presently to be quenched
by time, more cruel, more pitiless, more bitter than the sea--and like
the flames of the burning ship surrounded by an impenetrable night."

*****

"The old man warned us in his gentle and inflexible way that it was part
of our duty to save for the under-writers as much as we could of the
ship's gear. According we went to work aft, while she blazed forward to
give us plenty of light. We lugged out a lot of rubbish. What didn't we
save? An old barometer fixed with an absurd quantity of screws nearly
cost me my life: a sudden rush of smoke came upon me, and I just got
away in time. There were various stores, bolts of canvas, coils of rope;
the poop looked like a marine bazaar, and the boats were lumbered to the
gunwales. One would have thought the old man wanted to take as much as
he could of his first command with him. He was very very quiet, but off
his balance evidently. Would you believe it? He wanted to take a length
of old stream-cable and a kedge-anchor with him in the long-boat. We
said, 'Ay, ay, sir,' deferentially, and on the quiet let the thing slip
overboard. The heavy medicine-chest went that way, two bags of green
coffee, tins of paint--fancy, paint!--a whole lot of things. Then I was
ordered with two hands into the boats to make a stowage and get them
ready against the time it would be proper for us to leave the ship.

"We put everything straight, stepped the long-boat's mast for our
skipper, who was in charge of her, and I was not sorry to sit down for a
moment. My face felt raw, every limb ached as if broken, I was aware
of all my ribs, and would have sworn to a twist in the back-bone. The
boats, fast astern, lay in a deep shadow, and all around I could see the
circle of the sea lighted by the fire. A gigantic flame arose forward
straight and clear. It flared there, with noises like the whir of wings,
with rumbles as of thunder. There were cracks, detonations, and from
the cone of flame the sparks flew upwards, as man is born to trouble, to
leaky ships, and to ships that burn.

"What bothered me was that the ship, lying broadside to the swell and to
such wind as there was--a mere breath--the boats would not keep astern
where they were safe, but persisted, in a pig-headed way boats have,
in getting under the counter and then swinging alongside. They were
knocking about dangerously and coming near the flame, while the ship
rolled on them, and, of course, there was always the dang