'But would not the people on seeing your ship pass have made a smoke, have shown some signal, that you could report life as helpless there since you could not rescue it?' 'Wal,' he answered, 'supposing folks aboard, thee's not to reckon they'd be always keeping a look-out. It's mighty cold down thar, an' they'll be mostly sitting under hatches, an' if they've been thar since July, as thee says, they'll have growed a little tired, I guess, by this here time of watching for su'thin' to happen.' 'Is she accessible?' 'Haow?' 'Is she to be got at by the people of a ship sighting her, or sent to her?' 'There was a mighty biling of water all along under where she was,' he answered. 'Thee'd need a quiet day; but quiet days are to be had, bar the swell. Folks have landed afore and they'll land again. Ho, yes! If thy friends are locked up in that thar hull, they're to be got out of her.' 'Suppose her there since July; will you believe she has been boarded and the people released?' 'Why,' he answered, 'if she's been lying fair and square, clear in sight as she now is, since that month thee names, it's more'n likely the folks are out of her. But no vessel was ever put by herself in the situation of that craft. I reckon she's been worked up into it arter having lain ice-locked, which may sinnify that for months she's been hid, so that for all we're to know that thar hull may have been the first that passed close in with the island since the ice broke away and exposed her.' I listened with a feverish passion of attention, devouring every syllable his drawling tongue dropped. 'Have you a chart of that island?' I asked. He nodded gravely and stood up. 'I'm temperance aft, here,' said he. 'I can offer thee nothing stronger than lemonade.' I was too violently agitated to thank him decently, and stuttering out an awkward acknowledgment, begged him again to let me see the chart of the island. He took the log-book with him to his berth, and returning, spread before me a chart representing a considerable expanse of the seas off the Horn. My sight was now used to the gloom; when he put his finger upon the place where he had seen the wreck I bent close, and observed that he indicated an indent in the tracing marked Palmer's Bay. I entered this in my note-book and asked if he would sell the chart. He couldn't spare it, he said, but added I might easily furnish myself with what I wanted in that way at Cape Town.