If the steering-gear did not give way, if the immense volumes of water
did not burst the deck in or smash one of the hatches, if the engines
did not give up, if way could be kept on the ship against this terrific
wind, and she did not bury herself in one of these awful seas, of whose
white crests alone, topping high above her bows, he could now and then
get a sickening glimpse--then there was a chance of her coming out of
it. Something within him seemed to turn over, bringing uppermost the
feeling that the Nan-Shan was lost.

"She's done for," he said to himself, with a surprising mental
agitation, as though he had discovered an unexpected meaning in this
thought. One of these things was bound to happen. Nothing could be
prevented now, and nothing could be remedied. The men on board did not
count, and the ship could not last. This weather was too impossible.

Jukes felt an arm thrown heavily over his shoulders; and to this
overture he responded with great intelligence by catching hold of his
captain round the waist.

They stood clasped thus in the blind night, bracing each other against
the wind, cheek to cheek and lip to ear, in the manner of two hulks
lashed stem to stern together.

And Jukes heard the voice of his commander hardly any louder than
before, but nearer, as though, starting to march athwart the prodigious
rush of the hurricane, it had approached him, bearing that strange
effect of quietness like the serene glow of a halo.

"D'ye know where the hands got to?" it asked, vigorous and evanescent at