"To which we cordially say amen, of course," said Miss Lamarque, laughing. "We should have been at a loss, however, Mr. Garth, but for our engine during the dead calm preceding the storm, when our ship's sails flapped so lazily about her masts, and she rocked like a baby's cradle without making progress. It is well the engineer manoeuvred so successfully while we lay fireless on the low rolling waves; but we are speeding along merrily enough now, to make up for it all--I take comfort in that--" "But not exactly in the right direction, though, to suit my stripe," he said, turning his quid in his mouth us he looked out to leeward, revealing, as he did so, a fine yet rugged profile relieved against the silvery purple sheen of the moonlit sky. "Do you see that dark object lying beyond" (our eyes mechanically followed his), "so still on the water?" and he indicated it with the pipe he held in one sinewy hand--for the native courtesy of the man had involuntarily proffered us the homage of removing it from his lips, when we addressed him. "Yes--what is it? a wreck? a whale? a small volcanic island? Do explain, Mr. Garth," said Miss Lamarque. "Nothing but an iceberg, and we are bearing down upon it rather too rapidly, it seems to me." And so speaking, he turned his wheel in silence warily. "But you have the command of the helm, and have nothing to do but--" "Obey orders," he interrupted, grimly. "Ef the captain was to tell me to run the ship to purgatory, I'd have to do it, you know." "But surely the captain would not jeopardize the lives of a ship's company, even if he likes warm latitudes, by ordering you to run foul of an iceberg; and, if he did, you certainly would not dare to obey him with the fear of God before your eyes?" remonstrated Miss Lamarque, indignantly. "For my part I shall go to him immediately and desire him to change his course--but after all I don't believe that dingy black thing is an iceberg at all--an old hen-coop rather, thrown over from some merchant-ship, or a vast lump of charred wood. You are only trying to alarm us." "Ef you was to see it close enough, you would find it to shine equal to the diamond on your hand; but I hope you never will, that's all--I hope you never will, lady! I sot on a peak of that sort oncst myself for three days in higher latitudes than this here--me and five others, all that was spared from the wreck of the schooner Delta, and we felt our convoy melting away beneath us, and courtesying e'en a'most even with the sea, before the merchant-ship Osprey took us off, half starved, and half frozen, and half roasted all at oncst! Them is onpleasant rickollections, ladies, and it makes my blood creep to this day to see an iceberg in konsikence; but a man must do his dooty, whatsomever do betide. It was in the dead of night, and Hans Schuyler had the wheel, I remember, when we went to pieces on that iceberg, all for disregarding; the captain's orders; you see, he meant to graze it like!"