'Oh, yes, sir; but never close in. I must have consumed half the cargo of theatrical scenery, and pounds worth of patent fuel and India-rubber in burning flares at night and making smokes by day. I reckon the smoke was taken for something in the volcanic line. For a long time the ice hid us from the sea. The island whose rupture threw us aloft drifted away and gave us a clear view for a bit, but others came cruising along with the stream of the tide, if it was not the wind that brought them, and one moored itself right abreast--grounded, I allow--it stuck so long.
'The whaler that reported you,' said I, 'was close in enough to get a good sight of the wreck.'
'I did not see her,' he answered. 'I must have been below when she passed.'
'It was cruelly cold, Archie,' said Marie. 'Weeks would pass without my going on deck. Oh, how I loathed the sight of those cliffs of ice! And then the ceaseless boiling of the surf.'
'I caulked the cabin into a middling warm living room,' said Selby, 'yet the cold would creep through. Water that had been boiled and left to stand on the table within the sphere of the heat of the stove, as I could have sworn, would take a mask of ice. I cleared the cabin to give Miss Otway walking room. The exercise helped her. It gave her a little spirit as well as warmth. I didn't care to see her sit drooping hour after hour beside that little stove.'
'Well, coming below after taking a look round, and seeing her like that, I'd tune up my pipes, certainly,' he answered. 'It was unpleasant to have to keep on answering her question with a "No, there's nothing in sight."'
Thus ran our talk, and again and again whilst we conversed, I'd see Marie stealing looks around her of delight and amazement, and often when our gaze met, an expression of solemn joy would light up her face. For months she had lived in the cabin of a motionless ship; now the life of the ocean was in the fabric, whose deck her foot rested on. She was as one who had been called from the grave to renew life, and love, and health. It was a miracle, and I saw the marvelling of her spirit in her eyes whenever she looked at me.
'I'll go and take a look round,' said Selby. 'I hope Captain Cliffe will make me useful.'