our floating furnace; but we fought to be first over the bulwarks, and in the bottom of the long-boat we fought again.
And yet she held us all! All, that is, but a terror-stricken few, who lay along the jibboom like flies upon a stick: all but two or three more whom we left fatally hesitating in the forechains: all but the selfish savages who had been the first to perish in the pinnace, and one distracted couple who had thrown their children into the kindly ocean, and jumped in after them out of
don’t think it serious?” I asked him abruptly, my heart still bounding with the most incongruous joy.
He gave me his ambiguous shrug; and then, “A fire at sea is surely sirrious,” said he.
“Where did it break out ?”
“No one knows; it may have come of your concert.”
“But they are getting the better