'You seem to know a good deal about the ice,' said I. 'I knew too much about most things,' he answered, puffing. 'If you was to turn to and pump out my mind, more'd come up than what the poets call sparkling brine.' He looked to right and left to observe if he was overheard, and I guessed he was a wag who liked the laughter of many. Just then four Italian emigrants began to sing together on the forecastle; their voices swelled in a pleasing concert; the rude harmonies of the engine-room, dim and deep, as interpretable as human voices, so articulate was the metallic clangour, mingled with the music the singers made without vexing the ear. I listened, then looked at Captain Robson, whose round face was staring deafly seawards. 'Captain,' said I, 'figure a dismasted hull in sixty degrees of south latitude and nothing of land nearer than the South Shetlands. When she was abandoned there was plenty of tall ice on the horizon in points, on both bows and astern. What's to become of that wreck?' 'Are ye speaking of the "Lady Emma"?' said he. I started and exclaimed, 'Oh, you've heard of her loss?' 'I've known Jim Hobbs, one of her owners, ever since he was a boy,' he answered. 'A little while afore I left London I met him at a luncheon party and we talked that loss o'er. Loss! Well, ye've not to call it _that_ yet, neither. The skipper and two females remained aboard, Hobbs told me. The crew was quick in desarting. There was twelve foot of stump forrard, Hobbs said; they should have given the capt'n a chance. With less than twelve foot of stump when I was a boy, good prizes have been blowed under jury canvas into safety. But when steam came in,' said he, turning to send a gaze of contempt at the funnel, 'the sailor went out. Let the master of the "Lady Emma" have had a collier crew of my time aboard, and they'd ha' made no more of the loss of all three masts--twelve foot of stump and the bowsprit remaining, according to Hobbs--than a dog of his tail.' 'What chance do you give the hull?' said I. He viewed me with an arch lift of his eyebrows, as though his smile at the instant were in _them_ only. 'I'll answer you as I answered Hobbs that same question,' said he, after discharging a number of puffs; 'she'll be heard of again. I don't care about the ice. Dismast your ship and she'll wash round an object. I'm not speaking of a dead-be shore leagues long. Plant an iceberg close aboard a hulk and she'll wallow clear. It's the height of spar, the weight of rigging, plenty of surface of stowed sail for the wind to shoulder, that keeps a vessel helpless in her drift when she's not under command.' 'But if she strikes she's gone, masts or no masts.' 'She'll swim for her life. It's like striking out clear of your clothes.' 'You give that hull a chance then, captain?'