up, saw himself and the little dinghy blown to pieces--nay, saw
himself in hell, being toasted by "divils."

But tragedy and terror could find no room for expression on his
fortunate or unfortunate face. He puffed and he blew, bulging his
cheeks out at the sky as he tugged at the oars, making a hundred
and one grimaces--all the outcome of agony of mind, but none
expressing it. Behind lay the ship, a picture not without its
lighter side. The long-boat and the quarter-boat, lowered with a
rush and seaborne by the mercy of Providence, were floating by
the side of the Northumberland.

From the ship men were casting themselves overboard like
water-rats, swimming in the water like ducks, scrambling on
board the boats anyhow.

From the half-opened main-hatch the black smoke, mixed now
with sparks, rose steadily and swiftly and spitefulIy, as if driven
through the half-closed teeth of a dragon.

A mile away beyond the Northumberland stood the fog bank. It
looked solid, like a vast country that had suddenly and strangely
built itself on the sea--a country where no birds sang and no
trees grew. A country with white, precipitous cliffs, solid to look
at as the cliffs of Dover.

"I'm spint!" suddenly gasped the oarsman, resting the oar handles
under the crook of his knees, and bending down as if he was
preparing to butt at the passengers in the stern-sheets. "Blow up
or blow down, I'm spint, don't ax me, I'm spint."