The captain told me to sit down, and with a stride or two of his long legs vanished inside a small berth abaft the mizzenmast. He reappeared, holding a volume which proved to be his log-book: this he placed upon the table and sat down in front of it. 'What might thy name be?' he asked whilst he turned the leaves of the book. 'Mr. Moore,' I answered. He fastened his eyes on the page, and after reading awhile, said: 'We sighted the ship on the ice on the morning of October 13. It had been blowing a hard gale all through the night, but it slackened down airly in the morning and we put her before it; but so high a sea was running that had I seen that thar hull full of men I could have done nothing for them.' He ran his finger along the page and continued: 'The latitude in which that wreck lies is 60° and the longitude--I'm giving it thee by thy Greenwich time--will be 45° 28´ W.' I pulled out my note-book and entered these figures. 'Though,' he went on, 'she looks to be lying on ice, it's land that cradles her. It's what's marked down as Coronation Island, and's the westermost of the South Orkneys. She lies plain in sight of the sea, onless the ice since then has come together and blocked her out.' 'Did you get a good view of her?' 'Ho, yes; I had her clear for ten minutes, watching for smoke for a signal; and I then gave the glass to the mate, who likewise looked till the run of the land hid her.' 'Will you describe her as you remember her?' 'Ho, yes. She was black, a lump of a ship she looked; wal, I daresay all seven hundred tons. What was the burthen of thy vessel, Mr. Moore?' 'Six hundred,' I answered. 'Ho, wal, we was a good ways off, and that thar hull might as wal be six as seven hundred tons.' 'Was she clean dismasted?' 'Clean?--wal, my mate arterwards said there was a stump of foremast standing. I didn't observe it.' 'But it must be the ship--the "Lady Emma" herself!' I cried, almost shouting in my excitement. 'When her masts went over the side, twelve feet of the foremast remained.' He nodded gravely; but his long, hollow, yellow face reflected nothing of my emotion, no more than had he been a sheep. 'Did you see nothing whatever to hint at there being life on board?' I exclaimed. 'Nothin',' he answered; 'she hung betwixt thirty and forty foot high above the wash of the sea, on a big ledge of ice, with the white cliffs going up behind her. Haow she so perched herself beats all my going a-fishing; onless the ice jerked her up into it, for when them bergs are took with convulsions their tricks are queerer than their shapes by su'thin', and that's a fact.' 'You saw nothing to hint at life on board?' I repeated. He shook his head with solemn emphasis. 'Your mate saw nothing?' Again he wagged his head. 'Captain, tell me--you are an old hand--could people support life in that craft as she lies there, supposing her to have been stranded since July last?' 'No, I reckon.'