I only know that there was the most awful crash I ever heard, and it seemed as though the ship were being torn to pieces.
Then there came an explosion, and when I got on deck the ship was sinking so fast that I had only time to cut loose the raft before she went down." "What became of the others ?" asked White excitedly.
"I am afraid they were drowned, for I heard them shouting just before she sank, but there was such a cloud of steam, smoke, and fog that I couldn't see a thing, and after it was all over I seemed to be the only one left." "Wasn't there a rock or ship or anything she might have run into ?" asked the young skipper, whose tanned face had grown pale as he listened to this tale of sudden disaster.
"There was an iceberg," replied Cabot, "but when I went down-stairs it wasn't very close, and the sun was shining, so that it was in plain sight." "That must be what she struck, though," declared the other.

Then he thrust his head up the companionway and shouted: "Hear the news, Dave.
The 'Lavinia's' lost with all on board, except the chap we've just picked up." "What happened her ?" asked the man laconically.
"He says she ran into an iceberg in clear day, bust up, and sank with all hands, inside of a minute." "Rot!" replied the practical sailor.

"The 'Laviny' had collision bulkheads, and couldn't have sunk in no sich time, ef she could at all.
'Sides Cap'n Phinney ain't no man to run down a berg in clear day, nor yet in the night, nor no other time.

He's been on this coast and the Labrador run too long fur any sich foolishness.

No, son, ef the 'Laviny's' lost, which mind, I don't say she ain't, she's lost some other way 'sides that, an' you can tell your friend so with my compliments." Cabot did not overhear these remarks, and wondered at the queer look on the young skipper's face when he reentered the cabin, as he did at the silence with which the latter resumed his preparations for supper.