CHAPTER VI.

THE BLACK SCHOONER.

Long ere the mate's story was concluded, the dense fog—chilly, white, and drenching—had shrouded the dreary isle of Baccalao, and the voices of the penguins alone indicated its locality; but they became fainter, until we lost the sound altogether as we ran further to the north.

Now a furious snow-storm came on; thick and fast the white flakes fell ceaselessly aslant through a dark-grey sky upon the winter sea (for in that region there is no spring), covering the rigging, the decks, and storm-jackets of the watch, who shrank to leeward, while the wind, which blew keenly from the N.N.E., and thermometer, which had sunk very low, made me begin to reflect that there were more unpleasant places in the world than the counting-room of Mr. Uriah Skrew.

This snow-storm continued for three or four days, during which the whole seamanship of Hartly, Reeves, and Hans Peterkin was required to prevent the Leda being driven upon a lee shore. By chart and soundings they were constantly at work, to keep her off a land which was veiled in obscurity, for the wind was dead and strong against us; and frequently through the blinding snow, and grey hazy drift to leeward, we could hear the sullen booming of breakers, as they rolled in foam that froze upon the granite rocks and islets about Cape Freels.

This foul weather lasted for several days, and weary of beating fruitlessly to windward, when the storm abated, and the sky became again blue and serene, we found ourselves under easy sail, at the rate of four knots an hour or so, passing the Twillingate Isles, which lie between the Bay of Exploits and the vast Bay of Notre Dame. They were covered with snow, and are desolate, bleak, and little known, as on that part of the coast there are only about one hundred and fifty inhabitants—poor people—who, after fishing for cod and salmon in summer, quit their wigwams in winter to live in the sheltered woods, or sail south towards St. John. And now we began to get ready our boats and guns, and with telescopes to sweep the snow-clad shore for seals, and the open sea for ice-floes.

It was about the hour of six; the sun had just set, and the western sky was all a-blaze with fiery-coloured light, which tinged with roseate hues the waves that rolled upon the bleak and snow-clad shore. Captain Hartly took the wheel, and Reeves stood anxiously close by the binnacle, for we had to weather a long, sharp, and lofty promontory which abutted like a wall of rock into the ocean, and round which there eddied a swift and dangerous current. The wind, though now off the land, was too light to enable us to make headway against the stream.

On the brig we had but little "way," and a general exclamation of satisfaction rose from the hitherto silent crew, when the Leda shaved—as they phrased it—past the promontory, and we saw a deep cove of blue water opening beyond it; but lo!

There lay at anchor a schooner—a long, low, sharply prowed and rakish-like craft—with her hull painted black as jet could be, and with a number of rough-looking fellows crowding along her gunwale. We were not three hundred yards apart.

"Reeves, take the wheel," cried Hartly, in an excited voice. "The glass, Cuffy, the spy-glass!" he added with sharp energy, snatching from the hands of Snowball the telescope which usually hung on two hooks in the companion; "a row of ugly dogs they are that man her. By Heaven, she is the Black Schooner!"

"The Black Schooner!" we all exclaimed with something of dismay in our varying tones; and I felt, that with Paul Reeves's grim legend about Captain Kidd fresh in our memory, we had some cause for alarm in meeting with this robber ship upon those solitary seas.

"Are you sure, Hartly?" I asked.

"Not a doubt of it! see, Reeves—she is a two-topsail schooner!"

"What does that mean?" said I.

"A brig without tops, in fact."

A kind of growling cheer, mingled with wild and insolent halloing, rose from her crew on beholding us suddenly come round the abrupt promontory, from the brow of which a fringe of gigantic icicles overhung the sea. A commotion was instantly observable on deck; a man in authority sprang up the companion-ladder, and we heard him in a loud and clear voice ordering sail to be instantly made on the schooner as we altered our course.

"Man the windlass-bars—up anchor—rouse it to the catheads with a will, my boys! Shake out everything fore and aft—every stitch that will draw. Stand by the jib and flying-jib halliards," he shouted.

After a pause, during which we heard the clanking of the windlass pauls, as her anchor was started, and would soon be a-cockbill, and dangling by its ring, we heard his voice again.

"Up with the jib and flying-jib now—sheets to starboard! Heave and away—presto! my Jack Spaniards. Stand by topgallant and topsail sheets and halliards. Bear a hand, you French devils! Well done, my Kentucky rowdies!"

In less than three minutes the swelling of the jib and other head-sails, as well as the motion of the schooner when her bows fell round, proved that she was under weigh. These orders, which were obeyed with skilful alacrity, seemed to indicate alike the mixed character of her crew and the hostility of their intentions.

"Ready a gun there forward! sheet home and hoist away, topsails and topgallant sails!"

This alarming order, uttered in a loud voice, rang distinctly upon the clear frosty air, and, on the other hand, Captain Hartly was not slow in his preparations to avoid her.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "this is the very craft we have heard so much about, and for the capture of which the Governor offers 500l. I have no wish to be caught by these fellows—see, they are shaking out a couple of reefs in her fore and aft mainsail already! Hands make all sail—Reeves, set everything that will draw—square away the after yards."

"Ay, ay, sir," said Reeves, jumping about and setting all the men to the yards, braces, and halliards; "port the smallest bit—keep her full—so—steady!"

"Maldito los Inglesos renegades!" ("Curse the English runaways!") cried a Spaniard, shaking his clenched hands at us over her starboard bow.

"Caramba!" cried another.

"Sangbleu!" added a Frenchman, "stop hare—lie to—or it vill be ze vorser for you."

"Will it, you rascally thief!" shouted Hartly, as his eyes flashed and his cheek glowed with excitement: "Manly, look alive, my lad! load all the double-barrelled rifles in the cabin. Snowball, get up the kegs of powder and slugs. We shall not be overhauled by a pirate without having a skirmish first."

"Luckily for us the wind is off the land, and it freshens too," said Reeves: "we shall beat her when running before the wind; but she would come up with us hand over hand on a taut bowline. It was on a wind she overtook the Bristol clipper."

In the red glow of the winter sunset, we saw the foam flying on each side of her sharp bows as the breeze freshened, and she rolled heavily from side to side; while the Leda, being square-rigged, had a greater spread of canvas, and caught more of the wind: thus, notwithstanding that our dangerous pursuer was built for sailing fast, as Paul Reeves foretold, she was no match for us, when running right before the wind.

Our crew, half of whom were only poor seal-fishers, became very much excited; but inspired by the example of Hartly, Reeves, and myself, they proceeded to load all the sealing guns and muskets, lest the schooner might lower her boats to overtake us and attempt to board.

The stern and confident order to get "ready a gun," was repeated more than once before we got beyond hearing; but as no gun was ever fired, we believed this to be a mere bravado to frighten us into shortening sail, till she might run alongside and board us, when a ruinous scene of plunder, if not of bloodshed, would be sure to ensue.

"She sails with the speed of an arrow," said I, while carefully loading and capping my rifle.

"This Black Schooner was one of the craft employed in protecting the French fishery of Miquelon, on the south side of the island," said Hartly; "but her crew mutinied, shipped some runaways of all countries and colours, and turned slavers. These rascals have committed several outrages hereabouts by sea and land, but have always escaped our cruisers, as she alternately shows a British, French, and Yankee ensign, and runs all kinds of paint-strokes along her bends."

On, on, we bore; and on, on, she came after us, with the still freshening breeze, the foam flying before her bows and ours; but ere long we were evidently half a mile apart.

She was a handsome clipper-like craft of about two hundred tons' burthen, coppered to the bends; her lower masts were long and heavy, so as to carry fore and aft sails of immense spread upon a wind, with a square sail, top and topgallant sail aloft.

"Massa Hartly—Massa Captain—look out!" exclaimed Cuffy Snowball, who had armed himself with a musket, and stood in soldier-fashion at "the ready," grinning over the taffrail at the rolling schooner.

"Look out for what?" said Hans Peterkin.

"Something make you all look white as de debbil."

"What do you mean by white," asked the carpenter, "when we all know the devil is black?"

"In my country him white, sare," replied Cuffy, angrily.

"Then," said Hartly, to keep up the spirits of his crew by jesting, "what colour do you think he is, Cuffy?"

"I tink him blue," replied the prudent negro; and then he added with a yell, "dere come something will make you look blue too, Massa!"

As he spoke, a puff of white smoke rose from the bow of the Black Schooner; the report of a musket rang in the air, and a conical rifle-ball whistled past the ear of Hartly, and sank with a heavy thud into the mainmast.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CHASE.

Cuffy Snowball fired his musket at our pursuer, whether with or without effect we know not; but, in reply, a confused discharge of firearms followed, and the balls pattered among the rigging, and knocked little splinters from our spars and gunwale.

"Now, my lads," said Hartly, "let fly at her with everything you have—sealing-guns and rifles!"

This order was executed with alacrity. We had four good rifles and ten long-barrelled and wide-muzzled sealing-guns, each of which sent ten or twelve slugs of lead whirring through the air at every discharge, and we blazed away right valiantly at the crowd of rascals in the schooner's bows; but so great was the distance between us, that I am certain our fire fell harmlessly into the sea—the rifle shots alone could have told with effect.

On first deliberately levelling my rifle (a fine Enfield, presented to me by my father on leaving Peckham) at a man in the starboard bow of the pirate, a strange sensation came over me!

I lowered my weapon and paused; but a shot that struck one of the davits at which the stern-boat hung, removed my momentary, and at that unpleasant crisis most unnecessary scruple.

I levelled again—fired and reloaded, and without considering whether or not I had killed a man, continued to pepper away with all the coolness and precision of Cuffy Snowball, the ex-corporal of H.M. West India Regiment.

"Run up our ensign, and let her rascally crew see it while there is light," said Hartly. "Paul Reeves, rig out the lower studding-sail booms forward, and bring aft those two carronades and the small anchor, to trim her more by the stern. Tom Hammer, see to this!"

"Ay, ay, sir," was the ready response.

The orders were promptly obeyed. The small anchor and two little guns, for which we unfortunately had only powder for signals, were brought aft; the sharp bows of the Leda thus rode more easily over the water. The lower studding-sails were rapidly spread and hoisted up; and then we flew through the darkening sea till its water seemed to smoke alongside, and bubbled in snowy froth under the counter, leaving a long white wake, like that of a steamer, astern.

Closely in this long wake followed our pursuer, with deadly pertinacity.

It is impossible to convey in words any idea of the excitement of this chase—this flight and pursuit—this race of rivalry, of life and death! The daring ruffians who manned the schooner had committed several murders and robberies on sea and land. They had overhauled and rifled several merchant ships, carrying off compasses, charts, provisions, watches, money, and everything of value: thus, to have undergone such a ransacking at their hands—even if our lives were spared—would effectually have marred our expedition for that year.

They were evidently well armed, for their rifle-balls flew thick and fast about us. The cracking report, and the pingeing sound of the conical shot that followed every red flash which broke over the sharp bows of the schooner, added considerably to our anxiety to escape, and to our exasperation at being thus molested on the high seas, and within two hundred miles of where we had left one of her Majesty's sloops of war in the harbour of St. John, but frozen in, unfortunately.

Though these missiles struck the brig's stern and rigging incessantly, we had only one man hit—an Irish seal-fisher, who had left a wife and family at Dead Man's Bay, to try his fortune with us in the North. A ball pierced his shoulder, smashing the collar-bone; and the poor fellow sank on the deck with a shrill cry of agony. A lad named Ridly had his cheek grazed by another shot.

The dusk was fast increasing; but the red flush of the winter sunset yet lingered in the western sky; the snow-clad islets that stud the Bay of Exploits had assumed a dark purple hue, and the sea through which we were careering, northwest, towards the Bay of Notre Dame, wore a deep and sombre blue.

Clearly defined against the dusky and ruddy sky, we could see the pursuing schooner, her tall slender spars swaying from side to side, with every stitch of snow-white canvas spread upon them; and she tore through the waves like a giant bird, swimming in the wake of dead water that ran like a long path astern of us.

We had everything set aloft and alow; to her very trucks the Leda was covered with swelling canvas, and she was a beautiful sight! The keen and anxious eyes of Hartly, who was at the wheel, scanned ever and anon the taut cordage, the bending masts, and then he would cast a fierce glance astern.

"We are leaving her fast, sir," said Paul Reeves, confidently; "in another hour we shall be far enough apart to feel comfortable."

"Bravo, my little Leda!" responded my friend; "she is trimmed and masted to perfection! You see, Jack, how a square-rigged craft has the advantage over even a sharp little serpent with a floating sheet, like that rascally schooner!"

Her crew still continued to blaze at us with their rifles; but ere long the bullets fell far short, for we were now more than a thousand yards apart, and with cheers of derision we continued to surge through the darkening ocean.

"If we had only possessed a few round-shot, we might have knocked some of their sticks away with these two useless carronades," said Hartly, as he now relinquished the wheel to Hans Peterkin, his second mate, and ordered glasses of grog to be served all round. "Corporal Cuffy, do you think you could have knocked her mainboom away, when the sea is so smooth?"

"Like to knock all him brains out!" replied the Congo-man with a savage grin; for, inspired by some of his old African instincts, Snowball was the only person on board who regretted that we had not enjoyed a hand-to-hand conflict with these outlaws.

But now the darkness of the descending night, together with the gathering clouds and haze, concealed the schooner from us.

We extinguished all lights on board, and ere long when a red spark about seven miles astern indicated that she was still tracking us, Hartly took in his studding-sails, reduced the canvas on the brig, brought his larboard tacks on board, and bore up for Cape St. John, the boundary of the French shore, to land our wounded man, who was suffering great agony from his compound fracture, and with whom, as we had no medical officer, it would have been impossible to pursue our voyage.

This rencontre, chase, and escape, formed a staple topic for conversation to all on board, and till the night was far advanced no one thought of turning in.

When day broke we found ourselves close in shore, on the northern side of the great Bay of Notre Dame, with Cape St. John bearing about three miles off on our lee bow. We swept the sea with our glasses, but not a sail was visible in the offing, nor all along the snow-clad coast. Save Cuffy Snowball, all expressed their satisfaction at this; but we were not yet entirely done with our sable acquaintance, the Black Schooner.

CHAPTER VIII.

OUR REVENGE SCHEMED.

We came to anchor, handed our topsails, but merely hauled up our courses, so as to be ready for sea at a moment's notice. We were in a little sheltered cove, abreast of a small village of wooden huts, surrounded by fences that were buried deep in the frozen snow.

These huts, like all others in this wild terra nova, were built of fir-poles with the bark on, braced or pegged closely together, and having chimneys of rough stone built without mortar. Bark and sods formed the roofs, and all the crevices were carefully caulked with moss and mud.

There, in a wretched and dreary region, dwelt—and, I presume, still dwell—a little Irish colony of fifty or sixty poor souls, who fished for cod in summer and seals in winter, each family herding together for warmth in the same apartment with their pigs, fowls, and the shaggy dogs which dragged in harness the stunted trees that formed their fuel, and which were cut in the adjacent bush—the desolate place which once formed the summer hunting-grounds of the extinct Red men of the island.

Our anchoring in the cove was a great event—the entire population came forth to gaze and their dogs to bark at us.

Though Newfoundland is larger than England and Wales together, it is indented by broad bays of deep water, which run for forty or fifty miles into the interior, and are but little known. On some of these solitary shores are little stations of Europeans, such as this we visited, so remote from all intercourse, and so secluded, that their reckoning of time has become confused as to days, months, and even years; thus Sunday is frequently held by them in the middle of a week.

To the care of these pioneers, or squatters, we consigned our wounded man. By the intensity of the frost mortification had commenced, so the poor fellow died a few days after being landed.

We had scarcely conveyed him ashore, when a man arrived from the bush with a large tree, which he had cut down, and which his dogs had dragged easily over the snow (after it was denuded of its bark and branches) in the usual manner, by having their traces secured to his hatchet, which was wedged in the broad end of the log. He informed us that a schooner—by his description, our identical Black Schooner—was then at anchor under the lee of the Gull Island, about five miles distant; and added that the poor French people at La Scie complained bitterly of the rifling they had undergone at the hands of her crew, which consisted of forty well-armed desperadoes, of all nations, but principally English and Frenchmen.

Here was startling intelligence!

"Only five miles distant, say you?" reiterated Hartly.

"Yes, sir; and you may see Gull Island from the mouth of our cove here."

"You are sure she is a schooner?"

"Yes, with masts raking well aft."

"All black in the hull, with slender spars and double topsails?"

"Sure as I now spake to yer honour," replied our informant, who was an Irish fisherman and squatter; "her crew have let go both anchors to make all snug, and gone in a gang to enjoy themselves, or rob—which you plaze—I suppose it's all one to them, at La Scie; bad luck to them, and may the devil fly away with them all!"

"Are they all gone?"

"All except six rapparees, whom I could count from the bush where I was hiding."

"Six—left as a deck-watch, I suppose?"

"Just so; yer honour's right again."

"How long have you lived here?" I inquired, for his brogue was as strong as if he had only left his native Kerry yesterday.

"I have lived here, plaze yer honor, five-and-forty years this last St. Patrick's Day, and have niver had an hour's illness, glory be to God!"

"Five-and-forty years!" I reiterated, with a shudder, while surveying the snow-clad wilderness amid which the wigwams stood.

"How far is La Scie from the Gull Island?" said Hartly, after a pause.

"Six miles, capthin."

"Then by Heaven I'll burn her to the water-edge, or sink her at her anchors!" exclaimed Hartly, who, with all the rapidity of his nature, at once conceived and prepared to execute a very daring scheme.

While the quarter-boat was got ready, and four oars, with as many rifles loaded and capped, and a case of ammunition, were put into her, Hartly, with Paul Reeves, proceeded in the most simple and methodical manner to prepare their apparatus for burning the piratical schooner.

He took a common ship-bucket, and secured an iron ring to the iron handle, for a purpose to be afterwards explained. He filled this bucket with pieces of rope and spun-yarn, well steeped in tar and grease, mixing them with rosin and gunpowder. They were nearly three hours in getting these combustibles prepared to their complete satisfaction; and so impatient were they to put their scheme in execution, that they would scarcely wait until dusk to make the attempt. But the moment the sun set, Hartly issued orders to Paul Reeves and Hans Peterkin to heave short on the anchor to get it apeak, to cast loose the topsails, and prepare the jib for hoisting; and while he started along the coast in the quarter-boat, to follow him under easy sail, keeping pretty well to windward of Gull Island, and out of sight of the schooner. If the night became obscure, on hearing the report of a rifle a blue light was to be burned on board the Leda, to indicate her whereabouts.

While Paul Reeves got the brig under weigh, and, favoured by a very light breeze, crept slowly out of the cove, Bob Hartly, with Hammer the carpenter, Cuffy Snowball, and I, started in the sharp little quarter-boat, and aided by a current which there runs north to Cape St. John, pulled swiftly along the shore towards Gull Island, which lies beyond the extremity of the headland.

CHAPTER IX.

OUR REVENGE EXECUTED.

The evening, as it deepened into night, was calm and beautiful: as yet the moon had not risen, but the sky was clear, with an intensity and purity of blue that can only be found in the icy north, and studded by ten thousand sparkling stars. Some of these were so bright as almost to cast our shadows on the smooth water as we stretched to our oars, and swept along the snow-white coast.

The latter being nearly destitute of inhabitants, after we left the cove was voiceless, silent, and desolate. Not a light was visible, and no sounds broke the stillness save the booming of the surf on the rocks of Cape St. John, our own hard breathing, and the clatter of the oars in the rowlocks. Then (as that is a species of noise which the water conveys to a vast distance) we proceeded to muffle them by our handkerchiefs, and once more we stretched out vigorously.

Notwithstanding the intensity of the cold, so invigorating was the exercise of rowing, and so full were our minds of excitement and of our project for destroying the pirate schooner, that we all felt in a glow of heat, and almost uttered a shout when, after pulling about three miles, on clearing the bluff Cape of St. John, on the flinty brow of which the spray was frozen white as it was dashed up by the sea, we saw the steep rocks of Gull Island; and at anchor, half a mile to leeward of it, the dark hull and tall spars of the Black Schooner!

The increasing light at one part of the horizon showed that the moon would shortly be up, so we pulled with might and main to get close under the lee of the island, and out of the long brilliant track the Queen of Night would shortly send across the rippling ocean.

"I might have brought an auger and bored a hole or two in her sheathing under water, and so have scuttled her quietly at her anchors," said the carpenter.

"But that boring would have kept us alongside too long," said Hartly; "and the rascals might have got some of their plunder out before she went down; moreover, your auger would have made too much noise. But, hush! we are seen—two fellows are looking over her side!"

"All her boats are gone," said I.

"Yes, to La Scie, except one at the stern."

"They are hailing us, sir," said Hammer.

"Hush! I'll weather the ruffians yet," said Hartly.

We spoke in whispers, while our hearts beat like lightning, as we knew not the issue of our attempt, or the moment we might be fired on from her deck. The schooner rode with both her anchors out, to make sure of her holding-ground in case a squall came suddenly on. Her canvas was neatly handed, her fore and aft foresail and boom mainsail were tightly brailed up, and her topgallant yards sent down.

Though black and sombre, with nothing light about her save her copper, which shone brightly as burnished gold in the clear and starlit sea, she was a beautiful little vessel; and Hartly almost sighed on thinking that he was about to destroy instead of capturing her.

"She is a lovely craft!" said he, "sharp at the bows as a needle below the water-line, clear at the counter, and coppered to the bends. What a glorious yacht she would make!"

"In sheering alongside, take care, sir, they don't scuttle us—by a cold shot, or a large stone," said Hammer.

"Well," replied Hartly, "my friend the Greenland witch said I should never drown; but that does not prevent me from being shot, or hung from the schooner's topsail yard."

As we pulled round across her bows to starboard, keeping pretty well off, we were hailed again.

"Boat—boat ahoy! what are you?"

"Fishermen," replied Hartly.

"From where?"

"La Scie, where all your fellows are enjoying themselves."

"Got any feesh?" asked a Frenchman.

"No—not at this season."

"Any zeels?"

"Seals—no."

"Then prenez-garde, messieurs."

"Which means, in plain English, sheer off, d—n your eyes!" growled the first speaker; but by this time we were close under her starboard counter.

"Sheer off, or it may be the worse for you!"

"What the devil are you lubbers about under the counter?" exclaimed another; "Baptiste, hand me a musket——"

"We have dropped an oar, and our boat has run foul of yours," replied Hartly; adding, in a whisper, "The gimlet, carpenter—quick, the gimlet!"

In less time than I have taken to write these last half-dozen lines, Hartly had screwed the long gimlet into the vessel's side, under her counter, and hooked on the bucket, through the iron ring which he had secured to its handle, and there it hung close to the rudder and stern-post. By the swift application of a single lucifer-match he fired the touch-paper that was to light the carefully-prepared combustibles, the gathering flame of which shot upward from the bucket, and began at once to lick and flicker on the newly-painted planking of the schooner.

"Shove off, and give way—for your lives, give way!" said Hartly, in a hoarse whisper.

"Cut away stern-boat—let hims all burn—agh! agh!" grinned Cuffy, who, by a slash of the knife which hung at his neck, cut adrift the boat which was moored astern. We had not intended thus to destroy the retreat of the wretches on board, but the African was merciless to his enemies, and we had no time to repair his severity.

"Give way," shouted Hartly, as soon as we were clear of her; "clap on dry nippers! By Jove! those lads of the knife and pistol will never come athwart the hawse of the Leda again!"

We had not pulled ten strokes from her, ere a flame seemed to play on the water beneath her counter!

It spread rapidly between the rudder and sternpost, burning through outer and inner sheathing; penetrating the rudder-case, and reaching the cabin, which was unoccupied, as all the crew were ashore save the six already mentioned, whom we saw loitering amidships. One was provided with a musket, which no doubt he would have discharged at us, had we lingered another moment alongside.

Suddenly they raised a shout; then we saw them rush aft, when they immediately discovered the vessel to be on fire, and that their only boat was adrift!

He with the musket took a long aim at us, and fired; but as we were now three hundred yards from the schooner, and our boat was alternately rising and falling on the long rolling swell that heaved between Gull Island and Cape St. John, his shot fell far from us.

By this time the schooner was hopelessly on fire; her whole quarter-deck, stern, and cabin, forward to the mainmast, were sheeted with red and roaring flame. It spread along the deck; it leaped up the well-greased masts like a fiery corkscrew, round the tarred rigging and over the handed canvas, till everything was in a blaze; the great fore and aft sails fell from their brails like fiery curtains; then we saw her two tall, slender spars, the long boom of her mainsail, her towering gaffs and topsail yards, all swaying to-and-fro, as the decks fell in and the shrouds sank smouldering into the sea. Then everything went to cinders fore and aft—aloft and alow!

A lurid glare that outshone the light of the rising moon, overspread the calm blue sea, casting a ruddy glow upon our faces as we paused upon our oars, close to the island, where the weird illumination scared all the sea-birds; thus we heard the shrill scream of the wagel or great grey gull, as he rose with booming wings and flew to seek the darker waters of the offing or the frozen bluffs of Cape St. John, on which the thundering breakers as they reared their heads, gleamed in the double light of red and silver, like showers of diamonds and rubies.

"Jack—see how she burns!" said Hartly: "there goes her mainmast crash into the sea—and now the foremast, a mass of whizzing sparks, with all its top-hamper! Pull for the island, till the brig comes abreast of it;" and then cheerily he sang—

"Haul away, pull away, pull, jolly boys!
    At the mercy of fortune we go,
We're in for it now, and 'tis all folly, boys,
    To be faint or downhearted, yeho!"

By this time the schooner was a mass of fire, and burnt down nearly to her bends. Through the flames we could see the blackened stumps of her timber-heads, standing in a row from stem to stern. Suddenly there was an explosion, and a mighty column of red and blue sparks and burning brands shot into mid air, arching over in every direction as they fell hissing into the sea.

A quantity of powder had exploded on board!

Just at that moment we beached our boat upon Gull Island, and ascended the rocks in haste to view the result of our handiwork.

A great cloud of smoke was now settling over her, as the flames approached the water; and beyond this cloud we could see a little boat with some men in it, pulling in the direction of Cape St. John. Hartly was pleased on seeing this; for although he had resolved to destroy the schooner, his heart reproached him for leaving six of the pirates to perish in her. One, no doubt, had swum after their drifting boat, and brought her alongside in time to save his five shipmates; and then we laughed on thinking how cold his swim would be in the wintry waves, and of the baffled rage of the ruffians at La Scie, left there without a vessel or any means of escape from a desolate fishing-station, which in a week or two more would have, perhaps, three hundred miles of field-ice between it and the sea.

A faint hurrah now came from seaward. We turned, and saw the smart and saucy Leda with her foresail backed flat to the mast, and her maintopsail full and swelling—her straight sharp hull, and her taut rigging, in all its details, clearly and distinctly defined against the vast silver disc of the moon, which seemed to linger as it rose from the flat horizon of the distant offing. There was no need of showing lights on board the brig, as we could see each other distinctly, and also the burning pirate. No flame rose from her now; but a vast black pall of smoke enveloped all her hull.

From the centre of this, there came a sound like a deep sob, as she filled and went down. Then when the smoky pall arose and melted into thin air, not a vestige could be seen of the Black Schooner!

"And now, my lads, away for the brig," said Captain Hartly, as we descended from the highest part of the island to reach our boat, passing through deep snow, among thickets of dwarf firs and great juniper trees—over rocks covered with savin and frozen furze, where, in the short season of summer, the wild Indian tea called wisha-capucoa grew plentifully, and where the beaver and the musk-rat had their holes.

As we floundered down to the creek, a yell from Cuffy Snowball, who was behind, startled us all. A wild cariboo deer had rushed past him. How it came on the island puzzled us, for usually in winter these animals seek the forests of the interior, till the sun of the brief summer melts the snow, and enables them to browse on the scanty herbage of the barrens, as the cleared patches of moorland are named by the squatters.

"If the Governor adheres to his proclamation, this night's work adds five hundred pounds to our profits," said Hartly, as the crew received us with hearty cheers; the headsails were filled, and we at once stood off the shore.

Next morning, when day broke, we could see by our glasses a band of men assembled on the snow-covered summit of Cape St. John.

These were evidently the outwitted crew of the schooner; so, hoisting the ensign at our gaff-peak, Paul Reeves dipped it to them thrice, ironically bidding them farewell, as we stood away to the eastward to make up for the time we had lost in being driven, by their attack and pursuit, so far out of the course our captain first intended to steer.

CHAPTER X.

THE SEAL-FISHERS.

Some days after this event, we saw the dark blue of the sea flecked at the horizon by white spots. These increased in size as we approached, and proved to be the floes, or detached portions of a vast field of ice, coming down from Davis' Straits, and with them came masses of strange sea-weed, uprooted from the bottom of the ocean, as some writers aver, by the mighty tusk of the male narwhal when searching for food.

We were soon amid the floes, and after passing through them, Paul Reeves from the fore-crosstrees announced that he could discern the field of ice, extending along the whole line of the horizon; and we soon became sensible of its vicinity by a very perceptible increase of the cold, which ere long became almost unbearable. But our seal-fishers prepared with alacrity for the great work of our little expedition, by getting up their wooden clubs, their long sealing-guns, and shot-pouches; their knives, sledges, and rue-raddies or collar-ropes, by which to drag the loads of skins to the brig, as they might have to pursue and slaughter the seals for some miles from where she would anchor by the outer edge of the ice. The inner, Hartly knew by his observations, partly rested on Wolf Island, off the coast of Labrador.

On the detached floes, we saw a few seals like black dots; but on the ice nearing the brig they always disappeared.

"There they go, souse into the water, tail up for old Greenland!" said Hans Peterkin. "Now, Cuffy, get your fiddle in order."

"A fiddle!" said I; "for what?"

"That you shall soon see, Jack," said Hartly. "Paul Reeves, get ready a gang with the ice-anchor and cable!"

As we neared the scene of our operations, we passed ten or twelve gigantic icebergs, the bases of which were merged deep in the icy sea. Solemnly still, and intensely cold and pure they seem, to those who first behold these voiceless floating mountains, so terrible in their form and whiteness, the shades of which are blue.

By a telescope, I perceived that some of them bore masses of gravel, frozen mud, and even enormous boulder-stones, torn from the shore—but from what shore?

From unknown and untrodden lands beyond the Arctic Circle—shores where, perhaps, the last of Franklin's fated crew are lying unburied save by the eternal snow; and while I gazed on these floating islands, so awful in their aspect and solitude and so mysterious in their formation, there came to memory the oft-quoted words of the Psalmist, how "they who go down to the sea in ships, and occupy their business in great waters, see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep."

No small care, skill, and seamanship were requisite to avoid those perilous "wonders;" but erelong we were close to the mighty field of ice which covered all the ocean to the far horizon—a white and desolate expanse, like a snow-covered moorland—varied only by the incessant hummocks, as those ridges of broken ice formed by the collision of ice-fields, are named; or by the wavy outline or sharp spiral pinnacles of bergs which were wedged in the floating mass, and seemed to form the crags and mountains of this white and desolate world of ice and snow.

We considered it singular, that up to this time we had not seen a single ship bent on the same errand, either of those which sailed with us on St. Patrick's Day through the Narrows of St. John, or any of the steam sealers which leave the northern ports of Scotland about the same season of the year.

Now the quarter-boat was lowered, and Paul Reeves with her crew took off the cable and ice-anchor, which is formed like a pick-axe; the courses were hauled up, the fore and aft mainsail brailed, the topsails and topgallant sails handed, and we warped close to the ice-field, fairly coming to anchor alongside its edge, just as we might have warped close to a quay or wharf.

This was about ten in the morning of the 25th of March, and after receiving a glass of stiff rum-grog per man, the whole of our seal-fishers "landed," as they phrased it, on the ice, with all their apparatus, including Cuffy with his violin; and, after, three hearty hurrahs for Captain Hartly, proceeded in quest of their prey, scores of which were seen dotting the white ice-scape (if I may so term it) within the distance of a mile from the brig.

Seals of every species live or consort in droves along those desolate shores where the bergs and ice-fields float; and they are often found basking in the rays of the sun. Thus, when falling asleep they easily become a prey, though, when reposing, the seal is cunning enough to open its large black eyes from time to time, to see whether all is quiet around it. The female produces two or three at a litter, and feeds them for a fortnight or so on the shore where she has brought them forth, suckling them in a position nearly upright, till the fattened cubs depart to see the Arctic world upon the ice-floes, and are old enough to search the waves for food.

Armed with my double-barrelled rifle and a sheathed knife that dangled at my shot-belt, and well prepared to encounter the cold by a suit of the warmest clothing (Flushing lined with English blanket), I set out alone in quest of adventures, feeling a strange emotion of mingled alarm and delight on finding myself afoot upon that frozen sea. The intense purity and rarity of the atmosphere carried the voices of our scattered men to a vast distance. I could hear Cuffy vigorously scraping a hornpipe on his violin half a mile off; and thus won by the lyre of our sable Orpheus, the seals with their hairy paws (usually known as flippers), their round black heads, soft gleaming eyes, and spotted skins, from which the brine was dripping, began to appear in herds from subtle holes in the ice—holes through which I was frequently in terror of vanishing from mortal ken; and as these strange amphibious animals rolled upon the field, turning up their full round bellies, which reminded me of those of gorged swine, I could see their bodies steaming in the frosty sunshine, for being warm-blooded they emit at times a vapour.

Seated on a sledge, under the lee of a hummock, Cuffy played vigorously; but how his black fingers could handle his instrument in such an atmosphere was beyond my comprehension, for though the glare of the noonday sun, as he shone through a cloudless sky, was almost blinding, the degree of cold was indescribable. Ere long Snowball had a numerous auditory, for music allures and fascinates these animals, as it does many others; we are told how

"Rude Heiskar's seal through surges dark,
Will long pursue the minstrel's bark;"

but the moment our treacherous musician replaced his violin in its canvas bag, an appalling scene of butchery began.

The batmen rushed about as if a frenzy had seized them, striking the seals on their round bullet-like heads, knocking them over, stunned and motionless. Others followed, with long sharp knives, by five slashes of which the expert hunter will denude the largest cub of his smooth glossy skin, to which the thick white fat adheres, and after being thus denuded, on more than one occasion I have seen the miserable animal, bared to its slender ribs, when stung, as it were, by the intense frost reaching its vitals, revive for a minute, and make efforts to crawl along the ice, or drop into the sea!

The whole ice-field, which a moment before had been so white in its spotless and untrodden purity, now, within the radius of a mile, presented the aspect of a battle-field, strewn with gashed carcases and heaps of bloody skins that were steaming in the sunshine. Cuffy seemed in his element—in his glory! Flourishing his long knife, he uttered yells as if every seal he stripped had been the Chenoo wife who sold him into slavery, or the Yankee taskmaster whose whip had skinned him more than once.

This wholesale butchery sickened me.

The attachment of the mother-seal to her offspring is very great; and here I saw a great hooded one carrying off a little wounded cub in her mouth toward the edge of the ice-field, where they dropped into the sea, escaping Cuffy, who pursued them. There are times when the mother turns fiercely with tusks and claws upon the destroyers of her young, and then the long gun with its charge of slugs is brought into action; for on the old seals (Buffon avers that some of them live for more than a hundred years) the sturdiest batman's arm would swing the knotted club in vain. The membrane of the hooded seal can be drawn over the nose, and inflated, so as to protect the head like a helmet of gutta-percha.

Leaving our people engaged in the work of slaughter, halloing, shouting, and encouraging each other, as they threw their bloody and greasy spoil upon little sledges, to be dragged by ropes alongside the brig, I proceeded over the hummocks in search of—I scarcely knew what.

Our men seldom fired their guns, as shot destroys the skin, which, after the cargo is brought into port, has the fat or blubber carefully removed and placed in the great wooden tanks or vats of the oil-merchant; while the pelts are cleaned, spread, and, after having layers of coarse salt placed between them, are packed in bales for transport to other countries.

CHAPTER XI.

COMBAT WITH A SEA-HORSE.

We continued to fish, or rather to hunt, the seals here with considerable success, warping the brig from day to day along the outer edge of the ice, between which and her side we placed strong and soft fenders; and the satisfaction of Hartly and his crew increased in proportion as the piles of pelt and blubber replaced in the hold the stone ballast which we had brought from the island of Newfoundland.

I had shot a few refractory seals, but one evening, when the atmosphere was singularly clear, I rambled far along the ice-field, floundering and scrambling among the hummocks, in the hope of finding worthier game. I was accompanied by one of the crew, a smart and intelligent lad from North Shields, named Ridly, who was armed only with an ice-gaff.

One who has been among the countless waves and ridges of a frozen sea can alone have an idea of the toil of travelling, even for a mile, on an ice-field.

But on this vast floating waste we failed to discern anything worth powder and shot, and so, worn with our fruitless and desultory hunt, after wandering about for an hour or two, we turned our steps towards the brig, which still lay at anchor by the edge of the field, about three miles off, and the masts and yards of which formed the chief and sole feature in the flat and dreary prospect.

The sun had set, but there was a dusky red flush in the sky which marked the place of his declension; and now the ice began to assume the cold green tints of salt water when frozen, as the shadows of night stole over the sky from the eastward like a crape mantle, and one by one the stars came out in the deep blue dome above us.

Sliding, toiling, and scrambling on, we were endeavouring to reach the brig, when suddenly Ridly and I uttered a mutual exclamation of alarm, paused, and shrunk back.

In our front we heard an astounding roar, as of an earthquake, and lo! between us and the brig—between us and our friends, our home upon the waters—there yawned a mighty fissure of zigzag form, that ran east and west, and was about fifteen or twenty feet wide, as the ice-field split under the influence of some atmospheric change!

We stood and gazed blankly into each other's faces on beholding this terrible barrier to our progression, and fearing that the ice might yawn as suddenly under our feet.

"Separated from all succour from the ship—alone upon the ice, and with night coming on, what will become of us?" said I, thinking aloud.

"God only knows, sir," responded my companion; "but we must endeavour to reach the brig somehow."

"There goes a lantern up to her mainmast-head," said I, as a light was hoisted swiftly by the ensign halliards.

"The captain is showing a signal to indicate her whereabouts. He has heard the noise of the splitting ice."

"If a fog should come on!" said I.

"Don't think of it, sir," said my companion, hastily; "the night is as clear as if day were overhead. So let us find the end of this crack; it cannot be very far off."

We proceeded westward for more than a mile, being compelled to make many detours to avoid falling into the water among the ragged floes or pieces of ice that lay along the margin of this zigzag fissure; but, as it extended far away beyond the range of our vision, and seemed to widen, we were compelled after long consideration, and suffering great anxiety, to retrace our steps and proceed eastward, in the hope of gaining the east end of it, or at least of discovering a place so narrow that we might leap across without the danger of immersion, which, in such a season and at such an hour, would have been fatal, as our entire clothing would in an instant have become a casing of ice.

To favour our efforts the moon now rose, ascending slowly from the edge of the vast plain of ice, and notwithstanding the peril of our situation, her beauty filled me with a glow of pleasure and hope.

Far over that waste—so wide, so desolate, and mysterious—fell her flood of silver light, so bright in its intensity, and redoubled by reflection from the snow. It glittered on every rounded hummock and splintered berg, and formed strange fantastic figures in their cold green shadows, elsewhere making prisms that seemed like fairy crystals, or gemwork of rubies, emeralds, and silver. Clouds of fleecy whiteness came up with her from the sea, and as she waded among them, I recalled the words of Sir Walter Scott:—

"There is something peculiarly pleasing to the imagination in contemplating the Queen of Night when she is wading, as the expression is, among the vapours which she has not the power to dispel, and which on their side are unable entirely to quench her lustre. It is the striking image of patient virtue calmly pursuing her path through good report and bad report, having that excellence in herself which ought to command all admiration; but bedimmed in the eyes of the world by suffering, by misfortune, and by calumny."

While I felt something of the poetry of our situation and the beauty of the night, my more practical and prosaic companion was sensible only of the danger we ran, and after a minute reconnaissance, assured me, with an exclamation of joy, that the split in the ice was narrowing.

We were then four miles from the brig, the crew of which had sent more lanterns aloft, and ever and anon burned a brilliant red or blue light, for Cuffy Snowball was a great pyrotechnist.

"What is that?" said I, as a strange sound reached us.

"I cannot tell," replied my comrade, as he toiled on, supporting himself with his ice-gaff; "I never heard it before, and don't like it at all, sir. I wish we were on board," he added, shuddering alike with cold and superstitious fear, as the sound came again and again from among the hummocks, and it was as weird and mournful to the ear as their aspect was to the eye.

It was a strange mooing, and gradually swelled into a bellowing as we proceeded; thus it evidently came from the throat of a large animal—but what species of animal could it be in such a place?

We were not left long in doubt, for on the centre of a narrow isthmus of ice, over which lay our way to the ship, as the fissure beyond it opened wider than elsewhere, sat a huge, dark monster of the deep, in which, on approaching it, I recognised (from pictures I had seen) a sea-horse, or walrus, which the reader must remember is not a seal, but a ferocious animal that can defend itself and frequently destroys its assailants, and this one manifested not the slightest intention of making way for us.

He was fearfully pre-Adamite, or antediluvian, in his proportions, being fully twenty feet in length, and having a pair of tusks thirty inches long protruding from the mass of quill-like bristles which covered (like a thick moustache and whiskers) his upper lips and cheeks. Grimly and ferociously he regarded us with his deep-set eyes, which glittered in the moonlight amid the square mass of his elephantine visage, and on beholding us, his hollow mooing turned into a species of grunting bark.

Finding that he obstinately barred our way, and, moreover, seemed inclined to attack us, I levelled my rifle full at his grizzly front and fired, while Ridly rashly and fatally charged him in the smoke with his ice-gaff, which was armed with a sharp pike.

My ball had pierced his great sloping shoulder, pricking him as a pin might have done, and serving only to incense him, for his bark changed to a mighty roar, and when the smoke cleared away, I saw poor Ridly, who had fallen, lying under one of his gigantic fore-flippers. The foam of rage was frothing on the bristles of the sea-horse, and with his two enormous tusks, which stood upward through them like two crooked sabre-blades, he was alternately rending the limbs and body of his assailant and then great fragments of ice, which he dashed into the water on each side of him.

Ridly had only power to utter a faint cry, when he expired.

Appalled by this sudden and terrible catastrophe, I reloaded my rifle, and full of mingled rage and fear—a combination which made me no longer feel the intensity of the cold—I fired again and again at the horrid front of the walrus; but every shot seemed only to redouble his wrath, and he continued to rend to pieces the clothes and body of Ridly, till in less than five minutes the ice around him was covered by the blood of his victim and that which gushed from his own wounds. Ridly's left leg he wrenched completely off, and cast into the sea.

Rolling about in his wrath, and in his lubberly efforts to reach me, he at last fell into the water; I then rushed across the narrow isthmus where my poor companion lay. As I did so, the walrus made many ineffectual efforts to reach me, grasping the ice with his forepaws, or dashing his vast shoulders madly against it, while he plunged and bellowed and covered all the water in the chasm around him with mingled blood and foam, and, in his impotent fury, tore great blocks off the ice by the tusks of his lower jaw.

I fired ten shots into his body, point blank, without his strength or wrath appearing to diminish in the least.

On perceiving this, a species of superstitious dread came over me, and turning away, I hastened towards the brig, which, as I have stated, lay about four miles distant, leaving my walrus to flounder, bellow, and drown in the moonlight.

Anxiety to reach the vessel, lest I might be overcome by fatigue, or that fatal drowsiness caused at times by intense cold, made me strain every energy; and thus in a much shorter time than could have deemed possible, considering the alternately rough or slippery and laborious nature of the ice-field to be traversed, I found myself among the carcasses of our slaughtered seals, and within hail of the Leda.

Furnished with ice-gaffs, a bottle of rum, a sledge, and plenty of blankets, so as to be prepared for any emergency, Captain Hartly, with Hans Peterkin and ten of the crew, met me, just as I was sinking with fatigue, half sleepy and half delirious with cold. Thus a considerable time elapsed ere I could relate the story of my adventure and our shipmate's death.

They had heard the roar of the splitting ice, and knew why we were wandering so long and so deviously among the hummocks, but the sound of firing puzzled them extremely; and thus, while Paul Reeves with a gang was hoisting out the jolly-boat upon a sledge, to have it launched in the chasm for our conveyance across, Hartly had come on in advance, and he met me just in time, for in ten minutes more I must have perished of fatigue and cold!

On returning next morning to collect poor Ridly's remains and commit them to the deep, we found his great destroyer dead, but floating by the margin of the ice, to which he was literally anchored, or hooked, by his two longest tusks.

By this, and the affair with the Black Schooner, we had lost two of our crew.

CHAPTER XII.

ON AN ICEBERG.

Soon after this, in a dark and howling night, we were blown from our moorings, and forced to run before the wind, with our topmasts struck, and only our jib and a close-reefed foresail set, as we were in the dangerous vicinity of innumerable broken floes, or masses detached from the field-ice: the decks were so slippery that one could scarcely keep afoot; and amid the arrowy sleet and snow that rendered all so murky and obscure around us, and which stung the face like showers of sharp needles, we were hurried on, expecting every moment a collision which would stave our bows or snap the masts by the board.

We were repeatedly frost-bitten in the ears, nose, or hands; but snow scraped up in the scuppers and promptly applied, soon brought a hot glow in the benumbed member, and proved our best, indeed our only remedy.

All who could cultivate beards had permitted them to grow in Crimean luxuriance, as any attempt at soapsudding in those latitudes produced a coating of ice in a moment.

Surging on through blinding drift and pitchy darkness, amid the howling of the fierce tempest, the Leda went bravely! Her spars and cordage straining and groaning, her timbers creaking, while wave after wave broke over her decks and hardy crew, each leaving its legacy of ice upon everything. From time to time we were conscious of a rude shock, or a furious scraping sound, as she grazed upon the passing floes; and now, to add to the gloomy horrors of that tempestuous night, Paul Reeves, who was keeping an anxious look-out forward, shouted back through his trumpet—

"Icebergs ahead! Hard to port, or we are foul of one!"

"Hard to port," echoed the two men at the wheel; sharply it revolved, and in a moment we swept under the frowning cliff of a stupendous iceberg, the cold white mass of which was discernible through the gloom, as the arm of the mainyard grazed it!

We passed on and it vanished in the darkness astern.

"Thank Heaven!"

"Thank God!"

"A narrow escape!"

Such were the muttered exclamations of our half-frozen crew; but at that instant an icy sea broke over us, and two men were swept into a watery grave, without the possibility of our rendering them the least assistance.

A minute had scarcely elapsed before we were sensible of a fierce concussion; the masts reeled and the icicles fell in a shower as they were shaken from our stiffened top-hamper. Then the brig's head was tilted up and her stern correspondingly depressed; but still impelled by the fury of the wind, she continued to advance upwards and out of the water, as if she was being steamed up a landing-slip, or into a dry dock.

"We are ashore—beached!" said some one, beholding this phenomenon.

"We are foul of an iceberg," exclaimed Hartly, while the brig continued slowly to ascend till little more than the sternpost and counter were in the water; then she heeled over to port and remained there, wedged, with her jib-boom broken off at the cap, and dangling in the jib-guys, her canvas bellying out so furiously that we thought the masts would be carried away before the benumbed fingers of the seamen could get it handed.

In a trice the Leda was under bare poles, while around us the tempestuous wind was bellowing, the surf was roaring, and vast blocks of ice, many tons in weight, were crashing against each other, adding to the dread horrors of this bewildering catastrophe!

It is impossible to depict the dismay of all on board, when finding the vessel in this situation—high and dry upon a berg; for, influenced by the storm, by the wind, or the slight additional weight of the brig and her cargo, we felt the monstrous mass on which we were wedged, oscillating and gradually heeling forward ahead; thus the stern of the Leda was raised until her hull remained in the air horizontally, just as she usually sat in the water.

In blank horror we endured the gloomy hours of that northern night, amid the drift, the sleet, and a darkness so dense that we could in no way discover our real position, or how to extricate ourselves from it.

One fact, we were alarmingly alive to. It was this:—The sea no longer dashed against the hull of our vessel, which lay on her side, well careened over to port; and though we could hear the roaring of the waves, amid the oppressive gloom that enveloped us, we could no longer see them.

As day broke the tempest gradually lulled, and the sleet, the snow, and wind passed away together. Then the increasing light enabled us to see the perils of our situation.

We were nearly eighty feet above the ocean, on the flat, table-like summit of a mighty iceberg; which, though it had presented a sloping face up which we had run last night before the furious wind and sea, had now changed its position by heeling over, as icebergs always do, from time to time, when their base in the ocean becomes honeycombed and decayed.*

* Her Majesty's steam ship Intrepid, when commanded by Captain Cator, was similarly carried bodily up the face of a berg, and left high and dry in air, without injury.

The sky was clear now to the horizon; the icefield on which we had pursued our hunting so successfully was no longer visible; but about half a mile distant lay the island of floating ice we had escaped last night; and around for miles, far as the eye could reach, the sea, still perturbed by the past storm, was flecked by white floes, the ruins probably of a third berg, which had been shattered by the waves or by being dashed against others.

Both these icebergs were several miles in circumference. The summit of ours was flat as a bowling-green; but that portion on which the brig rested was soft, pulpy, and rotten by its long immersion in the sea.

The other had many spiral pinnacles, some of them being several hundred feet in height; and, save for the peril in which we were situated, I could have admired the sublimity of that cold and silent mass—so dazzlingly white when the beams of the rising sun fell on it, so indigo-blue in its shadows—for it resembled a fairy isle, which had steep hills, deep valleys, and chasms all fashioned of alabaster; while around its base was a thick fringe of frozen foam of snowy brilliance.

While we were gazing upon it that morning, one of its loftiest pinnacles, with a mighty crash, fell thundering into the sea.

The Leda was soon frozen into the bed she had ploughed by her keel in the ice; and how to get her launched again, how to descend from our perilous eminence, were the questions we asked of each other, and which no one could answer.

The summit of the berg was nearly a mile in circumference, and, as I have said, was more than eighty feet from the water. This we ascertained as a fact, though there was no small peril in venturing from the ship upon its surface, which was so glassy and smooth that in some places the lightest among us would have slipped off, as if shot by a catapulta, into the sea below.

Council and deliberation availed us nothing. Even Hartly, Reeves, and Hans, with all their united skill, foresight, and seamanship, found their invention fail in suggesting any means of release.

"There is nothing for it but to wait the event," said Hartly, after a long and solemn council.

"But suppose that we waited a month, captain," asked Reeves, gloomily, "where would our provisions be?—where our fresh water?"

"We may be driven south into warmer latitudes where the bergs melt rapidly in the sunshine."

"But we may be drifted north into latitudes where the bergs freeze harder, and where ice may close around us for ever," said Hans Peterkin.

"Or," said one of the seamen, who all crowded anxiously to this conference, which we held around the capstan-head, "the berg may capsize, and what will become of us then?"

"Hold hard, my lads," exclaimed Hartly, "hold hard, and be stout of heart and cheery. Remember that however miserable we may deem ourselves, there is one Blessed Eye upon us—the eye of a kind, good God," he added, uncovering his head reverently to the bitter frost, "One who will never forget the poor sailor, if he is true to himself. Think of the 'sweet little cherub that sits up aloft,' as the song says, and rail not at fate, for fate guides man neither at home nor abroad, at sea or on shore. Put all your trust aloft, my boys, and hold on by poor Jack's best bower anchor!"

This harangue was exactly suited to his hearers. We tried to feel hopeful and trusting, and to have patience. But we longed very much, nevertheless, to be free of the iceberg, and to have the blue sea dashing alongside once more.