I asked, "What did you think ?" He answered, "I thought, 'I'm overboard.'" "And when you touched deck again, what did you think ?" "I thought, 'Blowed if I'm not aboard again.'" "Did the time seem long ?" "Longer than all my lifetime." Not more than half a minute had passed since the hulk shook herself clear, but Larmor and Lewis had lived long.

The doctor took out the handy flask and put it to the skipper's lips; the poor man's eyes were bright and conscious, but his jaw hung.

He pointed to his chin, and the doctor knew that the blow of falling mast or wreckage had dislocated the jaw.
In all the wide world was there such another drama of peril and tenor being enacted?
Lewis's hands almost refused their office; he was unsteady on his legs, but he gathered his powers with a desperate effort of the will, and set the man's jaw.

"Stop, stop! You mustn't speak.
Wait." With a dripping handkerchief and his own belt Ferrier bound Larmor's jaw up; then for the first time he looked for the fellows forward.
Both gone! Oh! friends who trifle cheerily with that dainty second course, what does your turbot cost?
Reckon it up by rigid arithmetic, and work out the calculation when you are on your knees if you can.

All over the North Sea that night there were desolate places that rang to the cry of parting souls; after vain efforts and vain hopes, the drowning seamen felt the last lethargy twine like a cold serpent around them; the pitiless sea smote them dumb; the pitiless sky, rolling over just and unjust, lordly peer and choking sailor, gave them no hope; there was a whole tragedy in the breasts of all those doomed ones--a tragedy keen and subtle as that enacted when a Kaiser dies.