He noticed that they talked as though they had left behind them nothing but an empty ship.

They concluded she would not have been long when she once started.

It seemed to cause them some sort of satisfaction.

They assured each other that she couldn't have been long about it--"Just shot down like a flat-iron." The chief engineer declared that the mast-head light at the moment of sinking seemed to drop "like a lighted match you throw down." At this the second laughed hysterically.

"I am g-g-glad, I am gla-a-a-d." His teeth went on "like an electric rattle," said Jim, "and all at once he began to cry.