"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!"

"Graze it!" almost shrieked Miss Lamarque. "Did he think he was driving
a curricle? Graze it--Heaven, what rashness!"