he repeated that the captain was right to keep his wife and Miss Otway aboard, as they never could have survived the first night in the long-boat. He increased my distress by hinting somewhat doubtfully that Captain Burke had fallen a little weak in his mind during the voyage; he spoke of an apparition that had been seen to walk on the ship's forecastle; it had been clothed in the likeness of the captain, and ever after he had ceased to be quite the same man. 'Can you imagine,' I cried, rounding upon Mr. Hobbs, 'that the loss of the ship is owing to Captain Burke having gone mad?' 'You wouldn't say so?' he answered, looking at Wall. 'No, sir,' answered the seaman, 'there was no madness in that job of dismasting, if it wasn't in the weather.' 'But,' I exclaimed, picking up the ruler Mr. Hobbs had used, and laying the end of it upon the map, 'what was the captain's motive in carrying this vessel so far south? See where the Horn is? What, in God's name, was he doing so high?' 'He was blowed there,' answered the man. 'I understand,' said Mr. Hobbs, 'that a succession of hard northerly gales settled the vessel to the southward and eastward, considerably out of the usual course.' 'The "Planter" was also blowed south,' said Wall. I continued to question with impassioned anxiety, eagerness, and grief, till I found I was likely to become an intruder in the office, on which, asking the boatswain Wall for his address, and ascertaining that he did not mean to look about him for another berth at present, I shook hands with Mr. Hobbs, and walked to my place of business in the City--a private bank near Gracechurch Street.