‘It was a real breeze,’ he answered; ‘nothing suffered but the maintopsail. The _Countess Ida’s_ a proper ship, Mr. Dugdale. Those who put her together made all allowances, even for her rats. There’s some craft I know would have strained themselves into mere baskets in last night’s popple. But there was not an inch more of water this morning in the _Countess’s_ well than will drain into her in twenty-four hours in a river.’ ‘And the brig, Mr. Prance? I believe I and Miss Temple were the two who saw the last of her.’ ‘No. Captain Keeling spied her as she swept under our stern,’ said he. ‘She was on fire; and by this time, I reckon her beautiful hull--and truly beautiful it was, Mr. Dugdale--will be represented somewhere around us here by a few charred fragments.’ ‘Or,’ said I, ‘even supposing they managed to extinguish the fire, Mr. Prance, her one mast with most of its heavy hamper aloft was not going to stand the hurricane very long. So she’ll either be a few blackened staves, as you say, or a sheer hulk. And her people?’ ‘Ah,’ exclaimed the chief mate, fetching a deep breath, ‘from eighty to a hundred of them I allow. There’s no boat put together by mortal hands could have lived last night. By heavens though, but it is enough to make a harlequin thoughtful to figure such a ship-load of souls as that brig carried hurried into mere carcases for the deep-sea dab to smell to and the wall-eyed cod of the Atlantic to nibble at.’ ‘Now, honestly, Mr. Prance--do you really believe there was anything of the pirate about that brig?’ ‘Honestly, Mr. Dugdale, I do, sir; and I haven’t a shadow of a doubt that if the weather had taken any other turn, if a sailing breeze had sprung up, or the water had held smooth enough for a boating excursion, her people would have put us to our trumps with a good chance of their crippling us and plundering us, to say no more.’ Here the breakfast bell rang, and I rushed to the cabin to complete my toilet for the table.