“Rushing, not flying, young lady—­that’s the word; our wings are little use to-day, you see, such as are left to us.  Runnin’ for dear life, we’d better say, for that’s the truth of the matter, and may the merciful Lord speed us, and have in his care all helpless ones this day!”

The lifted hand, the bared head, the earnest accents, with which these words were spoken, gave to this simple utterance of good-will all the solemnity of a benediction or prayer.

I noticed that, after replacing his tarpaulin, the lips of Garth continued to move silently, then were compressed gravely for a time, while his eye, large, clear, and expressive, was fixed on space.

“Do you still see an iceberg, Mr. Garth?  Do you really apprehend danger for us now?” I asked, after studying his countenance for a moment, “or, are you again desirous to try the nerves of your female passengers?  I think I must apply to the captain this time for information.”

“Yes, danger,” he replied, in low, sad tones, ignoring my last remark, or perhaps not hearing it at all—­“danger, compared with which an iceberg might be considered in the light of a heavenly marcy.  There is a chance of grazing one of them snow-bowlders, or of its drifting away from a ship, when the ripples reach it, or, if the wust comes, a body can scramble overboard, and manage to live on the top of one of them peaks, or in one of their ice-caves, with a few blankets, and a little bread and junk and water, fur a space, so as to get a chance of meetin’ a ship, or a schooner; but, when there is something wrong in a ship’s heart, there a’n’t much hope for rescue, onless it comes from above.”

He hesitated, smiling grimly, rolled his quid, crammed his hat down over his eyes, and again addressed himself to his wheel, and, for a few moments, I stood beside him silently.

“The ship is leaking, I suppose,” I said, at last, “so that you apprehend her loss, perhaps,” and my heart sank coldly within me, as I spoke; “but, if this be true, why does not the captain apprise us?  No, you are quizzing me again, and very cruelly this time, very unwarrantably.”

Yet I did not think exactly as I spoke, strive as I might to believe the man in jest.  Too much solemnity and sorrow both were discernible in his worn and rugged features, hewn grandly as if from granite, to admit of a hope like this.  His words were earnest, and some great calamity was in store, I could not doubt, or at least he apprehended such.  For some time he replied not, then, slowing pointing to the base of the stricken mainmast, which still showed an elevation of some inches above the deck, he revealed to me the truth without a word.

As my eyes followed his guiding finger, I saw, with terror unspeakable, a thin blue wavering smoke-wreath, float upward from the floor, and, after curling feebly about the truncated mast, disappear in the clear sunlit atmosphere, again to arise from the same point, that of the juncture of the mast and deck, creeping through some invisible crevice, as it seemed to form itself eternally in filmy folds, and successively elude the eye as soon as it shaped to sight.  I understood him then.  There was fire in the heart of the ship, and I knew the hold was filled with cotton; it was smouldering slowly, and our safety was a question of time alone!