"Go t' sleep!" he commanded. "I'll wake ye afore she goes."
I went to sleep: but the fool, I recall, beat me at it; he was in a
moment snoring....
* * * * *
When I awoke 'twas broad day--'twas, indeed, late morning. The
_Shining Light_ was still. My uncle and the fool sat softly chatting
over the cabin table, with breakfast and steaming tea between. I heard
the roar of the wind, observed beyond the framing door the world
aswirl and white; but I felt no laboring heave, caught no thud and
swish of water. The gale, at any rate, had not abated: 'twas blowing
higher and colder. My uncle gently laughed, when I was not yet all
awake, and the fool laughed, too; and they ate their pork and brewis
and sipped their tea with relish, as if abiding in security and ease.
I would fall asleep again: but got the smell of breakfast in my nose,
and must get up; and having gone on deck I found in the narrow,
white-walled circle of the storm a little world of ice and writhing
space. The _Shining Light_ was gripped: her foremast was snapped, her
sails hanging stiff and frozen; she was listed, bedraggled, incrusted
with ice--drifted high with snow. 'Twas the end of the craft: I knew
it. And I went below to my uncle and the fool, sad at heart because of
this death, but wishing very much, indeed, for my breakfast. 'Twas
very warm and peaceful in the cabin, with pork and brewis on the
table, my uncle chuckling, the fire most cheerfully thriving. I could
hear the wind--the rage of it--but felt no stress of weather.
"Stove in, Dannie," says my uncle. "She'll sink when the ice goes
abroad."