'What southing are you from?' shouted Cliffe, who, dwarf as he was to the sight, had something bugle-like in the clear, small penetrating note of his throat's delivery. 'Sixty-one, sighting Elephant Island. Nothing to the south'ard of it,' shouted back the man in the bear-like coat. 'Been off the South Orkneys?' cried Cliffe. 'Just caught a sight of the north-west point of Coronation Island? 'Twas blowing hard, and the weather coming on thick,' answered the other. The two vessels rolled at a distance apart not wider than a wide street: each man's voice rang through the wind in distinct syllables spite of the splashing and groaning sounds and the howling and whistling aloft when the brig's spars sheared to windward on the slope of the sea. When I heard the whaleman speak of Coronation Island, I thought my heart had stopped. I wanted to speak, but could not. 'How was the ice?' bawled Cliffe. 'Plentiful to the south'ard and west'ard.' 'How was the ice about the New Orkneys?' 'More'n ye'll want if you're bound there,' was the answer. 'D'ye know that land?' 'Ay' was the answer that was accompanied by a significant ironical flourish of the arm. 'Where's a man's chance of getting ashore?' The whaleman seemed to address another, probably the mate, who stood a little distance from him. 'There's some landing-places on the south side,' he presently called. 'There's shelter there from the westerly winds. But you must see to your ship, for the ice is plentiful and dangerous.' 'The wreck lies on the north side of the island,' I called to Cliffe. 'Is there no landing on the north of the island?' shouted the little fellow. The other answered, but the words were lost in a sudden blast or squall of wind which blew betwixt our masts in a shriek like a locomotive's. A moment later I saw the skipper of the whaler, as I presumed the bear-coated man to be, motioning to his crew and heard him, but faintly, shouting; thereupon the ship's topsail-yard was swung: the man brandished his fist in a farewell to us, and whilst we still lay as though hove, with the weather leech-rope of our band of topsail shaking at every smoking plunge of the brig's head, the ship heeled over, and gathering way, broke the seas off her lee bow with glaring heaps, and melted into a swollen smudge in the heart of a body of vapour when our crew were trimming sail for the course to the New Orkneys.