THE FROZEN PIRATE.

CHAPTER I.

THE STORM.

The Laughing Mary was a light ship, as sailors term a 
vessel that stands high upon the water, having discharged 
her cargo at Callao, from which port we were proceeding 
in ballast to Cape Town, South Africa, there to call for 
orders. Our run to within a few parallels of the latitude 
of the Horn had been extremely pleasant; the proverbial 
mildness of the Pacific Ocean was in the mellow sweetness 
of the wind and in the gentle undulations of the silver-
laced swell; but scarce had we passed the height of 
forty-nine degrees when the weather grew sullen and dark, 
a heavy bank of clouds of a livid hue rose in the north-
east, and the wind came and went in small gusts, the 
gusts venting themselves in dreary moans, insomuch that 
our oldest hands confessed they had never heard blasts 
more portentous.

The gale came on with some lightning and several claps of 
thunder and heavy rain. Though it was but two o'clock in 
the afternoon, the air was so dusky that the men had to 
feel for the ropes; and when the first of the tempest 
stormed down upon us the appearance of the sea was 
uncommonly terrible, being swept and mangled into boiling 
froth in the north-east quarter, whilst all about us and 
in the south-west it lay in a sort of swollen huddle of 
shadows, glooming into the darkness of the sky without 
offering the smallest glimpse of the horizon.

In a few minutes the hurricane struck us. We had bared 
the brig down to the close-reefed main-topsail; yet, 
though we were dead before the outfly, its first blow 
rent the fragment of sail as if it were formed of smoke, 
and in an instant it disappeared, flashing over the bows 
like a scattering of torn paper, leaving nothing but the 
bolt-ropes behind. The bursting of the topsail was like 
the explosion of a large cannon. In a breath the brig was 
smothered with froth torn up in huge clouds, and hurled 
over and ahead of her in vast quivering bodies that 
filled the wind with a dismal twilight of their own, in 
which nothing was visible but their terrific speeding. 
Through these slinging, soft, and singing masses of spume 
drove the rain in horizontal steel-like lines, which 
gleamed in the lightning stroke as though indeed they 
were barbed weapons of bright metal, darted by armies of 
invisible spirits raving out their war cries as they 
chased us.

The storm made a loud thunder in the sky, and this 
tremendous utterance dominated without subduing the many 
screaming, hissing, shrieking, and hooting noises raised 
in the rigging and about the decks, and the wild, 
seething, weltering sound of the sea, maddened by the 
gale and struggling in its enormous passion under the 
first choking and iron grip of the hurricane's hand.

I had used the ocean for above ten years, but never had I 
encountered anything suddener or fiercer in the form of 
weather than this. Though the wind blew from the tropics 
it was as cruel in bitterness as frost. Yet there was 
neither snow nor hail, only rain that seemed to pass like 
a knife through the head if you showed your face to it 
for a second. It was necessary to bring the brig to the 
wind before the sea rose. The helm was put down, and 
without a rag of canvas on her she came round; but when 
she brought the hurricane fair abeam, I thought it was 
all over with us. She lay down to it until her bulwarks 
were under water, and the sheer-poles in the rigging 
above the rail hidden.

In this posture she hung so long that Captain Rosy, the 
master, bawled to me to tell the carpenter to stand by to 
cut away the topmast rigging. But the Laughing Mary, as 
the brig was called, was a buoyant ship and lightly 
sparred, and presently bringing the sea on the bow, 
through our seizing a small tarpaulin in the weather main 
shrouds, she erected her masts afresh, like some sentient 
creature pricking its ears for the affray, and with that 
showed herself game and made indifferently good weather 
of it.

But though the first rage of the storm was terrible 
enough, its fierceness did not come to its height till 
about one o'clock in the middle watch. Long before then 
the sea had grown mountainous, and the dance of our 
eggshell of a brig upon it was sickening and affrighting. 
The heads of the Andean peaks of black water looked tall 
enough to brush the lowering soot of the heavens with the 
blue and yellow phosphoric fires which sparkled ghastly 
amid the bursting froth. Bodies of foam flew like the 
flashings of pale sheet-lightning through our rigging and 
over us, and a dreadful roaring of mighty surges in mad 
career, and battling as they ran, rose out of the sea to 
deepen yet the thunderous bellowing of the hurricane on 
high.

No man could show himself on deck and preserve his life. 
Between the rails it was waist high, and this water, 
converted by the motions of the brig into a wild torrent, 
had its volume perpetually maintained by ton-loads of sea 
falling in dull and pounding crashes over the bows on to 
the forecastle. There was nothing to be done but secure 
the helm and await the issue below, for, if we were to be 
drowned, it would make a more easy foundering to go down 
dry and warm in the cabin, than to perish half-frozen and 
already nearly strangled by the bitter cold and flooded 
tempest on deck.

There was Captain Rosy; there was myself, by name Paul 
Rodney, mate of the brig; and there were the remaining 
seven of a crew, including the carpenter. We sat in the 
cabin, one of us from time to time clawing his way up the 
ladder to peer through the companion, and we looked at 
one another with the melancholy of malefactors waiting to 
be called from their cells for the last jaunt to Tyburn.

"May God have mercy upon us!" cries the carpenter. "There 
must be an earthquake inside this storm. Something more 
than wind is going to the making of these seas. Hear 
that, now! naught less than a forty-foot chuck-up could 
ha' ended in that souse, mates."

"A man can die but once," says Captain Rosy, "and he'll 
not perish the quicker for looking at his end with a 
stout heart;" and with that he put his hand into the 
locker on which he had been sitting and pulled out a jar 
of whisky, which, after putting his lips to it and 
keeping them glued there whilst you could have counted 
twenty, he handed to me, and so it went round, coming 
back to him empty.

I often have the sight of that cabin in my mind's eye; 
and it was not long afterwards that it would visit me as 
such a vision of comfort, I would with a grateful heart 
have accepted it with tenfold darker conditions of 
danger, had it been possible to exchange my situation for 
it. A lantern hung from a beam, and swung vi01entlyto the 
rolling and pitching of the brig. The alternations of its 
light put twenty different meanings, one after another, 
into the settled dismal and rueful expressions in the 
faces of my companions. We were clad in warm clothes, and 
the steam rose from the damp in our coats and trousers 
like vapour from wet straw. The drink mottled some of our 
faces, but the spirituous tincture only imparted a 
quality of irony to the melancholy of our visages, as if 
our mournfulness were not wholly sincere, when, God 
knows, our hearts were taken up with counting the minutes 
when we should find ourselves bursting for want of breath 
under water.

Thus it continued till daybreak, all which time we strove 
to encourage one another as best we could, sometimes with 
words, sometimes with putting the bottle about. It was 
impossible for any of us at any moment to show more than 
our noses above the companion; and even at that you 
needed the utmost caution, for the decks being full of 
water, it was necessary to await the lurch of the vessel 
before moving the slide or cover to the companion, else 
you stood to drown the cabin.

Being exceedingly anxious, for the brig lay unwatched, I 
looked forth on one occasion longer than the others chose 
to venture, and beheld the most extravagant scene of 
raging commotion it could enter the brain of man to 
imagine. The night was as black as the bottom of a well; 
but the prodigious swelling and flinging of white waters 
hove a faintness upon the air that was in its way a dim 
light, by which it was just possible to distinguish the 
reeling masts to the height of the tops, and to observe 
the figure of the brig springing black and trembling out 
of the head of a surge that had broken over and smothered 
her as in a cauldron, and to note the shapes of the 
nearer liquid acclivities as they bore down upon our 
weather bow, catching the brig fair under the bluff, and 
so sloping her that she seemed to stand end on, and so 
heeling her that the ~ea would wash to the height of the 
main hatch. Indeed, had she been loaded, and therefore 
deep, she could not have lived an hour in that hollow and 
frightful ocean; but having nothing in her but ballast 
she was like a bladder, and swung up the surges and blew 
away to leeward like an empty cask.

When the dawn broke something of its midnight fury went 
out of the gale. The zzz carpenter made shift to sound 
the well, and to our great satisfaction found but little 
water, only as much as we had a right to suppose she 
would take in above. But it was impossible to stand at 
the pumps, so we returned to the cabin and brewed some 
cold punch and did what we could to keep our spirits 
hearty. By noon the wind had weakened yet, but the sea 
still ran very heavily, and the sky was uncommonly thick 
with piles of dusky, yellowish, hurrying clouds; and 
though we could fairly reckon upon our position, the 
atmosphere was so nipping it was difficult to persuade 
ourselves that Cape Horn was not close aboard.

We could now work the pumps, and a short spell freed the 
brig. We got up a new main-topsail and bent it, and, 
setting the reefed foresail, put the vessel before the 
wind, and away she ran, chased by the swollen seas. Thus 
we continued till by dead reckoning we calculated that we 
were about thirty leagues south of the parallel of the 
Horn, and in longitude eighty-seven degrees west. We then 
boarded our larboard tacks and brought the brig as close 
to the wind as it was proper to lay her for a progress 
that should not be wholly leeway; but four hours after we 
had handled the braces the gate, that had not veered two 
points since it first came on to blow, stormed up again 
into its first fury; and the morning of the 1st of July, 
anno zzz, found the Laughing Mary passionately labouring 
in the midst of an enraged Cape Horn sea, her jibboom and 
fore top-gallant mast gone, her ballast shifted, so that 
her posture even in a calm would have exhibited her with 
her starboard channels under, and her decks swept by 
enormous surges, which, fetching her larboard bilge 
dreadful blows, thundered in mighty green masses over 
her.

CHAPTER II.

THE ICEBERG.

THE loss of the spars I have named was no great matter, 
nor were we to be intimidated by such weather as was to 
be expected off Cape Horn. For what sailor entering this 
icy and tempestuous tract of waters but knows that here 
he must expect to find Nature in her most violent moods, 
crueller and more unreckonable than a mad woman, who one 
moment looks with a silent sinister sullenness upon you, 
and the next is shrieking with devilish laughter as she 
makes as if to spring upon you?

But there was an inveteracy in the gale which had driven 
us down to this part that bore heavily upon our spirits. 
It was impossible to trim the ballast. We dared not veer 
so as to bring the ship on the other tack. And the slope 
of the decks, added to the fierce wild motions of the 
fabric, made our situation as unendurable as that of one 
who should be confined in a cask and sent rolling 
downhill. It was impossible to light a fire, and we could 
not therefore dress our food or obtain a warm drink. The 
cold was beyond language severe. The rigging was glazed 
with ice, and great pendants of the silvery brilliance of 
crystal hung from the yards, bowsprit, and catheads, 
whilst the sails were frozen to the hardness of granite, 
and lay like sheets of iron rolled up in gaskets of 
steel. We had no means of drying our clothes, nor were we 
able so to move as by exercise we might keep ourselves 
warm. Never once did the sun shine to give us the 
encouragement of his glorious beam. Hour after hour found 
us amid the same distracting scene: the tall olive-
coloured seas hurling out their rage in foam as they 
roared towards us in ranges of dissolving cliffs; the 
wind screaming and whistling through our grey and frozen 
rigging; the water washing in floods about our decks, 
with the ends of the running gear snaking about in the 
torrent, and the live stock lying drowned and stiff in 
their coops and pen near the caboose.

With helm lashed and yards pointed to the wind thus we 
lay, thus we drifted, steadily trending with the send of 
each giant surge further and deeper into the icy regions 
of the south-west, helpless, foreboding, disconsolate.

It was the night of the fourth day of the month. The crew 
were forward in the forecastle, and I knew not if any man 
was on deck saving myself. In truth, there was no place 
in which a watch could be kept, if it were not in the 
companion hatch. Such was the violence with which the 
seas broke over the brig that it was at the risk of his 
life a man crawled the distance betwixt the forecastle 
and the quarter-deck. It had been as thick as mud all 
day, and now upon this flying gloom of haze, sleet, and 
spray had descended the blackness of the night.

I stood in the companion as in a sentry-box, with my eyes 
just above the cover. Nothing was to be seen but sheets 
of ghostly white water sweeping up the blackness on the 
vessel's lee, or breaking and boiling to windward. It was 
sheer blind chaos to the sight, and you might have 
supposed that the brig was in the midst of some enormous 
vaporous turmoil, so illusive and indefinable were the 
shadows of the storm-tormented night--one block of 
blackness melting into another, with sometimes an 
extraordinary faintness of light speeding along the dark 
sky like to the dim reflection of a lanthorn flinging its 
radiance from afar, which no doubt must have been the 
reflection of some particular bright and extensive bed of 
foam upon a sooty belly on high, hanging lower than the 
other clouds. I say, you might have thought yourself in 
the midst of some hellish conflict of vapour but for the 
substantial thunder of the surges upon the vessel and the 
shriek of the slung masses of water flying like cannon 
balls between the masts.

After a long and eager look round into the obscurity, 
semi-lucent with froth, I went below for a mouthful of 
spirits and a bite of supper, the hour being eight bells 
in the second dog watch as we say, that is, eight o'clock 
in the evening. The captain and carpenter were in the 
cabin. Upon the swing-tray over the table were a piece of 
corned beef, some biscuit, and a bottle of hollands. 

"Nothing to be seen, I suppose, Rodney?" says the 
captain.

"Nothing," I answered. "She looks well up, and that's all 
that can be said."

"I've been hove to under bare poles more than once in my 
time," said the carpenter, "but never through so long a 
stretch. I doubt if you'll find many vessels to look up 
to it as this here Laughing Mary does."

"The loss of hamper forward will make her the more 
weatherly," says Captain Rosy. "But we're in an ugly part 
of the globe. When bad sailors die they're sent here, I 
reckon. The worst nautical sinner can't be hove to long 
off the Horn without coming out of it with a purged soul. 
He must start afresh to deserve further punishment."

"Well, here's a breeze that can't go on blowing much 
longer," cries the carpenter. "The place it comes from 
must give out soon, unless a new trade wind's got fixed 
into a whole gale for this here ocean."

"What southing do you allow our drift will be giving us, 
captain?" I asked, munching a piece of beef.

"All four mile an hour," he answered. "If this goes on I 
shall look to make some discoveries. The Antarctic circle 
won't be far off presently, and since you're a scholar, 
Rodney, I'll leave you to describe what's inside of it, 
though boil me if I don't have the naming of the tallest 
land; for, d'ye see, I've a mind to be known after I'm 
dead, and there's nothing like your signature on a 
mountain to be remembered by."

He grinned and put his hand out for the bottle, and after 
a pull passed it to the carpenter. I guessed by his 
jocosity that he had already been making somewhat free; 
for although I love a bold face put upon a difficulty, 
ours was a situation in which only a tipsy man could find 
food for merriment.

At this instant we were startled by a wild and fearful 
shout on deck. It sounded high above the sweeping and 
seething of the wind and the hissing of the lashed 
waters, and it penetrated the planks with a note that 
gave it an inexpressible character of anguish.

"A man washed overboard!" bawled the carpenter, springing 
to his feet.

"No!" cried I, for my younger and shrewder ear had caught 
a note in the cry that persuaded me it was not as the 
carpenter said; and in an instant the three of us jumped 
up the ladder and gained the deck.

The moment I was in the gale the same affrighted cry rang 
down along the wind from some man forward: "For God's 
sake zzz lumble uti before we are upon it!"

"What do you see?" I roared, sending my voice, trumpet-
fashion, through my hands; for as to my own and the sight 
of Captain Rosy and the carpenter, why, it was like being 
struck blind to come on a sudden out of the lighted cabin 
into the black night.

Any reply that might have been attempted was choked out 
by the dive of the brig's head into a sea, which 
furiously flooded her forecastle and came washing aft 
like milk in the darkness till it was up to our knees.

"See there!" suddenly roared the carpenter. 

"Where, man, where?" bawled the captain. 

But in this brief time nay sight had grown used to the 
night, and I saw the object before the carpenter could 
answer. It lay on our lee beam, but how far off no man 
could have told in that black thickness. It stood against 
the darkness and hung out a dim complexion of light, or 
rather of pallidness, that was not light--not to be 
described by the pen. It was like a small hill of snow, 
and looked as snow does or the foam of the sea in 
darkness, and it came and went with our soaring and 
sinking.

"Ice!" I shouted to the captain.

"I see it! he answered, in a voice that satisfied me the 
consternation he was under had settled the fumes of the 
spirits out of his head. "We must drive her clear at all 
risks."

There was no need to call the men. To the second cry that 
had been raised by one among them who had come out of the 
forecastle and seen the berg, they had tumbled up as 
sailors will when they jump for their lives; and now they 
came staggering, splashing, crawling aft to us, for the 
lamp in the cabin made a sheen in the companion hatch, 
and they could see us as we stood there.

"Men," cried Captain Rosy, "yonder's a gravestone for our 
carcases if we are not lively! Cast the helm adrift!" (we 
steered by a tiller). "Two hands stand by it. Forward, 
some of ye, and loose the stay-foresail, and show the 
head of it."

The fellows hung in the wind. I could not wonder. The 
bowsprit had been sprung when the jibboom was wrenched 
from the cap by the fall of the top-gallant-mast; it 
still had to bear the weight of the heavy spritsail yard, 
and the drag of the staysail might carry the spar 
overboard with the men upon it. Yet it was our best 
chance; the one sail most speedily released and hoisted, 
the one that would pay the brig's head off quickest, and 
the only fragment that promised to stand.

"Jump!" roared the captain, in a passion of hurry. "Great 
thunder! 'tis close aboard!

You'll leave me no sea room for veering if you delay an 
instant."

"Follow me who will!" I cried out; "and others stand by 
ready to hoist away."

Thus speaking, for there seemed to my mind a surer 
promise of death in hesitation at this supreme moment 
than in twenty such risks as laying out on the bowsprit 
signified, I made for the lee of the weather bulwarks, 
and blindly hauled myself forward by such pins and gear 
as came to my hands. A man might spend his life on the 
ocean and never have to deal with such a passage as this. 
It was not the bitter cold only, though perhaps of its 
full fierceness the wildness of my feelings did not 
suffer me to be sensible; it was the pouring of volumes 
of water upon me from over the rail, often tumbling upon 
my head with such weight as nearly to beat the breath out 
of my body and sink me to the deck; it was the frenzy 
excited in me by the tremendous obligation of despatch 
and my retardment by the washing seas, the violent 
motions of the brig, the encumbrance of gear and deck 
furniture adrift and sweeping here and there, and the 
sense that the vessel might be grinding her bows against 
the iceberg before I should be able to reach the 
bowsprit. All this it was that filled me with a kind of 
madness, by the sheer force of which alone I was enabled 
to reach the forecastle, for had I gone to my duty 
coldly, without agitation of spirits, my heart must have 
failed me before I had measured half the length of the 
brig.

I got on to the bowsprit nearly stifled by the showering 
of the seas, holding an open knife between my teeth, half 
dazed by the prodigious motion of the light brig, which, 
at this extreme end of her, was to be felt to the full 
height of its extravagance. At every plunge I expected to 
be buried, and every moment I was prepared to be torn 
from my hold. It was a fearful time zzz the falling off 
of the brig into the trough--and never was I in a 
hollower and more swelling sea—her falling off, I say, in 
the act of veering might end us out of hand by the 
rolling of a surge over us big enough to crush the vessel 
down fathoms out of sight; and then there was that 
horrible heap of faint whiteness leaping out of the dense 
blackness of the sky, gathering a more visible sharpness 
of outline with every liquid heave that forked us high 
into the flying night with shrieking rigging and boiling 
decks.

Commending myself to God, for I was now to let go with my 
hands, I pulled the knife from my teeth, and feeling for 
the gaskets or lines which bound the sail to the spar, I 
cut and hacked as fast as I could ply my arms. In a flash 
the gale, whipping into a liberated fold of the canvas, 
blew the whole sail out; the bowsprit reeled and quivered 
under me; I danced off it with incredible despatch, 
shouting to the men to hoist away. The head of the 
staysail mounted in thunder, and the slatting of its 
folds and the thrashing of its sheet was like the 
rattling of heavy field-pieces whisked at full gallop 
over a stony road.

"High enough!" I bawled, guessing enough was shown, for I 
could not see. "Get a drag upon the sheet, lads, and then 
aft with you for your lives!"

Scarce had I let forth my breath in this cry when I heard 
the blast as of a gun, and knew by that the sail was 
gone; an instant after wash came a mountainous sea sheer 
over the weather bulwarks fair betwixt the fore and main 
rigging; but happily, standing near the fore shrouds, I 
was holding on with both hands to the topsail halliards 
whilst calling to the men, so that being under the rail, 
which broke the blow of the sea, and holding on too, no 
mischief befell me, only that for about twenty seconds I 
stood in a horrible fury and smother of frothing water, 
hearing nothing, seeing nothing, with every faculty in me 
so numbed and dulled by the wet, cold, and horror of our 
situation, that I knew not whether in that space of time 
I was in the least degree sensible of what had happened 
or what might befall.

The water leaving the deck, I rallied, though half-
drowned, and staggered aft, and found the helm deserted, 
nor could I see any signs of my companions. I rushed to 
the tiller, and putting my whole weight and force to it, 
drove it up to windward and secured it by a turn of its 
own rope; for ice or no ice--and for the moment I was so 
blinded by the wet that I could not see the berg--my 
madness now was to get the brig before the sea and out of 
the trough, advised by every instinct in me that such 
another surge as that which had rolled over her must send 
her to the bottom in less time than it would take a man 
to cry "0 God!"

A figure came out of the blackness on the lee side of the 
deck.

"Who is that?" said he. It was Captain Rosy.

I answered.

"What, Rodney! alive?" cried he. "I think I have been 
struck insensible."

Two more figures came crawling aft. Then two more. They 
were the carpenter and three seamen.

I cried out, "Who was at the helm when that sea was 
shipped?"

A man answered, "Me, Thomas Jobling."  Where's your 
mate?" I asked; and it seemed to me that I was the only 
man who had his senses full just then.

"He was washed forward along with me," he replied.

Now a fifth man joined us, but before I could question 
him as to the others, the captain, with a scream like an 
epileptic's cry, shrieked, "It's all over with us! We are 
upon it!"

I looked and perceived the iceberg to be within a musket-
shot, whence it was clear that it had been closer to us 
when first sighted than the blackness of the night would 
suffer us to distinguish. In a time like this at sea 
events throng so fast they come in a heap, and even if 
the intelligence were not confounded by the uproar and 
peril, if indeed it were as placid as in any time of 
perfect security, it could not possibly take note of one-
tenth that happens.

I confess that, for my part, I was very nearly paralyzed 
by the nearness of the iceberg, and by the cry of the 
captain, and by the perception that there was nothing to 
be done. That which I best recollect is the appearance of 
the mass of ice lying solidly, like a little island, upon 
the seas which roared in creaming waters about it. Every 
blow of the black and arching surge was reverberated in a 
dull hollow tremble back to the ear through the hissing 
flight of the gale. The frozen body was not taller than 
our mastheads, yet it showed like a mountain hanging over 
us as the brig was flung swirling into the deep Pacific 
hollow, leaving us staring upwards out of the instant's 
stagnation of the trough with lips set breathlessly and 
with dying eyes. It put a kind of film of faint light 
outside the lines of its own shape, and this served to 
magnify it, and it showed spectrally in the darkness as 
though it reflected some visionary light that came 
neither from the sea nor the sky. These points I 
recollect; likewise the maddening and maddened motion of 
our vessel, sliding towards it down one midnight 
declivity to another.

All other features were swallowed up in the agony of the 
time. One monstrous swing the brig gave, like to some 
doomed creature's last delirious struggle; the bowsprit 
caught the ice and snapped with the noise of a great tree 
crackling in fire. I could hear the masts breaking 
overhead--the crash and blows of spars and yards torn 
down and striking the hull; above all the grating of the 
vessel, that was now head on to the sea and swept by the 
billows, broadside on, along the sharp and murderous 
projections. Two monster seas tumbled over the bows, 
floated me off my legs, and dashed me against the tiller, 
to which I clung. I heard no cries. I regained my feet, 
clinging with a death-grip to the tiller, and, seeing no 
one near me, tried to holloa, to know if any man were 
living, but could not make my voice sound.

The fearful grating noise ceased on a sudden, and the 
faintness of the berg loomed upon the starboard bow. We 
had been hurled clear of it and were to leeward; but what 
was our condition? I tried to shout again, but to no 
purpose; and was in the act of quitting the tiller to go 
forward when I was struck over the brows by something 
from aloft--a block, as I believe--and fell senseless 
upon the deck. 

CHAPTER III.

I LOSE MY COMPANIONS.

I lay for a long while insensible; and that I should have 
recovered my mind instead of dying in that swoon I must 
ever account as the greatest wonder of a life that has 
not been wanting in the marvellous. I had no sooner sat 
up than all that had happened and my present situation 
instantly came to me. My hair was stiff with ice; there 
was no more feeling in my hands than had they been of 
stone; my clothes weighed upon me like a suit of armour, 
so inflexibly hard were they frozen. Yet I got upon my 
legs, and found that I could stand and walk, and that 
life flowed warm in my veins, for all that I had been 
lying motionless for an hour or more, laved by water that 
would have become ice had it been still.

It was intensely dark; the binnacle lamp was 
extinguished, and the light in the cabin burned too dimly 
to throw the faintest colour upon the hatchway. One thing 
I quickly noticed, that the gale had broken and blew no 
more than a fresh breeze. The sea still ran very high, 
but though every surge continued to hurl its head of 
snow, and the heavens to resemble ink from contrast with 
the passage, as it seemed, close under them of these 
pallid bodies, there was less spite in its wash, less 
fury in its blow. The multitudinous roaring of the 
heaving blackness had sobered into a hard and sullen 
growling, a sound as of thunder among mountains heard in 
a valley.

The brig pitched and rolled heavily. Much of the buoyancy 
of her earlier dance was gone out of her. Nevertheless, I 
could not persuade myself that this sluggishness was 
altogether due to the water she had taken in. It was 
wonderful, however, that she should still be afloat. No 
man could have heard the rending and grating of her side 
against the ice without supposing that every plank in it 
was being torn out.

Finding that I had the use of my voice, I holloaed as 
loudly as I could, but no human note responded. Three or 
four times I shouted, giving some of the people their 
names, but in vain. Father of mercy! I thought, what has 
come to pass? Is it possible that ail my companions have 
been washed overboard? Certainly, five men at least were 
living before we fouled the ice. And again I cried out, 
"Is there any one alive?" looking wildly along the black 
decks, and putting so much force into my voice with the 
consternation that the thought of my being alone raised 
in me, that I had like to have burst a blood-vessel.

My loneliness was more terrible to me than any other 
condition of my situation. It was dreadful to be 
standing, nearly dead with cold, in utter darkness, upon 
the flooded decks of a hull wallowing miserably amid the 
black hollows and eager foaming peaks of the labouring 
sea, convinced that she was slowly filling, and that at 
any moment she might go down with me; it was dreadful, I 
say, to be thus placed, and to feel that I was in the 
heart of the rudest, most desolate space of sea in the 
world, into which the commerce of the earth dispatched 
but few ships all the year round. But no feature of my 
lamentable situation so affrighted me, so worked upon the 
passions of my mind, as my loneliness. Oh, for one 
companion, even one only, to make me an echo for mine own 
speech! Nay, God Himself, the merciful Father of all, 
even He seemed not! The blackness lay like a pall upon 
the deep, and upon my soul. Misery and horror were within 
that shadow, and beyond it nothing that my spirit could 
look up to!

I stood for some moments as one stunned, and then my 
manhood--trained to some purpose by the usage of the sea-
-reasserted itself; and maybe I also gott some slender 
comfort from observing that, dull and heavy as was the 
motion of the brig, there was yet the buoyancy of 
vitality in her manner of mounting the seas, and that, 
after all, her case might not be so desperate as was 
threatened by the way in which she had been torn and 
precipitated past the iceberg. At moments when she 
plunged the whiteness of the water creaming upon the 
surges on either hand threw out a phantom light of 
sufficient power to enable me to see that the forward 
part of the brig was littered with wreckage, which served 
to a certain extent as a breakwater by preventing the 
seas, which washed on to the forecastle, from cascading 
with their former violence aft; also that the whole 
length of the main and top masts lay upon the larboard 
rail and over the side, held in that position by the gear 
attached to them. This was all that I could distinguish, 
and of this only the most elusive glimpse was to be had.

Feeling as though the very marrow in my bones were 
frozen, I crawled to the companion and, pulling open the 
door, descended. The lamp in the companion burnt faintly. 
There was a clock fixed to a beam over the table; my eyes 
directly sought it, and found the time twenty minutes 
after ten. This signified that I had ten or eleven hours 
of darkness before me!

I took down the lamp, trimmed it, and went to the 
lazarette hatch at the after end of the cabin. Here were 
kept the stores for the crew. I lifted the hatch and 
listened, and could hear the water in the hold gurgling 
and rushing with every lift of the brig's bows; and I 
could not question from the volume of water which the 
sound indicated that the vessel was steadily taking it 
in, but not rapidly. I swallowed half a pannikin of the 
hollands for the sake of the warmth and life of the 
draught, and entering my cabin, put on thick dry 
stockings, first chafing my feet till I felt the blood in 
them; and I then, with a seaman's dispatch, shifted the 
rest of my apparel, and cannot express how greatly I was 
comforted by the change, though the jacket and trousers I 
put on were still damp with the soaking of previous days. 
To render myself as waterproof as possible--for it was 
the wet clothes against the skin that made the cold so 
cruel--I took from the captain's cabin a stout cloak and 
threw it over me, enveloping my head, which I had cased 
in a warm fur cap, with the hood of it; and thus equipped 
I lighted a small hand-lantern that was used on dark 
nights for heaving the log, that is, for showing how the 
sand runs in the glass, and carried it on deck.

The lantern made the scene a dead, grave-like black 
outside its little circle of illumination; nevertheless 
its rays suffered me to guess at the picture of ruin the 
decks offered. The main mast was snapped three or four 
feet above the deck, and the stump of it showed as jagged 
and barbed as a wild beast's teeth. But I now noticed 
that the weight of the hamper being on the larboard side, 
balanced the list the vessel took from her shifted 
ballast, and that she floated on a level keel with her 
bows fair at the sea, whence I concluded that a sort of 
sea-anchor had been formed ahead of her by the wreckage, 
and that it held her in that posture, otherwise she must 
certainly have fallen into the trough.

I moved with extreme caution, casting the lantern light 
before me, sometimes starting at a sound that resembled a 
groan, then stopping to steady myself during some 
particular wild leap of the hull; until, coming abreast 
of the main hatch, the rays of the lantern struck upon a 
man's body, which, on my bringing the flame to his face, 
proved to be Captain Rosy. There was a wound over his 
right brow; and as if that had not sufficed to slay him, 
the fall of the masts had in some wonderful manner 
whipped a rope several times round his body, binding his 
arms and encircling his throat so tightly, that no 
executioner could have gone more artistically to work to 
pinion and choke a man.

Under a mass of rigging in the larboard scuppers lay two 
bodies, as I could just faintly discern; it was 
impossible to put the lantern close enough to either one 
of them to distinguish his face, nor had I the strength 
even if I had possessed the weapons to extricate them, 
for they lay under a whole body of shrouds, complicated 
by a mass of other gear, against which leaned a portion 
of the caboose. I viewed them long enough to satisfy my 
mind that they were dead, and then with a heart of lead 
turned away.

I crossed to the starboard side, where the deck was 
comparatively clear, and found the body of a seaman named 
Abraham Wise near the fore-hatch. This man had probably 
been stunned and drowned by the sea that filled the deck 
after I loosed the staysail. These were all of our people 
that I could find; the others I supposed had been washed 
by the water or knocked by the falling spars overboard.

I returned to the quarter-deck, and sat down in the 
companion way for the shelter of it and to think. No 
language that I have command of could put before you the 
horror that possessed me as I sat meditating upon my 
situation and recalling the faces of the dead. The wind 
was rapidly falling, and with it the sea, but the motion 
of the brig continued very heavy, a large swell having 
been set running by the long, fierce gale that was gone; 
and there being no uproar of tempest in the sky to 
confound the senses, I could hear a hundred harsh and 
melancholy groaning and straining sounds rising from the 
hull, with now and again a mighty blow as from some spar 
or lump of ice alongside, weighty enough, you would have 
supposed, to stave the ship. But though the Laughing Mary 
was not a new vessel, she was one of the stoutest of her 
kind ever launched, built mainly of oak and put together 
by an honest artificer. Nevertheless her continuing to 
float in her miserably torn and mangled condition was so 
great a miracle, that in spite of my poor shipmates 
having perished and my own state being as hopeless as the 
sky was starless, I could not but consider that God's 
hand was very visible in this business.

I will not pretend to remember how I passed the hours 
till the dawn came. I recollect of frequently stepping 
below to lift the hatch of the lazarette, to judge by the 
sound of the quantity of water in the vessel. That she 
was filling I knew well, yet not leaking so rapidly but 
that, had our crew been preserved, we might easily have 
kept her free, and made shift to rig up jury masts and 
haul us as best we could out of these desolate parallels. 
There was, however, nothing to be done till the day 
broke. I had noticed the jolly-boat bottom up near the 
starboard gangway, and so far as I could make out by 
throwing the dull lantern light upon her she was sound; 
but I could not have launched her without seeing what I 
was doing, and even had I managed this, she stood to be 
swamped and I to be drowned. And, in sober truth, so 
horrible was the prospect of going adrift in her without 
preparing for the adventure with oars, sail, mast, 
provisions, and water--most of which, by the lamplight 
only, were not to be come at amid the hideous muddle of 
wreckage--that sooner than face it I was perfectly 
satisfied to take my chance of the hulk sinking with me 
in her before the sun rose.

CHAPTER IV.

I QUIT THE WRECK.

THE east grew pale and grey at last. The sea rolled black 
as the night from it, with a rounded smooth-backed swell; 
the wind was spent; only a small air, still from the 
north-east, stirred. There were a few stars dying out in 
the dark west; the atmosphere was clear, and when the sun 
rose I knew he would turn the sable pall overhead into 
blueness.

The hull lay very deep. I had at one time, during the 
black hours, struck into a mournful calculation, and 
reckoned that the brig would float some two or three 
hours after sunrise; but when the glorious beam flashed 
out at last, and transformed the ashen hue of dawn into a 
cerulean brilliance and a deep of rolling sapphire, I 
started with sudden terror to observe how close the 
covering-board sat upon the water, and how the head of 
every swell ran past as high as the bulwark rail.

Yet for a few moments I stood contemplating the scene of 
ruin. It was visible now to its most trifling detail. The 
foremast was gone smooth off at the deck; it lay over the 
starboard bow; and the topmast floated ahead of the hull, 
held by the gear. Many feet of bulwarks were crushed 
level; the pumps had vanished; the caboose was gone! A 
completer nautical ruin I had never viewed.

One extraordinary stroke I quickly detected. The jolly-
boat had lain stowed in the long-boat; it was thus we 
carried those boats, the little one lying snugly enough 
in the other. The sea that had flooded our decks had 
floated the jolly-boat out of the long-boat, and swept it 
bottom up to the gangway where it lay, as though God's 
mercy designed it should be preserved for my use; for, 
not long after it had been floated out, the brig struck 
the berg, the masts fell--and there lay the long-boat 
crushed into staves!

This signal and surprising intervention filled my heart 
with thankfulness, though my spirits sank again at the 
sight of my poor drowned shipmates. But, unless I had a 
mind to join them, it was necessary I should speedily 
bestir myself. So after a minute's reflection I whipped 
out my knife, and cutting a couple of blocks away from 
the raffle on deck, I rove a line through them, and so 
made a tackle, by the help of which I turned the jolly-
boat over: I then with a handspike prised her nose to the 
gangway, secured a bunch of rope on either side her to 
act as fenders or buffers when she should be launched and 
lying alongside, ran her midway out by the tackle, and, 
attaching a line to a ring-bolt in her bow, shoved her 
over the side, and she fell with a splash, shipping 
scarce a hatful of water.  

I found her mast and sail--the sail furled to the mast, 
as it was used to lie in her--close against the stump of 
the mainmast; but though I sought with all the diligence 
that hurry would permit for her rudder, I nowhere saw it, 
but I met with an oar that had belonged to the other 
boat, and this with the mast and sail I dropped into her, 
the swell lifting her up to my hand when the blue fold 
swung past.

My next business was to victual her. I ran to the cabin, 
but the lazarette was full of water, and none of the 
provisions in it to be come at. I thereupon ransacked the 
cabin, and found a whole Dutch cheese, a piece of raw 
pork, half a ham, eight or ten biscuits, some candles, a 
tinder-box, several lemons, a little bag of flower, and 
thirteen bottles of beer. These things I rolled up in a 
cloth and placed them in the zzz, then took from the 
captain's locker four jars of spirits, two of which I 
emptied that I might fill them with fresh water. I also 
took with me from the captain's cabin a small boat 
compass.

The heavy, sluggish, sodden movement of the hull advised 
me to make haste. She was now barely lifting to the swell 
that came brimming in broad liquid blue brows to her 
stem. It seemed as though another ton of water would sink 
her; and if the swell fell over her bows and filled the 
decks, down she would go. I had a small parcel of guineas 
in my chest, and was about to fetch this money, when a 
sort of staggering sensation in the upward slide of the 
hull gave me a fright, and, watching my chance, I jumped 
into the boat and cast the line that held her adrift.

The sun was an hour above the horizon. The sea was a deep 
blue, heaving very slowly, though you felt the weight of 
the mighty ocean in every fold; and eastwards, the 
shoulders of the swell, catching the glorious reflection 
of the sun, hurled the splendour along, till all that 
quarter of the sea looked to be a mass of leaping dazzle. 
Upon the eastern sea-line lay a range of white clouds, 
compact as the chalk cliffs of Dover; threads, crescents, 
feather-shapes of vapour of the daintiest sort, shot with 
pearly lustre, floated overhead very high. It was in 
truth a fair and pleasant morning--of an icy coldness 
indeed, but the air being dry, its shrewdness was 
endurable. Yet was it a brightness to fill me with 
anguish by obliging me to reflect how it would have been 
with us had it dawned yesterday instead of to-day. My 
companions would have been alive, and yonder sinking 
ruined fabric a trim ship capable of bearing us stoutly 
into warm seas and to our homes at last.

I threw the oar over the stern of the boat to keep her 
near to the brig, not so much because I desired to see 
the last of her, as because of the shrinking of my soul 
within me from the thought of heading in my loneliness 
into those prodigious leagues of ocean which lay 
stretched Under the sky. Whilst the hull floated she was 
something to hold on to, so to say, something for the eye 
amid the vastness of water to rest upon, something to 
take out of the insufferable feeling of solitude the 
poisonous sting of conviction.

But her end was at hand. I had risen to step the boat's 
mast, and was standing and grasping it whilst I directed 
a slow look round the horizon in God knows what vain hope 
of beholding a sail, when my eye coming to the brig, I 
observed that she was sinking. She went down very slowly; 
there was a horrible gurgling sound of water rushing into 
her, and her main deck blew up with a loud clap or blast 
of noise. I could follow the line of her bulwarks 
fluctuating and waving in the clear dark blue when she 
was some feet under. A number of whirlpools spun round 
over her, but the slowness of her foundering was solemnly 
marked by the gradual descent of the ruins of masts and 
yards which were attached to the hull by their rigging, 
and which she dragged down with her. On a sudden, when 
the last fragment of mast had disappeared, and when the 
hollows of the zzz whirlpools were flattening to the 
level surface of the sea, up rose a body, with a sort of 
leap. It was the sailor that had lain drowned on the 
starboard side of the forward deck. Being frozen stiff he 
rose in the posture in which he had expired, that is, 
with his arms extended; so that, when he jumped to the 
surface, he came with his hands lifted up to heaven, and 
thus he stayed a minute, sustained by the eddies which 
also revolved him.

The shock occasioned by this melancholy object was so 
great, it came near to causing me to swoon. He sank when 
the water ceased to twist him, and I was unspeakingly 
thankful to see him vanish, for his posture had all the 
horror of a spectral appeal, and such was the state of my 
mind that imagination might quickly have worked the 
apparition, had it lingered, into an instrument for the 
unsettling of my reason.

I rose from the seat on to which I had sunk and loosed 
the sail, and hauling the sheet aft, put the oar over the 
stern, and brought the little craft's head to an easterly 
course. The draught of air was extremely weak, and scarce 
furnished impulse enough to the sail to raise a bubble 
alongside. The boat was about fifteen feet long; she 
would be but a small boat for summer pleasuring in 
English July lake-waters, yet here was I in her in the 
heart of a vast ocean, many leagues south and west of the 
stormiest, most inhospitable point of land in the world, 
with distances before me almost infinite for such a boat 
as this to measure ere I could heave a civilized coast or 
a habitable island into view!

At the start I had a mind to steer north-west and blow, 
as the wind would suffer, into the South Sea, where 
perchance I might meet a whaler or a Southseaman from New 
Holland; but my heart sank at the prospect of the leagues 
of water which rolled between me and the islands and the 
western American seaboard. Indeed I understood that my 
only hope of deliverance lay in being picked up; and 
that, though by heading east I should be clinging to the 
stormy parts, I was more likely to meet with a ship 
hereabouts than by sailing into the great desolation of 
the north-west. The burden of my loneliness weighed down 
upon me so crushingly that I cannot but consider my 
senses must have been somewhat dulled by suffering, for 
had they been active to their old accustomed height, I am 
persuaded my heart must have broken and that I should 
have died of grief.

Faintly as the wind blew, it speedily wafted me out of 
sight of the floating relics of the wreck, and then all 
was bare, bald, swelling sea arid empearled sky, 
darkening in lagoons of azure down to the soft 
mountainous masses of white vapour lying like the coast 
of a continent on the larboard horizon. But one living 
thing there was besides myself: a grey-breasted 
albatross, of a princely width of pinion. I had not 
observed it till the hull went down, and then, lifting my 
eyes with involuntary sympathy in the direction pointed 
to by the upraised arms of the sailor, I observed the 
great royal bird hanging like a shape of marble directly 
over the frothing eddies. It was as though the spirit of 
the deep had taken form in the substance of the noblest 
of all the fowls of its dominions, and, poised on 
tremorless wings was surveying with the cold curiosity of 
an intelligence empty of human emotion the destruction of 
one of those fabrics whose unequal contests and repeated 
triumphs had provoked its haughty surprise. The bird 
quitted the spot of the wreck after a while and followed 
me. Its eyes had the sparkling blood-red gleam of rubies. 
It was as silent as a phantom, and with arched neck and 
motionless plumes seemed to watch me with an earnestness 
that presently grew insufferable. So far from finding any 
comfort of companionship in the creature, roethought if 
it did not speedily break from the motionless posture in 
which it rested on its seat of air, and remove its 
piercing gaze, it would end in crazing me. I felt a 
sudden rage, and, jumping up, shouted and shook my fist 
at it. This frightened the thing. It uttered a strange 
salt cry--the very note of a gust of wind splitting upon 
a rope--flapped its wings, and after a turn or two sailed 
away into the north.

I watched it till its figure melted into the blue 
atmosphere, and then sank trembling into the sternsheets 
of the boat.

CHAPTER V.

I SIGHT A WHITE COAST.

Four days did I pass in that little open boat.

The first day was fine till sunset; it then blew fresh 
from the north-west, and I was obliged to keep the boat 
before the wind. The next day was dark and turbulent, 
with heavy falls of snow and a high swell from the north, 
and the wind a small gale. On the third day the sun 
shone, and it was a fair day, but horribly cold, and I 
saw two icebergs like clouds upon the far western sea-
line. There followed a cruel night of clouded skies, 
sleet, and snow, and a very troubled sea; and then broke 
the fourth day, as softly brilliant as an English May 
day, but cold--great God, how cold!

Thus might I epitomize this passage; and I do so to spare 
you the weariness of a relation of uneventful suffering.

In those four days I mainly ran before the Wind, and in 
this way drove many leagues south, though whenever a 
chance offered I hauled my sheet for the east. I know 
not, I am sure, how the boat lived. I might pretend it 
was due to my clever management--I do not say I had no 
share in my own preservation, but to God belongs all the 
praise.

In the blackness of the first night the sea boiled all 
about me. The boat leapt into hollows in which the sail 
slapped the mast. One look behind me at the high dark 
curl of the oncoming surge had so affrighted me that I 
never durst turn my head again lest the sight should 
deprive me of the nerve to hold the oar with which I 
steered. I sat as squarely as the task of steering would 
suffer, trusting that if a sea should tumble over the 
stern my back would serve as a breakwater, and save the 
boat from being swamped. The whole sail was on her, and I 
could not help myself; for it would have been certain 
death to quit the steering oar for an instant. It was 
this that saved me, perhaps; for the boat blew along with 
such prodigious speed, running to the height of a sea as 
though she meant to dart from that eminence into the air, 
that the slope of each following surge swung like a 
pendulum under her, and though her sail was becalmed in 
the trough, her momentum was so great that she was 
speeding up the acclivity and catching the whole weight 
of the wind afresh before there was time for her to lose 
way.

I was nearly dead with cold and misery when the morning 
came, but the sparkling sun and the blue sky cheered me, 
and as wind and sea fell with the soaring of the orb, I 
was enabled to flatten aft the sheet and let the boat 
steer herself whilst I beat my arms about for warmth and 
broke my fast. When I look back I wonder that I should 
have taken any pains to live. That it is possible for the 
human mind at any period of its existence to be 
absolutely hopeless I do not believe; but I can very 
honestly say that when I gazed round upon the enormous 
sea I was in, and considered the size of my boat, the 
quantity of my provisions, and my distance (even if I was 
heading that way) from the nearest point of land, I was 
not sensible of the faintest stirring of hope, and viewed 
myself as a dead man.

No bird came near me. Once I spied the back of a great 
black fish about a quarter of a mile off. The wetness of 
it caught the sunshine and re-fleeted it like a mirror of 
polished steel, and the flash was so brilliant it might 
have passed for a bed of white fire floating on the blue 
heavings. But nothing more that was living did I meet, 
and such was the vastness of the sea over which my little 
keel glided, in the midst of which I sat abandoned by the 
angels, that for utter loneliness I might have been the 
very last of the human race. 

When the third night came down with sullen blasts 
sweeping into a steady storming of wind, that swung a 
strong melancholy howl through the gloom, it found me so 
weak with cold, watching, and anxiety, and the want of 
space wherein to rid my limbs of the painful cramp which 
weighted them with an insupportable leaden sensation, 
that I had barely power to control the boat with the oar. 
I pined for sleep; one hour of slumber would, I felt, 
give me new life, but I durst not close my eyes. The boat 
was Sweeping through the dark and seething seas, and her 
course had to be that of an arrow, or she would capsize 
and be smothered in a breath.

Maybe I fell something delirious, for I had many strange 
and frightful fancies. Indeed I doubt not it was the 
spirit of madness--that is certainly tonical when small--
which furnished strength enough to my arm to steer with. 
It was like the action of a powerful cordial in my blood, 
and the very horrors it fed my brain with were an 
animation to my physical qualities. The gale became a 
voice; it cried out my name, and every shout of it past 
my ear had the sound of the word 'Despair!' I witnessed 
the forms of huge phantoms flying over the boat; I 
watched the beating of their giant wings of shadow and 
heard the thunder of their laughter as they fled ahead, 
leaving scores of like monstrous shapes to follow. There 
was a faint lightning of phosphor in the creaming heads 
of the ebon surges, and my sick imagination twisted that 
pallid complexion into the dim reflection of the lamps of 
illuminated pavilions at the bottom of the sea; mystic 
palaces of green marble, radiant cities in the 
measureless kingdoms of the ocean gods. I had a fancy of 
roofs of pearl below, turrets of milk-white coral, 
pavements of rainbow lustre like to the shootings and 
dartings of the hues of shells inclined and trembled to 
the sun. I thought I could behold the movements of shapes 
as indeterminable as the forms which swarm in dreams, 
human brows crowned with gold, the cold round emerald 
eyes of fish, the creamy breasts of women, large outlines 
slowly floating upwards, making a deeper blackness upon 
the blackness like the dye of the electric storm upon the 
velvet bosom of midnight. Often would I shrink from side 
to side, starting from a fancied apparition leaping into 
terrible being out of some hurling block of liquid 
obscurity.

Once a light shone upon the masthead. At any other time I 
should have known this to be a St. Elmo's fire, a 
corposant, the ignis fatuus of the deep, and hailed it 
with a seaman's faith in its promise of gentle weather. 
But to my distempered fancy it was a lanthorn hung up by 
a spirit hand; I traced the dusky curve of an arm and 
observed the busy twitching of visionary fingers by the 
rays of the ghostly light; the outline of a large face of 
a bland and sorrowful expression, pallid as any foam-
flake whirling past, came into the sphere of those 
graveyard rays. I shrieked and shut my eyes, and when I 
looked again the light was gone.

Long before daybreak I was exhausted. Mercifully, the 
wind was scant; the stars shone very gloriously; on high 
sparkled the Cross of the southern world. A benign 
influence seemed to steal into me out of its silver 
shining; the craze fell from me, and I wept.

Shortly afterwards, worn out by three days and nights of 
suffering, I fell into a deep sleep, and when I awoke my 
eyes opened right upon the blinding sun.

This was the morning of the fourth day. I was without a 
watch. By the height of the sun I reckoned the hour to be 
ten. I threw a languid glance at the compass and found 
the boat's head pointing north-west; she fell off and 
came to, being without governance, and was scarcely 
sailing therefore. The wind was west, a very light 
breeze, just enough to put a bright twinkling into the 
long, smooth folds of the wide and weighty swell that was 
rolling up from the north-east. I tried to stand, but was 
so benumbed that many minutes passed before I had the use 
of my legs. Brightly as the sun shone there was no more 
warmth in his light than you find in a moonbeam on a 
frosty night, and the bite in the air was like the pang 
of ice itself pressed against the cheek. My right hand 
suffered most; I had fallen asleep clasping the loom of 
the steering oar, and when I awoke my fingers still 
gripped it, so that, on withdrawing them, they remained 
curved like talons, and I believed I had lost their use, 
and even reckoned they would snap off and so set up a 
mortification, till by much diligent rubbing I grew 
sensible of a small glow which, increasing, ended in 
rendering the joints stipple.

I stood up to take a view of the horizon, and the first 
sight that met my eye forced a cry from me. Extending the 
whole length of the southwest seaboard lay what I took to 
be a line of white coast melting at either extremity into 
the blue airy distance. Even at the low elevation of the 
boat my eye seemed to measure thirty miles of it. It was 
not white as chalk is; there was something of a 
crystalline complexion upon the face of its solidity. It 
was too far off to enable me to remark its outline; yet 
on straining my sight--the atmosphere being very 
exquisitely clear--I thought I could distinguish the 
projections of peaks, of rounded slopes, and aerial 
angularities in places which, in the refractive lens of 
the air, looked, with their hue of glassy azure, like the 
loom of high land behind the coastal line.

The notion that it was ice came into my head after the 
first prospect of it; and then I returned to my earlier 
belief that it was land. Methought it were ice, it must 
be the borderland of the circle, the limits of the 
unfrozen ocean, it was incredible that so mighty a body 
could less than the capes and terraces of a zzz of ice 
glazing the circumference of the pole for leagues and 
leagues; but then I also knew that, though first the brig 
and then my boat had been for days steadily blown south, 
I was still to the north of the South Shetland parallels, 
and many degrees therefore removed from the polar 
barrier. Hence I concluded that what I saw was land, and 
that the peculiar crystal shining of it was caused by the 
snow that covered it.

But what land? Some large island that had been missed by 
the explorers and left uncharted? I put a picture of the 
map of this part of the world before my mind's eye, and 
fell to an earnest consideration of it, but could 
recollect of no land hereabouts, unless indeed we had 
been wildly wrong in our reckoning aboard the brig, and I 
in the boat had been driven four or five times the 
distance I had calculated--things not to be entertained.

Yet even as a mere break in the frightful and enduring 
continuity of the sea-line--even as something that was 
not sea nor sky nor the cold silent and mocking illusion 
of clouds--it took a character of blessedness in my eyes; 
my gaze hung upon it joyously, and my heart swelled with 
a new impulse of life in my breast. It would be strange, 
I thought, if on approaching it something to promise me 
deliverance from this dreadful situation did not offer 
itself--some whaler or trader at anchor, signs of 
habitation and of the presence of men, nay, even a single 
hut to serve as a refuge from the pitiless cold, the 
stormy waters, the black, lonely, delirious watches of 
the night, till help should heave into view with the 
white canvas of a ship.

I put the boat's head before the wind, and steered with 
one hand whilst I got some breakfast with the other. I 
thanked God for the brightness of the day and for the 
sight of that strange white line of land, that went in 
glimmering blobs of faintness to the trembling horizon 
where the southern end of it died out. The swell rose 
full, and brimming ahead, rolling in sapphire hills out 
of the north-east, as I have said, whence I inferred that 
that extremity of the land did not extend very much 
further than I could see it, otherwise there could not 
have been so much weight of water as I found in the 
heaving.

The breeze blew lightly and was the weaker for my running 
before it; but the little line of froth that slipped past 
either side the boat gave me to know that the speed would 
not be less than four miles in the hour; and as I 
reckoned the land to be but a few leagues distant, I 
calculated upon being ashore some little while before 
sundown.

In this way two hours passed. By this time the features 
of the coast were tolerably distinct. Yet I was puzzled. 
There was a peculiar sheen all about the irregular sky-
line; a kind of pearly whitening, as it were, of the 
heavens beyond, like to the effect produced by the rising 
of a very delicate soft mist melting from a mountain's 
brow into the air. This dismayed me. Still I cried to 
myself, 'It must be land! All that whiteness is snow, and 
the luminous tinge above it is the reflection of the 
glaring sunshine thrown upwards from the dazzle. It 
cannot be ice! 'tis too mighty a barrier. Surely no 
single iceberg ever reached to the prodigious proportions 
of that coast. And it cannot be an assemblage of bergs, 
for there is no break--it is leagues of solid 
conformation. Oh yes, it is land, sure enough! some 
island whose tops and seaboard are covered with snow. But 
what of that? It may be populated all the same. Are the 
northern kingdoms of Europe bare of life because of the 
winter rigours?' And then I thought to myself, if that 
island have natives, I would rather encounter them as the 
savages of an icebound country than as the inhabitants of 
a land of sunshine and spices and radiant vegetation; for 
it is the denizens of the most gloriously

ocean seats in the world who are man-eaters; not the 
Patagonian, giant though he be, nor the ed anatomies of 
the ice-climes.

Thus I sought to reassure and comfort myself.

Meanwhile my boat sailed quietly along, running, up and 
down the smooth and foamless hills of water very 
buoyantly, and the sun slided into the north-west sky and 
darted a reddening beam Upon the coast towards which I 
steered.

CHAPTER VI.  

AN ISLAND OF ICE.

I had to approach the coast within two miles before I 
could satisfy my mind of its nature, and then all doubt 
left me.

It was ice--a mighty crescent of it--as was now in a 
measure gatherable, floating upon the dark blue waters 
like the new moon upon the field of the sky.

For a great while I had struggled with my misgivings, so 
tyrannically will hope lord it even over conviction 
itself, until it was impossible for me to any longer 
mistake. And then, when I knew it to be ice, I asked 
myself what other thing )ected it should prove, seeing 
that this ocean been plentifully navigated since Cook's 
time and no land discovered where I was; and I called 
myself a fool and cursed the hope that had cheated me, 
and, in short, gave way to a violent outburst of passion, 
and was indeed so wild with grief and rage that, had my 
ecstasy been but a very little greater, I must have 
jumped overboard, so great was my loathing of life then, 
and the horror the sight of the ice filled me with.

Indeed, you cannot conceive how shocking to me was the 
appearance of that great gleaming length of white 
desolation. On the deck of a stout ship sailing safely 
past it I should have found the scene magnificent, I 
doubt not; for the sun, being low with westering, shone 
redly, and the range of ice stood in a kind of gold 
atmosphere which gave an extraordinary richness to the 
shadowings of its rocks and peaks, and a particular 
fullness of mellow whiteness to its lustrous parts, 
softening the dazzle into an airy tenderness of 
brightness, so that the whole mass shone out with the 
blandness visible in a glorious star. But its main beauty 
lay in those by which I knew it to be ice--I mean in a 
surprising variety of forms, such as steeples, towers, 
columns, pyramids, ruins as it might be of zzz, grotesque 
shapes as of mighty statues, unfinished by the hands of 
Titans, domes as cathedrals, castellated heights, 
fragments of ramparts, and the like. These features lay 
in zzz groups, as if veritably the line of coast were 
dotted with gatherings of royal mansions and mains of 
imperial magnificence, all of white, yet with a glassy 
tincture as though the material owned something of a zzz.

I had to come within two miles, as I have said, these 
elegancies broke upon me, so )tively did their delicacy 
of outlines mingle the dark blue softness beyond. In 
places the zzz ran up to a height of two or three hundred 
zzz in others it sloped down to twenty feet. For miles it 
was like the face of a cliff, a sheer zzz with scarce a 
scar upon its front, staring with a wild bald look over 
the frosty beautiful blue of that afternoon sea. Here and 
there it projected a forefoot, some white and massive 
rock, upon which the swell of the ocean burst in zzz 
thunder, and flew to almost the height of the cliff in a 
very great and glorious fury of foam. In other parts, 
where I suspected a sort of beach, there was the silver 
tremble of surf; but in the main, the heave coming out of 
the north-east, the folds swept the base of the ice 
without froth.

I say again, beheld in the red sunshine, that line of 
ice, resembling a coast of marble defining the liquid 
junction of the swelling folds of sapphire below and the 
moist violet of the eastern sky beyond and over it, 
crowned at points with delicate imitations of princely 
habitations, would have offered a noble and magnificent 
spectacle to a mind at ease; but to my eyes its 
enchantments were killed by the horror I felt. It was a 
lonely, hideous waste, rendered the more shocking by the 
consideration that the whole vast range was formed of 
blocks of frozen water which warmth would dissolve; that 
it was a country as solid as rock and as unsubstantial as 
a cloud, to be shunned by the mariner as though it was 
Death's own pavilion, the estate and mansion of the 
grisly spectre, and creating round about it as supreme a 
desolation and loneliness of ocean as that which reigned 
in its own white stillness.

Though I held the boat's head for it I was at a loss--in 
so much confusion of mind that I knew not what to do. I 
did not doubt by the character of the swell that its 
limits in the north-east extended only to the sensible 
horizon; in other words, that its extremity there would 
not be above zzz miles distant, though to what latitude 
its southern arm did curve was not to be conjectured. 
Should I steer north and seek to go clear of it? Zzz the 
presence of this similitude of land the sea appear as 
enormous as space itself. It was all clear horizon the 
immensity of deep was in a measure limited to the vision 
by its cincture. But this ice-line gave the eye something 
to measure with, and when I looked at those leagues of 
frozen shore my spirits sank into deepest dejection at 
the thought of the vastness of the waters in whose heart 
I floated in my little boat.

However, I resolved at last to land if landing was 
possible. I could stretch my limbs, recruit myself by 
exercise, and might even make shift to obtain a night's 
rest. I stood in desperate need of sleep, but there was 
no repose to be had in the boat. I durst not lie down in 
her; if nature overcame me and I fell asleep in a sitting 
posture, I might wake to find the boat capsized and 
myself drowning. This consideration resolved me, and by 
this time being within half a mile of the coast, I ran my 
eye carefully along it to observe a safe nook for my boat 
to enter and myself to land in.

Though for a great distance, as I have said, the front of 
the cliff, and where it was highest too, a sheer fall, 
coming like the side of a house zzz

water, that part of the island towards which zzz

head was pointed sloped down and zzz

continued in a low shore, with hummocks of ice on it at 
irregular intervals, to where it died out zzz,the north-
east. I now saw that this part had a broken appearance as 
if it had been violently rent from a mainland of ice; 
also, to my approach, zzz any ledges projecting into the 
sea stole into zzz. There were ravines and gorges, and 
zzz ahnost a line with the boat's head was an assemblage 
of,those delicate glass-like counterfeits of spires, zzz, 
and the like, of which I have spoken, zzz extending just 
beyond a brow whose declivity fell zzz easily to the 
water. To make you see the picture as I have it in my 
mind would be beyond my art; it is not in the zzz

in the brush either, I should think—to zzz

even a tolerable portraiture of the rugged-the fairy 
grouping, the shelves, hollows, terraces, precipices, and 
beach of this kingdom of ice, where its frontal line 
broke away from the smooth face of the tall reaches, and 
ran with a ploughed, scarred, and serrated countenance 
northwards.

Very happily I had insensibly steered for perhaps the 
safest spot that I could have lighted on; this was formed 
of a large projection of rock, standing aslant, so that 
the swell roiled past it without breaking. The rock made 
a sort of cove, towards which I sailed in full confidence 
that the water there would be smooth. Nor was I deceived, 
for I saw that the rock acted as a breakwater, whose 
stilling influence was felt a good way beyond it. I 
thereupon steered for the starboard of this rock, and 
when I was within it found the heave of the sea dwindled 
to a scarce perceptible undulation, whereupon I lowered 
my sail, and, standing to the oar, sculled the boat to a 
low lump of ice, on to which I stepped.

My first business was to secure the boat; this I did by 
inserting the mast into a deep, zzz crevice in the ice 
and making the painter fast to it as to a pole, zzz. The 
sun was now very low, and would soon be gone. The cold 
was extreme, yet I did not suffer from it as in the boat. 
There is a quality in snow which it would be ridiculous 
to speak of as warmth; yet, as you may observe after a 
heavy fall ashore on top of a black frost, it seems to 
have a power of blunting the sharp edge of the cold, and 
the snow on this shore of ice being very abundant, though 
frozen as hard as the ice itself, appeared to mitigate 
the intolerable rigour I had languished under upon the 
water, in the brig and afterwards. This might also be 
owing to the dryness of the cold.

Having secured the boat I beat my hands heartily upon my 
breast, and fell to pacing a little level of zzz ice 
whilst I considered what I should do. The coast cannot 
but speak of this frozen territory as land--went in a 
gentle slope behind me to the height of about thirty 
feet; the ground was greatly broken with rocks and 
boulders and sharp points, whence I suspected many 
fissures in which the snow might not be so hard but that 
I might sink deep enough to be smothered. I saw no cave 
nor hollow that I could make a bedroom of, and the 
improved circulation of my blood giving me spirits enough 
to resolve quickly, I made up my mind to use my boat as a 
bed.

So I went to work. I took the oar and jammed it into such 
another crevice as the mast stood in, and to it I secured 
the boat by another line. This moored her very safely. 
There was as good promise of a fair quiet night as I 
might count upon in these treacherous latitudes; the 
haven in which the boat lay was sheltered and the water 
almost still, and this I reckoned would hold whilst the 
breeze hung northerly and the swell rolled from the 
north-east. I spread the sail over the seats, which 
served as beams for the support of this little ceiling of 
canvas, and enough of it remained to supply me with a 
pillow and to cover my legs. I fell to this work whilst 
there was light, and when I had prepared my habitation, I 
took a bottle of ale and a handful of victuals ashore and 
made my supper, walking briskly zzz whilst I ate and 
drank.

I caught myself sometimes looking yearningly towards the 
brow of the slope, as though from that eminence I should 
gain an extensive prospect zzz of the sea and perhaps 
behold a ship; but I wanted the courage to climb, chiefly 
because I

was afraid of tumbling into a hole and miserably 
perishing, and likewise because I shrank from the idea of 
being overtaken up there by the darkness. There was a 
kind of companionship in the boat, support of which I 
should lose if I left her.

The going of the sun was attended by so much glory that 
the whole weight of my situation and pressure of my 
solitude did not come upon me zzz til his light was gone. 
The swell ran athwart mirroring in lines of molten gold; 
the sky a sheet of scarlet fire where he was, paling into 
an ardent orange.	The splendour tipped the frozen coast 
with points of ruby flame which sparkled and throbbed 
like sentinel beacons along the white and silent range. 
The low thunder of far-off hills of water bursting 
against the projections rolled sulkily down upon the weak 
wind. Just beyond the edge of the slope, about a third of 
a mile to the north of my little haven, stood an 
assemblage of exquisitely airy outlines--configurations 
such as I have described; their crystalline nature stole 
out to the lustrous colouring of the glowing west, and 
they had the appearance of tinted glass of several dyes 
of red, the delicate fibres being deep of hue, the 
stouter ones pale; and never did the highest moon of 
human invention reach to anything more glorious and 
dainty, more sweetly simulative of the arts of a fairy-
like imagination than yonder cluster of icy fabrics, 
fashioned, as it entered my head to conceive, as 
pavilions by the hands of the spirits of the frozen 
world, and gilt and painted by the beams of the setting 
sun.

But all this wild and zzz unreal beauty melted away to 
the oncoming of the dusk; and when the sun was gone and 
the twilight had put a new quality of bleakness into the 
air, when the sea rolled in a welter of dark shadows, one 
sombre fold shouldering another--a very swarming of 
restless giant phantoms--when the shining of the stars 
low down in the unfathomable obscurity of the north and 
south quarters gave to the ocean in those directions a 
frightful immensity of surface, making you feel as though 
you viewed the scene from the centre of the firmament, 
and were gazing down the spangled slopes of infinity--oh, 
then it was that the full spirit of the solitude of this 
pale and silent seat of ice took possession of me. I 
found a meaning I had not before caught in the 
complaining murmur of the night breeze blowing in small 
gusts along the rocky shore, and in the deep organ-like 
tremulous hum of the swell thundering miles distant on 
the northward-pointing cliffs. This was a note I had 
missed whilst the sun shone. 

Perhaps my senses were sharpened by the darkness. It 
mingled with the booming of the bursts of water on this 
side the range, and gave me to know that the northward 
extremity of the island did not extend so far as I had 
supposed from my view of it in the boat. Yet I could also 
suppose that the beat of the swell formed a mighty 
cannonading capable of making itself heard afar, and the 
ice, being resonant, with many smooth if not polished 
tracts upon it, readily transmitted the sound, yes, 
though the cause of it lay as far off as the horizon.

I will not say that my loneliness frightened me, but it 
subdued my heart with a weight as if it were something 
sensible, and filled me with a sort of consternation that 
was full of awe. The moon was up, but the rocks hid the 
side of the sea she rode over, and her face was not to be 
viewed from where I was until she had marched two-thirds 
of her path to the meridian. The coast ran away on either 
hand in cold motionless blocks of pallor, zzz further on 
fell (by deception of the sheen of the stars) into a kind 
of twisting and snaking glimmer, and you followed it into 
an extraordinary elusive faintness that was neither light 
nor zzz in the liquid gloom, long after the sight zzz 
outrun the visibility of the range. At intervals I was 
startled by sounds, sometimes sullen, like a muffled 
subterranean explosion, sometimes sharp, like a quick 
splintering of an iron-hard substance. These noises, I 
presently gathered, were made by the ice stretching and 
Cracking in fifty different directions. The mass so vast 
and substantial you could not but think of it as a 
country with its foot resting upon the bed of the sea. 
'Twas a folly of my nerves doubt, yet it added to my 
consternation to that this solid territory, reverberating 
the zzz elled blows of the ocean swell, was as much as my 
boat, and so much less actual than boat that, could it be 
towed a few degrees north, it would melt into pouring 
waters and vanish as utterly with its little cities of 
columns, steeples, and minarets as a wreath of steam upon 
the air.

This gave a spirit-like character to it in my dismayed 
inquiring eyes which was greatly increased by the 
vagueness it took from the dusk. It was such a scene, 
methought, as the souls of seamen drowned in these seas 
might flock to and haunt. The white and icy spell upon it 
wrought in familiar things. The stars looking down upon 
me over the edge of the cliffs were like the eyes of 
shapes (easy to fashion out of the darkness) kneeling up 
there and peering at the human intruder who was pacing 
his narrow floor of ice for warmth. The deceit of the 
shadows proportioned the blanched ruggedness of the 
cliff's face on the north side into heads and bodies of 
monsters. I beheld a giant, from his waist up, leaning 
his cheek upon his arm; a great cross with a burlesque 
figure, as of a friar, kneeling near it; a mighty helmet 
with a white plume curled; the shadowy conformation of a 
huge couchant beast, with a hundred other such 
unsubstantial prodigies. Had the moon shone in the west I 
dare say I should have witnessed a score more such 
things, for the snow was like white paper, on which the 
clear black shadows of the ice-rocks could not but have 
cast the likeness of many startling phantasies. 

I sought to calm my mind by considering my position, and 
to divert my thoughts from the star-wrought apparitions 
of the broken slopes I asked myself what should be my 
plans, what my chance for delivering myself from this 
unparalleled situation. At this distance of time I cannot 
precisely tell how long the provisions I had brought from 
the foundered brig were calculated to last me, but I am 
sure I had not a week's supply. This made it plain that 
my business was not to linger here, but to push into the 
ocean afresh as speedily as possible, for to my mind 
nothing in life was clearer than that my only chance lay 
in falling in with a ship. Yet how did my heart sink when 
I reflected upon the mighty breast of sea in which I was 
forlornly to seek for succour! My eyes went to the squab 
black outline of the boat, and the littleness of her sent 
a shudder through me. It is true she had nobly carried me 
through some fierce weather, yet at the expense of many 
leagues of southing, of a deeper penetration into the 
solitary wilds of the polar waters.

However, I was sensible that I was depressed, melancholy, 
and under a continued consternation, something of which 
the morning sun might dissipate, so that I should be able 
to take a heartier view of my woeful plight. So after a 
good look seawards and at the heavens to satisfy myself 
on the subject of the weather, and after a careful 
inspection of the moorings of the boat, I entered her, 
feeling very sure that, if a sea set in from the west or 
south and tumbled her, the motion would quickly arouse 
me; and getting under the roof of sail, with my legs 
along the bottom and my back against the stem, which I 
had bolstered with the slack of the canvas, I commended 
myself to God, folded my arms, and went to sleep.

CHAPTER VII.

I AM STARTLED BY A DISCOVERY.

In this uneasy posture, despite the intense cold, I 
continued to sleep soundly during the greater part of the 
night. I was awakened by a horrid dream of some giant 
shape stalking down the slope of ice to seize and devour 
me, and sat up trembling with horror that was not a 
little increased by my inability to recollect myself, and 
by my therefore conceiving the canvas that covered me to 
be the groping of the ogre's hand over my face.

I pushed the sail away and stood up, but had instantly to 
sit again, my legs being terribly cramped. A drink of 
spirits helped me; my blood presently flowed with 
briskness.

The moon was in the west; she hung large, and distorted, 
and shed no light save her reflection that waved in the 
sea under her like lengths of undulating red-hot wire. My 
was still very tranquil--the boat lay calm; but there was 
a deeper tone in the booming sound the distant surf, and 
a more menacing note in echoing of the blows of the swell 
along this of the coast, whence I concluded that, despite 
the fairness of the weather, the heave of the deep whilst 
I slept, gathered a greater weight, might signify stormy 
winds not very many zzz away.

The pale stare of the heights of ice at that red 
shapeless disc was shocking. "Oh," I cried as I had once 
cried before, "but for one, but for one, companion to 
speak to!"

I had no mind to lie down again. The cold was cruelly 
sharp, and the smoke sped my mouth with every breath as 
though I held tobacco pipe betwixt my teeth. I got upon 
the ice and stepped about it quickly, darting searching 
glances into the gloom to left and right of the setting 
moon; but all lay bare, bleak, and black. I pulled off my 
stout gloves with the hope of getting my fingers to 
tingle by handling the snow; but it was frozen so hard I 
could not scrape up with my nails as much as a half-dozen 
of flakes would make. What I got I dissolved in my mouth 
and found it brackish; however, I suspected it would be 
sweeter and perhaps not so stonily frozen higher up, 
where there was less chance of the salt spray mingling 
with it, and I resolved when the light came to fill my 
empty beer-bottles as with salt or pounded sugar for use 
hereafter--that is, if it should prove sweet; as to 
melting it, I had indeed a tinder-box and the means of 
obtaining fire, but no fuel.

It seemed as if the night had only just descended, so 
tardy was the dawn. Outside the slanting wall of ice that 
made my haven the swell swept past in a gurgling, 
bubbling, zzz droning sound, dismal and ghastly, as 
though in truth some such ogre as the monster I had 
dreamt of lay suffocating there. I welcomed the cold 
colouring of the east as if it had been a ship, and 
watched the stars dying and the frozen shore darkening to 
the dim and sifting dawn behind it, against which the 
outline of the cliffs ran in a broken streak of ink. The 
rising of the sun gave me fresh life. The ice flashed out 
of its slatish hue into a radiant white, the ocean 
changed into a rich blue that seemed as violet under the 
paler azure of the heavens; but I could now see that the 
swell was heavier than I had suspected from the echo of 
its remote roaring in the north. It ran steadily out of 
the north-east. This was miserable to see, for the line 
of its running was directly my course, and if I committed 
myself to it in that little boat, the impulse of the long 
and swinging folds could not but set me steadily 
southwards, unless a breeze sprang up in that quarter to 
blow me towards the sun. There was a small current of air 
stirring, a mere trickle, of wind from the northwest.

I made up my mind to climb as high as I could, taking the 
oar with me to serve as a pole, that I might view the ice 
and the ocean round about and form a judgment of the 
weather by the aspect of the sky, of which only the 
western part was visible from my low strand. But first I 
must break my fast. I remember bitterly lamenting the 
lack of means to make a fire, that I might obtain a warm 
meal and a hot drink and dry my gloves, coat, and 
breeches, to which the damp of the salt clung 
tenaciously. Had this ice been land, though the most 
desolate, gloomy, repulsive spot in the world, I zzz had 
surely found something that would burn.

I sat in the boat to eat, and whilst thus occupied 
pondered over this great field of ice, and wondered how 
so mighty a berg should travel in such compacted bulk so 
far north--that is, so far north from the seat of its 
creation. Now leisurely and curiously observing it, it 
seemed to me that the north part of it, from much about 
the spot where my boat lay, was formed of a chain of 
icebergs knitted one to another in a consolidated range 
of irregular low steeps. The beautiful appearances of 
spires, towers, and the like seemed as if they had been 
formed by an upheaval, as of an earthquake, of splinters 
and bodies of the frozen stuff; for, so far as it was 
possible for me to see from the low shore, wherever these 
radiant and lovely figures were assembled I noticed great 
rents, spacious chasms, narrow and tortuous zzz. 

Certain appearances, however, caused me to suspect that 
this island was steadily decaying, and that, large as it 
still was, it had been many times vaster when it broke 
away from the continent about the Pole. Naturally, as it 
zzz northwards it would dissolve, and the cracking and 
thunderous noises I had heard in zzz night, sounds very 
audible now when I gave zzz my attention--sometimes a 
hollow distant rumbling as of some great body dislodged 
and set rolling far off, sometimes an inwards roaring 
crack or blast of noise like the report of a cannon fired 
deep down--advised me that the work of dissolution was 
perpetually progressing, and that this prodigious island 
which appeared to barricade the horizon might in a few 
months be dwindled into half a score of rapidly 
dissolving bergs.

My slender repast ended, I pulled the oar out of the 
crevice, and found it would make me a good pole to probe 
my way with and support myself by up the slope. The boat 
was now held by the mast, which I shook and found very 
firm. I put an empty beer-bottle in my pocket, meaning to 
see if I could fill it, if the snow above was sweet 
enough to be well-tasted, and then with a final look at 
the boat I started.

The slope was extremely craggy. Blocks of ice lay about, 
some on top of the others, like the stones of which the 
pyramids are built; the white glare of the snow caused 
these stones at a little distance to appear flat--that 
is, by merging them into and blending them with the soft 
brilliance of the background; and I had sometimes to 
warily walk fifty or sixty paces round these blocks to 
come at a part of the slope that was smooth.

I speedily found, however, that there was no danger of my 
being buried by stepping into a hollow full of snow; for 
the same hardness was everywhere, the snow, whether one 
or twenty feet deep, offering as solid a surface as the 
bare ice. This encouraged me to step out, and I began to 
move with some spirit; the exercise was as good as a 
fire, and before I was half-way up I was as warm as ever 
I had been in my life.

I had come to a stand to fetch a breath, and was moving 
on afresh, when, having taken not half a dozen steps, I 
spied the figure of a man. He was in a sitting posture, 
his back against a rock that had concealed him. His head 
was bowed, and his knees drawn up to a level with his 
chin, and his naked hands were clasped upon his legs. His 
attitude was that of a person lost in thought, very easy 
and calm.

I stopped as if I had been shot through the heart. Had it 
been a bear, or a sea-lion, or any creature which my mind 
could instantly have associated with this white and 
stirless desolation, I might have been startled indeed; 
but no such amazement could have possessed me as I now 
felt. It never entered into my head to doubt that he was 
alive, so natural was his attitude, as of one lost in a 
mood of tender melancholy.

I stood staring at him, myself motionless, for some 
minutes, too greatly astonished and thunderstruck to note 
more than that he was a man. Then I looked about me to 
see if he had companions or roi' some signs of a 
habitation, but the ice was everywhere naked. I fixed my 
eyes on him again. His hair was above a foot long, black 
as ink, and the blacker maybe for the contrast of the 
snow. His beard and mustachios, which were also of this 
raven hue, fell to his girdle. He wore a great yellow 
flapping hat, such as was in fashion among the Spaniards 
and buccaneers of the South Sea; but over his ears, for 
the warmth of the protection, were squares of flannel, 
secured by a very fine red silk handkerchief knotted 
under his beard, and this, with his hair and pale cheeks 
and black shaggy eyebrows, gave him a terrible and 
ghastly appearance. From his shoulders hung a rich thick 
cloak lined with red, and the legs to the height of the 
knees were encased in large boots.

I continued surveying him with my heart beating fast. 
Every instant I expected to see him turn his head and 
start to behold me. My emotions were too tumultuous to 
analyze, yet I believe I was more frightened than 
gladdened by the sight of a fellow-creature, though not 
long before I had sighed bitterly for some one to speak 
to. I looked around again, prepared to find another one 
like him taking stock of me from behind a rock, and then 
ventured to approach him by a few steps the better to see 
him. He had certainly a frightful face. It was not only 
the length of his coal-black hair and beard; it was the 
hue of his skill, a greenish ashen colour, an unspeakably 
hideous complexion, sharpened on the one hand by the red 
handkerchief over his ears and on the other by the dazzle 
of the snow. Then, again, there was the extreme 
strangeness of his costume.

I coughed loudly, holding my pole in readiness for 
whatever might befall, but he did not stir; I then 
holloaed, and was answered by the echoes of my own voice 
among the rocks. His stillness persuaded me he was in one 
of those deep slumbers which fall upon a man in frozen 
places, for I could not persuade myself he was dead, so 
living was his posture.

This will not do, thought I; so I went close to him and 
peered into his face. His eyes were fixed; they resembled 
glass zzz painted as eyes, the colours faded. He had a 
broad belt round his waist, and the hilt of a kind of 
cutlass peeped from under his cloak. Otherwise he was 
unarmed. I thought he breathed, and seemed to see a 
movement in his breast, and I took him by the shoulder; 
but in the hurry of my feelings I exerted more strength 
than I was sensible of. I pushed him with the violence of 
sudden trepidation; my hand slipped off his shoulder, and 
he fell on his side, exactly as a statue would, 
preserving his posture as though, like a statue, he had 
been chiselled out of marble or stone.

I started back frightened by his fall, in which my fears 
found a sort of life; but it was soon clear to me his 
rigidity was that of a man frozen to death. His very hair 
and beard stood stiff, as before, as though they were 
some exquisite counterfeit in ebony. Perfectly satisfied 
that he was dead, I stepped round to the other side of 
him, and set him up as I had found him. He was as heavy 
as if he had been aliye, and when I put his back to the 
rock his posture was exactly as it had been, that of one 
deeply meditating.

Who had this man been in life? How had he fallen into 
this pass? How long had he been dead there, seated as I 
saw him?

These were speculations not to be resolved by conjecture. 
On looking at the rock against which he leaned and 
observing its curvature, it seemed to me that it had 
formed part of a cave, or of some large, deep hole of 
ice; and this I was sure must have been the case, for it 
is certain that, had this body remained long unsheltered, 
it must have been hidden by the snow.

I concluded then that the unhappy man had been cast away 
upon this ice whilst it was under bleaker heights than 
these parallels, and that he had crawled into a hollow, 
and perished in that melancholic sitting posture. But in 
what year had his fate come upon him? I had made several 
voyages into distant places in my time and seen a great 
variety of people; but I had never met any man habited as 
that body. He had the appearance of a Spanish or French 
cut-throat of the middle of last century, and of earlier 
times yet; for it may be known to you that the buccaneers 
of the Spanish Main and the South Sea were great lovers 
of finery; they had a strange theatric taste in their 
choice of costumes, which, as you will suppose, they had 
abundant opportunities for gratifying out of the many 
rich and glittering wardrobes that fell into their hands; 
and this man, I say, with his large fine hat, handsome 
cloak and boots, coupled with the villainous cast of his 
countenance and the frightful appearance his long hair 
gave him, rendered him to my notions the completest 
figure that could be imagined of one of those rogues who 
earned their living as pirates.

Thinking I might find something on his person to acquaint 
me with his story or that would furnish me with some idea 
of the date of his being cast away, I pulled his cloak 
aside and searched his pockets. His legs were thickly 
cased in two or three pairs of breeches the outer pair 
being of a dark green cloth. He also wore a handsome red 
waistcoat, laced, and a stout coat of a kind of frieze. 
In his coat pocket I found a silver tobacco-box, a small 
glass flask fitted with a silver band and half full of an 
amber-coloured liquor, hard froze; and in his waistcoat 
pocket a gold watch, shaped like an apple, the back 
curiously chased and inlaid with jewels of several kinds, 
forming a small letter M. The hands pointed to twenty 
minutes after three. A key of a strange shape and a 
number of seals, trinkets, and the like, were attached to 
the watch.

These things, together with a knife, a key, a thick plain 
silver ring, and some Spanish pieces in gold and silver 
were what I found on this man. There was nothing to tell 
me who he was nor how long he had been on the island.

The searching him was the most disagreeable job I ever 
undertook in my life. His iron-like rigidity made him 
seem to resist me, and the swaying of his back against 
the rock to the motions of my hand was so full of life 
that twice I quitted him, frightened by it. On touching 
his naked hand by accident I discovered that the flesh of 
it moved upon the bones as you pull a glove off and on. I 
had had enough of him, and walked away feeling sick. If 
he had companions, and they were like him, I did not want 
to see them, unless it was that I might satisfy my 
curiosity as to the time they had been here. I 
determined, however, on my way back to take his cloak, 
which would make me a comfortable rug in the boat, and 
also the watch, flask, and tobacco-box; for if I was 
drowned they could but go to the bottom of the sea, which 
was their certain destination if I left them in his 
pockets; and if I came off with them, then the money they 
would bring me must somewhat lighten the loss of my 
clothes and property in the brig.

I pushed onwards, stepping warily and probing cautiously 
at every step, and earnestly peering about me, for after 
such a sight as that dead man I was never to know what 
new wonder I might stumble upon. About a quarter of a 
mile on my left--that is, on my left whilst I kept my 
face to the slope--there was the appearance of a ravine 
not discernible from where the boat lay. When I was 
within twenty feet of the summit of the cliff, the 
acclivity continuing gentle to the very brow, but much 
broken, as I have said, I noticed this hollow, and more 
particularly a small collection of ice-forms, not nearly 
so large as the other groups of this kind, but most 
dainty and lovely nevertheless. They showed as the heads 
of trees might to my ascent, and when I had zzz a little 
higher I observed that they were formed upon the hither 
side of the hollow, as though the convulsion which had 
wrought that chasm had tossed up those exquisite caprices 
of ice. However, I was too eager to view the prospect 
from the top of the cliff to suffer my admiration to 
detain me; in a few minutes I had gained the brow, and, 
clambering on to a mass of rock, I sent my gaze around.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FROZEN SCHOONER.  

I found myself on the summit of a kind of tableland; vast 
bodies of ice, every block weighing hundreds and perhaps 
thousands of tons lay scattered over it; yet for the 
space of a mile or so the character was that of flatness. 
Southwards the raqge went upwards to a coastal front of 
some hundred feet, with a huddle of peaks and strange 
configurations behind soaring to an elevation from the 
sea-line of two or three hundred feet. Northwards the 
range sloped gradually, with such a shelving of its 
hinder part that I could catch a glimpse of a little 
space of the blue sea that way. From this I perceived 
that whatever thickness and surface of ice lay 
southwards, in the north it was attenuated to the shape 
of a wedge, so that zzz its extreme breadth where it 
projected its cape or extremity would not exceed a musket 
shot.

A companion might have qualified in my mind something of 
the sense of prodigious loneliness and desolation 
inspired by that huge picture of dazzling uneven 
whiteness, blotting out the whole of the south-east 
ocean, rolling in hills of blinding brilliance into the 
blue heavens, and curving and dying out into an airy film 
of silvery-azure radiance leagues away down in the south-
west. But to my solitary eye the spectacle was an amazing 
and confounding one.

If I had not seen the tract of dark blue water in the 
north-east, I might have imagined that this island 
stretched as far into the east and north as it did zzz 
the south and west. And one thing I quickly enough 
understood: that if I wanted to behold the ocean on the 
east side of the ice I should have to journey the breadth 
of the range, which here, where I was, might mean one or 
five miles, for the blocks and lumps hid the view, and 
how far off the edge of the cliffs on the other side 
might be I could not therefore gather. This was not to be 
dreamt of, and therefore to this extent my climb had been 
useless.

Being on the top of the range now, I could plainly hear 
the noises of the splitting and internal convulsions of 
this vast formation. The sounds are not describable. 
Sometimes they seemed like the explosions of guns, 
sometimes like the growlings and mutterings of huge 
fierce beasts, sometimes like smart single echoless 
blasts of thunder; and sometimes you heard a singular 
sort of hissing or snarling, such as iron makes when 
speeding over ice, only when this noise happened the 
volume of it was so great that the atmosphere trembled 
upon the ear with it. It was impossible to fix the 
direction of these sounds, the island was full of them; 
and always sullenly booming upon the breeze was the voice 
of the ocean swell bursting in foam against the ice-coast 
that confronted it.

You may talk of the solitude of a Selkirk, but surely the 
spirit of loneliness in him could not rival the 
unutterable emotion of solitariness that filled my mind 
as I sent my gaze over those miles of frozen stirless 
whiteness. He had the sight of fair pastures, of trees 
making a twinkling twilight on the sward, of grassy 
savannahs and pleasant slopes of hills; the air was 
illuminated by the glorious plumage of flying birds; the 
bleat of goats broke the stillness in the valleys; there 
was a golden regale for his eye, and his other senses 
were gratified with the perfumes of rich flowers and 
engaging concerts among the trembling leaves. Above all, 
there was the soothing warmth of a delicious climate. But 
out upon those heaped and spreading plains of snow 
nothing stirred, if it were not once that I was startled 
by a loud report, and spied a rock about half a mile away 
slide down the edge of the flat cliff and tumble into the 
sea. Nothing stirred, I say; there was an affrighting 
solemnity of motionlessness everywhere. The countenance 
of this plain glared like a great dead face at the sky; 
neither sympathy, nor fancy, no, not the utmost forces of 
the imagination, could witness expression in it. Its un-
meaningness was ghastly, and the ghastlier for the 
greatness of its bald and lifeless stare.

I turned my eyes seawards; haply it was the whiteness 
that gave the ocean the extraordinarily rich dye I found 
in it. The expanse went in flowing folds of violet into 
the nethermost heavens, and though God knows what extent 
of horizon I surveyed, the line of it, as clear as glass, 
ran without the faintest flaw to amuse my heart with even 
all instant's hope.

There was more weight, however, in the wind that I had 
supposed. It blew from the west of north, and was an 
exquisitely frosty wind, despite the quarter whence it 
came. It swept in moans among the rocks, and there were 
tones in it that recalled the stormy mutterings we had 
heard in the blasts which came upon the brig before the 
storm boiled down upon her. But my imagination was now so 
tight-strung as to be unwholesomely and unnaturally 
responsive to impulses and influences which at another 
time I had not noticed. There were a few heavy clouds in 
the north-east, so steam-like that methought they 
borrowed their complexion from the snow on the island's 
cape there. I was pretty sure, however, that there was 
wind behind them, for if the roll of the ocean did not 
signify heavy weather near to, then what else it 
betokened I could not imagine.

I cannot express to you how the very soul within me 
shrank from putting to sea in the little boat. There was 
no longer the support of the excitement and terror of 
escaping from a sinking vessel. I stood upon an island as 
solid as land, and the very sense of security it imparted 
rendered the boat an object of terror, and the obligation 
upon me to launch into yonder mighty space as frightful 
as a sentence of death. Yet I could not but consider that 
it would be equally shocking to me to be locked up in 
this slowly crumbling body of ice--nay, tenfold more 
shocking, and that, if I had to choose between the boat 
and this hideous solitude and sure starvation, I would 
cheerfully accept fifty times over again the perils of a 
navigation in my tiny ark.

This reflection comforted me somewhat, and whilst I thus 
mused I remained standing with my eyes upon the little 
group of fanciful fanes and spires of ice on the edge of 
the abrupt hollow. I had been too preoccupied to take 
close notice; on a sudden I started, amazed by an 
appearance too exquisitely perfect to be credible. The 
sun shone with a fine white frosty brilliance in the 
north-east; some of these spikes and figures of ice 
reflected the radiance in several colours. In places 
where they were wind-swept of their snow and showed the 
naked ice, the hues were wondrously splendid, and, 
mingling upon the sight, formed a kind of airy, rainbow-
like veil that complicated the whole congregation of 
white shaft and zzz mani-tinctured spire, the marble 
column, the alabaster steeple into a confused but most 
surprisingly dainty and shining scene.

It was whilst looking at this that my eye traced, a 
little distance beyond, the form of a ship's spars and 
rigging. Through the labyrinth of the ice outlines I 
clearly made out two masts, with two square yards on the 
foremast, the rigging perfect so far as it went, for the 
figuration showed no more than half the height of the 
masts, the lower parts being apparently hidden behind the 
edge of the hollow. I have said that this coast to the 
north abounded in many groups of beautiful fantastic 
shapes, suggesting a great variety of objects, as the 
forms of clouds do, but nothing perfect; but here now was 
something in ice that could not have been completer, more 
symmetrical, more faultlessly proportioned had it been 
the work of an artist. I walked close to it and a little 
way around so as to obtain a clearer view, and then 
getting a fair sight of the zzz appearance I halted 
again, transfixed with zzz amazement.

The fabric appeared as if formed of frosted glass. The 
masts had a good rake, and with a seaman's eye I took 
notice of the furniture, observing the shrouds, stays, 
backstays, braces to be perfect. Nay, as though the 
spirit artist of this fragile glittering pageant had 
resolved to omit no detail to complete the illusion, 
there stood a vane at the masthead, stnining like a 
tongue of ice against the soft blue of the sky. Come, 
thought I, recovering from my wonder, there is more in 
this than it is possible for me to guess by staring from 
a distance; so, striking my pole into the snow, I made 
carefully towards the edge of the hollow.

The gradual unfolding of the picture prepared my mind for 
what I could not see till the brink was reached; then, 
looking down, I beheld a schooner-rigged vessel lying in 
a sort of cradle of ice, stern-on to the sea. A man 
bulked out with frozen snow, so as to make his shape as 
great as a bear, leaned upon the rail with a slight 
upwards inclination of his head, as though he were in the 
act of looking fully up to hail me. His posture was even 
more lifelike than that of the man under the rock, but 
his garment of snow robbed him of that reality, of 
vitality which had startled me in the other, and the 
instant I saw him I knew him to be dead. He was the only 
figure visible. The whole body of the vessel was frosted 
by the snow into the glassy aspect of the spars and 
rigging, and the sunshine striking down made a beautiful 
prismatic picture of the silent ship.

She was a very old craft. The snow had moulded itself 
upon her and enlarged without spoiling her form. I found 
her age in the structure of her bows, the headboards of 
which curved very low round to the top of the stem, 
forming a kind of well there, the afterpart of which was 
framed by the forecastle bulkhead, after the fashion of 
shipbuilding in vogue in the reign of Anne and the first 
two Georges. Her topmasts were standing, but her jibboom 
was rigged in. I could find no other evidence of her 
people having snugged her for these winter quarters, in 
which she had been manifestly lying for years and years. 
I traced the outlines of six small cannons covered with 
snow, but resting with clean-sculptured forms in their 
white coats; a considerable piece of ordnance aft, and 
several petararoes or swivel-pieces upon the after-
bulwark rails. Gaffs and booms were in their places, and 
the sails furled upon them. The figuration of the main 
hatch showed a small square, and there was a companion or 
hatch-cover abaft	the mainmast.

There was no trace of a boat.	She had a flush or level 
deck from the well in the bows to a fathom or so past the 
main-shrouds; it was then broken by a short poop-deck, 
which went in a great spring or rise to the stern, that 
was after the pink style, very narrow and tall.

Though I write this description coldly, let it not be 
supposed that I was not violently agitated and astonished 
almost into the belief that what I beheld was a mere 
vision, a phenomenon. The sight of the body I examined 
did not nearly so greatly astound me as the spectacle of 
this ice-locked schooner. It was easy to account for the 
presence of a dead man. My own situation, indeed, 
sufficiently solved the riddle of that corpse. But the 
ship, perfect in all respects, was like a stroke of 
magic. She lay with a slight list or inclination to 
larboard, but on the whole tolerably upright, owing to 
the corpulence of her bilge. The hollow or ravine that 
formed her bed went with a sharp incline under her stern 
to the sea, which was visible from the top of the cliffs 
here through the split in the rocks. The shelving of the 
ice put the wash of the ocean at a distance of a few 
hundred feet from the schooner; but I calculated that the 
vessel's actual elevation above the water-line, supposing 
you to measure it with a plummet up and down, did not 
exceed twenty feet, if so much, the hollow in which she 
rested being above twenty feet deep.

It was very evident that the schooner had in years gone 
by got erabayed in this ice when it was far to the 
southward, and had in course of time been built up in it 
by floating zzz masses. For how old the ice about the 
poles may be who can tell? In those sunless worlds the 
frozen continents may well possess the antiquity of the 
land. And who shall name the monarch who filled the 
throne of Britain when this vast field broke away from 
the main and started on its stealthy navigation sunwards? 

CHAPTER IX.

I LOSE MY BOAT.

I lingered, I daresay, above twenty minutes contemplating 
this singular crystal fossil of a ship and considering 
whether I should go down to her and ransack her for 
whatever might answer my turn. But she looked so darkly 
secret under her white garb, and there was something so 
terrible in the aspect of the motionless snow-clad 
sentinel who leaned upon the rail, that my heart failed 
me, and I very easily persuaded myself to believe that, 
first, it would take me longer to penetrate and search 
her than it was proper I should be away from the boat; 
that, second, it was scarce to be supposed her crew had 
left any provisions in her, or that, if stores there 
were, they would be fit to eat; and that, finally, my 
boat was so small it would be rash to put into her any 
the most trifling matter that was not essential to the 
preservation of my life.

So, concluding to have nothing to do with the ghostly 
sparkling fabric, I started for the body under the rock, 
and with some pain and staggering, the ice being very 
jagged, lumpish, and deceitful to the tread, arrived at 
it.

Nothing but the desire to possess the fine warm cloak 
could have tempted me to handle or even to cast my eye 
upon the dead man again. I found myself snore scared by 
him now than at first. His attitude was so lifelike that, 
though I knew him to be a corpse, had he risen on a 
sudden the surprise of it could hardly have shocked he 
more than the astonishment his posture raised. As a 
skeleton he could not have so chilled and awed me; but so 
well preserved was his flesh by the cold, that it was 
hard to persuade myself he was slot breathing, and that, 
though he feigned to be gazing downwards, he was not 
secretly observing me.

His beard was frozen as hard as a bush, and it crackled 
unpleasantly to the movement of my hands, which I was 
obliged to force under it to unhook the silver chain that 
confined the cloak about his neck. I felt like a thief, 
and stole a glance over either shoulder as though, 
forsooth, some strangely clad companion of his should be 
creeping upon me unawares. Then, thought I, since I have 
the cloak I may as well take the watch, flask, and 
tobacco-box, as I had before resolved; and so I dipped my 
hand into his pockets, and without another glance at his 
fierce still face made for the boat.

I now noticed for the first time, so overwhelmingly had 
my discoveries occupied my attention, that the wind had 
freshened and was blowing briskly and piercingly. When I 
had first started upon the ascent of the slope, the wind 
had merely wrinkled the swell as the large bodies ran; 
but those wrinkles had become little seas, which flashed 
into foam after a short race, and the whole surface of 
the ocean was a brilliant blue tremble. I came to a halt 
to view the north-east sky before the brow of the rocks 
hid it, and saw that clouds were congregating there, and 
some of them blowing up to where the sun hung, these 
resembling in shape and colour the compact puff of the 
first discharge of a cannon before the smoke spreads on 
the air. What should I do? I sank into a miserable 
perplexity. If it was going to blow what good could 
attend any departure from this island? It was an adverse 
wind, and when it freshened I could not choose but run 
before it, and that would drive me clean away from the 
direction I required to steer in. Yet if I was to wait 
upon the weather, for how long should I be kept a 
prisoner in this horrid place? True, a southerly wind 
might spring up to morrow, but it might be otherwise, or 
come in a hard gale; and if I faltered now I might go on 
hesitating, and then my provisions would give out, and 
God alone knows how it would end with me. Besides, the 
presence of the two bodies made the island fearful to my 
imagination, and nature clamoured in me to be gone, a 
summons my judgment could not resist, for reason often 
misleads, but instincts never. 

I fell again to my downward march and looked towards my 
boat--that is to say, I looked towards the part of the 
ice where the little haven in which she lay zzz had been, 
and I found both boat and haven gone!

I rubbed my eyes and stared again. Tush, thought I, I am 
deceived by the ice. I glanced at the slope behind to 
keep me to my bearings, and once more sought the haven; 
but the rock that had formed it was gone, the blue swell 
rolled brimming past the line of shore there, and my eye 
following the swing of a fold, I saw the boat about three 
cables length distant out upon the water, swinging 
steadily awlty into the south, and zzz showing and 
disappearing with the heave.

The dead man's cloak fell from my arm; I uttered a cry of 
anguish; I clasped my hands and lifted them to God, and 
looked up to Him. I was for kicking off my boots and 
plunging into the water, but, mad as I was, I was not so 
mad as that; and mad I should have been to attempt it, 
for I could not swim twenty strokes, and had I been the 
stoutest swimmer that ever breasted the salt spray, the 
cold must speedily put all end to my misery.

What was to be done? Nothing! I could only look idly at 
the receding boat with reeling brain. The full blast of 
the wind was upon her, and helping the driving action of 
the billows. I perceived that she was irrecoverable, and 
yet I stood watching, watching, watching! my head burning 
with the surgings of twenty impracticable schemes. I cast 
myself down and wept, stood up afresh and looked at the 
boat, then cried to God for help and mercy, bringing my 
hands to my throbbing temples, and in that posture 
straining my eyes at the fast vanishing structure. She 
was the only hope I had--my sole chance. My little stock 
of provisions was in her--oh, what was I to do?

Though I was at some distance from the place where what I 
have called my haven had been, there was no need for me 
to approach it to understand how my misfortune had come 
about. It was likely enough that the very crevice in 
which I had jammed the mast to secure the boat by was a 
deep crack that the increased swell had wholly split, so 
that the mast had tumbled when the rock floated away and 
liberated the boat.

The horror that this white and frightful scene of 
desolation had at the beginning filled me with was 
renewed with such violence when I saw that my boat was 
lost, and I was to be a prisoner on the death-haunted 
waste, that I fell down in a sort of swoon, like one 
partly stunned, and had any person come along and seen me 
he would have thought me as dead as the body on the hill 
or the corpse that kept its dismal look-out from the deck 
of the schooner.

My senses presently returning, I got up, and the rock 
upon which I stood being level, I fell to pacing it with 
my hands locked behind me, my head sunk, lost in thought. 
The wind was steadily freshening; it split with a howling 
noise upon the ice-crags and unequal surfaces, and spun 
with a hollow note past my ear; and the thunder of the 
breakers on the other side of the island was deepening 
its tone. The sea was lifting and whitening; something of 
mistiness had grown up over the horizon that made a blue 
dulness of the junction of the elements there; but though 
a few clouds out of the collection of vapour in the 
northeast had floated to the zenith and were sailing down 
the south-west heaven, the azure remained pure and	the 
sun very frostily white and sparkling.

I am writing a strange story with the utmost candour, and 
trust that the reader will not judge me severely for lay 
confession of weakness, or consider me as wanting in the 
stuff out of which a hardy seaman is made for owning to 
having tears and been stunned by the loss of my little 
boat and slender stock of food. You will say, "It is not 
in the power of the dead to hurt a man; what more pitiful 
and harmless than a poor unburied corpse?" I answer, 
"True," and declare that of the two bodies, as dead men, 
I was not afraid; but this mass of frozen solitude was 
about them, and they took a frightful character from it; 
they communicated an element of death to the desolation 
of the snow-clad island; their presence made a 
principality of it for the souls of dead sailors, and 
into their lifelike stillness it put its own supernatural 
spirit of loneliness; so that to my imagination, 
disordered by suffering and exposure, this melancholy 
region appeared a scene without parallel on the face of 
the globe, a place of doom and madness, as dreadful and 
wild as the highest mood of the poet could reach up to.

By this time the boat was out of sight. I looked and 
looked, but she was gone. Then came my good angel to my 
help and put some courage into me. "After all," thought 
I, "what do I dread? Death! it can but come to that. It 
is not long ago that Captain Rosy cried to me, "A man can 
die but once. He'll not perish the quicker for 
contemplating his end with a stout heart." He that so 
spoke is dead. The worst is over for him. Were he a babe 
resting upon his mother's breast he could not sleep more 
soundly, be more tenderly lulled, nor be freer from such 
anguish as now afflicts me who cling to life, as if this-
-this," I cried, looking around me, "werre a paradise of 
warmth and beauty. I must be a man, ask God for courage 
to meet whatever may betide, and stoutly endure what 
cannot be evaded."

Do not smile at the simple thoughts of a poor castaway 
sailor I hold them still to be good reasoning, and had my 
flesh been as strong as my spirit they had availed, I 
don't doubt. But I was chilled to the marrow; the mere 
knowing that there was nothing to eat sharpened my 
appetite, and I felt as if I had not tasted food for a 
week; here then were physical conditions which broke 
ruinously into philosophy and staggered religious trust.

My mind went to the schooner, yet I felt an extraordinary 
recoil within me when I thought of seeking an asylum in 
her. I had the figure of her before my fancy, viewed the 
form of the man on her deck, and the idea of penetrating 
her dark interior and seeking shelter in a fabric that 
time and frost and death had wrought into a black mystery 
was dreadful to me. Nor was this all. It seemed like the 
very last expression of despair to board that stirless 
frame; to make a dwelling-place, without prospect of 
deliverance, in that hollow of ice; to become in one 
sense as dead as her lonely mariner, yet preserve all the 
sensibility of the living to a condition he was as 
unconscious of as the ice that enclosed him. 

It must be done nevertheless, thought I; I shall 
certainly perish from exposure if I linger here; besides, 
how do I know but that I may discover in that ship some 
means of escaping from the island? Assuredly there was 
plenty of material in her for the building of a boat, if 
I could meet with tools. Or possibly I might find a boat 
under hatches, for it was common for vessels of her class 
and in her time to stow their pinnaces in the hold, and, 
when the necessity for using them arose, to hoist them 
out and tow them astern.

These reflections somewhat heartened me, and also let me 
add that the steady mounting of the wind into a small 
gale served to reconcile me, not indeed to the loss of my 
boat, but to my detention; for though there might be a 
miserable languishing end for me here, I could not but 
believe that there was certain death, too, out there in 
that high swell and in those sharpening peaks of water 
off whose foaming heads the wind was blowing the spray. 
By which I mean the boat could not have plyed in such a 
wind; she must have run, and by running have carried me 
into the stormier regions of the south, where, even if 
she had lived, I must speedily have starved for victuals 
and perished of cold.

Hope lives like a spark amid the very blackest embers of 
despondency. Twenty minutes before I had awakened from a 
sort of swoon and was overwhelmed with misery; and now 
here was I taking a collected view of my situation, even 
to the extent of being willing to believe that on the 
whole it was perhaps as well that I should have been 
hindered from putting to sea in my little eggshell. So at 
every step we rebel at the shadowy conducting of the hand 
of God; yet from every stage we arrive at we look back 
and know the road we have travelled to be the right one 
though we start afresh mutinously. Lord, what patience 
hast Thou!

I turned my back upon the clamorous ocean and started to 
ascend the slope once more. When I reached the brow, of 
the cliffs I observed that the clouds had lost their 
fleeciness and taken a slatish tinge, were moving fast 
and crowding up the sky, insomuch that the sun was 
leaping from one edge to another and darting a keen and 
frosty light upon the scene. The wind was bitterly cold, 
and screamed shrilly in my ears when I met the full tide 
of it. The change was sudden, but it did not surprise me. 
I knew these seas, and that our English April is not more 
capricious than the weather in them, only that here the 
sunny smile, though sparkling, is frostier than the kiss 
of death, and brief as the flight of a musket-ball, 
whilst the frowns are black, savage, and lasting.

I bore the dead man's cloak on my arm and helped myself 
along with the oar, and presently arrived at the brink of 
the slope in whose hollow lay the ship as in a cup. The 
wind made a noisy howling in her rigging, but the 
tackling was frozen so iron hard that not a rope stirred, 
and the vane at the masthead was as motionless as any of 
the adiacent steeples or pillars of ice. My heart was 
dismayed again by the figure of the man. He was more 
dreadful than the other because of the size to which the 
frozen snow upon his head, trunk, and limbs had swelled 
him; and the half-rise of his face was particularly 
startling, as if he were in the very act of running his 
gaze softly upwards. That he should have died in that 
easy leaning posture was strange; however, I supposed, 
and no doubt rightly, that he had been seized with a 
sudden faintness, and had leaned upon the rail and so 
expired. The cold would quickly make him rigid and 
likewise preserve him, and thus he might have been 
leaning, contemplating the ice of the cliffs, for years 
and years!

A wild and dreadful thing for one in my condition to 
light on and be forced to think of. 

My heart, as I have said, sank in me again at the sight 
of him, and fear and awe and superstition so worked upon 
my spirits that I stood irresolute, and would have gone 
back had there been any place to return to. I plucked up 
after a little, and, rolling up the cloak into a compact 
bundle, flung it with all my strength to the vessel, and 
it fell cleverly just within the rail. Then gripping the 
oar I started on the descent.

Zzz The depth was not great nor the declivity sharp; but 
the surface was formed of blocks of ice, like the 
collections of big stones you sometimes encounter on the 
sides of mountains near the base; and I had again and 
again to fetch a compass so as to gain a smaller block 
down which to drop, till I was close to the vessel, and 
here the snow had piled and frozen into a smooth face.

The ship lay with a list or inclination to larboard. I 
had come down to her on her starboard side. She had small 
channels with long plates, but her list, on my side, hove 
them somewhat high, beyond my reach, and I perceived that 
to get aboard I must seek an entrance on the larboard 
hand. This was not hard to arrive at; indeed, I had but 
to walk round her, under her bows. She was so coated with 
hard snow I could see nothing of her timbers, and was 
therefore unable to guess at the condition of the hull. 
She had a most absurd swelling bilge, and her buttocks, 
viewed on a line with her rudder, doubtless presented the 
exact appearance of an apple. She was sunk in snow to 
some planks above the garboard-streak, but her lines 
forward were fine, making her almost wedge-shaped, though 
the flair of her bows was' great, so that she swelled up 
like a balloon to the catheads. She had something of the 
look of the barca-longas of half a century ago--that is, 
half a century ago from the date of my adventure; but 
that which, in sober truth, a man would have taken her to 
be was a vessel formed of snow, sparred and rigged with 
glass-like frosted ice, the artistic caprice of the 
genius or spirit of this white and melancholy scene, who, 
to complete the mocking illusion, had fashioned the 
figure of a man to stand on deck with a human face 
toughened into an idle eternal contemplation.

On the larboard hand the ice pressed close against the 
vessel's side, some pieces rising to the height of her 
wash-streak. The face of the hollow was precipitous here, 
full of cracks and flaws and sharp projections. Indeed, 
had the breadth of the island been as it was at the 
extremity I might have counted upon the first violent 
commotion of the sea snapping this part of the ice, and 
convering the northern part of the body into a separate 
berg.

I climbed without difficulty, into the forechains, the 
snow being so hard that my feet and hands made not the 
least impression on it, and somewhat warily--feeling the 
government of a peculiar awe, mounting into a sort of 
terror indeed--stood awhile peering over the rail of the 
bulwarks; then entered the ship. I ran my eyes swiftly 
here and there, for indeed I did not know what might 
steal or leap into view. Let it be remembered that I was 
a sailor, with the superstitious feelings of my calling 
in me, and though I do not know that I actually believed 
in ghosts and apparitions and zzz spectrums, yet I felt 
as if I did; particularly upon the deck of this silent 
ship, rendered spirit-like by the grave of ice in which 
she lay and by the long years (as I could not doubt) 
during which she had thus rested. Hence, when I slipped 
off the bulwark on to the deck and viewed the ghastly, 
white, lonely scene, I felt for the moment as if this 
strange discovery of mine was not to be exhausted of its 
wonders and terrors by the mere existence of the ship--in 
other words, that I must expect something of the 
supernatural to enter into this icy sepulchre, and be 
prepared for sights more marvellous and terrifying than 
frozen corpses. So I stood looking forward and aft, very 
swiftly, zzz and in a way I dare say that a spectator 
would have thought laughable enough; nor was my 
imagination soothed by the clear, harping, ringing sounds 
of the wind seething through the frozen rigging where the 
masts rose above the of the sides of the hollow.

Presently, getting the better of my perturbation, I 
walked aft, and, stepping on to the poop-deck, fell to an 
examination of the companion or covering of the after-
hatch, which, as I have elsewhere said, was covered with 
snow.

CHAPTER X.

ANOTHER STARTLING DISCOVERY.

THIS hatch formed the entrance to the cabin, and there 
was no other road to it that I could see. If I wanted to 
use it I must first scrape away the snow; but unhappily I 
had left my knife in the boat, and was without any 
instrument that would serve me to scrape with. I thought 
of breaking the beer-bottle that was in my pocket and 
scratching with a piece of the glass; but before doing 
this it occurred to me to search the body on the 
starboard side.

I approached him as if he were alive and murderously 
fierce, and I own I did not like to touch him. He 
resembled the figure of a giant moulded in snow. In life 
he must have been six feet and a half tall. The snow had 
bloated him, and though he leaned he stood as high as I, 
who was of a tolerable stature. The snow was on his beard 
and mustaches and on his hair; but these features were 
merged and compacted into the snow on his coat, and as 
his cap came low and was covered with snow too, he, with 
the little fragment of countenance that remained, the 
flesh whereof had the colour and toughness of the skin of 
a drum that has been well beaten, submitted as terrible 
an object as mortal sight ever rested on. I say I did not 
like to touch him, and one reason was I feared he would 
tumble; and though I know not why I should have dreaded 
this, yet the apprehension of it so worked in me that for 
some time it held me idly staring at him.

But I could not enter the cabin without first scraping 
the snow from the companion door; and the cold, after I 
had stood a few moments inactive, was so bitter as to set 
me craving for shelter. So I put my hand upon the body, 
and discovered it, as I might have foreseen, frozen to 
the hardness of steel. His coat--if I may call that a 
coat which resembled a robe of snow--fell to within a few 
inches of the deck. Steadying the body with one hand, I 
heartily tweaked the coat with the other, hoping thus to 
rupture the ice upon it; in doing which I slipped and 
fell on my back, and in falling gave a convulsive kick 
which, striking the feet of the figure, dislodged them 
from their frozen hold of the deck, and down it fell with 
a mighty bang alongside of me, and with a loud crackling 
noise, like the rending of a sheet of silk.

I was not hurt, and sprang to my feet with the alacrity 
of fright, and looking at the body saw that it had 
managed by its fall much better than my hands could have 
compassed; for the snow shroud was cracked and crumpled, 
slabs of it had broken away leaving the cloth of the coat 
visible, and what best pleased me was the sight of the 
end of a hanger forking out from the skirt of the coat.

Yet to come at it so as to draw the blade from its 
scabbard required an intolerable exertion of strength. 
The clothes on this body were indeed like a suit of mail. 
I never could have believed that frost served cloth so. 
At last I managed to pull the coat clear of the hilt of 
the hanger; the blade was stuck, but after I had tugged a 
bit it slipped out, and I found it a good piece of steel.

The corpse was habited in jack-boots, a coat of coarse 
thick cloth lined with flannel, under this a kind of 
blouse or doublet of red cloth, confined by a belt with 
leathern loops for pistols. His apparel gave me no clue 
to the age he belonged to; it was no better, indeed, than 
a sort of masquerading attire, as though the fashions of 
more than one country, and perhaps of more than one age, 
had gone to the habiting of him. He looked a burly, 
immense creature, as he lay upon the deck in the same 
bent attitude in which he had stood at the rail, and so 
dreadful was his face, with a singular diabolical 
expression of leering malice, caused by the lids of his 
eyes being half closed, that having taken one peep I had 
no mind to repeat it, though I was above ten minutes 
wrestling with his cloak and hanger before I had the 
weapon fairly in my hand.

I walked to the companion and fell to scraping the snow 
away from it. 'Twas like scratching at mortar between 
bricks. But I worked hard, and presently, with the point 
of the hanger, felt the crevice 'twixt the door and its 
jamb, after which it was not long before I had carved the 
door out of its plate of ice and snow.

The wind was now blowing a fresh gale, and the howling 
aloft was extremely melancholy and dismal. I could not 
see the ocean, but I heard it thundering with a hollow 
roaring note; and the sharp reports and distant sullen 
crashing noises, with nearer convulsions within the ice, 
were very frequent.

My labour warmed me, but it also increased my hunger. 
While I hacked and scraped at the snow I was considering 
whether I should come across anything fit to eat in the 
ship, and if not what I was to do. Here was a vessel 
assuredly not less than fifty or sixty years old, and 
even supposing she was almost new when she fell in with 
the ice, the date of her disaster would still carry her 
back half a century; so that--and certainly there was 
much in the appearance of the body on the rocks to 
warrant the conjecture--she would have been thus 
sepulchred and fossilized for fifty years!

What, then, in the form of provisions proper for human 
food, such as even a famine-driven stomach could deal 
with, was I likely to find in her? Would not her crew 
have eaten her bare, devoured the very heart out of her, 
before they perished?

These thoughts weighed heavily in me, but I toiled on 
nevertheless, and having cleared the door of the snow 
that bound it, I prized it apart with the hanger and then 
dragged at it; but the snow on the deck would not let it 
open far, and as there was room for me to squeeze 
through, I did not stop to scrape the obstruction away.

A flight of steps sank into the darkness of the interior, 
and a cold strange smell floated up, with something of a 
dry earthiness of flavour and a mingling of leather and 
timber. I fell back a pace to let something of this smell 
exhale before I ventured into an atmosphere that had been 
hermetically bottled by the ice in that cabin since the 
hour when this little door was last closed. Superstition 
was active in me again, and when I peered into the 
blackness at the bottom of the hatch I felt as might a 
schoolboy on the threshold of a haunted room in which he 
is to be locked up as a punishment.

I put my foot on the ladder and descended very slowly 
indeed, my inclination being strong the other way, and I 
kept on looking downwards in a state of ridiculous fright 
as though at any moment I should be seized by the leg; 
being in too much confusion of mind to consider that it 
was impossible anything living could be below, whilst a 
ghostly shadow could not catch hold of me so as to cause 
me to feel its grasp. But then if fear could reason, it 
would cease to be fear.

On reaching the bottom I remained standing close against 
the ladder, striving to see into what manner of place I 
was arrived. The glare of the whiteness of the decks and 
rocks hung upon my eyes like a kind of blindness charged 
with fires of several colours, and I could not obtain the 
faintest glimpse of any part of this interior outside the 
sphere of the little square of hazy light which lay upon 
the deck at the foot of the steps. The darkness, indeed, 
was so deep that I concluded this was no more than a 
narrow well formed of bulkheads, and that the cabin was 
beyond, and led to by a door in the bulkhead.

To test this conjecture I extended my arms in a groping 
posture and stepped a pace forward, feeling to right and 
left, till, having gone five or six paces from the 
ladder, my fingers touched something cold, and feeling 
it, I passed my hand own what I instantly knew by the 
projection of the nose and the roughness of hair on the 
upper to be a human face!

A little reflection might have prepared me for this, but 
I had not reflected, at least in this and was therefore 
not prepared; and the horrible thrill of that black chill 
contact went in an agony through my nerves, and I burst 
into a perspiration.

I backed away with all my hair astir, and then shot up 
the ladder as if the devil had been behind me; and when I 
reached the deck I was trembling so violently that I had 
to lean against the companion lest my knees should give 
way.  

Never in all my time had I received such a fright as this 
but then I had gone to it in a fright, and I was exactly 
in the state of mind to be terrified out of my senses. My 
soul had been rendered sick and weak within me by mental 
and corporeal suffering; my loneliness, too, was 
dreadful, and the wilder and more scaring too for this my 
unhappy association with the dead; the shrieking in the 
rigging was like the tongue given by endless packs of 
hunting phantom wolves, and the growling and cracking 
noises of the ice in all directions would have made one 
coming new to this desolate scene suppose that the island 
of ice was full of fierce beasts.

But needs must when Old Nick drives; I had either to find 
courage to enter the schooner and search her, and so 
stand to come across the means to prolong my life, and 
perhaps procure my deliverance, or perish of famine and 
frost on deck.

The companion door was small, and being scarce more than 
ajar I was not surprised that only a very faint light 
entered by it. If the top were removed I doubted not I 
should be able to get a view of the cabin, enough to show 
me where the windows or port-holes were. So I went to 
work with the hanger again, insensibly obtaining a little 
stock of courage from the mere brandishing of it. In half 
an hour I had chipped and cut away the ice round the 
companion, and then I found it to be one of those old-
fashioned clumsy hatch-covers formerly used in certain 
kinds of Dutch ships--namely, a box with a shoulder-
shaped lid. This lid, though heavy, and fitting with a 
tongue, I managed to unship, on which the full square of 
the hatch lay open to the sky.

The light gave me heart. Once more I descended. After a 
few moments the bewildering dazzle of the snow faded off 
my sight, and I could see very distinctly.

The cabin was a small room. The forward part lay in 
shadow, but I could distinguish the outline of the 
mainmast amidships of the bulkhead there. In the centre 
of this cabin was a small square table supported by iron 
pins, that pierced through stanchions in such a manner 
that the table could at will be raised to the ceiling, 
and there left for the conveniency of space.

At this table, seated upon short quaintly-wrought 
benches, and immediately facing each other, were two men. 
They were incomparably more lifelike than the frozen 
figures. The one whose back was upon the hatchway ladder, 
being the man whose face I had stroked, sat upright, in 
the posture of a person about to start up, both hands 
upon the rim of the table, and his countenance raised as 
if, in a sudden terror and agony of death, he had darted 
a look to God. So inimitably expressive of life was his 
attitude, that though I knew him to be a frozen body as 
perished as if he had died with Adam or Noah, I was 
sensible of a breathless wonder in me that the affrighted 
start with which he seemed to be rising from the table 
was not continued--that, in short, he did not spring to 
his feet with the cry that you seemed to hear in his 
posture.

The other figure lay over the table with his face buried 
in his arms. He wore no covering to his head, which was 
bald, yet his hair on either side was plentiful and lay 
upon his arms, and his beard fluffing up about his buried 
face gave him an uncommon shaggy appearance. The other 
had on a round fur cap with lappets for the ears. His 
body was muffled in a thick ash-coloured coat; his hair 
was also abundant, curling long and black down his back; 
his cheeks were smooth manifestly through nature rather 
than the razor, and the ends of a small black mustache 
were twisted up to his eyes. These were the only 
occupants of the cabin, which their presence rendered 
terribly ghastly and strange.

There was perhaps something in keeping with the icy spell 
of death upon this vessel in the figure of the man who 
was bowed over the table, of he looked as though he 
slept; but the other mocked the view with a spectrum of 
the fever and passion of life. You would have sworn he 
had beheld the skeleton hand of the Shadow reaching out 
of the dimness for him; that he had started back with a 
curse and cry of horror, and expired in the very agony of 
his affrighted recoil.

The interior was extremely plain: the bulkheads of a 
mahogany colour, the decks bare, and nothing in the form 
of an ornament saving a silver crucifix hanging by a nail 
to the trunk of the mainmast, and a cage with a frozen 
bird of gorgeous plumage suspended to the bulkhead near 
the hatch. A small lanthorn of an old pattern dangled 
over the table, and I noticed that it contained two or 
three inches of candle. Abaft the hatchway was a door on 
the starboard side which I opened, and found a narrow 
dark passage. I could not pierce it with my eye beyond a 
few feet; but perceiving within this range the outline of 
a little door, I concluded that here were the berths in 
which the master and his mates slept. There was nothing 
to be done in the dark, and I bitterly lamented that I 
had left my tinder-box and flint in the boat, for then I 
could have lighted the candle in the lanthorn.

"Perhaps," thought I, "one of those figures may have a 
tinder-box upon him."

Custom was now somewhat hardening me: moreover I was 
spurred on by mortal anxiety to discover if there was any 
kind of food to be met with in the vessel. So I stepped 
up to the figure whose face I had touched, and felt in 
his pockets; but neither on him nor on the other did I 
find what I wanted, though I was not a little astonished 
to discover in the pockets of the occupants of so small 
and humble a ship as this schooner a fine gold watch as 
rich as the one I had brought away from the man on the 
rocks, and more elegant in shape, a gold snuffbox set 
with diamonds, several rings of beauty and value lying 
loose in the breeches pocket of the man whose face was 
hidden, a handful of Spanish pieces in gold, 
handkerchiefs of fine silk, and other articles, as if 
indeed these fellows had been overhauling a parcel of 
booty, and then carelessly returned the contents to their 
pockets.

But what I needed was the means of obtaining a light, so, 
after casting about, I thought I would search the body on 
deck, and went to it, and to my great satisfaction 
discovered what I wanted in the first pocket I dipped my 
hand into, though I had to rip open the mouth of it away 
from the snow with the hanger.

I returned to the cabin and lighted the candle, and 
carried the lanthorn into the black passage or corridor. 
There were four small doors, belonging to as many berths; 
I opened the first, and entered a compartment that smelt 
so intolerably stale and fusty that I had to come into 
the passage again and fetch a few breaths to humour my 
nose to the odour. As in the cabin, however, so here I 
found this noxiousness of air was not caused by 
putrefaction or any tainting qualities of a vegetable or 
animal kind, but by the deadness of the pent-up air 
itself, as the foulness of bilge-water is owing to its 
being imprisoned from air in the bottom of the hold.

I held up the lanthorn and looked about me. A glance or 
two satisfied me that I was in a room that had been 
appropriated to the steward and his mates. A number of 
dark objects, which on inspection I found to be hams, 
were stowed snugly away in battens under the ceiling or 
upper-deck; a cask half full of flour stood in a corner; 
near it lay a large coarse sack in which was a quantity 
of biscuit, a piece of which I bit and found it as hard 
as flint and tasteless, but not in the least degree 
mouldy. There were four shelves running athwartships full 
of glass, knives and forks, dishes, and so forth, some of 
the glass very choice and elegant, and many of the dishes 
and plates also very fine, fit for the greatest 
nobleman's table. Under the lower shelf, on the deck, lay 
a sack of what I believed to be black stones until, after 
turning one or two of them about, it came upon me that 
they were, or had been, I should say, potatoes.

Not to tease you with too many particulars under this 
head, let me briefly say that in this larder or steward's 
room 1 found among other things several cheeses, a 
quantity of candles, a great earthenware pot full of 
peas, several pounds of tobacco, about thirty lemons, 
along with two small casks and three or four jars, 
manifestly of spirits, but of what kind I could not tell. 
I took a stout sharp knife from one of the shelves, and 
pulling down one of the hams tried to cut it, but I might 
as well have striven to slice a piece of marble. I 
attempted next to cut a cheese, but this was frozen as 
hard as the ham. The lemons, candles, and tobacco had the 
same astonishing quality of stoniness, and nothing 
yielded to the touch but the flour. I laid hold of one of 
the jars, and thought to pull the stopper out, but it was 
frozen hard in the hole it fitted, and I was five minutes 
hammering it loose. When it was out I inserted a steel--
used for the sharpening of knives --and found the 
contents solid ice, nor was there the faintest smell to 
tell me what the spirit or wine was.

Never before did plenty offer itself in so mocking a 
shape. It was the very irony of abundance--substantial 
ghostliness and a Barmecide's feast to my aching stomach.

But there was biscuit not unconquerable by teeth used to 
the fare of the sea life, and picking up a whole one, I 
sat me down on the edge of a cask and fell a-munching. 
One reflection, however, comforted me, namely, that this 
petrifaction by freezing had kept the victuals sweet. I 
was sure there was little here that might not be thawed 
into relishable and nourishing food and drink by a good 
fire. The sight of these stores took such a weight off my 
mind that no felon reprieved from death could feel more 
elated than I. My forebodings had come to naught in this 
regard, and here for the moment my grateful spirits were 
content to stop.

CHAPTER XI.

I MAKE FURTHER DISCOVERIES.

So long as I moved about and worked I did not feel the 
cold; but if I stood or sat for a couple of minutes I 
felt the nip of it in my very marrow. Yet, fierce as the 
cold was here, it was impossible it could be comparable 
with the rigours of the parts in which this schooner had 
originally got locked up in the ice. No doubt if I died 
on deck my body would be frozen as stiff as the figure on 
the rocks; but, though it was very conceivable that I 
might perish of cold in the cabin by sitting still, I was 
sure the temperature below had not the severity to 
stonify me to the granite of the men at the table.

Still, though a greater degree of cold--cold as killing 
as if the world had fallen sunless--did unquestionably 
exist in those latitudes whence this ice with the 
schooner in its hug had floated, it was so bitterly bleak 
in this interior that 'twas scarce imaginable it could be 
colder elsewhere; and as I rose from the cask shuddering 
to the heart with the frosty motionless atmosphere, my 
mind naturally went to the consideration of a fire by 
which I might sit and toast myself.

I put a bunch of candles in my pocket--they were as hard 
as a parcel of marline-spikes--and took the lanthorn into 
the passage and inspected the next room. Here was a cot 
hung up by hooks, and a large black chest stood in cleats 
upon the deck; some clothes dangled from pins in the 
bulkhead, and upon a kind of tray fixed upon short legs 
and serving as a shelf were a miscellaneous bundle of 
boots, laced waistcoats, three-corner hats, a couple of 
swords, three or four pistols, and other objects not very 
readily distinguishable by the candlelight. There was a 
port which I tried to open, but found it so hard frozen I 
should need a handspike to start it. There were three 
cabins besides this; the last cabin, that is the one in 
the stern, being the biggest of the lot. Each had its 
cot, and each also had its own special muddle and litter 
of boxes, clothes, firearms, swords, and the like.

Indeed, by this time I was beginning to see how it was. 
The suspicion that the watches and jewellery I had 
discovered on the bodies of the men had excited was now 
confirmed, and I was satisfied that this schooner had 
been a pirate or buccaneer, of what nationality I could 
not yet divine--methought Spanish from the costume of the 
first figure I had encountered; and I was also convinced 
by the brief glance I directed at the things in the 
cabin, particularly the wearing apparel, and the make and 
appearance of the firearms, that she must have been in 
this position for upwards of fifty years.

The thought awed me greatly: twenty years before I was 
born those two men were sitting dead in the cabin!--he on 
deck was keeping his blind and silent look-out; he on the 
rocks with his hands locked upon his knees sat sunk in 
blank and frozen contemplation!

Every cabin had its port, and there were ports in the 
vessel's side opposite; but on reflection I considered 
that the cabin would be the warmer for their remaining 
closed, and so I came away and entered the great cabin 
afresh, bent on exploring the forward part.

I must tell you that the mainmast, piercing the upper 
deck, came down close against the bulkhead that formed 
the forward wall of the cabin, and on approaching this 
partition, the daylight being broad enough now that the 
hatch lay open on top, I remarked a sliding door on the 
larboard side of the mast. I put my shoulder to it and 
very easily ran it along its grooves, and then found 
myself in the way of a direct communication with all the 
fore portion of the schooner.

The arrangement indeed was so odd that I suspected a 
piratical device in this uncommon method of opening out 
at will the whole range of deck. The air here was as vile 
as in the cabins, and I had to wait a bit.

On entering I discovered a little compartment with racks 
on either hand filled with small-arms. I afterwards 
counted a hundred and thirteen muskets, blunderbusses, 
and fusils, all of an antique kind, whilst the sides of 
the vessel were hung with pistols great and little, 
boarding-pikes, cutlasses, hangers, and other sorts of 
sword. This armoury was a sight to set me walking very 
cautiously, for it was not likely that powder should be 
wanting in a ship thus equipped; and where was it stowed?

There was another sliding door in the forward partition; 
it stood open, and I passed through it into what I 
immediately saw was the cook-house. I turned the lanthorn 
about, and discovered every convenience for dressing 
food. The furnaces 
were of brick and the oven was a great one--great, I 
mean, for the size of the vessel. There were pots, pans, 
and kettles in plenty, a dresser with drawers, dishes of 
tin and earthenware, a Dutch clock--in short, such an 
equipment of kitchen furniture as you would not expect to 
find in the galley of an Indiaman built to carry two or 
three hundred passengers. About half a chaldron of small 
coal lay heaped in a wooden angular fence fitted to the 
ship's side, for the sight of which I thanked God. I held 
the lanthorn to the furnace, and observed a crooked 
chimney rising to the deck and passing through it. The 
mouth or head of it was no doubt covered by the snow, for 
I had not noticed any such object in the survey I had 
taken of the vesselabove. Strange, I thought, that these 
men should have frozen to death with the material in the 
ship for keeping a fire going. But then my whole 
discovery I regarded as one of those secrets of the deep 
which defy the utmost imagination and experience of man 
to explain them. Enough that here was a schooner which 
had been interred in a sepulchre of ice, as I might 
rationally conclude, for near half a century, that there 
were dead men in her who looked to have been frozen to 
death, that she was apparently stored with miscellaneous 
booty, that she was powerfully armed for a craft of her 
size, and had manifestly gone crowded with men. All this 
was plain, and I say it was enough for me. If she had 
papers they were to be met with presently; otherwise, 
conjecture would be mere imbecility in the face of those 
white and frost-bound countenances and iron silent lips.

I thrust back another sliding door and entered the ship's 
forecastle. The ceiling, as I choose to call the upper 
deck, was lined with hammocks, and the floor was covered 
with chests, bedding, clothes, and I know not what else. 
The ringing of the wind on high did not disturb the 
stillness, and I cannot convey the impression produced on 
my mind by this extraordinary scene of confusion beheld 
amid the silence of that tomblike interior. I stood in 
the doorway, not having the courage to venture further. 
For all I knew many of those hammocks might be tenanted; 
for as this kind of bed expresses by its curvature the 
rounded shape of a seaman, whether it be empty or not, so 
it is impossible by merely looking to know whether it is 
occupied or vacant. The dismalness of the prospect was of 
course vastly exaggerated by the feeble light of the 
candle, which, swaying in my hand, flung a swarming of 
shadows upon the scene, through which the hammocks 
glimmered wan and melancholy.

I came away in a fright, sliding the door to in my hurry 
with a bang that fetched a groaning echo out of the hold. 
If this ship were haunted, the forecastle would be the 
abode of the spirits!

Before I could make a fire the chimney must be cleared. 
Among the furniture in the arms-room were a number of 
spade-headed spears; the spade as wide as the length of a 
man's thumb, and about a foot long, mounted on light thin 
wood. Armed with one of these weapons, the like of which 
is to be met with among certain South American tribes, I 
passed into the cabin to proceed on deck; but though I 
knew the two figures were there, the coming upon them 
afresh struck me with as much astonishment and alarm as 
if I had not before seen them. The man starting from the 
table confronted me on this entrance, and I stopped dead 
to that astounding living posture of terror, even 
recoiling, as though he were alive indeed, and was 
jumping up from the table in his amazement at my 
apparition.

The brilliance of the snow was very striking after the 
dusk of the interiors I had been penetrating. The glare 
seemed like a blaze of white sunshine; yet it was the 
dazzle of the ice and nothing more for the sun was 
hidden; the fairness of the morning was passed; the sky 
was lead-coloured down to the ocean line, with a quantity 
of smoke-brown scud flying along it. The change had been 
rapid, as it always is hereabouts. The wind screamed with 
a piercing whistling sound through the frozen rigging, 
splitting in wails and bounding in a roar upon the 
adamantine peaks and rocks; the cracking of the ice was 
loud, continuous, and mighty startling; and these sounds, 
combined with the thundering of the sea and the fierce 
hissing of its rushing yeast, gave the weather the 
character of a storm, though as yet it was no more than a 
fresh gale.

However, though it was frightful to be alone in this 
frozen vault, with no other society than that of the 
dead, not even a seafowl to put life into the scene, I 
could not but feel that, be my prospects what they might, 
for the moment I was safe--that is to say, I was 
immeasurably securer than ever I could have been in the 
boat, which, when I had emerged into this stormy sound 
and realized the sea that was running outside, I 
instantly thought of with a shudder. Had the rock, I 
mused, not fallen and liberated the boat, where should I 
be now? Perhaps floating, a corpse, fathoms deep under 
water, or, if alive, then flying before this gale into 
the south, ever widening the distance betwixt me and all 
chance of my deliverance, and every hour gauging more 
deeply the horrible cold of the pole. Indeed I began to 
understand that I had been mercifully diverted from 
courting a hideous fate, and my spirits rose with the 
emotion of gratitude and hope that attends upon 
preservation.

I speedily spied the chimney, which showed a head of two 
feet above the deck, and made short work of the snow that 
was frozen in it, as nothing could have been fitter to 
cut ice with than the spade-shaped weapon I carried. This 
done, I returned to the cook-room, and with a butcher's 
axe that hung against the bulk-head I knocked away one of 
the boards that confined the coal, split it into small 
pieces, and in a short time had kindled a good fire. One 
does not need the experience of being cast away upon an 
iceberg to understand the comfort of a fire. I had a mind 
to be prodigal, and threw a good deal of coals into the 
furnace, and presently had a noble blaze. The heat was 
exquisite. I pulled a little bench, after the pattern of 
those on which the men sat in the cabin, to the fire, 
and, with outstretched legs and arms, thawed out of me 
the frost that had lain taut in my flesh ever since the 
wreck of the Laughing Mary. When I was thoroughly warm 
and comforted I took the lanthorn and went aft to the 
steward's room, and brought thence a cheese, a ham, some 
biscuit, and one of the jars of spirits, all which I 
carried to the cook-room, and placed the whole of them in 
the oven. I was extremely hungry and thirsty, and the 
warmth and cheerfulness of the fire set me yearning for a 
hot meal. But how was I to make a bowl without fresh 
water? I went on deck and scratched up some snow, but the 
salt in it gave it a sickly taste, and I was not only 
certain it would spoil and make disgusting whatever I 
mixed it with or cooked in it, but it stood as a drink to 
disorder my stomach and bring on an illness. So, thought 
I to myself, there must be fresh water about--casks 
enough in the hold, I dare say; but the hold was not to 
be entered and explored without labour and difficulty, 
and I was weary and famished, and in no temper for hard 
work.

In all ships it is the custom to carry one or more casks 
called scuttlebutts on deck, into which fresh water is 
pumped for the use of the crew. I stepped along looking 
earnestly at the several shapes of guns, coils of 
rigging, hatchways, and the like, upon which the snow lay 
thick and solid, sometimes preserving the mould of the 
object it covered, sometimes distorting and exaggerating 
it into all unrecognizable outline, but perceived nothing 
that answered to the shape of a cask. At last I came to 
the well in the head, passed the forecastle deck, and on 
looking down spied among other shapes three bulged and 
bulky forms. I seemed by instinct to know that these were 
the scuttlebutts and went for the chopper, with which I 
returned and got into this hollow, that was four or five 
feet deep. The snow had the hardness of iron; it took me 
a quarter of an hour of severe labour to make sure of the 
character of the bulky thing I wrought at, and then it 
proved to be a cask. Whatever might be its contents it 
was not empty, but I was pretty nigh spent by the time I 
had knocked off the iron bands and beaten out staves 
enough to enable me to get at the frozen body within. 
There were three-quarters of a cask full. It was 
sparkling clear ice, and chipping off a piece and sucking 
it, I found it to be very sweet fresh water. Thus was my 
labour rewarded.

I cut off as much as, when dissolved, would make a couple 
of gallons, but stayed a minute to regain my breath and 
take a view of this well or hollow before going aft. It 
was formed of the great open head-timbers of the schooner 
curving up to the stem, and by the forecastle deck ending 
like a cuddy front. I scraped at this front and removed 
enough snow to exhibit a portion of a window. It was by 
this window I supposed that the forecastle was lighted. 
Out of this well forked the bowsprit, with the spritsail 
yard braced fore and aft. The whole fabric close to 
looked more like glass than at a distance, owing to the 
million crystalline sparkles of the ice-like snow that 
coated the structure from the vane at the masthead to the 
keel. 

Well, I clambered on to the forecastle deck and returned 
to the cook-room with my piece of ice, struck as I went 
along by the sudden comfortable quality of life the 
gushing of the black smoke out of the chimney put into 
the ship, and how, indeed, it seemed to soften as if by 
magic the savage wildness and haggard austerity and gale-
swept loneliness of the white rocks and peaks. It was 
extremely disagreeable and disconcerting to me to have to 
pass the ghastly occupants of the cabin every time I went 
in and out; and I made up my mind to get them on deck 
when I felt equal to the work, and cover them up there. 
The slanting posture of the one was a sort of fierce 
rebuke; the sleeping attitude of the other was a dark and 
sullen enjoinment of silence. I never passed them 
without a quick beat of the heart and shortened 
breathing; and the more I looked at them the keener 
became the superstitious alarm they excited.

The fire burned brightly, and its ruddy glow was sweet as 
human companionship. I put the ice into a saucepan and 
set it upon the fire, and then pulling the cheese and ham 
out of the oven found them warm and thawed. On smelling 
to the mouth of the jar I discovered its contents to be 
brandy. Only about an inch deep of it was melted. I 
poured this into a pannikin and took a sup, and a finer 
drop of spirits I never swallowed in all my life; its 
elegant perfume proved it amazingly choice and old. I 
fetched a lemon and I can give the reader no better idea 
of the cold of the latitudes in which this schooner had 
lain, than by speaking of the brandy as being frozen. 
This may have happened through its having lost twenty or 
thirty per cent. of its strength.


some sugar and speedily prepared a small smoking bowl of 
punch. The ham cut readily; I fried a couple of stout 
rashers, and fell to the heartiest and most delicious 
repast I ever sat down to. At any time there is something 
fragrant and appetizing in the smell of fried ham; 
conceive then the relish that the appetite of a starved, 
half-frozen, shipwrecked man would find in it! The cheese 
was extremely good, and was as sound as if it had been 
made a week ago. Indeed, the preservative virtues of the 
cold struck me with astonishment. Here was I making a 
fine meal off stores which in all probability had lain in 
this ship fifty years, and they eat as choicely as like 
food of a similar quality ashore. Possibly some of these 
days science may devise a means for keeping the stores of 
a ship frozen, which would be as great a blessing as 
could befall the mariner, and a sure remedy for the 
scurvy, for then as much fresh meat might be carried as 
salt, besides other articles of a perishable kind.

CHAPTER XII.

A LONELY NIGHT.

I had a pipe of my own in my pocket; I fetched a small 
block of the black tobacco that was in the pantry, and, 
with some trouble, for it was as hard and dry as glass, 
chipped off a bowlful and fell a-puffing with all the 
satisfaction of a hardened lover of tobacco who has long 
been denied his favourite relish. The punch diffused a 
pleasing glow through my frame, the tobacco was lulling, 
the heat of the fire very soothing, the hearty meal I had 
eaten had also marvellously invigorated me, so that I 
found my mind in a posture to justly and rationally 
consider my condition, and to reason out such 
probabilities as seemed to be attached to it.

First of all I reflected that by the usual operation of 
natural laws this vast seat of "thrilling and thick-
ribbed ice" in which the schooner lay bound was steadily 
travelling to the northward, where in due course it would 
dissolve, though that would not happen yet. But as it 
advanced so would it carry me nearer to the pathways of 
ships using these seas, and any day might disclose a sail 
near enough to observe such signals of smoke or flag as I 
might best contrive. But supposing no opportunity of this 
kind to offer, then I ought to be able to find in the 
vessel materials fit for the construction of a boat, if, 
indeed, I met not with a pinnace of her own stowed under 
the main-hatch, for there was certainly no boat on deck. 
Nay, my meditations even carried me further: this was the 
winter season of the southern hemisphere, but presently 
the sun would be coming my way, whilst the ice, on the 
other hand, floated towards him; if by the wreck and 
dissolution of the island the schooner was not crushed, 
she must be 
released, in which case, providing she was tight--and my 
brief inspection of her bottom showed nothing wrong with 
her that was visible through the shroud of snow--I should 
have a stout ship under me in which I would be able to 
lie hove to, or even make shift to sad her if the breeze 
came from the south, and thus take my chance of being 
sighted and discovered.

Much, I had almost said everything, depended on the 
quantity of provisions I should find in her and 
particularly on the stock of coal, for I feared I must 
perish if I had not a fire. But there was the hold to be 
explored yet; the navigation of these waters must have 
been anticipated by the men of the schooner, who were 
sure to make handsome provision for the cold--and the 
surer if, as I fancied, they were Spaniards. Certainly 
they might have exhausted their stock of coal, but I 
could not persuade myself of this, since the heap in the 
corner of the cook-room somehow or other was suggestive 
of a store behind. 

I knew not yet whether more of the crew lay in the 
forecastle, but so far I had encountered four men only. 
If these were all, then I had a right to believe, 
grounding my fancy on the absence of boats, that most of 
the company had quitted the ship, and this they would 
have done early--a supposition that promised me a fair 
discovery of stores. Herein lay my hope; if I could 
prolong my life for three or four months, then, if the 
ice was not all gone, it would have advanced far north, 
serving me as a ship and putting me in the way of 
delivering myself, either by the sight of a sail, or by 
the schooner floating free, or by my construction of a 
boat. 

Thus I sat musing, as I venture to think, in a 
clearheaded way. Yet all the same I could not glance 
around without feeling as if I was bewitched. The red 
shining of the furnace ruddily gilded the cook-house; 
through the after-sliding door went the passage to the 
cabin in blackness; the storming of the wind was subdued 
into a strange moaning and complaining; often through the 
body of the ship came the thrill of a sudden explosion; 
and haunting all was the sense of the dead men just 
without, the frozen desolation of the island, the mighty 
world of waters in which it lay. No! you can think of no 
isolation comparable to this; and I tremble as I review 
it, for under the thought of the enormous loneliness of 
that time my spirit must ever sink and break down.

It was melancholy to be without time, so I pulled out the 
gold watch I had taken from the man on the rocks and 
wound it up, and guessing at the hour, set the hands at 
half-past four. The watch ticked bravely. It was indeed a 
noble piece of mechanism, very costly and glorious with 
its jewels, and more than a hint as to the character of 
this schooner; and had there been nothing else to judge 
by I should still have sworn to her by this watch.

My pipe being emptied, I threw some more coals into the 
furnace, and putting a candle in the lanthorn went aft to 
take another view of the little cabins, in one of which I 
resolved to sleep, for though the cook-room would have 
served me best whilst the fire burned, I reckoned upon it 
making a colder habitation when the furnace was black 
than those small compartments in the stern. The cold on 
deck gushed down so bitingly through the open companion-
hatch that I was fain to close it. I mounted the steps, 
and with much ado shipped the cover and shut the door, by 
which of course the great cabin, as I call the room in 
which the two men were, was plunged in darkness; but the 
cold was not tolerable, and the parcels of candles in the 
larder rendered me indifferent to the gloom.

On entering the passage in which were the doors of the 
berths, I noticed an object that had before escaped my 
observation--I mean a small trap-hatch, no bigger than a 
manhole, with a ring for lifting it, midway down the 
lane. I suspected this to be the entrance to the 
lazarette, and putting both hands to the ring pulled the 
hatch up. I sniffed cautiously, fearing foul air, and 
then sinking the lanthorn by the length of my arm I 
peered down, and observed the outlines of casks, bales, 
cases of white wood, chests, and so forth. I dropped 
through the hole on to a cask, which left me my head and 
shoulders above the deck, and then with the utmost 
caution stooped and threw the lanthorn light around me. 
But the casks were not powder-barrels, which perhaps a 
little reflection might have led me to suspect, since it 
was not to be supposed that any man would stow his powder 
in the lazarette.

As I was in the way of settling my misgivings touching 
the stock of food in the schooner, I resolved to push 
through with this business at once, and fetching the 
chopper went to work upon these barrels and chests; and 
very briefly I will tell you what I found. First, I dealt 
with a zzz tierce that proved full of salt beef. There 
was a whole row of these tierces, and one sufficed to 
express the nature of the rest; there were upwards of 
thirty barrels of pork; one canvas bale I ripped open was 
full of hams, and of these bales I counted half a score. 
The white cases held biscuit. There were several sacks of 
pease, a number of barrels of flour, cases of candles, 
cheeses, a quantity of tobacco, not to mention a variety 
of jars of several shapes, some of which I afterwards 
found to contain marmalade and succadoes of different 
kinds. On knocking the head off one cask I found it held 
a frozen body, that by the light of the lanthorn looked 
as black as ink; I chipped off a bit, sucked it, and 
found it wine.

I was so transported by the sight of this wonderful 
plenty that I fell upon my knees in an outburst of 
gratitude and gave hearty thanks to God for His mercy. 
There was no further need for me to dismally wonder 
whether I was to starve or no; supposing the provisions 
sweet, here was food enough to last me three or four 
years. I was so overjoyed and withal curious that I 
forgot all about the time, and flourishing the chopper 
made the round of the lazarette, sampling its freight by 
individual instances, so that by the time I was tired I 
had enlarged the list I have given, by discoveries of 
brandy, beer, oatmeal, oil, lemons, tongues, vinegar, 
rum, and eight or ten other matters, all stowed very 
bunglingly, and in so many different kinds of casks, 
cases, jars, and other vessels as disposed me to believe 
that several piratical rummagings must have gone to the 
creation of this handsome and plentiful stock of good 
things.

Well, thought I, even if there be no more coal in the 
ship than what lies in the cook-house, enough fuel is 
here in the shape of casks, boxes, and the like to thaw 
me provisions for six months, besides what I may come 
across in the hold, along with the hammocks, bedding, 
boxes, and so forth in the forecastle, all which would be 
good to feed my fire with. This was a most comforting 
reflection, and I recollect springing out through the 
lazarette hatch with as spirited a caper as ever I had 
cut at any time in my life.

I replaced the hatch-cover, and having resolved upon the 
aftmost of the four cabins as my bedroom, entered it to 
see what kind of accommodation it would yield me. I hung 
up the lanthorn and looked into the cot, that was slung 
athwartships, and spied a couple of rugs or blankets, 
which I pulled out, having no fancy to lie under them. 
The deck was like an old clothes' shop, or the wardrobe 
of a travelling troop of actors. From the confusion in 
this and the adjoining cabins, I concluded that there had 
been a rush at the last, a wild overhauling and flinging 
about of clothes for articles of more value hidden 
amongst them. But just as likely as not the disorder 
merely indicated the slovenly indifference of plunderers 
to the fruits of a pillage that had overstocked them.

The first garment I picked up was a cloak of a sort of 
silk material, richly furred and lined; all the buttons 
but one had been cut off, and that which remained was 
silver. I spread it in the cot, as it was a soft thing to 
lie upon. Then I picked up a coat of the fashion you will 
see in Hogarth's engravings; the coat collar a broad 
fold, and the cuffs to the elbow. This was as good as a 
rug, and I put it into the cot with the other. I 
inspected others of the articles on the deck, and among 
them recollect a gold-laced waistcoat of green velvet, 
two or three pairs of high-heeled shoes, a woman's yellow 
sacque, several frizzled wigs, silk stockings, pumps--in 
fine, the contents of the trunks of some dandy 
passengers, long since gathered to their forefathers no 
doubt, even if the gentlemen of this schooner had not 
then and there walked them overboard or split their 
windpipes. But, to be honest, I cannot remember a third 
of what lay tumbled upon the deck or hung against the 
bulkhead. So far as my knowledge of costume went, every 
article pointed to the date which I had fixed upon for 
this vessel.

I swept the huddle of things with my foot into a corner, 
and lifting the lids of the boxes saw more clothes, some 
books, a collection of small-arms, a couple of quadrants, 
and sundry rolls of paper which proved to be charts of 
the islands of the Antilles and the western South 
American coast, very ill-digested. There were no papers 
of any kind to determine the vessel's character, nor 
journal to acquaint me with her story.

I was tired in my limbs rather than sleepy, and went to 
the cook-room to warm myself at the fire and get me some 
supper, meaning to sit there till the fire died out and 
then go to rest; but when I put my knife to the ham I 
found it as hard frozen as when I had first met with it; 
so with the cheese; and this though there had been a fire 
burning for hours! I put the things into the oven to thaw 
as before, and sitting down fell very pensive over this 
severity of cold, which had power to freeze within a yard 
or two of the furnace. To be sure the fire by my absence 
had shrunk, and the sliding door being open admitted the 
cold of the cabin; but the consideration was, how was I 
to resist the killing enfoldment of this atmosphere? I 
had slept in the boat, it is true, and was none the 
worse; and now I was under shelter, with the heat of a 
plentiful bellyful of meat and liquor to warm me; but if 
wine and ham and cheese froze in an air in which a fire 
had been burning, why not I in my sleep, when there was 
no fire, and life beat weakly, as it does in slumber? 
Those figures in the cabin were dismal warnings and 
assurances; they had been men perhaps stouter and 
heartier in their day than ever I was, but they had been 
frozen into stony images nevertheless, under cover too, 
with the materials to make a fire, and as much strong 
waters in their lazarette as would serve their schooner 
to float in.

Well, thought I, after a spell of melancholy thinking, if 
I am to perish of cold, there's an end; it is 
preordained, and it is as easy as drowning, anyhow, and 
better than hanging; and with that I pulled out the ham 
and found it soft enough to cut, finding philosophy 
(which, as the French cynic says, triumphs over past and 
future ills) not so hard because somehow I did not myself 
then particularly feel the zzz coldmi mean, I was not 
certainly suffering here from that pain of frost which I 
had felt in the open boat.

Having heartily supped, I brewed a pint of punch, and, 
charging my pipe, sat smoking with my feet against the 
furnace. It was after eight o'clock by the watch I was 
wearing. I knew by the humming noise that it was blowing 
a gale of wind outside, and from time to time the decks 
rattled to a heavy discharge of hail. Alt sounds were 
naturally much subdued to my ear by the ship lying in a 
hollow, and I being in her with the hatches closed; but 
this very faintness of uproar formed of itself a quality 
of mystery very pat to the ghastliness of my 
surroundings. It was like the notes of an elfin storm of 
necromantic imagination; it was hollow, weak, and 
terrifying; and it and the thunder of the seas 
commingling, together with the rumbling blasts and shocks 
of splitting ice, disjointed as by an earthquake, loaded 
the inward silence with unearthly tones, which my lonely 
and quickened imagination readily furnished with 
syllables. The lanthorn diffused but a small light, and 
the flickering of the fire made a movement of shadows 
about me. I was separated from the great cabin where the 
figures were by the little arms-room only, and the 
passage to it ran there in blackness.

It strangely and importunately entered my head to 
conceive, that though those men were frozen and stirless 
they were not dead as corpses are, but as a stream whose 
current, checked by ice, will flow when the ice is 
melted. Might not life in them be suspended by the cold, 
not ended? There is vitality in the seed though it lies a 
dead thing in the hand. Those men are corpses to my eye; 
but said I to myself, they may have the principles of 
life in them, which heat might call into being. 
Putrefaction is a natural law, but it is balked by frost, 
and just as decay is hindered by cold, might not the 
property of life be left unaffected in a body, though it 
should be numbed in a marble form for fifty years?

This was a terrible fancy to possess a man situated as I 
was, and it so worked in me that again and again I caught 
myself looking first forward, then aft, as though, Heaven 
help me I my secret instincts foreboded that at any 
moment I should behold some form from the forecastle, or 
one of those figures in the cabin, stalking in, and 
coming to my side and silently seating himself. I pshaw'd 
and pish'd, and querulously asked of myself what manner 
of English sailor was I to suffer such womanly terrors to 
visit me; but it would not do; I could not smoke; a 
coldness of the heart fell upon me, and set me trembling 
above any sort of shivers which the frost of the air had 
chased through me; and presently a hollow creak sounding 
out of the hold, caused by some movement of the bed of 
ice on which the vessel lay, I was seized with a panic 
terror and sprang to my feet, and, lanthorn in hand, made 
for the companion-ladder, with a prayer in me for the 
sight of a star!

I durst not look at the figures, but, setting the light 
down at the foot of the ladder, squeezed through the 
companion-door on to the deck. My fear was a fever in its 
way, and I did not feel the cold. There was no star to be 
seen, but the whiteness of the ice was flung out in a 
wild strange glare by the blackness of the sky, and made 
a light of its own. It was the most savage and terrible 
picture of solitude the invention of man could reach to, 
yet I blessed it for the relief it gave to my ghost-
enkindled imagination. No squall was then passing; the 
rocks rose up on either hand in a ghastly glimmer to the 
ebony of the heavens; the gale swept overhead in a wild, 
mad blending of whistlings, roarings, and cryings in many 
keys, falling on a sudden into a doleful wailing, then 
rising in a breath to the full fury of its concert; the 
sea thundered like the cannonading of an electric storm, 
and you would have said that the rending and crackling 
noises of the ice were responses to the crashing blows of 
the balls of shadow-hidden ordnance. But the scene, the 
uproar, the voices of the wind were real--a better 
cordial to my spirits than a gallon of the mellowest 
vintage below; and presently, when the cold was beginning 
to pierce me, my courage was so much the better for this 
excursion into the hoarse and black and gleaming 
realities of the night, that my heart beat at its usual 
measure as I passed through the hatch and went again to 
the cook-room.

I was, however, sure that if I sat here long, listening 
and thinking, fear would return. A small fire still 
burned; I put a saucepan on it, and popped in a piece of 
the fresh-water ice, but on handling the brandy I found 
it hard set. The heat of the oven was not sufficiently 
great to thaw me a dram; so to save further trouble in 
this way I took the chopper and at one blow split open 
the jar, and then there lay before me the solid body of 
the brandy, from which I chipped off as much as I needed, 
and thus procured a hot and animating draught.

Raking out the fire, I picked up the lanthorn and was 
about to go, then halted, considering whether I should 
not stow the frozen provisions away. It was a natural 
thought, seeing how precious food was to me. But, alas! 
it mattered not where they lay; they were as secure here 
as if they were snugly hidden in the bottom of the hold. 
It was the white realm of death; if ever a rat had 
crawled in this ship, it was, in its hiding-place, as 
stiff and idle as the frozen vessel. So I let the lump of 
brandy, the ice, ham, and so forth, rest where they were, 
and went to the cabin I had chosen, involuntarily peeping 
at the figures as I passed, and hurrying the faster 
because of the grim and terrifying liveliness put into 
the man who sat starting from the table by the swing of 
the lanthorn in my hand.

I shut the door and hung the lanthorn near the cot, 
having the flint and box in my pocket. There was indeed 
an abundance of candles in the vessel; nevertheless, it 
was my business to husband them with the utmost 
niggardliness. How long I was to be imprisoned here, if 
indeed I was ever to be delivered, Providence alone knew; 
and to run short of candles would add to the terrors of 
my existence, by forcing me either to open the hatches 
and ports for light, and so filling the ship with the 
deadly air outside, or living in darkness. There were a 
cloak and a coat in the cot, but they would not suffice. 
The fine cloak I had taken from the man on the rocks was 
on deck, and till now I had forgotten it; there was, 
however, plenty of apparel in the corner to serve as 
wraps, and having chosen enough to smother me I vaulted 
into the cot, and so covered myself that the clothes were 
above the level of the sides of the cot.

I left the lanthorn burning whilst I made sure my bed was 
all right, and lay musing, feeling extremely melancholy; 
the hardest part was the thought of those two men 
watching in the cabin. The most fantastic alarms 
possessed me. Suppose their ghosts came to the ship at 
midnight, and, entering their bodies, quickened them into 
walking? Suppose they were in the condition of 
cataleptics, sensible of what passed around them, but 
paralyzed to the motionlessness and seeming insensibility 
of death? Then the very garments under which I lay were 
of a proper kind to keep a man in my situation quaking. 
My imagination went to work to tell me to whom they had 
belonged, the bloody ends their owners had met at the 
hands of the miscreants who despoiled them. I caught 
myself listening--and there was enough to hear, too, what 
with the subdued roaring of the wind, the splintering of 
ice, the occasional creaking-not unlike a heavy booted 
tread--of the fabric of the schooner--to the blasts of 
the gale against her masts, or to a movement in the bed 
on which she reposed.

But plain sense came to my rescue at last. I resolved to 
have no more of these night fears, so, blowing out the 
candle, I put my head on the coat that formed my pillow, 
resolutely kept my eyes shut, and after awhile fell 
asleep.

CHAPTER XIII.

I EXPLORE THE HOLD AND FORECASTLE.

IT was pitch dark when I awoke, and I conceived it must 
be the middle of the night, but to my astonishment, on 
lighting the lanthorn and looking at the watch, which I 
had taken the precaution to wind up overnight, I saw it 
warired but twenty minutes of nine o'clock, so that I had 
passed through twelve hours of solid sleep. However, it 
was only needful to recollect where I was, and to cast a 
glance at the closed door and port, to understand why it 
was dark. I had slept fairly warm, and awoke with no 
sensation of cramp; but the keen air had caused the steam 
of my breath to freeze upon my mouth in such a manner 
that, when feeling the sticky inconvenience I put my 
finger to it, it fell like a little mask; and I likewise 
felt the pain of cold in my face to such an extent that 
had I been blistered there my cheeks, nose, and brow 
could not have smarted more. This resolved me 
henceforward to wrap up my head and face before going to 
rest.

I opened the door and passed out, and observed an amazing 
difference between the temperature of the air in which I 
had been sleeping and that of the atmosphere in the 
passage--a happy discovery, for it served to assure me 
that, if I was careful to lie under plenty of coverings 
and to keep the outer air excluded, the heat of my body 
would raise the temperature of the little cabin; nor, 
providing the compartment was ventilated throughout the 
day, was there anything to be feared from the vitiation 
of the air by my own breathing.

My first business was to light the fire and set my 
breakfast to thaw, and boil me a kettle of water and some 
time after I went on deck to view the weather and to 
revolve in my mind the routine of the day. On opening the 
door of the companion-hatch I was nearly blinded by the 
glorious brilliance of the sunshine on the snow; after 
the blackness of the cabin it was like looking at the sun 
himself, and I had to stand a full three minutes with my 
hand upon my eyes before I could accustom my sight to the 
dazzling glare. It was fine weather again; the sky over 
the glass-like masts of the schooner was a clear dark 
blue, with a few light clouds blowing over it from the 
southward. The wind had shifted at last; but, pure as the 
heavens were, the breeze was piping briskly with the 
weight and song of a small gale, and its fangs of frost, 
even in the comparative quiet of the sheltered deck, bit 
with a fierceness that had not been observable yesterday.

The moment I had the body of the vessel in my sight I 
perceived that she had changed her position since my last 
view of her. Her bows were more raised, and she lay over 
further by the depth of a plank, I stared earnestly at 
the rocky slopes on either hand, but could not have sworn 
their figuration was changed. An eager hope shot into my 
mind, but it quickly faded into an emotion of 
apprehension. It was conceivable indeed that on a sudden 
some early day I might find the schooner liberated and 
afloat, and this was the first inspiriting flush; but 
then came the fear that the disruption and volcanic 
throes of the ice might crush her, a fear rational enough 
when I saw the height she lay above the sea, and how by 
pressure those slopes which formed her cradle might be 
jammed and welded together. The change of her posture 
then fell upon me with a kind of shock, and determined 
me, when I had broken my fast, to search her hold for a 
boat or for materials for constructing some ark by which 
I might float out to sea, should the ice grow menacing 
and force me from the schooner.

I made a plentiful meal, feeling the need of abundance of 
food in such a temperature as this, and heartily grateful 
that there was no need why I should stint myself. The 
having to pass the two figures every time I went on deck 
and returned was extremely disagreeable and unnerving, 
and I considered that, after searching the hold, the next 
duty I owed myself was to remove them on deck, and even 
over the side, if possible, for one place below was as 
sure to keep them haunting me as another, and they would 
be as much with me in the forecastle as if I stowed them 
away in the cabin adjoining mine.

Whilst I ate, my mind was so busy with considerations of 
the change in the ship's posture during the night that it 
ended in determining me to take a survey of her from the 
outside, and then climb the cliffs and look around before 
I fell to any other work. I fetched the cloak I had 
stripped the body on the rocks of and thawed and warmed 
it, and put it on, and a noble covering it was, thick, 
soft, and clinging. Then, arming myself with a boarding-
pike to serve as a pole, I dropped into the fore-chains 
and thence stepped on to the ice, and verv slowly and 
carefully walked round the schooner, examining her 
closely, and boring into the snow upon her side with my 
pike wherever I suspected a hole or indent. I could find 
nothing wrong with her in this way, though what a thaw 
might reveal I could not know. Her rudder hung frozen 
upon its pintles, and looked as it should. Some little 
distance abaft her rudder, where the hollow or chasm 
sloped to the sea, was a great split three or four feet 
wide; this had certainly happened in the night, and I 
must have slept as sound as the dead not to hear the 
noise of it. Such a rent as this sufficed to account for 
the subsidence of the after-part of the schooner and her 
further inclination to larboard. Indeed, the hollow was 
now coming to resemble the "ways" on which ships are 
launched; and you would have conceived by the appearance 
of it that if it should slope a little more yet, off 
would slide the schooner for the sea, and in the right 
posture too--that is, stern on. But I prayed with all my 
might and main for anything but this. It would have been 
very well had the hollow gone in a gentle declivity to 
the wash of the sea, to the water itself, in short; but 
it terminated at the edge of a cliff, not very high 
indeed, but high enough to warrant the prompt foundering 
of any vessel that should launch herself off it. Happily 
the keel was too solidly frozen into the ice to render a 
passage of this description possible; and the conclusion 
I arrived at after careful inspection was that the sole 
chance that could offer for the delivery of the vessel to 
her proper element was in the cracking up and disruption 
of the bed on which she lay.

Having ended nay survey of the schooner, I addressed 
myself to the ascent of the starboard slope, and scaled 
it much more easily than I had yesterday managed to make 
my way over the rocks. I climbed to the highest block 
that was nearest me on the summit, and here I had a very 
large view of the scene. Much to my astonishment, the 
first objects which encountered my eye were four 
icebergs, floating detached but close together at a 
distance of about three miles on my side of the north-
east trend of the island. I counted them and made them 
four. They swam low, and it was very easily seen they had 
formed part of the coast there, though, as the form of 
the ice that way was not familiar to me, and as, 
moreover, the glare rendered the prospect very deceptive, 
I could not distinguish where the ruptures were. But one 
change in the face of this white country I did note, and 
that was the entire disappearance of two of the most 
beautiful of the little crystal cities that adorned the 
northward range. The gale of the night had wrought havoc, 
and the unsubstantiality of this dazzling kingdom of ice 
was made startlingly apparent by the evanishment of the 
delicate glassy architecture, and by those four white 
hills floating like ships under their courses and 
topsails out upon the flashing hurry and leaping blue and 
yeast of the water.

It was blowing harder than I had imagined. The wind was 
extraordinarily sharp, and the full current of it not 
long to be endured on my unsheltered eminence. The sea, 
swelling up from the south, ran high, and was full of 
seething and tumbling noises, and of the roaring of the 
breakers, dashing themselves against the ice in 
prodigious bodies of foam, which so boiled along the foot 
of the cliffs that their fronts, rising out of it, might 
have passed for the spume itself freezing as it leapt 
into a solid mass of glorious brilliance. The eye never 
explored a scene more full of the splendour of light and 
of vivid colour. Here and there the rocks shone 
prismatically as though some flying rainbow had shivered 
itself upon them and lay broken. The blue of the sea and 
sky was deepened into an exquisite perfection of liquid 
tint by the blinding whiteness of the ice, which in 
exchange was sharpened into a wonderful effulgence by the 
hues above and around it. Again and again, along the 
whole range, far as the sight could explore, the spray 
rose in stately clouds of silver, which were scattered by 
the wind in meteoric scintillations of surpassing beauty, 
flashing through the fires of the sun like millions of 
little blazing stars. There were twenty different dyes of 
light in the collection of spires, fanes, and pillars 
near the schooner, whose masts, yards, and gear mingled 
their own particular radiance with that of these dainty 
figures; and wherever I bent my gaze I found so much of 
sun-tinctured loveliness, and the wild white graces of 
ice-forms and the dazzle of snow-surfaces softening into 
an azure gleaming in the far blue distances, that but for 
the piercing wind I could have spent the whole morning in 
taking into my mind the marvellous spirit of this ocean 
picture, forgetful of my melancholy condition in the 
intoxication of this draught of free and spacious beauty.

Satisfied as to the state of the ice and the posture of 
the schooner, viewed from without, I sent a slow and 
piercing gaze along the ocean line, and then returned to 
the ship. The strong wind, the dance of the sea, the 
grandeur of the great tract of whiteness, vitalized by 
the flying of violet cloud-shadows along it, had 
fortified my spirits, and being free (for a while) of all 
superstitious dread, I determined to begin by exploring 
the forecastle and ascertaining if more bodies were in 
the schooner than those two in the cabin and the giant 
form on deck. I threw some coal on the fire, and placed 
an ox-tongue along with the cheese and a lump of the 
frozen wine in a pannikin in the oven (for I had a mind 
to taste the vessel's stores, and thought the tongue 
would make an agreeable change), and then putting a 
candle into the lanthorn walked very bravely to the 
forecastle and entered it.

I was prepared for the scene of confusion, but I must say 
it staggered me afresh with something of the force of the 
first impression. Sailors' chests lay open in all 
directions, and their contents covered the decks. There 
was the clearest evidence here that the majority of the 
crew had quitted the vessel in a violent hurry, turning 
out their boxes to cram their money and jewellery into 
their pockets, and heedlessly flinging down their own and 
the clothes which had fallen to their share. This I had 
every right to suppose from the character of the muddle 
on the floor; for, passing the light over a part of it, I 
witnessed a great variety of attire of a kind which 
certainly no sailor in any age ever went to sea with; not 
so fine perhaps as that which lay in the cabins, but very 
good nevertheless, particularly the linen. I saw several 
wigs, beavers of the kind that was formerly carried under 
the arm, women's silk shoes, petticoats, pieces of lace, 
silk, and so forth; all directly assuring me that what I 
viewed was the contents of passengers' luggage, together 
with consignments and such freight as the pirates would 
seize and divide, every man filling his chest. Perhaps 
there was less on the whole than I supposed, the litter 
looking great by reason of everything having been torn 
open and flung down loose.

I trod upon these heaps with little concern; they 
appealed to me only as a provision for my fire should I 
be disappointed in my search for coal. The hammocks 
obliged me to move with a stooped head; it was only 
necessary to feel them with my hand--that is, to test 
their weight by pushing them in the middle--to know if 
they were tenanted. Some were heavier than the others, 
but all of them much lighter than they would have been 
had they contained human bodies; and by this rapid method 
I satisfied my mind that there were no dead men here as 
fully as if I had looked into each separate hammock.

This discovery was exceedingly comforting, for, though I 
do not know that I should have meddled with any frozen 
man had I found him in this place, his being in the 
forecastle would have rendered me constantly uneasy, and 
it must have come to my either closing this part of the 
ship and shrinking from it as from a spectre-ridden 
gloom, or to my disposing of the bodies by dragging them 
on deck--a dismal and hateful job. There were no ports, 
but a hatch overhead. Wanting light--the candle making 
the darkness but little more than visible--I fetched from 
the arms-room a handspike that lay in a corner, and, 
mounting a chest, struck at the hatch so heartily that 
the ice cracked all around it and the cover rose. I 
pushed it off, and down rolled the sunshine in splendour;

Everything was plain now. In many places, glittering 
among the clothes, were gold and silver coins, a few 
silver ornaments such as buckles, and watches--things not 
missed by the pirates in the transport of their flight. 
In kicking a coat aside I discovered a couple of silver 
crucifixes bound together, and close by were a silver 
goblet and the hilt of a sword broken short off for the 
sake of the metal it was of. Nothing ruder than this 
interior is imaginable. The men must have been mighty put 
to it for room. There was a window in the head, but the 
snow veiled it. Maybe the rogues messed together aft, and 
only used this forecastle to lie in. Right under the 
hatch, where the light was strongest, was a dead rat. I 
stooped to pick it up, meaning to fling it on to the 
deck, but its tail broke off at the rump, like a pipe-
stem.

Close against the after bulkhead that separated the 
forecastle from the cook-room was a little hatch. There 
was a quantity of wearing-apparel upon it, and I should 
have missed it but for catching sight of some three 
inches of the dark line the cover made in the deck. On 
clearing away the clothes I perceived a ring similar to 
that in the lazarette hatch, and it rose to my first drag 
and left me the hold yawning black below. I peered down 
and observed a stout stanchion traversed by iron pins for 
the hands and feet. The atmosphere was nasty, and to give 
it time to clear I went to the cook-house and warmed 
myself before the fire.

The fresh air blowing down the forecastle hatch speedily 
sweetened the hold. I lowered the lanthorn and followed, 
and found myself on top of some rum or spirit casks, 
which on my hitting them returned to me a solid note. 
There was a forepeak forward in the bows, and the casks 
went stowed to the bulkhead of it; the top of this 
bulkhead was open four feet from the upper deck, and on 
holding the lanthorn over and putting my head through I 
saw a quantity of coals. If the forepeak went as low as 
the vessel's floor, then I calculated there would not be 
less than fifteen tons of coal in it. This was a noble 
discovery to fall upon, and it made me feel so happy that 
I do not know that the assurance of my being immediately 
rescued from this island could have given a lighter pulse 
to my heart.

The candle yielded a very small light, and it was 
difficult to see above a yard or so ahead or around. I 
turned my face aft, and crawled over the casks and came 
to under the main-hatch, where lay coils of hawser, 
buckets, blocks, and the like, but there was no pinnace, 
though here she had been stowed, as a sailor would have 
promptly seen. A little way beyond, under the great 
cabin, was the powder-magazine, a small bulkheaded 
compartment with a little door, atop of which was a small 
bull's-eye lamp. I peered warily enough, you will 
suppose, into this place, and made out twelve barrels of 
powder. I heartily wished them overboard; and yet, after 
all, they were not very much more dangerous than the wine 
and spirits in the lazarette and fore-hold.

The run remained to be explored--the after part, I mean, 
under the lazarette deck to the rudder-post--but I had 
seen enough; crawling about that black interior was cold, 
lonesome, melancholy work, and it was rendered peculiarly 
arduous by the obligation of caution imposed by my having 
to bear a light amid a freight mainly formed of 
explosives and combustible matter. I had found plenty of 
coal, and that sufficed. So I returned by the same road I 
had entered, and sliding to the bulkhead door to keep the 
cold of the forecastle out of the cook-room, I stirred 
the fire into a blaze and sat down before it to rest and 
think.

CHAPTER XIV. 

AN EXTRAORDINARY OCCURRENCE.

After the many great mercies which had been vouchsafed 
me, such as my being the only one saved of all the crew 
of the Laughing Mary, my deliverance from the dangers of 
an open boat, my meeting with this schooner and 
discovering within her everything needful for the support 
of life, I should have been guilty of the basest 
ingratitude had I repined because there was no boat in 
the ship. Yet for all that I could not but see it was a 
matter that concerned me very closely. Should the vessel 
be crushed, what was to become of me? It was easy to 
propose to myself the making of a raft or the like of 
such a fabric; but everything was so hard frozen that, 
being single-handed, it was next to impossible I should 
be able to put together such a contrivance as would be 
fit to live in the smallest sea-way.

However, I was resolved not to make myself melancholy 
with these considerations. The good fortune that had 
attended me so far might accompany me to the end, and 
maybe I was the fitter just then to take a hopeful view 
of my condition because of the cheerfulness awakened in 
me by the noble show of coal in the forepeak. At twelve 
o'clock by the watch in my pocket I got my dinner. I had 
a mind for a lighter drink than brandy, and went to the 
lazarette and cut out a block of the wine in the cask I 
had opened; I also knocked out the head of a tierce of 
beef, designing a hearty regale for supper. You smile, 
perhaps, that I should talk so much of my eating; but if 
on shore, amid the security of existence there, it is the 
one great business of life, that is to say, the one great 
business of life after love, what must it be to a poor 
shipwrecked wretch like me, who had nothing else to think 
of but his food?

Yet I could not help smiling when I considered how I was 
carrying my drink about in my fingers. What the wine was 
I do not know; it looked like claret but was somewhat 
sweet, and was the most generous wine I ever tasted, zzz 
spite of my having to drink it warm, for if I let the cup 
out of my hand to cool, lo! when I looked it was ice!

Whilst I sat smoking my pipe it entered my head to 
presently turn those two silent gentlemen in the cabin 
out of it. It was a task from which I shrank, but it must 
be done. To be candid, I dreaded the effects of their 
dismal companionship on my spirits. I had been in the 
schooner two days only; I had been heartened by the 
plenty I had met with, a sound night's rest, the fire, 
and my escape from the fate that had certainly overtaken 
me had I gone away in the boat. But being of a 
superstitious nature and never a lover of solitude, I 
easily guessed that in a few days the weight of my 
loneliness would come to press very heavily upon me, and 
that if I suffered those figures to keep the cabin I 
should find myself lying under a kind of horror which 
might end in breaking down my manhood and perhaps in 
unsettling my reason.

But how was I to dispose of them? I meditated this matter 
whilst I smoked. First I thought I would drag them to the 
fissure or rent in the ice just beyond the stern of the 
schooner and tumble them into it. But even then they 
would still be with me, so to speak--I mean, they would 
be neighbours though out of sight; and my eagerness was 
to get them away from this island altogether, which was 
only to be done by casting them into the sea. Why, though 
I did not mention the matter in its place, I was as much 
haunted last night by the man on deck and the meditating 
figure on the rocks as by the fellows in the cabin; and, 
laugh as you may at my weakness, I do candidly own my 
feeling was, if I did not contrive that the' sea should 
carry those bodies away, I should come before long to 
think of them as alive, no matter in what part of the 
island I might bear them to, and at night-time start at 
every sound, hear their voices in the wind, see their 
shapes in the darkness, and even by day dread to step 
upon the cliffs.

That such fancies should possess me already shows how 
necessary it was I should lose no time to provide against 
their growth; so I settled my scheme thus: first I was to 
haul the figures as best I could on to the deck; then, 
there being three, to get them over the side, and 
afterwards by degrees to transport the four of them to 
some steep whence they would slide of themselves into the 
ocean. Yet so much did I dread the undertaking, and abhor 
the thought of the tedious time I foresaw it would occupy 
me, that I cannot imagine any other sort of painful and 
distressing work that would not have seemed actually 
agreeable as compared with this.

My pipe being smoked out, I stepped into the cabin, and 
ascending the ladder threw off the companion-cover and 
opened the doors, and then went to the man that had his 
back to the steps, but my courage failed me; he was so 
lifelike, there was so wild and fierce an earnestness in 
the expression of his face, so inimitable a picture of 
horror in his starting posture, that my hands fell to my 
side and I could not lay hold of him. I will not stop to 
analyse my fear or ask why, since I knew that this man 
was dead, he should have terrified me as surely no living 
man could; I can only repeat that the prospect of 
touching him, and laying him upon the deck and then 
dragging him up the ladder, was indescribably fearful to 
me, and I turned away, shaking as if I had the ague.

But it had to be done, nevertheless; and after a great 
deal of reasoning and self-reproach I seized him on a 
sudden, and, kicking away the bench, let him fall to the 
deck. He was frozen as hard as stone and fell like stone, 
and I looked to see him break, as a statue might that 
falls lumpishly. His arms remaining raised put him into 
an attitude of entreaty to me to leave him in peace; but 
I had somewhat mastered myself, and the hurry and tumult 
of my spirits were a kind of hot temper; so catching him 
by the collar, I dragged him to the foot of the 
companion-steps, and then with infinite labour and a 
number of sickening pauses hauled him up the ladder to 
the deck.

I let him lie and returned, weary and out of breath. He 
had been a very fine man in life, of beauty too, as was 
to be seen in the shape of his features and the 
particular elegance of his chin, despite the distortion 
of his last unspeakable dismay; and with his clothes I 
guessed his weight came hard upon two hundred pounds, no 
mean burden to haul up a ladder. 

I went to the cook-house for a dram and to rest myself, 
and then zzz came back to the cabin and looked at the 
other man. His posture has been already described. He 
made a very burly figure in his coat, and if his weight 
did not exceed the other's it was not likely to be less. 
Nothing of his head was visible but the baldness on the 
top and the growth of hair that ringed it, and the 
fluffing up of his beard about his arms in which his face 
was sunk. I touched his beard with a shuddering finger, 
and noted that the frost had made every hair of it as 
stiff as wire. It would not do to stand idly 
contemplating him, for already there was slowly creeping 
into me a dread of seeing his face; so I took hold of him 
and swayed him from the table, and he fell upon the deck 
sideways, preserving his posture, so that his face 
remained hidden. I dragged him a little way, but he was 
so heavy and his attitude rendered him as a burthen so 
surprisingly cumbrous that I was sure I could never of my 
own strength haul him up the ladder. Yet neither was it 
tolerable that he should be there. I thought of 
contriving a tackle called a whip, and making one end 
fast to him and taking the other end to the little 
capstan on the main deck; but on inspecting the capstan I 
found that the frost had rendered it immovable, added to 
which there was-nothing whatever to be done with the 
iron-hard gear, and therefore I had to give that plan up.

Then, thought I, if I was to put him before the fire, he 
might presently thaw into some sort of suppleness, and so 
prove not harder than the other to get on deck. I liked 
the idea, and without more ado dragged him laboriously 
into the cook-room and laid him close to the furnace, 
throwing in a little pile of coal to make the fire roar.

I then went on deck, and easily enough, the deck being 
slippery, got my first man to where the huge fellow was 
that had sentinelled the vessel when I first looked down 
upon her; but when I viewed the slopes, broken into 
rocks, which I, though unburdened, had found hard enough 
to ascend, I was perfectly certain I should never be able 
to transport the bodies to the top of the cliffs. I must 
either let them fall into the great split astern of the 
ship, or lower them over the side and leave the hollow in 
which the schooner lay to be their tomb.

I paced about, not greatly noticing the cold in the 
little valley, and relishing the brisk exercise, scheming 
to convey the bodies to the sea, for I was passionately 
in earnest in wishing the four of them away; but to no 
purpose. I had but my arms, and scheme as I would, I 
could not make them stronger than they were. It was still 
blowing a fresh bright gale from the south; the sea, as 
might be known by the noise of it, beat very heavily 
against the cliffs of ice; and the extremity of the 
hollow, where it opened to the ocean but without showing 
it, was again and again veiled by a vast cloud of spray, 
the rain of which I could hear ringing like volleys of 
shot as the wind smote it and drove it with incredible 
force against the rocks past the brow of the north slope. 
I thought to myself there should be power in this wind to 
quicken the sliding of even so mighty a berg as this 
island northwards. Every day should zzz it by something, 
however inconsiderable, nearer to warmer regions, and no 
gale, nay, no gentle swell even, but must help to crack 
and loosen it into pieces. "Oh," cried I, "for the power 
to rupture this bed, that the schooner might slip into 
the sea! Think of her running north before such a gale as 
this, steadily bearing me towards a more temperate clime, 
and into the road of ships!" I clenched my hands with a 
wild yearning in my heart. Should I ever behold my 
country again? should I ever meet a living man? The white 
and frozen steeps glared a bald reply; and I heard 
nothing but menace in the shrill noises of the wind and 
the deep and thunderous roaring of the ocean.

It was mighty comforting, however, on returning to the 
cabin to find it vacant, to be freed from the scare of 
the sight of the two silent figures. I drew my breath 
more easily and stopped to glance around. It was the 
barest cabin I was ever in--uncarpeted, with no other 
seats than the little benches. I looked at the crucifix, 
and guessed from the sight of it that, whatever might be 
the vessel's nation, she had not been sailed by 
Englishmen. I peeped into poor Polly's cage--if a parrot 
it was--and the sight of the rich plumage carried my 
imagination to skies of brass, to the mysterious green 
solitude of tropic forests, to islands fringed with 
silver surf, in whose sunny flashing sported nude girls 
of faultless forms, showing their teeth of pearl in merry 
laughter, winding amorously with the blue billow, and 
filling the aromatic breeze with the melody of their 
language of the sun. Ha! thought I, sailors see some 
changes in their time; and with a hearty sigh I stepped 
into the cook-room.

I started, stopped, and fell back a pace with a cry. When 
I had put the figure before the fire he was in the same 
posture in which he had sat at the table, that is, 
leaning forward with his face hid in his arms; I had laid 
him on his side, with his face to the furnace, and in 
that attitude you would have supposed him a man sound 
asleep with his arms over his face to shield it from the 
heat. But now, to my unspeakable astonishment, he lay on 
his back, with his arms sunk to his side and resting on 
the deck, and his face upturned.

I stared at him from the door as if he was the Fiend 
himself. I could scarce credit my senses, and my 
consternation was so great that I cannot conceive of any 
man ever having laboured under a greater fright. I 
faintly ejaculated 'Good God!' several times, and could 
hardly prevent my legs from running away with me. You 
see, it was certain he must have moved of his own accord 
to get upon his back. I was prepared for the fire to thaw 
him into limberness, and had I found him straightened 
somewhat I should not have been surprised. But there was 
no power in fire to stretch him to his full length and 
turn him over on his back. What living or ghostly hand 
had done this thing? Did spirits walk this schooner after 
all? Had I missed of something more terrible than any 
number of dead men in searching the vessel?

I had made a great fire and its light was strong, and 
there was also the light of the lanthorn; but the furnace 
flames played very lively, completely overmastering the 
steady illumination of the candle, and the man's figure 
was all a-twitch with moving shadows, and a hundred 
fantastic shades seemed to steal out of the side and 
bulkheads and disappear upon my terrified gaze. Then, 
thought I, suppose after all that the man should be 
alive, the vitality in him set flowing by the heat? I 
minded myself of my own simile of the current checked by 
frost, yet retaining unimpaired the principle of motion; 
and getting my agitation under some small control, I 
approached the body on tiptoe and held the lanthorn to 
its face.

He looked a man of sixty years of age; his beard was grey 
and very long, and lay upon his breast like a cloud of 
smoke. His eyes were closed; the brows shaggy, and the 
dark scar of a sword-wound ran across his forehead from 
the corner of the left eye to the top of the right brow. 
His nose was long and hooked, but the repose in his 
countenance, backed by the vague character of the light 
in which I inspected him, left his face almost 
expressionless. I was too much alarmed to put my ear to 
his mouth to mark if he breathed, if indeed the noise of 
the burning fire would have permitted me to distinguish 
his respiration. I drew back from him, and put down the 
lanthorn and watched him. Thought I, it will not do to 
believe there is anything supernatural here. I can swear 
there is naught living in this ship, and am I to suppose, 
assuming she is haunted, that a ghost, which I have 
always read and heard of as an essence, has in its 
shadowy being such quality of muscle as would enable it 
to turn that heavy man over from his side on to his back? 
No, no, thought I! depend upon it, either he is alive and 
may presently come to himself, or else in some wonderful 
way the fire in thawing him has so wrought in his frozen 
fibres as to cause him to turn.

Presently his left leg, that was slightly bent towards 
the furnace, stretched itself out to its full length, and 
my ear caught a faint sound, as of a weak and melancholy 
sigh. Gracious heaven, thought I, he is alive! and with 
less of terror than of profound awe, now that I saw there 
was nothing of a ghostly or preternatural character in 
this business, I approached and bent over him. His eyes 
were still shut, and I could not hear that he breathed; 
there was not the faintest motion of respiration in his 
breast nor stir in the hair, that was now soft, about his 
mouth. Yet, so far as the light would suffer me to judge, 
there was a complexion in his face such as could only 
come with flowing blood, however languid its circulation, 
and putting this and the sigh and the movement of the leg 
together, I felt convinced that the man was alive, and 
forthwith fell to work, very full of awe and amazement to 
be sure, to help nature that was struggling in him.

My first step was to heat some brandy, and whilst this 
was doing I pulled open his coat and freed his neck, 
fetching a coat from the cabin to serve as a pillow for 
his head. I next removed his boots and laid bare his feet 
(which were encased in no less than four pairs of thick 
woollen stockings, so that I thought when I came to the 
third pair I should find his legs made of stockings), and 
after bathing his feet in hot water, of which there was a 
kettleful, I rubbed then with hot brandy as hard as I 
could chafe. I then dealt with his hands in the like 
manner, having once been shipmate with a seaman who told 
me he had seen a sailor brought to by severe rubbing of 
his extremities after he had been carried below-supposed 
to be frozen to death, and continued this exercise till I 
could rub no longer. Next I opened his lips and, finding 
he wanted some of his front teet'h, I very easily poured 
a dram of brandy into his mouth. Though I preserved my 
astonishment all this while, I soon discovered myself 
working with enthusiasm, with a most passionate longing 
indeed to recover the man, not only because it pleased me 
to think of my being an instrument under God of calling a 
human being, so to speak, out of his grave, but because I 
yearned for a companion, some one to address, to lighten 
the hideous solitude of my condition and to assist me in 
planning our deliverance.

I built up a great fire, and with much trouble, for he 
was very heavy, disposed him in such a manner before it 
that the heat was reflected all over the front of him 
from his head to his feet. I likewise continued to chafe 
his extremities, remitting this work only to rest, and 
finding that the brandy had stolen down his throat, I 
poured another dram in and then another, till I think he 
had swallowed a pint. This went on for an hour, during 
which time he never exhibited the least signs of life; 
but on a sudden he sighed deep, a tremor ran through him, 
he sighed again and partly raised his right hand, which 
fell to the deck with a blow; his lips twitched, and a 
small convulsion of his face compelled the features into 
the similitude of a grin that instantly faded; then he 
fetched a succession of sighs and opened his eyes full 
upon me.

I was warm enough with my work, but when I observed him 
looking at me I turned of a deathlike cold, and felt the 
dew of an intolerable emotion wet in the palms of my 
hands. There was no speculation in his stare at first; 
his eyes lay as coldly upon me as those of a fish; but as 
life quickened in him so his understanding awoke; he 
slightly knitted his brows, and very slowly rolled his 
gaze off me to the furnace and so over as much of the 
cook-room as was before him He then started as if to sit 
up, but fell back with a slight groan and looked at me 
again.

"What is this?" said he in French, in a very hollow 
feeble voice.

I knew enough of his language to enable me to know he 
spoke in French, but that was all. I could not speak a 
syllable of that tongue.

"You'll be feeling better presently; you must not expect 
your strength to come in a minute," said I, taking my 
chance of his understanding me, and speaking that he 
might not think me a ghost, for I doubt not I was as 
white as one; since, to be plain, the mere talking to a 
figure that I had got to consider as sheerly dead as 
anybody in a graveyard was alarming enough, and then 
again there was the sound of my own voice, which I had 
not exerted in speech for ages, as it seemed to me.

He faintly nodded his head, by which I perceived he 
understood me, and said very faintly in English, but with 
a true French accent, "This is a hard bed, sir."

"I'll speedily mend that," said I, and at once fetched a 
mattress from the cabin next zzz mine; this I placed 
beside him, and dragged him on to it, he very weakly 
assisting. I then brought clothes and rugs to cover him 
with, and made him a high pillow, and as he lay close to 
the furnace he could not have been snugger had he had a 
wife to tuck him up in his own bed.

I was very much excited; my former terrors had vanished, 
but my awe continued great, for I felt as if I had 
wrought a miracle, and I trembled as a man would who 
surveys some prodigy of his own creation. It was yet to 
be learnt how long he had been in this condition; but I 
was perfectly sure he had formed one of the schooner's 
people, and as I had guessed her to have been here for 
upwards of fifty years, the notion of that man having 
lain torpid for half a century held me under a perpetual 
spell of astonishment; but there was no more horror in me 
nor fright. He followed me about with his eyes but did 
not offer to speak; perhaps he could not. I put a lump of 
ice into the kettle, and when the water boiled made him a 
pint of steaming brandy punch, which I held to his lips 
in a pannikin whilst I supported his back with my knee; 
he supped it slowly and painfully but with unmistakable 
relish, and fetched a sigh of contentment as he lay back. 
But he would need something more sustaining than brandy 
and water; and as I guessed his stomach, after so 
prodigious a fast, would be too weak to support such 
solids as beef or pork or bacon, I mused a little, 
turning over in my mind the contents of the larder (as I 
call it), all which time he eyed me with bewilderment 
growing in his face; and I then thought I could not do 
better than manufacture him a broth of oatmeal, wine, 
bruised biscuit, and a piece of tongue minced very small.

This did not take me long in doing, the tongue being near 
the furnace and soft enough for the knife, and there was 
nothing to melt but the wine. When the broth was ready I 
kneeled as before and fed him. He ate greedily, and when 
the broth was gone looked as if he would have been glad 
for more.

"Now, sir," says I, "sleep if you can," with which he 
turned his head and in a few minutes was sound asleep, 
breathing regularly and deeply.

CHAPTER XV.

THE PIRATE'S STORY.

It was now time to think of myself. The watch showed the 
hour to be after six. Whilst my supper was preparing I 
went on deck to close the hatches to keep the cold out of 
the ship, and found the weather changed, the wind having 
shifted directly into the west, whence it was blowing 
with a good deal of violence upon the ice, ringing over 
the peaks and among the rocks with a singular clanking 
noise in its crying, as though it brought with it the 
echo of thousands of bells pealing in some great city 
behind the sea. It also swept up the gorge that went from 
our hollow to the edge of the cliff in a noisy fierce 
hooting, and this blast was very freely charged with the 
spray of the breakers which boiled along the island. The 
sky was overcast with flying clouds of the true Cape Horn 
colour and appearance.

I closed the fore-scuttle, but on stepping aft came to 
the two bodies, the sight of which brought me to a stand. 
Since there was life in one, thought I, life may be in 
these, and I felt as if it would be like murdering them 
to leave them here for the night. But, said I to myself, 
after all, these men are certainly insensible if they be 
not dead; the cold that freezes on deck cannot be 
different from the cold that froze them below; they'll 
not be better off in the cabin than here. It will be all 
the same to them, and to-morrow I shall perhaps have the 
Frenchman's help to carry them to the furnace and 
discover if the vital spark is still in them.

To be candid, I was the more easily persuaded to leave 
them to their deck lodging by the very grim, malignant, 
and savage appearance of the great figure that had leaned 
against the rail. Indeed, I did not at all like the 
notion of such company in the cabin through the long 
night. Added to this, his bulk was such that, without 
assistance, I could only have moved him as you move a 
cask, by rolling it; and though this might have answered 
to convey him to the hatch, I stood to break his arms and 
legs off, and perhaps his head, so brittle was he with 
frost, by letting his own weight trundle him down the 
ladder.

So I left them to lie and came away, flinging a last look 
round, and then closing the companion-door upon me. The 
Frenchman, as I may call him, was sleeping very heavily 
and snoring loudly.

I got my supper, and whilst I ate surveyed the mound of 
clothes he made on the deck--a motley heap indeed, with 
the colours and the finery of the lace and buttons of the 
coats I had piled upon him--and fell into some startling 
considerations of him. Was it possible, I asked myself, 
that he could have lain in his frozen stupor for fifty 
years? But why not? for suppose he had been on this ice 
but a year only, nay, six months--an absurdity in the 
face of the manifest age of the ship and her furniture--
would not six months of lifelessness followed by a 
resurrection be as marvellous as fifty years? Had he the 
same aspect when the swoon of the ice seized him as he 
has now? I answered yes, for the current of life having 
been frozen, his appearance would remain as it was.

I lighted my pipe and sat smoking, thinking he would 
presently awake; but his slumber was as deep as the 
stillness I had thawed him out of had been, and he lay so 
motionless that, but for his snoring and harsh breathing, 
I should have believed him lapsed into his former state.

At eight o'clock the fire was very low. Nature was 
working out her own way with this Frenchman, and I 
determined to let him sleep where he was, and take my 
chance of the night. At all events he could not alarm me 
by stirring, for if I heard a movement I should know what 
it was. So, loitering to see the last gleam of the fire 
extinguished, I took my lanthorn and went to bed, but not 
to sleep.

The full meaning of the man awakening into life out of a 
condition into which he had been plunged, for all I knew, 
before I was born, came upon me very violently in the 
darkness. There being nothing to divert my thoughts, I 
gave my mind wholly to it, and I tell you I found it an 
amazing terrifying thing to happen. Indeed, I do not know 
that the like of such an adventure was ever before heard 
of, and I well recollect thinking to myself,"I would give 
my left hand to know of other cases of the kind--to be 
assured that this recovery was strictly within the bounds 
of nature," that I might feel I was not alone, so 
strongly did the thoughts of a satanic influence 
operating in this business crowd upon me--that is to say, 
as if I was involuntarily working out some plan of the 
devil.

The gale made a great roaring. The ship's stern lay open 
to the gorge, and but for her steadiness I might have 
supposed myself at sea. There was indeed an incessant 
thunder about my ears often accompanied by the shock of a 
mass of spray flung thirty feet high, and falling like 
sacks of stones upon the deck. Once I felt the vessel 
rock; I cannot tell the hour, but it was long past 
midnight, and by the noise of the wind I guessed it was 
blowing a whole gale. The movement was extraordinary--
whether sideways or downwards I could not distinguish; 
but, seasoned as my stomach was to the motion of ships, 
this movement set up a nausea that lasted some while, 
acting upon me as I have since learned the convulsion of 
an earthquake does upon people. It took off my mind from 
the Frenchman, and filled me with a different sort of 
alarm altogether, for it was very evident the gale was 
making the ice break; and, thought I to myself, if we do 
not mind our eye we shall be crushed and buried. But what 
was to be done? To quit the ship for that piercing flying 
gale, charged with sleet and hail and foam, was merely to 
languish for a little and then miserably expire of frost. 
No, thought I, if the end is to come let it find me here; 
and with that I snugged me down amid the coats and cloaks 
in my cot, and, obstinately holding my eyes closed, 
ultimately fell asleep.

It was late when I awoke. I lighted the lanthorn, but 
upon entering the passage that led to the cabin I 
observed by my own posture that the schooner had not only 
heeled more to larboard, but was further "down by the 
stern" to the extent of several feet. Indeed, the angle 
of inclination was now considerable enough to bring my 
shoulder (in the passage) close against the starboard 
side when I stood erect. The noise of the gale was still 
in the air, and the booming and boiling of the sea was 
uncommonly loud. I walked straight to the cook-room, and, 
putting the lanthorn to the Frenchman, perceived that he 
was still in a heavy sleep, and that he had lain through 
the night precisely in the attitude in which I had left 
him. His face was so muffled that little more than his 
long hawk's-bill nose was discernible. It was freezingly 
cold, and I made haste to light the fire. There was still 
coal enough in the corner to last for the day, and before 
long the furnace was blazing cheerfully. I went to work 
to make some broth and fry some ham, and melt a little 
block of the ruby-coloured wine; and whilst thus 
occupied, turning my head a moment to look at the 
Frenchman, I found him half started up, staring intently 
at me.

This sudden confrontment threw me into such confusion 
that I could not speak. He moved his head from side to 
side, taking a view of the scene, with an expression of 
the most inimitable astonishment painted upon his 
countenance. He then brought the flat of his hand with a 
dramatic blow to his forehead, the scar on which showed 
black as ink to the fire-glow, and sat erect.

"Where have I been?" he exclaimed in French.

"Sir," said I, speaking with the utmost difficulty, "I do 
not understand your language. I am English. You speak my 
tongue. Will you address me in it?"

"English!" he exclaimed in English, dropping his head on 
one side, and peering at me with an incredible air of 
amazement. "How came you here? You are not of our 
company? Let me see..." Here he struggled with 
recollection, continuing to stare at me from under his 
shaggy eyebrows as if I was some frightful vision.

"I am a shipwrecked British mariner," said I, "and have 
been cast away upon this ice, where I found your 
schooner."

"Ha!" he interrupted with prodigious vehemence, 
"certainly; we are frozen up--I remember. That sleep 
should serve my memory so!" He made as if to rise, but 
sat again.

"The cold is numbing; it would weaken a lion. Give me a 
hot drink, sir."

I filled a pannikin with the melted wine, which he 
swallowed thirstily.

"More!" cried he. "I seem to want life." Again I filled 
the pannikin.

"Good!" said he, fetching a sigh as he returned the 
vessel; "you are very obliging, sir. If you have food 
there, we will eat together."

I give the substance of his speech, but not his delivery 
of it, nor is it necessary that I should interpolate my 
rendering with the French words he used.

The broth being boiled, I gave him a good bowl of it 
along with a plate of bacon and tongue, some biscuit and 
a pannikin of hot brandy and water, all zzz which things 
I put upon his knees as he sat up on the mattress, and to 
it he fell, making a rare meal. Yet all the while he ate 
he acted like a man bewitched, as well he might, staring 
at me and looking round and round him, and then dropping 
his knife to strike his brow, as if by that kind of blow 
he would quicken the activity of memory there.

"There is something wrong," said he presently. "What is 
it, sir? This is the cook-room. How does it happen that I 
am lying here?"

I told him exactly how it was, adding that if it had not 
been for his posture, which obliged me to thaw in order 
to carry him, he would now be on deck with the others, 
awaiting the best funeral I could give him.

"Who are the others?" asked he.

"I know not," said I. "There were four in all, counting 
yourself; one sits frozen to death on the rocks. I met 
him first, and took this watch from his pocket that I 
might tell the time."

He took the watch in his hands, and asked me to bring the 
lanthorn close.

"Ha!" cried he, "this was Mendoza's--the captain's. I 
remember; he took it for the sake of this letter upon it. 
He lies dead on the rocks? We missed him, but did not 
know where he had gone."

Then, raising his hand and impulsively starting upon the 
mattress, he cried, whilst he tapped his forehead, "It 
has come back! I have it! Guiseppe Trentanove and I were 
in the cabin; he had fallen blind with the glare of the 
ice--if that was it. We confronted each other. On a 
sudden he screamed out. I had put my face into my arms, 
and felt myself dying. His cry aroused me. I looked up, 
and saw him leaning back from the table with his eyes 
fixed and horror in his countenance. I was too feeble to 
speak--too languid to rise. I watched him awhile, and 
then the drowsiness stole over me again, and my head 
sank, and I remember no more."

He shuddered, and extended the pannikin for more liquor. 
I filled it with two-thirds of brandy and the rest water, 
and he supped it down as if it had been a thimbleful of 
wine.

"By the holy cross," cried he, "but this is very 
wonderful, though. How long have you been here, sir?"

"Three days."

"Three days! and I have been in a stupor all that time--
never moving, never breathing?"

"You will have been in a stupor longer than that, I 
expect," said I.

"What is this month?" he cried.

"July," I replied.

"July--July!" he muttered. "Impossible! Let me see"--he 
began to count on his fingers--"we fell in with the ice 
and got locked in November. We had six months of it; I 
recollect no more. Six months of it, sir; and suppose the 
stupor came upon me then, the month at which my memory 
stops would be April. Yet you call this July; that is to 
say, four months zzz oblivion. Impossible!"

"What was the year in which you fell in with the ice?" 
said I.

"The year?" he exclaimed in a voice deep with the wonder 
this question raised in him; "the year?

Why, man, what year but seventeen hundred and fifty-
three?"

"Good God!" cried I, jumping to my feet with terror at a 
statement I had anticipated, though it shocked me as a 
new and frightful revelation. "Do you know what year this 
is?"

He looked at me without answering.

"It is eighteen hundred and one," I cried, and as I said 
this I recoiled a step, fully expecting him to leap up 
and exhibit a hundred demonstrations of horror and 
consternation; for this I am persuaded would have been my 
posture had any man roused me from a slumber and told me 
I had been in that condition for eight-and-forty years.

He continued to view me with a very strange and cunning 
expression in his eyes, the coolness of which was 
inexpressibly surprising and bewildering and even 
mortifying; then presently grasping his beard, looked at 
it; then put his hands to his face and looked at them; 
then drew out his feet and looked at them; then very 
slowly, but without visible effort, stood up, swaying a 
little with an air of weakness, and proceeded to feel and 
strike himself all over, swinging his arms and using his 
legs; after which he sat down and pulled the clothes over 
his naked feet, and fixing his eyes on me afresh, said, 
"What do you say this year is, sir?"

"Eighteen hundred and one," I replied. "Bah!" said he, 
and shook his head very knowingly. "No matter; you have 
been shipwrecked too! Sir, shipwreck shuffles dates as a 
player does cards, and the best of us will go wrong in 
famine, loneliness, cold, and peril. Be of good cheer, my 
friend; all will return to you. Sit, sir, that I may hear 
your adventures, and I will relate mine."

I saw how it was--he supposed me deranged, a mortifying 
construction to place upon the language of a man who had 
restored him to life; yet a few moments' reflection 
taught me to see the reasonableness of it, for unless he 
thought me crazy he must conclude I spoke the truth, and 
it was inconceivable he should believe that he had lain 
in a frozen condition for eight-and-forty years.

I stirred the fire to make more light and sat down near 
the furnace. His appearance was very striking. The scar 
upon his forehead gave a very dark sullen look to his 
brows; his eyes were small and were half lost in the 
dusky hollows in which they were set, and I observed an 
indescribably leering, cunning expression in them, 
something of which I attributed to the large quantity of 
liquor he had swallowed. This contrasted oddly with the 
respectable aspect he took from his baldness--that is, 
from the nakedness of his poll, for, as I have before 
said, his hair fell long and plentifully, in a ring a 
little above the ears, so that you would have supposed at 
some late period of his life he had been scalped.

I know not how it was, but I felt no joy in this man's 
company. For some companion, for some one to speak with, 
I had yearned again and again with heart-breaking 
passion; and now a living man sat before me, yet I was 
sensible of no gladness. In truth, I was overawed by him; 
he frightened me as one risen from the dead. Here was a 
creature that had entered, as it seemed to me, those 
black portals from which no man ever returns, and had 
come back, through my instrumentality, after hard upon 
fifty years of the grave. Reason as I might that it was 
all perfectly in nature, that there was nothing 
necromantic or diabolic in it, that it could not have 
happened had it not been natural, my spirits were as much 
oppressed and confounded by his sitting there alive, 
talking, and watching me, as if, being truly dead, life 
had entered him on a sudden, and he had risen and walked.

I have no doubt the disorder my mind was in helped to 
persuade him that I had not the full possession of my 
senses. He ran his eye over my figure and then round the 
cook-room, and said, "I am impatient to learn your story, 
sir."

"Why, sir," said I, "my story is summed up in what I have 
already told you." But that he might not be at a loss--
for to be sure he had only very newly collected his 
intellects--I related my adventures at large. He drew 
nearer to the furnace whilst I talked, bringing his 
covering of clothes along with him, and held out his 
great hands to toast at the fire, all the time observing 
roe with scarce a wink of the eye. Arrived at the end of 
my tale, I told him how only last night I had dragged his 
companion on deck, and how he was to have followed but 
for his posture.

"Ha!" cried he, "you might have caused my flesh to 
mortify by laying me close to the fire. It would have 
been better to rub me with snow."

He poked up one foot after the other to count his toes, 
fearing some had come away with his stockings, and then 
said, "Well, and how long should I have slept had you not 
come? Another week? By St. Paul, I might have died. Have 
you my stockings, sir?"

I gave them to him, and he pulled them over his legs and 
then drew on his boots and stood up, the coats and wraps 
tumbling off him as he rose.

"I can stand," says he. "That is good."

But in attempting to take a step he reeled and would have 
fallen had I not grasped his arm.

"Patience, my friend, patience!" he muttered as if to 
himself. "I must lie a little longer," and with that he 
kneeled and then lay along the mattress. He breathed 
heavily and pointed to the pannikin. I asked him whether 
he would have wine or brandy; he answered,"Wine" so I 
melted a draught, which dose, I thought, on top of what 
he had already taken, would send him to sleep; but 
instead it quickened his spirits, and with no lack of 
life in his voice he said, "What is the condition of the 
vessel?"

I told him that she was still high and dry, adding that 
during the night some sort of change had happened which I 
should presently go on deck to remark.

"Think you," says he, "that there is any chance of her 
ever being liberated?"

I answered, "Yes, but not yet; that is, if the ice in 
breaking doesn't destroy her. The summer season has yet 
to come, and we are progressing north; but now that you 
are with me it will be a question for us to settle, 
whether we are to wait for the ice to release the 
schooner or endeavour to effect our escape by other 
means."

A curious gleam of cunning satisfaction shone in his eyes 
as he looked at me; he then kept silence for some 
moments, lost in thought.

"Pray," said I, breaking in upon him, "what ship is 
this?"

He started, deliberated an instant, and answered, "The 
Boca del Dragon." "A Spaniard?" He nodded.

"She was a pirate?" said I.

"How do you know that?" he cried with a sudden 
fierceness.

"Sir," said I,"I am a British sailor who has used the sea 
for some years, and know the difference between a 
handspike and a poop-	lanthorn. But what matters? She is 
a pirate no longer."

He let his eyes fall from my face and gazed round him 
with the air of one who cannot yet persuade his 
understanding of the realities of the scene he moves in.

"Tut!" cried he presently, addressing himself, "what 
matters the truth, as you say? Yes, the Boca del Dragon 
is a pirate. You have of course rummaged her, and guessed 
her character by what you found?"

"I met with enough to excite my suspicion," said I. "The 
ship's company of such a craft as this do not usually go 
clothed in lace and rich cloaks, and carry watches of 
this kind," tapping my breast, "in their fobs and 
handfuls of gold in their pockets."

"Unless--" said he.

"Unless," I answered, "their flag is as black as our 
prospects."

"You think them black?" cried he, the look of resentment 
that was darkening his face dying out of it. "The vessel 
is sound, is not she?"

I replied that she appeared so, but it would be 
impossible to be sure until she floated. "The stores?"

"They are plentiful."

"They should be!" he cried; "we have the liquor and 
stores of a galleon and two carracks in our hold, apart 
from what we originally laid in for the cruise. 
Everything will have been kept sweet by the cold."

"All the stores seem sound," said I; "we shall not 
starve--no, not if we were to be imprisoned here for 
three years. But all the same our prospects are black, 
for here is the ship high and fixed; the ice in parting 
may crush her, and we have no boat."

"May, may!" he cried with a Frenchman's vehemence. "You 
have may and you also have may not in your language. Let 
me feel my strength improving; we shall then find means 
of throwing a light upon these black prospects of yours."

He smiled, or rather grinned, his fangs making the latter 
term fitter for the mirthless grimace he made.

"May I ask your name?" said I.

"Jules Tassard, at your service," said he, "third in 
command of the Boca del Dragon, but good as Mate 
Trentanove, and good as Captain Mendoza, and good as the 
cabin boy Fernando Prado; for we pirates are republicans, 
sir, we know no social distinctions save those we order 
for the convenience of working ship. Now let me tell you 
the story of our disaster. We had come out of the Spanish 
Main into the South Seas, partly to escape some British 
and French cruisers which were after us and others of our 
kind, and partly because ill-luck was against us, and we 
could not find our account in those waters. We sailed in 
December two years ago."

"Making the year?" I interrupted.

He started, and then grinned again.

"Ah, to be sure!" cried he, "this is eighteen hundred and 
one; but to keep my tale in countenance," he went on in a 
satirical apologetic way, "let me call the year in which 
we sailed for the South Sea seventeen hundred and fifty-
one. What matters forty or fifty years to the 
shipwrecked? Is not one day of an open boat, with no 
society but the devils of memory and no hope but the 
silence at the bottom of the sea, an eternity? Fill me 
that pannikin, my friend. I thank you. To proceed: we 
cruised some months in the South Sea and took a number of 
ships. One was a privateer that had plundered a British 
Indiaman in the Southern Ocean, and had entered the South 
Sea by New Holland. This fellow was full of fine clothes 
and had some silver in her. We took what we wanted, and 
let her go with her people under hatches, her yards 
square, her helm amidships, and her cabin on fire. Our 
maxim is, 'No witnesses!' That is the pirate's 
philosophy. Who gives us quarter unless it be to hang us? 
But to continue: we did handsomely, but were a long time 
about it, and after careening and filling up with water 
'twixt San Carlos and Chile we set sail for the Antilles. 
Like your brig, we were blown south. The weather was 
ferocious. Gale after gale thundered down upon us, 
forcing us to fly before it. We lost all reckoning of our 
position; for days, for weeks, sea and sky were enveloped 
in clouds of snow, in the heart of which drove our frozen 
schooner. We were none of us of a nationality fit to 
encounter these regions; we carried most of us the curly 
hair of the sun, the chocolate cheek of the burning zone, 
and the ice chained the crew, crouching like Lascars, 
below. We swept past many vast icebergs, which would leap 
on a sudden out of the white whirl of thickness, often so 
close aboard that the recoil of the surge striking 
against the mass would flood our decks. At all moments of 
the day and night we were prepared to feel the shock of 
the vessel crushing her bows against one of these 
stupendous hills. The cabin resounded with Salves and 
Aves, with invocations to the saints, promises, curses, 
and litanies. The cold does not make men of the 
Spaniards, who are but indifferent seamen in temperate 
climes, and we were chiefly Spanish with consciences as 
red as your English flag."

He grinned, emptied the pannikin, and stretched his hands 
to the fire to warm them.

"One morning, the weather having cleared somewhat, we 
found ourselves surrounded by ice. A great chain floated 
ahead of us, extending far into the south. The gale blew 
dead on to this coast; we durst not haul the schooner to 
the wind, and our only chance lay in discovering some bay 
where we might find shelter. Such a bay it was my good 
luck to spy, lying directly in a line with the ship's 
head. It was formed of a great steep of ice jutting a 
long way slantingly into the sea, the width between the 
point and the main being about a third of a mile. I 
seized the helm, and shouted to the men to hoist the head 
of the mainsail that she might round to when I put the 
helm down. But the fellows were in a panic terror and 
stood gaping at what they regarded as their doom, calling 
upon the Virgin and all the saints for help and mercy. 
Into this bay did we rush on top of a huge sea, 
Trentanove and the captain and I swinging with set teeth 
at the tiller, that was hard a-lee; she came round, but 
with such way upon her that she took a long shelving 
beach of ice and ran up it to the distance of half her 
own length, and there she lay, with her rudder within 
touch of the wash of the water. The men, regarding the 
schooner as lost, and concluding that if she went to 
pieces her boats would be destroyed, and with them their 
only chance to escape from the ice, fell frantic and lost 
their wits altogether. They roared, 'To the boats! to the 
boats!' The captain endeavoured to bring them to their 
senses; he and I and the mate, and Joam Barros, the 
boatswain--a Portuguese--went among them pistols in hand, 
entreating, cursing, threatening. 'Think of the plunder 
in this hold! Will you abandon it without an effort to 
save it? What think you are your chances for life in open 
boats in this sea? The schooner lies protected here; the 
weather will moderate presently, and we may then be able 
to slide her off.' But reason as we would the cowardly 
dogs refused to listen. They had broached a spirit-cask 
aft, and passed the liquor along the decks whilst they 
hoisted the pinnace out of the hold and got the other 
boats over. The drink maddened, yet left them wild with 
fear too. They would not wait to come at the treasure in 
the run--the fools believed the ship would tumble to 
pieces as she stood--but entered the forecastle and the 
officers' cabins, and routed about for whatever money and 
trinkets they might stuff into their pockets without loss 
of time; and then provisioning the boats, they called to 
us to join them, but we said, No, on which they ran the 
boats down to the water, tumbled into them, and pulled 
away round the point of ice. We lost sight of them then, 
and I have little doubt that they all perished shortly 
afterwards."

He ceased. I was anxious to hear more.

"You had been six months on the ice when the stupor fell 
upon you?"

"Ay, about six months. The ice gathered about us and 
built us in. I recollect it was three days after we 
stranded that, going on deck, I saw the bay (as I term 
it) filled with ice. We drew up several plans to escape, 
but none satisfied us. Besides, sir, we had a treasure on 
board which we had risked our necks to get, and we were 
prepared to go on imperilling our lives to save it. 'Twas 
natural. We had a great store of coal forwards and 
amidships, for we had faced the Horn in coming and knew 
what we had to expect in returning. We were also richly 
stocked with provisions and drink of all sorts. There 
were but four of us, and we dealt with what we had as if 
we designed it should last us fifty years. But the cold 
was frightful; it was not in flesh and blood to stand it. 
One day--we had been locked up about five months--Mendoza 
said he would get upon the rocks and take a view of the 
sea. He did not return. The others were too weak to seek 
him, and they were half blind besides; I went, but the 
ice was full of caves and hollows, and the like, and I 
could not find him, nor could I look for him long, the 
cold being the hand of death itself up there. The time 
went by; Trentanore went stone-blind, and I had to put 
food and drink into his hands that he might live. A week 
before the stupor came upon me I went on deck and saw 
Joam Barros leaning at the rail. I called to him, but he 
made no reply. I 	approached and looked at him, and found 
him frozen. Then happened what I have told you. We were 
in the cabin, the mate seated at the table, waiting for 
me to lead and support him to the cook-room, for he was 
so weak he could scarce carry his weight. A sudden 
faintness seized me, and I sank down upon the bench 
opposite him, letting my head fall upon my arms. His cry 
startled me--I looked up--saw him as I have said; but the 
cabin then turned black, my head sank again, and I 
remember no more.

He paused and then cried in French, "That is all! They 
are dead--Jules Tassard lives! The devil is loyal to his 
own!" and with that he lay back and burst into laughter.

"And this," said I, "was in seventeen hundred and fifty-
three?"

"Yes," he answered; "and this is eighteen hundred and 
one--eight-and-forty years afterwards, hey?" and he 
laughed out again. "I've talked so much," said he, "that, 
d'ye know, I think another nap will do me good. What 
coals have you found in the ship?"

I told him.

"Good," he cried; "we can keep ourselves warm for some 
time to come, anyhow."

And so saying, he pulled a rug up to his nose and shut 
his eyes.

CHAPTER XVI.

I HEAR OF A GREAT TREASURE.

I lighted a pipe and sat pondering his story a little 
while. There was no doubt he had given me the exact truth 
so far as his relation of it went. As it was certain then 
that the Boca del Dragon (as she was called) had been 
fixed in the ice for hard upon fifty years, the 
conclusion I formed was that she had been blown by some 
hundreds of leagues further south than the point to which 
the Laughing Mary had been driven; that this ice in which 
she was entangled was not then drifting northwards, but 
was in the grasp of some polar current that trended it 
south-easterly; that in due course it was carried to the 
Antarctic main of ice, where it lay compacted; after 
which, through stress of weather or by the agency of a 
particular temperature, a great mass of it broke away and 
started on that northward course which bergs of all 
magnitude take when they are ruptured from the frozen 
continent.

This theory may be disputed, but it matters not. My 
business is to relate what befell me; if I do my share 
honestly the candid reader will not, I believe, quarrel 
with me for not being able to explain everything as I go 
along.

The Frenchman snored, and I sat considering him. The 
impression he had made upon me was not agreeable. To be 
sure he had suffered heavily, and there was something not 
displeasing in the spirit he discovered in telling the 
story--a spirit I am unable to communicate, as it owed 
everything to French vivacity largely spiced with 
devilment, and to sudden turns and ejaculations beyond 
the capacity of my pen to imitate. But a professional 
fierceness ran through it too; it was as if he had licked 
his chops when he talked of dismissing the captured ship 
with her people confined below and her cabin on fire. He 
had been as good as dead for nearly fifty years, yet he 
brought with him into life exactly the same qualities he 
had carried with him in his exit. Hence I never now hear 
that expression taken from the Latin, "Of the dead speak 
nothing unless good," without despising it as an unworthy 
concession to sentiment; for I have not the least doubt 
in my mind that, spite of deathbed repentances and all 
the horrors which crowd upon the imagination of a bad man 
in his last moments--I say I have not the least doubt 
that of every hundred persons who die, ninety-nine of 
them, could they be raised from the dead, no matter how 
many years or even centuries they might have lain in 
their graves, would exhibit their original natures, and 
pursue exactly the same courses which made them loved or 
scorned or feared or neglected before, which brought them 
to the gallows or which qualified them to die in peace 
with faces brightening to the opening heavens. If Nero 
did not again fire Rome he would be equal to crimes as 
great, and desire nothing better than the opportunity for 
them. Caesar would again be the tyrant, and the sword of 
Brutus would once more fulfil its mission. Richard III 
would emerge in his winding-sheet with the same 
humpbacked character in which he had expired, the Queen 
of Scots return warm to her gallantries, and the Stuarts 
repeat those blunders and crimes which terminated in the 
headsman or in banishment.

But these are my thoughts of to-day; I was of another 
temper whilst I sat smoking and listening to the snoring 
of Monsieur Jules Tassard. Now that I had a companion 
should I be able to escape from this horrid situation? He 
had spoken of chests of silver--where was the treasure? 
Zzz in the run? There might be booty enough in the hold 
to make a great man, a fine gentleman of me ashore. It 
would be a noble ending to an amazing adventure to come 
off with as much money as would render me independent for 
life, and enable me to turn my back for ever upon the 
hardest calling to which the destiny of man can wed him.

Of such were the fancies which hurried through my mind, 
coupled with visitations of awe and wonder when I cast my 
eyes upon the sleeping Frenchman. After all it was 
ridiculous that I should feel mortified because he 
supposed me crazy in the matter of dates. How was it 
conceivable he should believe he had lain lifeless for 
eight-and-forty years? I knew a man who after a terrible 
adventure had slept three days and nights without 
stirring; the assurances of the people about him failed 
to persuade him that he had slumbered so long, and it was 
not until he walked abroad and met a hundred evidences as 
to the passage of the time during which he had slept that 
he allowed himself to become convinced.

I wished to see how the schooner lay and what change had 
befallen the ice in the night, and went on deck. It was 
blowing a whole gale of wind from the north-west. Inside 
the ship, with the hatches on, and protected moreover by 
the sides of the hollow in which she lay, it would have 
been impossible to guess at the weight of the gale, 
though all along I had supposed it to be storming pretty 
fiercely by the thunderous humming noise which resounded 
in the cabin. But I had no notion that so great a wind 
raged till I gained the deck and heard the prodigious 
bellowing of it above the rocks. The sky was one great 
cloud of slate, and there was no flying darkness or 
yellow scud to give the least movement of life to it. The 
sea was swelling very furiously, and I could divine its 
tempestuous character by clouds of spray which sped like 
volumes of steam under the sullen dusky heavens high over 
the mastheads. The schooner lay with a list of about 
fifteen degrees and her bows high cocked. I looked over 
the stern and saw that the ice had sunk there, and that 
there were twenty great rents and yawning seams where I 
had before noticed but one. A vast block of ice had 
fallen on the starboard side, and lay so close on the 
quarter that I could have sprung on to it. No other 
marked changes were observable, but there were a hundred 
sounds to assure me that neither the sea nor the gale was 
wholly wasting its strength upon this crystal territory, 
and that if I thought proper to climb the slope and 
expose myself to the wind, I should behold a face of ice 
somewhat different from what I had before gazed upon.

But the bitter cold held me in dread, and there was no 
need besides for me to take a survey. All that concerned 
me lay in the hollow in which the schooner was frozen; 
but so far as the slopes were concerned I could see 
nothing to render me uneasy. The declivities were 
gradual, and there was little fear of even a violent 
convulsion throwing the ice upon us. The danger lay 
below, under the keel; if the ice split, then down would 
drop the ship and stave herself, or if she escaped that 
peril she must be so wedged as to render the least 
further pressure of the ice against her sides 
destructive.

I was about to go below again, when my eye was taken by 
the two figures lying upon the deck. No dead bodies ever 
looked more dead, but after the wondrous restoration of 
the Frenchman I could not view their forms without 
fancying that they were but as he had been, and that if 
they were carried to the furnace and treated with brandy 
and rubbing and the like they might be brought to. Full 
of thoughts concerning them I stepped into the cabin, 
and, going to the cook-room, found Tassard still heavily 
sleeping. The coal in the corner was low, and as it 
wanted an hour of dinner-time I took the lanthorn and a 
bucket and went into the forepeak, and after several 
journeys stocked up a good provision of coal in the 
corner. I made noise enough, but Tassard slept on. When 
this was ended I boiled some water to cleanse myself, and 
then set about getting the dinner ready.

The going into the forepeak had put my mind upon the 
treasure, which, as I had gathered from the Frenchman's 
narrative, was somewhere hidden in the schooner--in the 
run, as doubted not; I mean in the hold, under the 
lazarette, for you will recollect that, being weary and 
half-perished with the cold, I had turned my back on that 
dark part after having looked into the powder-room. All 
the time I was fetching the coal and dressing the dinner 
my imagination was on fire with fancies of the treasure 
in this ship. The Frenchman had told me that they had 
been well enough pleased with their hauls in the South 
Sea to resolve them upon heading round the Horn for their 
haunt, wherever it might be, in the Spanish main; and I 
had too good an understanding of the character of pirates 
to believe that they would have quitted a rich hunting-
field before they had handsomely lined their pockets. 
What, then, was the treasure in the run, if indeed it 
were there? I recalled a dozen stories of the doings of 
the buccaneers, not to speak of the famous Acapulco ship 
taken by Anson a little before the year in which the Boca 
del Dragon was fishing in those waters, and I feasted my 
fancy with all sorts of sparkling dreams of gold and 
silver and precious stones, of the costly ecclesiastical 
furniture of New Spain, of which methought I found a hint 
in that silver crucifix in the cabin, of rings, sword-
hilts, watches, buckles, snuff-boxes, and the like. Lord! 
thought I, that this island were of good honest mother 
earth instead of ice, that we might bury the pirate's 
booty if we could not save the ship, and make a princely 
mine of its grave, ready for the mattock should we 
survive to fetch it!

I was mechanically stirring the saucepan full of broth I 
had prepared, lost in these golden thoughts, when the 
Frenchman suddenly sat up on his mattress.

"Ha!" cried he, sniffing vigorously, "I smell something 
good--something I am ready for. There is no physic like 
sleep," and with that he stretched out his arms with a 
great yawn, then rose very agilely, kicking the clothes 
and mattress on one side and bringing a bench close to 
the furnace. "What time is it, sir?"

"Something after twelve by the captain's watch," said I, 
pulling it out and looking at it. "But 'tis guesswork 
time."

"The captain's watch?" cried he, with a short loud laugh. 
"You are modest, Mr."

"Paul Rodney," said I, seeing he stopped for my name.

"Yes, modest, Mr. Paul Rodney. That watch is yours, sir; 
and you mean it shall be yours."

"Well, Mr. Tassard," said I, colouring in spite of 
myself, though he could not witness the change in such a 
light as that, "I felt this, that if I left the watch in 
the captain's pocket it was bound to go to the bottom 
ultimately, and--"

"Bah!" he interrupted, with a violent flourish of the 
hand. "Let us save the schooner, if possible; there will 
be more than one watch for your pocket, more than one 
doubloon for your purse. Meanwhile, to dinner! My stupor 
has converted me into an empty hogshead, and it will take 
me a fortnight of hard eating to feel that I have broken 
my fast."

With a blow of the chopper he struck off a lump of the 
frozen wine, and then fell to, eating perhaps as a man 
might be expected to eat who had not had a meal for 
eight-and-forty years.

"There are two of your companions on deck," said I.

He started.

"Frozen," I continued; "they'll be the bodies of 
Trentanove and Joam Barros?"

He nodded.

"There is no reason why they should be deader than you 
were. It is true that Barros has been on deck whilst you 
have been below; but after you pass a certain degree of 
cold fiercer rigours cannot signify."

"What do you propose?" said he, looking at me oddly.

"Why, that we should carry them to the fire and rub them, 
and bring them to if we can." 

"Why?"

I was staggered by his indifference, for I had believed 
he would have shown himself very eager to restore his old 
companions and shipmates to life. I was searching for an 
answer to his strange inquiry, "Why?" when he proceeded--

"First of all, my friend Trentanove was stone-blind, and 
Barros nearly blind. Unless you could return them their 
sight with their life they would curse you for disturbing 
them. Better the blackness of death than the blackness of 
life."

"There is the body of the captain," said I.

He grinned.

"Let them sleep," said he. "Do you know that they are 
cutthroats, who would reward your kindness with the 
poniard that you might not tell tales against them or 
claim a share of the treasure in this vessel? Of all 
desperate villains I never met the like of Barros. He 
loved blood even better than money. He'd quench his 
thirst before an engagement with gunpowder mixed in 
brandy. I once saw him choke a man--tut! he is very well-
-leave him to his repose."

In the glow of the fire he looked uncommonly sardonic and 
wild, with his long beard, bald head, flowing hair, 
shaggy brows, and little cunning eyes, which seemed in 
their smallness to share in his grin, and yet did not; 
and though to be sure he was some one to talk to and to 
make plans with for our escape, yet I felt that if he 
were to fall into a stupor again it would not be my hands 
that should chafe him into being.

"You knew those men in life," said I. "If the others are 
of the same pattern as the Portuguese, by all means let 
them lie frozen."

"But, my friend," said he, calling me mon ami, which I 
translate, "that's not it, either. Do you know the value 
of the booty in this schooner?"

I answered, No; how was I to know it? I had met with 
nothing but wearing apparel, and some pieces of money, 
and a few watches in the forecastle. He knit his brows 
with a fierce suspicious gleam in his eyes.

"But you have searched the vessel?" he cried.

"I have searched, as you call it--that is, I have crawled 
through the hold as far as the powder-room."

"And further aft?" "No, not further aft." His countenance 
cleared.

"You scared me!" said he, fetching a deep breath. "I was 
afraid that some one had been beforehand with us. But it 
is not conceivable. No! we shall look for it presently, 
and we shall find it."

"Find what, Mr. Tassard?" said I

He held up the fingers of his right hand: "One, two, 
three, four, five--five chests of plate and money; one, 
two, three--three cases of virgin silver in ingots; one 
chest of gold ingots; one case of jewellery. In all--" he 
paused to enter into a calculation, moving his lips 
briskly as he whispered to himself--" between ninety and 
one hundred thousand pounds of your English money."

I stifled the amazement his words excited, and said 
coldly, "You must have met with some rich ships."

"We did well," he answered. "My memory is good "--he 
counted afresh on his fingers--" ten cases in all. 
Fortune is a strange wench, Mr. Rodney. Who would think 
of finding her lodged on an iceberg? Now bring those 
others up there to life, and you make us five. What would 
follow, think you--what but this?"

He raised his beard and stroked his throat with the sharp 
of his hand. Then, swallowing a great draught of brandy, 
he rose and stopped to listen.

"It is blowing hard," said he; "the harder the better. I 
want to see this island knocked into bergs. Every sea is 
as good as a pickaxe. Hark! there are those crackling 
noises I used to hear before I fell into a stupor.	Where 
do you sleep?"

I told him.

"My berth is the third," said he. "I wish to smoke, and 
will fetch my pipe."

He took the lanthorn and went aft, acting as if he had 
left that berth an hour ago, and I understood in the face 
of this ready recurrence of his memory how impossible it 
would be ever to make him believe he had been practically 
lifeless since the year 1753. When he returned he had on 
a hairy cap, with large covers for the ears, and a big 
flap behind that fell to below his collar, and was almost 
as long as his hair. He wanted but a couple of muskets 
and an umbrella to closely resemble Robinson Crusoe, as 
he is made to figure in most of the cuts I have seen. He 
produced a pipe of the Dutch pattern, with a bowl carved 
into a death's head, and great enough to hold a cake of 
tobacco. The skull might have been a child's for size, 
and though it was dyed with tobacco juice and the top 
blackened, with the live coals which had been held to it, 
it was so finely carved that it looked very ghastly and 
terribly real in his hand as he sat puffing at it.

He eyed me steadfastly whilst he smoked, as if critically 
taking stock of me, and presently said, "The devil hath 
an odd way of ordering matters. What particular merit 
have I that I should have been the one hit upon by you to 
thaw? Had you brought any one of the others to, he would 
have advised you against reviving us, and so I should 
have passed out of my frosty sleep into death as quietly, 
ay, and as painlessly, as that puff of smoke melts into 
clear air."

"Then perhaps you do not think you are obliged by my 
awakening you to life?" said I.

"Yes, my friend, I am much obliged," said he with 
vivacity. "Any fool can die. To live is the true business 
of life. Mark what you do: you make me know tobacco 
again, you enable me to eat and drink, and these things 
are pleasures which were denied me in that cabin there. 
You recall me to the enjoyment of my gains, nay, of more-
-of my own and the gains of our company.. You make me, as 
you make yourself, a rich man; the world opens before me 
anew, and very brilliantly--to be sure, I am obliged."

"The world is certainly before you, as it is before me," 
said I, "but that's all; we have got to get there."

He flourished his pipe, and 'twas like the flight of 
Death through the gloomy fire-tinctured air.

"That must come. We are two. Yesterday you were one, and 
I can understand your despair. But these arms--stupor has 
not wasted so much as the dark line of a finger-nail of 
muscle. You too are no girl. Courage! between us we shall 
manage. How long is it since you sailed from England?"

"We sailed last month a year from the Thames for Callao."

"And what is the news?" said he, taking a pannikin of 
wine from the oven and sipping it. "Last year! 'Tis 
twelve years since I was in Paris and three years since 
we had news from Europe."

News! thought I; to tell this man the news, as he calls 
it, would oblige me to travel over fifty years of 
history.

"Why, Mr. Tassard," said I, "there's plenty of things 
happening, you know, for Europe's full of kings and 
queens, and two or more of them are nearly always at 
loggerheads; but sailors--merchantmen like myself--hear 
little of what goes on. We know the name of our own 
sovereign and what wages sailors are getting; that's 
about it, sir. In fact, at this moment I could tell you 
more about Chile and Peru than England and France."

"Is there war between our nations?" he asked. "Yes," said 
I. "Ha!" he cried, "I doubt if this time you will come 
off so easily. You have good men in Hawke and Anson; but 
zzz Jonquiare and St. George, hey? and Magon, Cellie, 
Letenduer!"

He shook his head knowingly, and an air of complacency, 
that would be indescribable but for the word French, 
overspread his face. I knew the name of Jonquiare as an 
admiral who had fought us in 1748 or thereabouts; of the 
others I had never heard. But I held my peace, which I 
suppose he put down to good manners, for he changed the 
subject by asking if I was married. I answered, No, and 
inquired if he had a wife.

"A wife!" cried he; "what should a man of my calling do 
with a wife? No, no! we gather such flowers as we want 
off the high seas, and wear them till the perfume palls. 
They prove stubborn though; our graces are not always 
relished. Trentanove reckoned himself the most killing 
among us, and by St. Barnabas he proved so, for three 
ladies--passengers of beauty and distinction--slew 
themselves for his sake. Do you understand me? They 
preferred the knife to his addresses. I," said he, 
tapping his breast and grinning, "was always fortunate."

He looked a complete satyr as he thus spoke, with his 
hairy cap, grey beard, long nose, little cunning shining 
eyes, and broken fangs; and a chill of disgust came upon 
me. But I had already seen enough of him to understand 
that he was a man of a very formidable character, and 
that he had awakened after eight-and-forty years of 
insensibility as real a pirate at heart as ever he had 
been, and that it therefore behoved me to deal very 
warily with him, and above all not to let him suspect my 
thoughts. Yet he seemed a person superior to the calling 
he had adopted. His English was good, and his 
articulation indicated a quality of breeding. Whilst he 
smoked his pipe out he told me a story of an action 
between this schooner and a French Indiaman. I will not 
repeat it; it was mere butchery, with features of 
diabolic cruelty; but what affected me more violently 
than the horrors of the narrative was his cool and easy 
recital of his own and the deeds of his companions. You 
saw that he had no more conscience in him than the 
death's head he puffed at, and that his idea was there 
was no true greatness to be met with out of enormity. 
Well, thought I, as I stepped to the corner for some 
coal, if I was afraid of this creature when he was dead, 
to what condition of mind shall I be reduced by his being 
alive?

CHAPTER XVII.

THE TREASURE.

When his pipe was out he rose and made several strides 
about the cook-room, then took the lanthorn, and entering 
the cabin stood awhile surveying the place.

"So this would have been my coffin but for you, Mr. 
Rodney?" said he. "I was in good company, though," 
pointing over his shoulder at the crucifix with his 
thumb. "Lord, how the rogues prayed and cursed in this 
same cabin! In fine weather, and when all was well, the 
sharks in our wake had more religion than they; but the 
instant they were in danger, down they tumbled upon their 
quivering knees, and if heaven was twice as big as it is, 
it could not have held saints enough for those varlets to 
petition."

"You were nearly all Spaniards?"

"Ay; the worst class of men a ship could enter these seas 
with. But for our calling they are the fittest of all the 
nations in the world; better even than the Portuguese, 
and with truer trade instincts than the trained mulatto--
nimbler artists in roguery than ever a one of them I 
despise their superstition, but they are the better 
pirates for it. They carry it as a man might a feather 
bed; it enables them to fall soft. D'ye take me?" He gave 
one of his short loud laughs, and said, "I hope this 
slope won't increase. The angle's stiff enough as it is. 
'Twill be like living on the roof of a house. I have a 
mind to see how she lies. What d'ye say, Mr. Rodney? 
shall I venture into the open?"

"Why not?" said I. "You can move briskly. You have as 
much life as ever you had."

"Let's go, then," he exclaimed, and climbing the ladder 
he pushed open the companion-door and stepped on to the 
deck. I followed with but little solicitude, as you may 
suppose, as to what might attend his exposure. 

Zzz though it was broken into

The blast of the gale downwards eddying zzz dartings by 
the rocks, made him bawl out with the sting of it, and 
for some moments he could think of nothing but the cold, 
stamping the deck, and beating his hands.

"Ha!" cried he, grinning to the smart of his cheeks, 
"this is not the cook-room, eh? Great thunder, you will 
not have it that this ice has been drifting north? Why, 
man, 'tis icier by twenty degrees than when we were first 
locked up."

"I hope not," said I; "and I think not. Your blood 
doesn't course strong yet, and you are fresh from the 
furnace. Besides, it is blowing a bitter cold gale. Look 
at that sky and listen to the thunder of the sea!"

The commotion was indeed terribly uproarious. The spume 
as before was blowing in clouds of snow over the ice, and 
fled in very startling flashes of whiteness under the 
livid drapery of the sky. The wind itself sounded like 
the prolonged echo of a discharge of monster ordnance, 
and it screeched and whistled hideously where it struck 
the peaks and edges of the cliffs and swept through the 
schooner's masts. The rending noises of the ice in all 
directions were distinct and fearful. The Frenchman 
looked about him with consternation, and to my surprise 
crossed himself.

"May the blessed Virgin preserve us!" he said. "Do you 
say we have drifted north? If this is not the very heart 
of the south pole you shall persuade me we are on the 
equator."

"It cannot storm too terribly for us, as you just now 
said," I replied. "I want this island to go to pieces."

As I said this a solid pillar of ice just beyond the brow 
of the hill on the starboard side was dislodged or blown 
down; it fell with a mighty crash, and filled the air 
with crystal splinters. Tassard started back with a faint 
cry of "Bon Dieu!"

"Judge for yourself how the ship lies," said I; "this is 
freezing work."

He went aft and looked over the stern, then walked to the 
larboard rail and peered over the side.

"Is there ice beyond that opening?" he asked, pointing 
over the taffrail.

"No," I answered; "that goes to the sea. There is a low 
cliff beyond. Mark that cloud of white; it is the spray 
hurled athwart the mouth of this hollow."

"Good," he mumbled with his teeth chattering. "The change 
is marvellous. There was ice for a quarter of a mile 
where that slope ends. 'Tis too cold to converse here."

"There are your companions," said I, pointing to the two 
bodies lying a little distance before the mainmast.

He marched up to them, and exclaimed, "Yes, this is 
Trentanove and that is Barros. Both were blind, but they 
are blinder now. Would they thank you to arouse them out 
of their comfortable sleep and force them to feel as I 
do, this cold to which they are now as insensible as I 
was? By heaven, for my part, I can stand it no longer;" 
and with that he ran briskly to the hatch.

I followed him to the cook-room and he crept so close to 
the furnace that I thought he had a mind to roast 
himself. No doubt, newly come to life as he was, the cold 
hurt him more than me, and maybe the tide of those animal 
spirits which had in his former existence furnished him 
with a brute courage had not yet flowed full to his mind; 
still I questioned even in his heyday if there had ever 
been much more than the swashbuckler in him, which 
opinion, however, could only increase the anxiety his 
companionship was like to cause me by obliging me to 
understand that I must prepare myself for treachery, and 
on no account whatever to suppose for a moment that he 
was capable of the least degree of gratitude or was to be 
swerved from any design he might form by considerations 
of my claim upon him as his preserver.

It is among the wonders of human nature that antagonisms 
should be found to flourish under such conditions of 
hopelessness, misery, and anguish as make those who 
languish under them the most pitiful wretches under God's 
eye. But so it has been, so it is, so it will ever be. 
Two men in an open boat at sea, their lips frothing with 
thirst, their eyes burning with famine, shall fall upon 
each other and fight to the death. Two men on an island, 
two miserable castaways whose dismal end can only be a 
matter of a week or two, eye each other morosely, give 
each other injurious words, break away and sullenly live, 
each man by himself, on opposite sides of their desert 
prison. Beasts do not act thus, nor birds, nor reptiles--
only man. What was in the Frenchman Tassard's mind I do 
not know; in mine was fear, dislike, profound distrust, a 
great uneasiness, albeit we were alone, we were brothers 
in affliction and distress, as completely sundered from 
the world to which we belonged as if we lay stranded in 
the icy moon, speaking in the same tongue and believing 
in the same God!

The heat comforted him presently, and he put a lump of 
wine into the oven to melt, and this comforted him also.

"I can converse now," said he. "Perhaps after all the 
danger lies more in the imagination than in the fact. But 
it is a hideous naked scene, and needs no such colouring 
as the roaring of wind, the rushing of seas, and the 
crashing falls of masses of ice to render it frightful."

"You tell me," said I, "that when you fell asleep'--I 
would sometimes express his frozen state thus--" there 
was a quarter of a mile of ice beyond the schooner's 
stern."

"At least a quarter of a mile," he answered. "Day after 
day it would be built up till it came to a face of that 
extent."

I thought to myself if it has taken forty-eight years of 
the wear and tear of storm and surge to extinguish a 
quarter of a mile, how long a time must elapse before 
this island splits up? But then I reflected that during 
the greater part of those years this seat of ice had been 
stuck very low south where the cold was so extreme as to 
make it defy dissolution; that since then, it was come 
away from the main and stealing north, so that what might 
have taken thirty years to accomplish in seventy degrees 
of south latitude, might be performed in a day on the 
parallel of sixty degrees in the summer season in these 
seas.

Tassard continued speaking with the pannikin in his hand, 
and his eyes shut as if to get the picture of the 
schooner's position fair before his mind's vision: "There 
was a quarter of a mile of ice beyond the ship: I have it 
very plain in my sight: it was a great muddle of 
hillocks, for the ice pressed thick and hard, and raised 
us and vomited up peaks and rocks to the squeeze. Suppose 
I have been asleep a week?"	

Here he opened his eyes and gazed at me.

"Well?" said I.

"I say," he continued in the tone of one easily excited 
into passion, "a week. It wilt not have been more. It is 
impossible. Never mind about your eighteen hundred and 
one," showing his fangs in a sarcastic grin; "a week is 
long enough, friend. Then this is what I mean to say: 
that the breaking away of a quarter of a mile of ice in a 
week is fine work, full of grand promise: the next 
wrench--which might come now as I speak, or to-morrow, or 
in a week--the next wrench may bring away the rock on 
which we are lodged, and the rest is a matter of 
patience--which we can afford, hey? for we are but two--
there is plenty of meat and liquor and the reward 
afterwards is a princely independence, Mr. Paul Rodney."

I was struck with the notion of the bed of ice on which 
the schooner lay going afloat, and said, "Are sea and 
wind to be helped, think you? If the block on which we 
lie could be detached, it might beat a bit against its 
parent stock, but would not unite again. The schooner's 
canvas might be made to help it along--though suppose it 
capsized!"

"We must consider," said he;" there is no need to hurry. 
When the wind falls we will survey the ice."

He warmed himself afresh, and after remaining silent with 
the air of one turning many thoughts over in his mind, he 
suddenly cried, "D'ye know I have a mind to view the 
plate and money below. What say you?"

His little eyes seemed to sparkle with suspicion as he 
directed them at me. I was confident he suspected I had 
lied in saying I knew nothing of this treasure and that 
he wanted to see if I had meddled with those chests. One 
of the penalties attached to a man being forced to keep 
the company of liars is, he himself is never believed by 
them. I answered instantly, "Certainly; I should like to 
see this wonderful booty. It is right that we should find 
out at once if it is there; for supposing it vanished we 
should be no better than madmen to sit talking here of 
the fine lives we shall live if ever we get home."

He picked up the lanthorn and said, "I must go to your 
cabin: it was the captain's. The keys of the chests 
should be in one of his boxes."

He marched off, and was so long gone that I was almost of 
belief he had tumbled down in a fit. However, I had made 
up my mind to act a very wary part; and particularly 
never to let him think I distrusted him, and so I would 
not go to see what he was about. But what I did was this: 
the arms-room was next door: I lighted a candle, entered 
it, and swiftly armed myself with a sort of dagger, a 
kind of boarding-knife, a very murderous little two-edged 
sword, the blade about seven inches long, and the haft of 
brass. There were some fifty of these weapons, and I took 
the first that came to my hand and dropped it into the 
deep side pocket of my coat and returned to the cook-
room. It was not that I was afraid of going unarmed with 
this man into the hold: there was no more danger to me 
there than here: should he ever design to despatch me, 
one place was the same as another, for the dead above 
could not testify: there were no witnesses in this white 
and desolate kingdom. What resolved me to go armed was 
the fear that should the treasure be missing--and who was 
to swear that the schooner had never been visited once in 
eight-and-forty years?--the Frenchman, who was persuaded 
his stupor had not lasted above a week, and who was 
doubtless satisfied the chests were in the hold down to 
the period when he lost recollection, would suspect me of 
foul play, and in the barbarous rage of a pirate fall 
upon and endeavour to kill me. Thus you will see that I 
had no very high opinion of the morals and character of 
the man I had given life to; and indeed, after I had 
armed myself and was seated again before the furnace, I 
felt extremely melancholy, and underwent the severest 
dejection of spirits that had yet visited me, fearing 
that my humanity had achieved nothing more than to bring 
me into the society of a devil, who would prove a fixed 
source of anxiety and misery to me. Was it conceivable 
that the others should be worse than, or even as bad as, 
this creature? His hair showed him hoary in vice. The 
Italian was a handsome man, and let him have been as 
profligate as he would, as cruel and fierce a pirate as 
Tassard had painted him, he would at all events have 
proved a sightly companion, and harmless as being blind, 
though to be sure for that reason of no use to me. Yet 
though his blindness would have made him a burden, I had 
rather have thawed him into life than the Frenchman.

The mere thought of feeling under an obligation to arm 
myself filled me with such vindictive passions that I 
protest as I sat alone waiting for him I felt as if it 
were a duty I owed myself to return him to the condition 
in which I found him, which was to be easily contrived by 
my binding him in his sleep and dragging him to the deck 
and leaving him to stupefy alongside the body of the 
giant Joam Barros. "Peace!" cried I to myself with a 
shiver; "villain that thou art to harbour such thoughts! 
Thou art a hundred-fold worse than the wretch against 
whom Satan is setting thee plotting to think thus 
vilely." I gulped down this holus of conscience with the 
help of a draught of wine, and it did me good. Lord, how 
dangerous is loneliness to a man! Depend upon it, your 
seeker after solitude is only hunting for the road that 
leads to Bedlam.

It might be that he was long because of having to seek 
for the keys; but my own conviction was that he found the 
keys easily and stayed to rummage the boxes for such 
jewels and articles of value as he might there find. I 
think he was gone near half an hour; he then returned to 
the cook-house, saying briefly, "I have the keys," and 
jingling them, and after warming himself, said, "Let us 
go."

I was moving towards the forecastle. "Not that way for 
the run," cried he. "Is there a hatch aft?" I asked. 
"Certainly; in the lazarette."

"I wish I had known that," said I; "I should have been 
spared a stifling scramble over the casks and raffle 
forwards."

He led the way, and coming to the trap hatch that 
conducted to the lazarette, he pulled it open and we 
descended. He held the lanthorn and threw the light 
around him and said, "Ay, there are plenty of stores 
here. We reckoned upon provisions for twelve months, and 
we were seventy of a crew."

A strange figure he looked, just touched by the yellow 
candle-light, and standing out upon the blackness like 
some vision of a distempered fancy, in his hair-cap and 
flaps, and with his long nose and beard and little eyes 
shining as he rolled them here and there. We made our way 
over the casks, bales, and the like, till we were right 
aft, and here there was a small clear space of deck in 
which lay a hatch. This he lifted by its ring, and down 
through the aperture did he drop, I following. The 
lazarette deck came so low that we had to squat when 
still or move upon our knees. At the foremost end of this 
division of the ship, so far as it was possible for my 
eyes to pierce the darkness--for it seems that this run 
went clear to the forehold bulkhead, that is to say, 
under the powder-room, to where the forehold began--were 
stowed the spare sails, ropes for gear, and a great 
variety of furniture for the equipment of a ship's yards 
and masts. But immediately under the hatch stood several 
small chests and cases, painted black, stowed side by 
side so that they could not shift.

Tassard ran his eye over them, counting. "Right!" cried 
he; "hold the lanthorn, Mr. Rodney."

I took the light from him, and, pulling the keys from his 
pocket, he fell to trying them at the lock of the first 
chest. One fitted; the bolt shot with a hard click, like 
cocking a trigger, and he raised the lid. The chest was 
full, of silver money. I picked up a couple of the coins, 
and, bringing them to the candle, perceived them to be 
Spanish pieces of eight. The money was tarnished, yet it 
reflected a sort of dull metallic light. The Frenchman 
grasped a handful and dropped them, as though, like a 
child, he loved to hear the chink the pieces made as they 
fell.

"There's a brave pocketful there," said I. "Tut!" cried 
he, scornfully. "'Tis a mere show of money; resolve it 
into gold and it becomes a lean bit of plunder. This we 
got from the Conquistador, it was all she had in this 
way; destined for some monastery, I recollect; but 
disappointment is good for holy fathers; it makes them 
more earnest in their devotions and keeps their paunches 
from swelling."

He let fall the lid of the chest, which locked itself, 
and then, after a short trial of the keys, opened the one 
beside it. This was stored to the top with what I took to 
be pigs of lead, and when he pulled out one and bade me 
feel the weight of it I still thought it was lead, until 
he told me it was virgin silver.

"This was good booty!" cried he, taking the lanthorn and 
swinging it over the blocks of metal. "It would have been 
missed but for me. Our men had found it in the hold of 
the buccaneer in a chest half as deep again as this, and 
thought it to be a case of marmalade, for there were two 
layers of boxes of marmalade stowed on top. I routed them 
out and found those pretty bricks of ore snug beneath. I 
believe Mendoza made the value of the two chests--silver 
though it be--to be equal to six thousand pounds of your 
money."

The next chest he opened was filled with jewellery of 
various kinds, the fruits, I daresay, of a dozen 
pillages, for not only had this pirate robbed honest 
traders but a picaroon as well that had also plundered in 
her turn another of her own kidney; so that, as I say, 
this chest of jewellery might represent the property of 
the passengers of as many as a dozen vessels. It was as 
if the contents of the shop of a jeweller who was at once 
a goldsmith and a silversmith had been emptied into this 
chest; you could scarce name an ornament that was not 
here--watches, snuff-boxes, buckles, bracelets, pounce-
boxes, vinaigrettes, earrings, crucifixes, stars for the 
hair, necklaces--but the list grows tiresome; in silver 
and gold, but chiefly in gold; all shot together and 
lying scramble fashion, as if they had been potatoes.

"This is a fine sight," said Tassard, poring upon the 
sparkling mass with falcon nose and ravenous eyes. "Here 
is a dainty little watch. Fifty guineas would not 
purchase it in London or Paris. Where is the white breast 
upon which that cross there once glittered? Ha! the 
perfume has faded," bringing a vinaigrette to his hawk's 
bill; "the Soul is gone; the body is the immortal part in 
this case. Now, my friend, talk to me of the patient 
drudgery of honourable life after this," collecting the 
chests, so to say, to my view with a sweep of the hand; 
"men will break their hearts for a hundred livres ashore 
and be hanged for the price of a pinchbeck dial. When I 
was in London I saw five men carted to the gallows; one 
had forged, one was a highwayman--I forget the others' 
businesses; but I recollect on inquiring the value of 
their baggings--that for which they were hanged--it did 
not amount to four guineas a man. Look at this!" He swept 
his great hand again over the chests. "Is not here 
something worth going to the scaffold for?"

His bosom swelled, his eyes sparkled, and he made as if 
to strike a heroic posture, but this he could not 
contrive on his hams.

I was thunder-struck, as you will suppose, by the sight 
of all this treasure, and looked and stared like a fool, 
as if I was in a dream. I had never seen so many fine 
things before, and indulged in the most extravagant 
fancies of their worth. Here and there in the glittering 
huddle my eye lighted on an object that was a hundred, 
perhaps two hundred, years old: a cup very choicely 
wrought, that may have been in a family for several 
generations; a watch of a curious figure, and the like. 
There might have been the pickings of the cabins, trunks, 
and portmanteaux of a hundred opulent men and women in 
this chest, and, so far as I could judge from what lay 
atop, the people plundered represented several 
nationalities.

But there were other chests and cases to explore--ten in 
all: two of these were filled with silver money, a third 
with plate, a fourth with English, French, Spanish, and 
Portugal coins in gold; but the one over which Tassard 
hung longest in a transport that held him dumb, was the 
smallest of all, and this was packed with gold in bars. 
The stuff had the appearance of mouldy yellow soap, and 
having no sparkle nor variety did not affect me as the 
jewellery had, though in value this chest came near to 
being worth as much as all the others put together. The 
fixed transported posture of the pirate, his little 
shining eyes intent upon the bars, his form in the 
candle-light looking like a sketch of a strange, wildly-
apparelled man done in phosphorus, coupled with the loom 
of the black chests, the sense of our desolation, the 
folly of our enjoyment of the sight of the treasure in 
the face of our pitiable and dismal plight, the 
melancholy storming of the wind, moaning like the rumble 
of thunder heard in a vault, and above all the feeling of 
unreality inspired by the thought of my companion having 
lain for eight-and-forty years as good as dead, combined 
to render the scene so startlingly impressive that it 
remains at this hour painted as vividly upon the eye of 
memory as if I had come from it five minutes ago.

"So!" cried the Frenchman suddenly, slamming the lid of 
the chest. "'Tis all here! Now then to the business of 
considering how to come off with it."

He thrust the keys in his pocket, and we returned to the 
cook-room.

VOL. II. THE FROZEN PIRATE.

CHAPTER I.

WE TALK OVER OUR SITUATION.

That night, as afterwards, Tassard occupied the berth 
that he was used to sleep in before he was frozen. 
Although I had not then the least fear that he would 
attempt any malignant tricks with me whilst we remained 
in this posture, the feeling that he lay in the berth 
next but one to mine made me uneasy in spite of my 
reasoning; and I was so nervous as to silently shoot a 
great iron bolt, so that it would have been impossible to 
enter without beating the door in.

In sober truth, the sight of the treasure had put a sort 
of fever into my imagination, of the heat and effects of 
which I was not completely sensible until I was alone in 
my cabin and swinging in the darkness. That the value of 
what I had seen came to ninety or a hundred thousand 
pounds of our money I could not doubt; and I will not 
deny that my fancy was greatly excited by thinking of it. 
But there was something else. Suppose we should have the 
happiness to escape with this treasure, then I was 
perfectly certain the Frenchman would come between me and 
my share of it. This apprehension threading my heated 
thoughts of the gold and silver kept me restless during 
the greater part of the night, and I also held my brains 
on the stretch with devices for saving ourselves and the 
treasure; yet I could not satisfy my mind that anything 
was to be done unless Nature herself assisted us in 
freeing the schooner.

However, as it happened, the gale roared for a whole 
week, and the cold was so frightful and the air so 
charged with spray and hail that we were forced to lie 
close below with the hatches on for our lives. It was 
true Cape Horn weather, with seas as high as cliffs, and 
a westering tendency in the wind that flung sheets of 
water through the ravine, which must have quickly filled 
the hollow and built us up in ice to the height of the 
rails but for the strong slope down which the water 
rushed as fast as it was hurled.

I never needed to peep an inch beyond the companion-way 
to view the sky; nor for the matter of that was there 
ever any occasion to leave the cabin to guess at the 
weather, for the perpetual thunder of it echoed strong in 
every part of the vessel below, and the whole fabric was 
constantly shivering to the blows of the falls of water 
on her decks.

At first the Frenchman and I would sit in the greatest 
fear imaginable, constantly expecting some mighty 
disaster, such as the rending of the ice under our keel 
and our being swallowed up, or the coming together of the 
slopes in such a manner as to crush the ship, or the fall 
upon her of ice weighty enough to beat her flat; though 
perhaps this we least feared, for unless the storm 
changed the whole face of the cliffs, there was no ice in 
our neighbourhood to serve us in that way. But as the 
time slipped by and nothing worse happened than one sharp 
movement only in the vessel, following the heels of a 
great noise like a cannon discharged just outside; though 
this movement scared us nearly out of our senses, and 
held us in a manner dumbfounded for the rest of the day; 
I say, the time passing and nothing more terrifying than 
what I have related happening, we took heart and waited 
with some courage and patience for the gale to break, 
never doubting that we should find a wonderful change 
when we surveyed the scene from the heights.

We lived well, sparing ourselves in nothing that the 
vessel contained, the abundance rendering stint idle; the 
Frenchman cooked, for he was a better hand than I at that 
work, and provided several relishable sea-pies, cakes, 
and broths. As for liquor, there was enough on board to 
drown the pair of us twenty times over: wines of France, 
Spain, Portugal, very choice fine brandy, rum in plenty, 
such variety indeed as enabled us to brew a different 
kind of punch every day in the seven. But we were much 
more careful with the coal, and spared it to the utmost 
by burning the hammocks, bedding, and chests that lay in 
the forecastle; that is to say, we burnt these things by 
degrees, the stock being excessive, and by judiciously 
mixing them with coal and wood, they made good warming 
fires, and as tinder lasted long too.

We occupied one morning in thoroughly overhauling the 
forecastle for such articles of value as the sailors had 
dropped or forgotten in their flight; but found much less 
than I had expected from the sight of the money and other 
things on the deck. There was little in this way to be 
found in the cabins: I mean in the captain's cabin which 
I used, and the one next it that had been the mate's, for 
of course I did not search Mr. Tassard's berth. But 
though it was quite likely that the seamen had plundered 
these cabins before they left the ship, I was also sure 
that the Frenchman had made a clean sweep of what they 
had overlooked when he pretended to search for the keys 
of the treasure-chests; and this suspicion I seemed to 
find confirmed by the appearance of the captain's boxes. 
One of these boxes contained books, papers, a telescope, 
some nautical instruments, and the like. I looked at the 
books and the papers, in the hope of finding something to 
read; but they were written and printed in the Spanish 
tongue, and might have been Hebrew for all the good they 
were to me.

Our life was extraordinarily dismal and melancholy, how 
much so I am unable to express. It was just the same as 
living in a dungeon. There was no crevice for the 
daylight to shine through, and had there been we must 
have closed it to keep the cold out. Nothing could be 
imagined more gloomy to the spirits than the perpetual 
night of the schooner's interior. The furnace, it is true 
would, when it flamed heartily, throw a brightness about 
it; but often it sank into redness that did but empurple 
the gloom. We burned but one candle at a time, and its 
light was very small, so that our time was spent chiefly 
in a sullen twilight. Added to all this was my dislike of 
my companion. He would half fuddle himself with liquor, 
and in that condition hiccup out twenty kinds of 
villainous yarns of piracy, murder, and bloodshed, 
boasting of the number of persons he had despatched, of 
his system of torturing prisoners to make them confess 
what they had concealed and where. He would drivel about 
his amours, of the style in which he lived when ashore, 
and the like; but whether reticence had grown into a 
habit too strong even for drink to break down, he never 
once gave me so much as a hint touching his youth and 
early life. He was completely a Frenchman in his vanity, 
and you would have thought him entirely odious and 
detestable for this excessive quality in him alone. 
Methinks I see him now, sitting before me, with one half 
of him reflecting the light of the furnace, his little 
eyes twinkling with a cruel merriment of wine, telling me 
a lying story of the adoration of a noble, queenly-
looking captive for his person--some lovely Spanish court 
lady whom, with others, they had taken out of a small 
frigate bound to old Spain. To test her sincerity he 
offered to procure her liberty at the first opportunity 
that offered; but she wept, raved, tore her hair. No; 
without her Jules life would be unendurable; her husband 
her country, her king, nay, even the allurements and 
sparkle of the court, had grown disgusting; and so on, 
and so on. And I think a monkey would have burst into 
laughter to see the baldheaded old satyr beat his bosom, 
flourish his arms, ogle, languish, and simper, all with a 
cutthroat expression, too, soften his voice, and act in 
short as if he was not telling me as big a lie as was 
ever related on shipboard.

It naturally rendered me very melancholy to reflect that 
I had restored this old villain to life, and I protest it 
was a continuous shock to such religious feelings as I 
had managed to preserve to reflect that what had been as 
good as nearly half a century of death had done nothing 
for this elderly rogue's morals. It entered my head once 
to believe that if I could succeed in getting him to 
believe he had lain frozen for eight-and-forty years, he 
might be seized with a fright (for he was a white-livered 
creature), and in some directions mend, and so come to a 
sense of the service I had done him, of which he appeared 
wholly insensible, and qualify me to rid my mind of the 
fears which I entertained concerning our association, 
should we manage to escape with the treasure. I said to 
him bluntly--not a propos (to use his own lingo) of 
anything we were talking about,--

'' 'Tis odd, Mr. Tassard, you should doubt my assurance 
that this is the year eighteen hundred and one."

He stared, grinned, and said, "Do you think so?"

"Well," said I, "perhaps it is not so odd after all; but 
you should suffer me to have as good an idea of the 
passage of time as yourself. You cannot tell me how long 
your stupor lasted."

"Two days if you like!" he interrupted vehemently. "Why 
more? Why longer than a day? How do you know that I had 
sunk into the condition in which you found me longer than 
an hour or two when you landed? How do you know, hey? How 
do you know?" and he snapped his fingers.

"I know by the date you name and by the year that this 
is," said I defiantly.

He uttered a coarse French expression and added, "You 
want to prove that I have been insensible for forty-eight 
years."

"It is the fact," said I.

He looked so wild and fierce that I drew myself erect 
ready for him if he should fall upon me. Then, slowly 
wagging his head whilst the anger in his face softened 
out, he said, "Who reigns in France now?"

I said, "There is no king; he was beheaded."

"What was his name?" said he. 

"Louis the Sixteenth," I answered.

"Ha!" cried he, with an arch sneer; "Louis the Sixteenth, 
hey?	Are you sure it wasn't Louis the Seventeenth?"

"He is dead too."

"This is news, Mr. Rodney," said he scornfully.

"Whilst you have been here," said I, "many mighty changes 
have happened. France has produced as great a general and 
as dangerous a villain as the world ever beheld; his name 
is Buonaparte."

He shrugged his shoulders with an air of mocking pity.

"Who is your king?" he asked.

"George the Third," said I; "God bless him!"

"So--George and Louis--Louis and George. I see how it is. 
Stick to your dates, sir.	But, my friend, never set up as 
a schoolmaster."

This sally seemed to delight him, and he burst into a 
loud laugh.

"Eighteen hundred and one!" he cried. "A man I knew once 
lost ten thousand livres at a coup. What do you think 
happened? They settled in him here;" he patted his belly: 
"he went about bragging to everybody that he was made of 
money, and was nicknamed the walking bourse. One day he 
asked a friend to dine with him; when the bill was 
presented he felt in his pockets, and exclaimed, 'I left 
my purse at home. No matter; there is plenty here;' with 
which he seized a table-knife and ripped himself open. 
Eighteen hundred and one, d'ye call it? Zzz So! But let 
it be your secret, my friend. The world will not love you 
for making it fifty years older than it is."

It was ridiculous to attempt to combat such obstinacy as 
this, and as the subject produced nothing but excitement 
and irritation, I dropped it and meddled with it no more, 
leaving him to his conviction that I was cracked in this 
one particular. In fact, it was a matter of no 
consequence at all; what came very much closer home was 
the business of our deliverance, and over this we talked 
long and very earnestly, for he forgot to be mean and 
fierce and boastful, and I to dislike and fear him, when 
we spoke of getting away with our treasure, and returning 
to our native home.

For hour after hour would we go on plotting and planning 
and scheming, stepping about the cook-house in our 
earnestness, and entirely engrossed with the topic. His 
contention was that if we were to save the money and 
plate, we must save the schooner.

"Unless we build a vessel," said I.

"Out of what?"

"Out of this schooner."

"Are you a carpenter?" said he.

"No," I replied.

"Neither am I," said he. "It's possible we might contrive 
such a structure as would enable us to save our lives; 
but we have not the skill to produce a vessel big enough 
to contain those chests as well as ourselves, and the 
stores we should require to take. Besides, do you know 
there is no labour more fatiguing than knocking such a 
craft as this to pieces?"

zzz This I very well believed, and it was truer of such a 
vessel as the Boca del Dragon that was a perfect bed of 
timber, and, like the Laughing Mary, built as if she was 
to keep the seas for three hundred years.

"And supposing," said he," after infinite toil we 
succeeded in breaking up as much of her as we wanted, 
what appliances have we for reshaping the curved timbers? 
and where are we to lay the keel? Labour as we might, the 
cold would prove too much for us. No, Mr. Rodney, to save 
the treasure, ay, and to save ourselves, we must save the 
ship. Let us put our minds to that."

In this way we would reason, and I confess he talked very 
sensibly, taking very practical views, and indicating 
difficulties which my more ardent and imaginative nature 
might have been blind to till they immovably confronted 
me, and rendered days of labour useless. But how was the 
ship to be saved? Was it possible to force Nature's hand; 
in other words, to anticipate our release by the 
dissolution of the ice? We were both agreed that this was 
the winter season in these seas, though he instantly grew 
sulky if I mentioned the month, for he was as certain I 
was as mad in this, as in the year, and he would eye me 
very malignantly if I persisted in calling it July. But, 
as I have said, we were both agreed that the summer was 
to come, and though we could not swear that the ice was 
floating northwards, we had a right to believe so, in 
spite of the fierceness of the cold, this being the trick 
of all these frozen estates when they fetch to the 
heights under which we lay; and we would ask each other 
whether we should let our hands and minds rest idle and 
wait to see what the summer would do for us, or essay to 
launch the schooner.

"If," said he, "we wait for the ice to break up it may 
break us up too."

"Yes," said I; "but how are we to put the vessel out of 
the ice in which she is seated to above the garboard 
streak? Waiting is odious and intolerable work; but my 
own conviction is, nothing is to be done till the sun 
comes this way, and the ice crumbles into bergs. The 
island is leagues long, and vanishes in the south; but it 
is wasting fast in the north, and when this gale is done 
I shall expect to see twenty bergs where it was before 
all compact."

As you may guess, our long conversations left us without 
plans, bitter as was our need, and vigorous as were our 
efforts to strike upon some likely scheme. However, if 
they achieved no more, they served to beguile the time, 
and what was better yet, they took my companion's mind 
off his nauseous and revolting recollections, so that it 
was only now and again when he had drained a full bowl, 
and his little eyes danced in their thick-shagged caves, 
that he regaled me with his memories of murder, rapine, 
plank-walking, hanging, treacheries of all kinds, and 
cruelties too barbarous for belief.

CHAPTER II.

WE	TAKE A VIEW OF THE ICE.

For seven days the gale raged with uncommon violence: it 
then broke, and this brought us into the first week of 
August. The wind fell in the night, and I was awakened by 
the silence, which you will not think strange if you 
consider how used were my ears to the fierce seething and 
strong bellowing of the blast. I lay listening, believing 
that it had only veered, and that it would come on again 
in gusts and guns; but the stillness continued, and there 
was no sound whatever, saving the noises of the ice, 
which broke upon the air like slow answers from batteries 
near and distant, half whose cannons have been silenced.

I slept again, and when I awoke it was half-past nine 
o'clock in the morning. The Frenchman was snoring 
lustily. I went on deck before entering the cook-house, 
and had like to have been blinded by the astonishing 
brilliance of the sunshine upon the ice and snow. All the 
wind was gone. The air was exquisitely frosty and sharp. 
But there was a heavy sound coming from the sea which 
gave me to expect the sight of a strong swell. The sky 
was a clear blue, and there was no cloud on as much of 
its face as showed betwixt the brows of the slopes.

The schooner was a most wonderful picture of drooping 
icicles. A more beautiful and radiant sight you could not 
figure. From every rope, from the yards forward, from the 
rails, from whatever water could run in a stream, hung 
glorious ice-pendants of prismatic splendour. No snow had 
fallen to frost the surfaces, and every pendant was as 
pure and polished as cut-glass and reflected a hundred 
brilliant colours. 

The water hurled over and on the schooner	had frozen 
upon the masts, rigging, and decks, and as this ice, like 
the pendants, was very sparklingly bright, it gave back 
all the hues of the sunbeam, so that, stepping from the 
darkness of the cabin into this effulgent scene, you 
might easily have persuaded yourself that before you 
stood the fabric of a ship fashioned out of a rainbow.

My attention, however, was quickly withdrawn from this 
shining spectacle by the appearance of the starboard 
cliff over against our quarter. The whole shoulder of it 
had broken away and I could just catch a view of the 
horizon of the sea from the deck by stretching my figure. 
The sight of the ocean showed me that the breakage had 
been prodigious, for to have come to that prospect 
before, I should have had to climb to the height of the 
main lower masthead. No other marked or noteworthy change 
did I detect from the deck; but on stepping to the 
larboard side to peer over I spied a split in the ice 
that reached from the very margin of the ravine, I mean 
to that end of it where it terminated in a cliff, to past 
the bows of the schooner by at least four times her own 
length.

I returned to the cook-room and went about the old 
business of lighting the fire and preparing the 
breakfast--this job by an understanding between the 
Frenchman and me, falling to him who was first out of 
bed--and in about twenty minutes Tassard arrived.

"The wind is gone." said he.

"Yes," I replied, "it is a bright still morning. I have 
been on deck. There has been a great fall of ice close 
to."

"Does it block us?"

"No, on the contrary, it clears the way to the sea; the 
ocean is now visible from the deck. Not that it mends our 
case," I added. "But there is a great rent in the ice 
that puts a fancy into my head; I'll speak of it later 
after a closer look."

The breakfast was ready, and we fell to in a hurry, the 
Frenchman gobbling like a hog in his eagerness to make an 
end. When we were finished he wrapped himself up in three 
or four coats and cloaks, warming the under ones before 
folding them about him, and completing his preparations 
for the excursion by swallowing half a pint of raw 
brandy. I bade him arm himself with a short-headed spear 
to save his neck; and thus equipped we went on deck.

He stood stock-still with his eyes shut on emerging 
through the hatch, crying out with a number of French 
oaths that he had been struck blind. This I did not 
believe, though I readily supposed that the glare made 
his eyeballs smart so as to cause him a good deal of 
agony. Indeed, all along I had been surprised that he 
should have found his sight so easily after having sat in 
blindness for forty-eight years, and it was not wonderful 
that the amazing brilliance on deck, smiting his sight on 
a sudden, should have caused him to cry out as if he had 
lost the use of his eyes for ever.

I waited patiently, and in about ten minutes he was able 
to look about him, and then it was not long before he 
could see without pain. He stood a minute gazing at the 
glories upon the rigging, and in that piercing light I 
noticed the unwholesome colour of his face. His cap hid 
the scar, and nothing of his countenance was to be seen 
but the cheeks, eyes, and nose; he was much more wrinkled 
than I had supposed, and methought the spirit of cruelty 
lay visible in every line. I had never seen eyes so full 
of cunning and treachery--so expressive, I should say, of 
these qualities; yet they were no bigger than mere 
punctures. I was sensible of a momentary fear of the man-
-not, let me say, an emotion of cowardicce--but a sort of 
mixture of alarm and awe, such as a ghost might inspire. 
This I put down to the searching light in which I watched 
him for a moment or two, an irradiation subtle enough to 
give the sharpest form to expression, to exquisitely 
define every meaning that was distinguishable in his 
graveyard physiognomy. I left him to stare and judge for 
himself of the posture in which the long hard gale had 
put the schooner and stepped over to the two bodies. They 
were shrouded in ice from head to foot as though they had 
each man been packed in a glass case cunningly wrought to 
their shapes. Their faces were hid by the crystal masks. 
Tassard joined me.

"Small chance for your friends now," said I, "even if you 
were agreeable to my proposal to attempt to revive them."

"So!" cried he, touching the body of the mate with his 
foot; "and this is the end of the irresistible 
Trentanove! for what conquests has Death robed him so 
bravely? See, the colours shine in him like fifty 
different kinds of ribbands. Poor fellow! he could not 
curl his moustachios now, though the loveliest eyes in 
Europe were fixed in passionate admiration on him. He'll 
never slit another throat, nor hiccup Petrarch over a 
goblet nor remonstrate with me on my humanity. Shall we 
toss the bodies over the side?"

"They are your friends," said I; "do as you please."

"But we must empty their pockets first. Business before 
sentiment, Mr. Rodney."

He stirred the figure again with his foot. "Well, 
presently," said he, "this armour will want the hatchet. 
Now, my friend, to view the work of the gale."

The increased heel of the ship brought the larboard fore-
channel low, and we stepped without difficulty from it on 
to the ice. The rent or fissure that I have before spoken 
of went very deep; it was nearly two feet wide in places, 
but, though the light poured brilliantly upon it, I could 
see no bottom.

"If only such another split as this would happen t'other 
side," said the Frenchman, "I believe this block would go 
adrift."

"Well," said I, after musing a little whilst I ran my eye 
over the hollows, "I'll tell you what was in my mind just 
now. There is a great quantity of gunpowder in the hold; 
ten or a dozen barrels. By dropping large parcels of it 
into the crevices on the right there, and firing it with 
slow-matches--"

He interrupted me with a cry: "By St. Paul, you have it! 
What crevices have you?"

We walked briskly round the vessel, and all about her 
beam and starboard quarter I found, in addition to the 
seams I had before noticed, many great cracks and 
fissures, caused no doubt by the fall of the shoulder of 
the slope. I pushed on further yet, going down the 
ravine, as I have called it, until I came to the edge; 
and here I looked down from a height of some twelve or 
fourteen feet--so greatly had the ice sunk or been 
changed by the weather--upon the ocean. I called to 
Tassard. He approached warily. I believe he feared I 
might be tempted to give him a friendly shove over the 
edge.

"Observe this hollow," said I; "the split there goes down 
to the water, and you may take it that the block is 
wholly disconnected on that side. 

Now look at the face of the ice," said I, pointing to the 
starboard or right-hand side; "that crack goes as far as 
the vessel's quarter, and the weakness is carried on to 
past the bows by the other rents. Mr. Tassard, if we 
could burst this body of ice by an explosion from its 
moorings ahead of the bowsprit, where it is all too 
compact, this cradle with the schooner in it will go free 
of the parent body."

He answered promptly, "Yes; it is the one and only plan. 
That crack to starboard is like telling us what to do. It 
is well you came here. We should not have seen it from 
the top. This valley runs steep. You must expect no more 
than the surface to be liberated, for the foot of the 
cliff will go deep."

"I desire no more."

"Will the ship stand such a launch, supposing we bring it 
about?" said he.

I responded with one of his own shrugs, and said, 
"Nothing is certain. We have one of two courses to 
choose: to venture this launch, or stay till the ice 
breaks up, and take our chance of floating or of being 
smashed."

"You are right," he exclaimed. "Here is an opportunity. 
If we wait, bergs may gather about this point and build 
us in. As to this island dissolving, we are yet to know 
which way 'tis heading. Suppose it should be travelling 
south, hey!"

He struck the ice with his spear, and we toiled up the 
slippery rocks with difficulty to the ship. We walked 
past the bows to the distance of the vessel's length. 
Here were many deep holes and cracks, and as if we were 
to be taught how these came about, even whilst we were 
viewing them an ear-splitting crash of noise happened 
within twenty fathoms of us, a rock many tons in weight 
rolled over, and left a black gulf behind it.

The Frenchman started, muttered, and crossed himself. 
"Holy Virgin!" he cried, rolling his eyes. "Let us return 
to the schooner. We shall be swallowed up here."

I own I was not a little terrified myself by the sudden 
loud blast and the thunder of the uprooted rock, and the 
sight of the huge black rent; but I meant to view the 
scene from the top, and to consider how best to dispose 
of the powder in the cracks, and said, "There is nothing 
to be done on board; skulking below will not deliver us 
or preserve the treasure. Here are several fissures big 
enough to receive barrels of gunpowder. See, Mr. Tassard, 
as they stand they cover the whole width of the hollow."

And I proceeded to give him my ideas as to lowering, 
fixing the barrels, and the like. He nodded his head, and 
said, "Yes, very good; yes, it will do," and so on; but 
was too scared in his heart, I believe, to see my full 
meaning. He was perpetually moving, as if he feared the 
ice would split under his feet, and his eyes travelled 
over the face of the rocks with every manifestation of 
alarm in their expression. I wondered how so poor a 
creature should ever have had stomach enough to serve as 
a pirate; no doubt his spirit had been enfeebled by his 
long sleep; but then it is also true that the greatest 
bullies and most bloodthirsty rogues prove themselves 
despicable curs under conditions which make no demand 
upon their temper or their lust for plunder.

He would have returned to the ship, had I encouraged him, 
but on seeing me start to climb to the brow he followed. 
The prospect disappointed me. I had expected to witness a 
variety of surprising changes; but southward the scene 
was scarce altered. It was a wonderfully fair morning, 
the sky clear from sea-line to sea-line, and of a very 
soft blue, the ocean of a like hue, with a high swell 
running, that was a majestic undulation even from the 
height at which I surveyed it. The sun stood over the ice 
in the north-east, and the dazzle kept me weeping, so 
intolerable was the effulgence. Half of the delicate 
architecture that had enriched the slopes and surfaces 
that way was swept down, and ice lay piled in places to 
an elevation of many feet, where before it had been flat 
or hollow. However, there was no question but that the 
gale had played havoc with the north extremity of the 
island: I counted no less than twenty bergs floating off 
the main, and it was quite likely the sea was crowded 
beyond, though my sight could not travel so far.

However, when I came to look close, and to recollect the 
features of the shore as they showed when I first landed, 
I found some vital changes near at hand. Where my haven 
had been the ice had given way and left a gap half a mile 
broad and a hundred feet deep. The fall on the schooner's 
starboard quarter was very heavy, and the ice was split 
in all directions; and in parts was so loose that a point 
of cliff hard upon the sea rocked with the swell. When 
Tassard came to a stand he looked about him north and 
south, shading his eyes with his hand, and then swearing 
very savagely in French, he cried out in English, freely 
employing oaths as he spoke,--

"Why, here's as much ice as there was before I fell 
asleep! See yonder!" pointing to the south. "It dies out 
in the distance. If it does not join the pole there, may 
the devil rise before me as I speak. Thunder and fury! I 
had hoped to see it shrivelled to an ordinary berg!"

"What! in a week?" cried I, as if I believed his stupor 
had not lasted longer.

He returned no answer and gaped about him full of 
consternation and passion.

"And are we to wait for our deliverance till this 
continent breaks up?" he bawled. "The day of judgment 
will be a thing of the past by that time. Travelling 
north! 'sdeath!" he roared, his mouth full of the 
expletives of his day, French and English. "Who but a 
madman could suppose that this ice is not as fixed as the 
antarctic circle to which it is moored? Why, six months 
ago it was no bigger than it is now!" And he sent a 
furious terrified gaze into the white solitudes vanishing 
in azure faintness in the southwest.

It was not a thing to reason upon. I was as much 
disappointed as he by the trifling changes the gale had 
made, and my heart felt very heavy at the sight of the 
great field disappearing in the south. The bergs in the 
north signified little. It is true they indicated 
demolition, but demolition so slow as to be worthless to 
us. It was not to be questioned that the island was 
proceeding north, but at what rate? Here, perhaps, might 
be a frozen crescent of forty or fifty leagues: and at 
what speed, appreciable enough to be of the least 
consequence to our calculations, should such a body 
travel?

I looked at the Frenchman.

"This must decide us!" said I. "We must fix on one of two 
courses: endeavour to launch the ship by blowing up the 
ice, or turn to and rig up the best arrangement we can 
contrive and put to sea.

"Yes," he answered, scowling as he darted his enraged 
eyes over the ice. "Better set a slow-match in the 
magazine and drink ourselves senseless, and so blow 
ourselves to hell, than linger here in the hope that this 
continent will dissolve and release us. Where's Mendoza's 
body?"

I stared about me, and then pointing to the huge gap the 
ice had made, answered, "It was there. Where it is now I 
know not."

He shrugged his shoulders, took another view of the ice 
and the ocean, and then cried impatiently, "Let us 
return! the powder-barrels must have the first chance." 
And he made for the schooner, savagely striking the ice 
with his spear and growling curses to himself as he 
ploughed and climbed and jumped his way along.

CHAPTER III.

A MERRY EVENING.

Bv the time we had reached the bottom of the hollow 
Tassard was blowing like a bellows with the uncommon 
exertion; and swearing that he felt the cold penetrating 
his bones, and that he should be stupefied again if he 
did not mind, he climbed into the ship and disappeared. I 
loved him so little that secretly I very heartily wished 
that nature would make away with him: I mean that 
something it would be impossible in me to lay to my 
conscience should befall him, as becoming comatose again, 
and so lying like one dead. Assuredly in such a case it 
was not this hand that would have wasted a drop of brandy 
in returning an evil, white-livered, hectoring old rascal 
to a life that smelled foully with him and the like of 
him.

It was so still a day that the cold did not try me 
sorely: there was vitality if not warmth in the light of 
the sun, and I was heated with clambering. So I stayed a 
full half-hour after my companion had vanished examining 
the ice about the schooner; which careful inspection 
repaid me to the extent of giving me to see that if by 
blasts of gunpowder I could succeed in rupturing the ice 
ahead of the schooner's bows there was a very good chance 
of the mass on which she lay going adrift. Yet I will not 
deny that though I recognized this business of 
dislocation as our only chance--for I could see little or 
nothing to be done in the way of building a boat proper 
to swim and ply--I foreboded a dismal issue to our 
adventure, even should we succeed in separating this 
block from the main. In fine, what I feared was that the 
weight of the schooner would overset the ice and drown 
her and us.

I entered the ship and found Tassard roasting himself in 
the cook-house.

"How melancholy is this gloom," said I, "after the 
glorious white sunshine!"

"Yes," said he, "but it is warm. That is enough for me. 
Curse the cold, say I. It robs a man of all spirit. To 
grapple with this rigour one should have fed all one's 
life on blubber. I defy a man to be brave when he is 
half-frozen. I feel a match for any three men now; but on 
the heights a flea would have made me run."

He pulled a pot from the bricks and filled his pannikin.

"I have been surveying the ice," said I, drawing to the 
furnace, "and have very little doubt that if we wisely 
bestow the powder in great quantities we shall succeed in 
dislocating the bed on which we are lying."

"Good!" he cried. "But after?" said I. "What?"

"As much of this bed as may be dislodged will not be 
deep: icebergs, as of course you know, capsize in 
consequence of their becoming top-heavy by the wasting of 
the bulk that is submerged. This block will make but a 
small berg should we liberate it, and I very much fear 
that the weight of the schooner will overset it the 
instant we are launched."

"Body of Moses!" he cried angrily, knitting his brows, 
whereby he stretched the scar to half its usual width, 
"what's to be done, then?"

"She is a full ship," said I, "and weighty. If the 
liberated ice be thin she may sit up on it and keep it 
under. We have a right to hope in that direction, 
perhaps. Yet there is another consideration. She may leak 
like a sieve!"

"Why?" he exclaimed. "She took the ice smoothly; she has 
not been strained; she was as tight as a bottle before 
she stranded; the coating of ice will have cherished her; 
and a stout ship like this does not suffer from six 
months of lying up!"

Six months, thought I!

"Well, it may be as you say; but if she leaks it will not 
be in our four arms to keep her free."

He exclaimed hotly, "Mr. Rodney, if we are to escape, we 
must venture something. To stay here means death in the 
end. I am persuaded that this ice is joined with some 
vast main body far south and that it does not move. What 
is there, then, to wait for? There is promise in your 
gunpowder proposal. If she capsizes then the devil will 
get his own." And with a savage flourish of the pannikin 
he put it to his lips and drained it.

His sullen determination that we should stand or fall by 
my scheme was not very useful to me. I had looked for 
some shrewdness in him, some capacity of originating and 
weighing ideas; but I found he could do little more than 
curse and swagger and ply his zzz can, in which he found 
most of his anecdotes and recollections and not a little 
of his courage. I pulled out my watch, as I must call it, 
and observed that it was hard upon one o'clock.

"'Tis lucky," said he, eying the watch greedily and 
coming to it away from the great subject of our 
deliverance as though the sight of the fine gold thing 
with its jewelled letter extinguished every other thought 
in him, "that you removed that watch from Mendoza. But he 
will have carried other good things to the bottom with 
him, I fear."

"His flask and tobacco-box I took away," said I. "He had 
nothing of consequence besides."

"They must go into the common-chest," cried he; "'tis 
share and share, you know."

"Ay," said I, "but what I found on Mendoza is mine by the 
highest right under heaven. If I had not taken the 
things, they would now be at the bottom of the sea."

"What of that?" cried he savagely. "If we had not 
plundered the galleon, she might have been wrecked and 
taken all she had down with her. Yet should such a 
consideration hinder a fair division as between us--
between you who had nothing to do with the pillage and me 
who risked my life in it?"

I said, "Very well; be it as you say," appearing to 
consent, for there was something truly absurd in an 
altercation about a few guineas' worth of booty in the 
face of our melancholy and most perilous situation; 
though it not only enabled me to send a deeper glance 
into the mind of this man than I had yet been able to 
manage, but made me understand a reason for the bloody 
and furious quarrels which have again and again arisen 
among persons standing on the brink of eternity, to whom 
a cup of drink or the sight of a ship had been more 
precious than the contents of the Bank of England.

I set about getting the dinner.

"Whilst you are at that work," cried he, starting up, 
"I'll overhaul the pockets of the bodies on deck;" and, 
picking up a chopper, away he went, and I heard him 
cursing in his native tongue as he stumbled to the 
companion-ladder through the darkness in the cabin.

His rapacity was beyond credence. There was an immense 
treasure in the hold, yet he could not leave the pockets 
of the two poor wretches on deck alone. I did not envy 
him his task. The frozen figures would bear a deal of 
hammering; and besides he had to work in the cold. Ah, 
thought I with a groan, I should have left him to make 
one of them!

I had finished my dinner by the time he arrived. He 
produced the watch I had taken from and returned to the 
mate's pocket when I had searched him for a tinder-box; 
also a gold snuff-box set with diamonds, and a few 
Spanish pieces in gold. On seeing these things I 
remembered that I had found some rings and money in his 
pockets whilst overhauling him for means to obtain fire; 
but I held my peace.

"Should not we have been imbeciles to sacrifice these 
beauties;" he cried, viewing the watch and snuff-box with 
a rapturous grin.

"They were hard to come at, I expect." 

"No," he answered, pocketing them and turning to a piece 
of beef in the oven. "I knocked away the ice and after a 
little wrenching got at the pockets. But poor Trentanove! 
d'ye know, his nose came away with the mask of ice! He is 
no longer lovely to the sight!" He broke into a guffaw, 
then stuffed his mouth full and talked in the intervals 
of chewing. 

"There was nothing worth taking on Barros. They are both 
overboard."

"Overboard I" I cried. 

"Why, yes," said he.

"They are no good on deck. I stood them against the rail, 
then tipped them over."

This was an illustration of his strength I did not much 
relish.

"I doubt if I could have lifted Barros," said I. "Not 
you!" he exclaimed, running his eye over me. "A dead 
Dutchman would have the weight of a fairy alongside 
Barros."

"Well, Mr. Tassard," said I, "since you are so strong, 
you will be very useful to our scheme. There is much to 
be done."

"Give me a sketch of your plans, that I may understand 
you," he exclaimed, continuing to eat very heartily.

"First of all," said I, "we shall have to break the 
powder-barrels out of the magazine and hoist them on 
deck. There are tackles, I suppose?"

"You should be able to find what you want among the 
boatswain's stores in the run," he replied.

"There are some splits wide enough to receive a whole 
barrel of powder," said I. "I counted four such yawns all 
happily lying in a line athwart the ice past the bows. I 
propose to sink these barrels twenty feet deep, where 
they must hang

from a piece of spar across the aperture."

He nodded.

"Have you any slow matches aboard?" 

"Plenty among the gunner's stores," he replied. 

"There are but you and me," said I; "these operations 
will take time. We must mind not to be blown up by one 
barrel whilst we are suspending another. We shall have to 
lower the barrels with their matches on fire and they 
must be timed to burn an hour.

"Ay, certainly, at least an hour," he exclaimed. "Two 
hours would be better."

"Well, that must depend upon the number of parcels of 
matches we meet with. There will be a good many mines to 
spring, and one must not explode before another. 'Tis the 
united force of the several blasts which we must reckon 
on. The contents of at least four more barrels of powder 
we must distribute amongst the other chinks and splits in 
such parcels as they will be able to receive."

"And then?"

"And then," said I, "we must await the explosion and 
trust to the mercy of Heaven to help us."

He made a hideous face, as if this was a sort of talk to 
nauseate him, and said, "Do you propose that we should 
remain on board or watch the effects from a distance?"

"Why, remain on board of course," I answered. "Suppose 
the mines liberated the ice on which the schooner lies 
and it floated away, what should we, watching at a 
distance, do?"

"True," cried he, "but it is cursed perilous. The 
explosion might blow the ship up."

"No, it will not do that. We shall be bad engineers if we 
bring such a thing about. The danger will be--providing 
the schooner is released--in her capsizing, as I have 
before pointed out."

"Enough!" cried he, charging his pannikin for the third 
time. "We must chance her capsizing."

"If I had a crew at my back," said I, "I would carry an 
anchor and cable to the shoulder of the cliff at the end 
of the slope to hold the ship if she swam. I would also 
put a quantity of provisions on the ice along with 
materials for making us shelter and the whole of the 
stock of coal, so that we could go on supporting life 
here if the schooner capsized."

"Then," said he, "you would remain ashore during the 
explosion?"

"Most certainly. But as all these preparations would mean 
a degree of labour impracticable by us two men, I am for 
the bold venture--prepare and fire the mines, return to 
the ship, and leave the rest to Providence."

He made another ugly face and indulged himself in a piece 
of profanity that was inexpressibly disgusting and mean 
in the mouth of a man who was used to cross himself when 
alarmed and swear by the saints. But perhaps he knew, 
even better than I, how little he had to expect from 
Providence. He filled his pipe, exclaiming that when he 
had smoked it out we should fall to work.

Now that I had settled a plan I was eager to put it into 
practice--hot and wild indeed with the impatience and 
hope of the castaway animated with the dream of 
recovering his liberty and preserving his life; and I was 
the more anxious to set about the business at once; on 
account of the weather being fair and still, for if it 
came on to zzz blow a stormy wind again we should be 
forced as before under hatches. But I had to wait for the 
Frenchman to empty his pipe. He was so complete a 
sensualist that I believe nothing short of terror could 
have forced him to shorten the period of a pleasure by a 
second of time. He went on puffing so deliberately, with 
such leisurely enjoyment of the flavour of the smoke, 
that I expected to see him fall asleep; and my patience 
becoming exhausted I jumped up; but by this time his bowl 
held nothing but black ashes.

"Now," cried he, "to work."

And he rose with a prodigious yawn and seized the 
lanthorn. Our first business was to hunt among the 
boatswain's stores in the run for tackles to hoist the 
powder-barrels up with. There was a good collection, as 
might have been expected in a pirate whose commerce lay 
in slinging goods from other ships' holds into her own; 
but the ropes were frozen as hard as iron, to remedy 
which we carried an armful to the cook-house, and left 
the tackles to lie and soften. We also conveyed to the 
cook-house a quantity of ratline stuff--a thin rope used 
for making of the steps in the shroud ladders; this being 
a line that would exactly serve to suspend the smaller 
parcels of powder in the splits. Before touching the 
powder-barrels we put a lighted candle into the bull's-
eye lamp over the door and removed the lanthorn to a safe 
distance. Tassard was perfectly well acquainted with the 
contents of this storeroom, and on my asking for the 
matches put his hand on one of several bags of them. They 
varied in length some being six inches and some making a 
big coil. There was nothing for it but to sample and test 
them, and this I told Tassard could be done that evening. 
The main hatch was just forward of the gun-room bulkhead; 
we seized a handspike apiece and went to work to prize 
the cover open. It was desperate tough labour; as bad as 
trying to open an oyster with a soft blade. The Frenchman 
broke out into many strange, old-fashioned oaths in his 
own tongue, imagining the hatch to be frozen; but though 
I don't doubt the frost had something to do with it, its 
obstinacy was mainly owing to time, that had soldered it, 
so to speak, with the stubbornness that eight-and-forty 
years will communicate to a fixture which ice has 
cherished and kept sound.

We got the hatch open at last--be pleased to know that I 
am speaking of the hatch in the lower deck, for there was 
another immediately over it on the upper or main deck--
and returning to the powder-room rolled the barrels 
forward ready for slinging and hoisting away when we 
should have rigged a tackle aloft. We had not done much, 
but what we had done had eaten far into the afternoon.

"I am tired and hungry and thirstY," said the Frenchman. 
"Let us knock off. We have made good progress. No use 
opening the main-deck hatch to-night: the vessel is cold 
enough even when hermetically corked."

"Very well," said I, bringing my watch to the lanthorn 
and observing the time to be sundown: so, carefully 
extinguishing the candle in the bull's-eye lamp, we took 
each of us a bag of matches and went to the cook-room.

There was neither tea nor coffee in the ship. I so pined 
for these soothing drinks that I would have given all the 
wine in the vessel for a few pounds of either one of 
them. A senseless, ungracious yearning, indeed, in the 
face of the plenty that was aboard! but it was the 
plenty, perhaps, that provoked it. There was chocolate, 
which the Frenchman frothed and drank with hearty 
enjoyment; he also devoured handfuls of zzz succades, 
which he would wash down with wine. These things made me 
sick, and for drink I was forced upon the spirits and 
wine, the latter of which was so generous that it 
promised to combine with the enforced laziness of my life 
under hatches to make me fat; so that I am of opinion had 
we waited for the ice to release us, I should have become 
so corpulent as to prove a burden to myself.

I mention this here that you may find an excuse in it for 
the only act of folly in the way of drinking that I can 
lay to my account whilst I was in this pirate; for I must 
tell you that, on returning to the furnace, we, to 
refresh us after our labour, made a bowl of punch, of 
which I drank so plentifully that I began to feel myself 
very merry. I forgot all about the matches and my 
resolution to test them that night. The Frenchman, 
enjoying my condition, continued to pledge me till his 
little eyes danced in his head. Luckily for me, being at 
bottom of a very jolly disposition, drink never served me 
worse than to develop that quality in me. No man could 
ever say that I was quarrelsome in my cups. My progress 
was marked by stupid smiles, terminating in unmeaning 
laughter. The Frenchman sang a ballad about love and 
Picardy, and the like, and I gave him "Hearts of Oak," 
the sentiments of which song kept him shrugging his 
shoulders and drunkenly looking contempt.

We continued singing alternately for some time, until he 
fell to setting up his throat when I was at work, and 
this confused and stopped me. He then favoured me with 
what he called the Pirate's Dance, a very wild, grotesque 
movement, with no elegance whatever to be hurt by his 
being in liquor; and I think I see him now, whipping off 
his coat, and sprawling and flapping about in high boots 
and a red waistcoat, flourishing his arms, snapping his 
fingers, and now and again bursting into a stave to keep 
step to. When he was done, I took the floor with the 
hornpipe, whistling the air, and double-shuffling, toe-
and-heeling, and quivering from one leg to another very 
briskly. He lay back against the bulkhead grasping a can 
half full of punch, roaring loudly at my antics; and when 
I sank down, breathless, would have had me go on, 
hiccuping that though he had known scores of English 
sailors, he had never seen that dance better performed.

By this time I was extremely excited and extraordinarily 
merry, and losing hold of my judgment, began to indulge 
in sundry pleasantries concerning his nation and 
countrymen, asking with many explosions of laughter, how 
it was that they continued at the trouble of building 
ships for us to use against them, and if he did not think 
the "flower de louse" a neater symbol for people who put 
snuff into their soup and restricted their ablutions to 
their faces than the tricolour, being too muddled to 
consider that he was ignorant of that flag; and in short 
I was so offensive, in spite of my ridiculous merriment, 
that his savage nature broke out. He assailed the English 
with every injurious term his drunken condition suffered 
him to recollect; and starting up with his little eyes 
wildly rolling, he clapped his hand to his side, as if 
feeling for a sword, and calling me by a very ugly French 
word, bade me come on, and he would show me the 
difference between a Frenchman and a beast of an 
Englishman.

I laughed at him with all my might, which so enraged him 
that, swaying to right and left, he advanced as if to 
fall upon me. I started to my feet and tumbled over the 
bench I had jumped from, and lay sprawling; and the bench 
oversetting close to him, he kicked against it and fell 
too, fetching the deck a very hard blow. He groaned 
heavily and muttered that he was killed I tried to rise, 
but my legs gave way, and then the fumes of the punch 
overpowered me, for I recollect no more.

When I awoke it was pitch dark. My hands, legs, and feet 
seemed formed of ice, my head of burning brass. I thought 
I was in my cot, and felt with my hands till I touched 
Tassard's cold bald head, which so terrified me that I 
uttered a loud cry and sprang erect. Then recollection 
returned, and I heartily cursed myself for my folly and 
wickedness. Good God! thought I, that I should be so mad 
as to drown my senses when never was any wretch in such 
need of all his reason as I!

The boatswain's tinder-box was in my pocket; I groped, 
found a candle, and lighted it. It was twenty minutes 
after three in the morning. Tassard lay on his back, 
snoring hideously, his legs overhanging the capsized 
bench. I pulled and hauled at him, but he was too drunk 
to awake, and that he might not freeze to death I fetched 
a pile of clothes out of his cabin and covered him up, 
and put his head on a coat. 

My head ached horribly, but not worse than my heart. When 
I considered how our orgy might have ended in bloodshed 
and murder, how I had insulted God's providence by 
drinking and laughing and roaring out songs and dancing 
at a time when I most needed His protection, with Death 
standing close beside me, as I may say, I could have 
beaten my head against the deck in the anguish of my 
contrition and shame. My passion of sorrow was so 
extravagant, indeed, that I remember looking at the 
Frenchman as if he was the devil incarnate, who had put 
himself in my way to thaw and recover, that he might 
tempt me on to the loss of my soul. Fortunately these 
fancies did not last. I was parched with thirst, but the 
water was ice, and there was no fire to melt it with; so 
I broke off some chips and sucked them, and held a lump 
to my forehead. I went to my cabin and got into my 
hammock, but my head was so hot, and ached so furiously, 
and I was so vexed with myself besides, that I could not 
sleep. The schooner was deathly still; there was not 
apparently the faintest murmur of air to awaken an echo 
in her; nothing spoke but the near and distant cracking 
of the ice. It was miserable work lying in the cabin 
sleepless and reproaching myself, and as my burning head 
robbed the cold of its formidableness, I resolved to go 
on deck and take a brisk turn or two.

The night was wonderfully fine; the velvet dusk so 
crowded with stars that in parts it resembled great 
spaces of cloth of silver hovering. I turned my eyes 
northwards to the stars low down there and thought of 
England and the home where I was brought up until the 
tears gathered, and with them went something of the 
dreadful burning aching out of my head. Those distant, 
silent, shining bodies amazingly intensified the sense of 
my loneliness and remoteness, and yonder Southern Cross 
and the luminous dust of the Magellanic clouds seemed not 
farther off than my native country. It is not in language 
to express the savage naked beauty, the wild mystery of 
the white still scene of ice, shining back to the stars 
with a light that owed nothing to their glory; nor convey 
how the whole was heightened to every sense by the 
element of fear, put into the picture by the sounds of 
the splitting ice, and the softened regular roaring of 
the breakers along the coast.

I started with fresh shame and horror when I contrasted 
this ghastly calmness of pale ice and the brightness of 
the holy stars looking down upon it, with our swinish 
revelry in the cabin, and I thought with loathing of the 
drunken ribaldry of the pirate and my own tipsy songs 
piercing the ear of the mighty spirit of this solitude. 
The exercise improved my spirits; I stepped the length of 
the little raised deck briskly, my thoughts very busy. On 
a sudden the ice split on the starboard hand with a noise 
louder than the explosion of a twenty-four pounder. The 
schooner swayed to a level keel with so sharp a rise that 
I lost my balance and staggered. I recovered myself, 
trembling and greatly agitated by the noise and {he 
movement coming together, without the least hint having 
been given me, and grasping a backstay, waited, not 
knowing what was to happen next. Unless it be the heave 
of an earthquake, I can imagine no motion capable of 
giving one such a swooning, nauseating, terrifying 
sensation as the rending of ice under a fixed ship. In a 
few moments there were several sharp cracks, all on the 
starboard side, like a snapping of musketry, and I felt 
the schooner very faintly heave, but this might have been 
a deception of the senses, for though I set a zzz stat 
against the masthead and watched it, there was no 
movement. I looked over the side and observed that the 
split I had noticed on the face of the cliff had by this 
new rupture been extended transversely right across the 
schooner's starboard bow, the thither side being several 
feet higher than on this. It was plain that the bed on 
which the vessel rested had dropped so as to bring her 
upright, and I was convinced by this circumstance alone, 
that if I used good judgment in disposing of the powder 
the weight of the mass would complete its own 
dislocation.

I stepped a little way forward to obtain a clearer sight 
of the splits about the schooner, and on putting my head 
over, I was inexpressibly dismayed and confounded by the 
apparition of a man with his arms stretched out before 
him, his face upturned, and his posture that of starting 
back as though terrified at beholding me. I had met with 
several frights whilst I had been on this island, but 
none worse than this, none that so completely paralyzed 
me as to very nearly deprive me of the power of 
breathing. I stared at him, and he seemed to stare at me, 
and I know not which of the two was the more motionless. 
The whiteness made a light of its own, and he was 
perfectly plain. I blinked and puffed, conceiving it 
might be some illusion of the wine I had drunk, and 
finding him still there, and acting as though he warded 
me off in terror, as if my showing myself unawares had 
led him to think me the devil--I say finding him 
perfectly real, I was seized with an agony of fear, and 
should have rushed to my cabin had my legs been equal to 
the task of transporting me there. Then, thought I, idiot 
that you are, what think you, you fool, is it but the 
body of Trentanove? Sure enough it was, and putting my 
head a little farther over the rail, I saw the figure of 
the Portuguese Barros lying close under the bends. No 
doubt it was the movement of the ice that had shot the 
Italian into the life-like posture, it being incredible 
he should have fallen so on being tumbled overboard by 
the Frenchman. But there he was, resting against a lump 
of ice, looking as living in his frozen posture as ever 
he had showed in the cabin.

The shock did my head good; I went below and got into my 
cot, and after tossing for half an hour or so fell 
asleep. I awoke and went to the cook-house, where I found 
Tassard preparing the breakfast, and a great fire 
burning. I hardly knew what reception he would give me, 
and was therefore not a little agreeably surprised by his 
thanking me for covering him up.

"You have a stronger head than mine," said he. "The punch 
used you well. You made me laugh, though. You was very 
diverting."

"Ay, much too diverting to please myself," said I; and I 
sounded him cautiously to remark what his memory carried 
of my insults, but found that he recollected nothing more 
than that I danced with vigour, and sang well.

I said nothing about my contrition, my going on deck, and 
the like, contenting myself with asking if he had heard 
the explosion in the night.

"No," cried he, staring and looking eagerly. "Well, 
then," said I, "there has happened a mighty crack in the 
ice, and I do soberly believe that with the blessing of 
God we shall be able by blasts of powder to free the 
block on which the schooner rests."

"Good!" cried he; "come, let us hurry with this meal. How 
is the weather?"

"Quiet, I believe. I have not been on deck since the 
explosion aroused me early this morning.''

Whilst we ate he said, "Suppose we get the schooner 
afloat, what do you propose?"

"Why," I answered, "if she prove tight and seaworthy, 
what but carry her home?"

"What, you and I alone?"

"No," said I, "certainly not; we must make shift to sail 
her to the nearest port, and ship a crew."

He looked at me attentively, and said, "What do you mean 
by home?"

"England," said I.

He shrugged his shoulders and exclaimed in French, "'Tis 
natural." Then proceeding in English, "Pray," said he, 
showing his fangs, "do not you know that the Boca del 
Dragon is a pirate? Do you want to be hanged that you 
propose to carry her to a port to ship men?"

"I have no fear of that," said I; "after all these years 
she'll be as clean forgotten as if she had never had 
existence."

"Look ye here, Mr. Rodney," cried he in a passion, "let's 
have no more of this snivelling nonsense about years. You 
may be as mad as you please on that point, but it shan't 
hang me. It needs more than a few months to make men 
forget a craft that has carried on such traffic as our 
hold represents. You'll not find me venturing myself nor 
the schooner into any of your ports for men. No, no, my 
friend. I am in no stupor now, you know; and I've slept 
the punch off also, d'ye see. What, betray our treasure 
and be hanged for our generosity?"

He made me an ironical bow, grinning with wrath.

"Let's get the schooner afloat first," said I.

"Ay, that's all very well," he cried; "but better stop 
here than dangle in chains. No, my friend; our plan must 
be a very different one from your proposal. I suppose you 
want your share of the booty?" said he, snapping his 
fingers.

"I deserve it," said I, smiling, that I might soften his 
passion.

"And yet you would convey the most noted pirate of the 
age, with plunder in her to the value of thousands of 
doubloons, to a port in which we should doubtless find 
ships of war, a garrison, magistrates, governors, 
prisons, and the whole of the machinery it is our 
business to give our stern to! zzz, Mr. Rodney! sure you 
are out in something more than your reckoning of time?" 

"What do you propose?" said I.

"Ha!" he exclaimed, whilst his little eves twinkled with 
cunning, "now you speak sensibly. What do I propose? 
This, my friend. We must navigate the schooner to an 
island and bury the treasure; then head for the shipping 
highways and obtain help from any friendly merchantmen we 
may fall in with. Home with us means the Tortugas. There 
we shall find the company we need to recover for us what 
we shall have hidden. We shall come by our own then. But 
to sail with this treasure on board--without a crew to 
defend the vessel--by this hand! the first cruiser that 
sighted us would make a clean sweep, and then, ho, for 
the hangman, Mr. Rodney!"

How much I relished this scheme you will imagine; but to 
reason with him would have been mere madness. I knitted 
my brows and seemed to reflect, and then said, "Well, 
there is a great deal of plain, good sense in what you 
say. I certainly see the wisdom of your advice in 
recommending that we should bury the treasure. Nor must 
we leave anything on board to convict the ship of her 
true character."

His greedy eyes sparkled with self-complacency. He tapped 
his forehead and cried, "Trust to this. There is mind 
behind this surface. Your plan for releasing the schooner 
is great; mine for preserving the treasure is great too. 
You are the sailor, I the strategist; by combining our 
genius, we shall oppose an invulnerable front to 
adversity, and must end our days as Princes. Your hand, 
Paul!"

I laughed and gave him my hand, which he squeezed with 
many contortions of face and figure; but though I laughed 
I don't know that I ever so much disliked and distrusted 
and feared the old leering rogue as at that moment.

"Come!" cried I, jumping up, "let's get about our work." 
And with that I pulled open a bag of matches, and fell to 
testing them. They burnt well. The fire ate into them as 
smoothly as if they had been prepared the day before. 
They were all of one thickness. I cut them to equal 
lengths, and fired them and waited watch in hand; one was 
burnt out two minutes before the other, and each length 
took about ten minutes to consume. This was good enough 
to base my calculations upon.

CHAPTER IV.

WE EXPLODE THE MINES.

I don't design to weary you with a close account of our 
proceedings. How we opened the main-deck hatch, rigged up 
tackles, clapping purchases on to the falls, as the 
capstan was hard frozen and immovable; how we hoisted the 
powder-barrels on deck and then, by tackles on the 
foreyard, lowered them over the side; how we filled a 
number of bags which we found in the forecastle with 
powder; how we measured the cracks in the ice and sawed a 
couple of spare studding-sail booms into lengths to serve 
as beams whereby to poise the barrels and bags; would 
make but sailor's talk, half of which would be 
unintelligible and the rest wearisome.

The Frenchman worked hard, and we snatched only half an 
hour for our dinner. The split that had happened in the 
ice during the night showed by daylight as a gulf betwixt 
eight and ten feet wide at the seawards end, thinning to 
a width of three feet, never less, to where it ended, 
ahead of the ship, in a hundred cracks in the ice that 
showed as if a thunderbolt had fallen just there. I 
looked into this rent, but it was as black as a well past 
a certain depth, and there was no gleam of water. When we 
went over the side to roll our first barrel of powder to 
the spot where we meant to lower it, the Frenchman 
marched up to the figure of Trentanove, and with no more 
reverence than a boy would show in throwing a stone at a 
jackass, tumbled him into the chasm. He then stepped up 
to the body of the Portuguese boatswain, dragged him to 
the same fissure, and rolled him into it.

"There!" cried he; "now they are properly buried."

And with this he went coolly on with his work.

I said nothing, but was secretly heartily disgusted with 
this brutal disposal of his miserable shipmates' remains. 
However, it was his doing, not mine; and I confess the 
removal of those silent witnesses was a very great relief 
to me, albeit when I considered how Tassard had been 
awakened, and how both the mate and the boatswain might 
have been brought to by treatment, I felt as though, 
after a manner, the Frenchman had committed a murder by 
burying them so.

It blew a small breeze all day from the southwest, the 
weather keeping fine. It was ten o'clock in the morning 
when we started on our labour, and the sun had been sunk 
a few minutes by the time we had rigged the last whip for 
the lowering and poising of the powder. This left us 
nothing to do in the morning but light the matches, lower 
the powder into position, and then withdraw to the 
schooner and await the issue. Our arrangements comprised, 
first, four barrels of powder in deep yawns ahead of the 
vessel, directly athwart the line of her head; second, 
two barrels, a wide space between them, in the great 
chasm on the starboard side; third, about fifty very 
heavy charges in bags and the like for the further 
rupturing of many splits and crevices on the larboard bow 
of the ship, where the ice was most compact. What should 
follow the mighty blast no mortal being could have 
foretold. I had no fear of the charges injuring the 
vessel--that is to say, I did not fear that the actual 
explosion would damage her: but as the effect of the 
bursting of such a mass of powder as we designed to 
explode upon so brittle a substance as ice was not 
calculable, it was quite likely that the vast discharge, 
instead of loosening and freeing the bed of ice, might 
rend it into blocks, and leave the schooner still 
stranded and lying in some wild posture amid the ruins.

But the powder was our only trumps; we had but to play it 
and leave the rest to fortune.

We got our supper and sat smoking and discussing our 
situation and chances. Tassard was tired, and this and 
our contemplation of the probabilities of the morrow 
sobered his mind, and he talked with a certain gravity. 
He drank sparely and forbore the hideous recollections or 
inventions he was used to bestow on me, and indeed could 
find nothing to talk about but the explosion and what it 
was to do for us. I was very glad he did not again refer 
to his project to bury the treasure and carry the 
schooner to the Tortugas. The subject fired his blood, 
and it was such nonsense that the mere naming of it was 
nauseous to me. Eight-and-forty years had passed since 
his ship fell in with this ice, and not tenfold the 
treasure in the hold might have purchased for him the 
sight of so much as a single bone of the youngest of 
those associates whom he idly dreamt of seeking and 
shipping and sailing in command of. Yet, imbecile as was 
his scheme, having regard to the half-century that had 
elapsed, I clearly witnessed the menace to me that it 
implied. His views were to be read as plainly as if he 
had delivered them. First and foremost he meant that I 
should help him to sail the schooner to an island and 
bury the plate and money; which done he would take the 
first opportunity to murder me. His chance of meeting 
with a ship that would lend him assistance to navigate 
the schooner would be as good if he were alone in her as 
if I were on board too. There would be nothing, then, in 
this consideration to hinder him from cutting my throat 
after we had buried the treasure and were got north. Two 
motives would imperatively urge him to make away with me; 
first, that I should not be able to serve as a witness to 
his being a pirate, and next that he alone should possess 
the secret of the treasure.

He little knew what was passing in my mind as he surveyed 
me through the curls of smoke spouting up from his 
death's-head pipe. I talked easily and confidentially, 
but I saw in his gaze the eyes of my murderer, and was so 
sure of his intentions that had I shot him in self-
defence, as he sat there, I am certain my conscience 
would have acquitted me of his blood.

I passed two most uneasy hours in my cot before closing 
my eyes. I could think of nothing but how to secure 
myself against the Frenchman's treachery. You would 
suppose that my mind must have been engrossed with 
considerations of the several possibilities of the 
morrow; but that was not so. My reflections ran wholly to 
the baldheaded evil-eyed pirate whom in an evil hour I 
had thawed into being, and who was like to discharge the 
debt of his own life by taking mine. The truth is, I had 
been too hard at work all day, too full of the business 
of planning, cutting, testing, and contriving, to find 
leisure to dwell upon what he had said at breakfast, and 
now that I lay alone in darkness it was the only subject 
I could settle my thoughts to.

However, next morning I found myself less gloomy, thanks 
to several hours of solid sleep. I thought, what is the 
good of anticipating? Suppose the schooner is crushed by 
the ice or jammed by the explosion? Until we are under 
way, nay, until the treasure is buried, I have nothing to 
fear, for the rogue cannot do without me. And, reassuring 
myself in this fashion, I went to the cook-room and 
lighted the fire; my companion presently arrived, and we 
sat down to our morning meal.

"I dreamt last night," said he, "that the devil sat on my 
breast and told me that we should break clear of the ice 
and come off safe with the treasure--there is loyalty in 
the Fiend. He seldom betrays his friends."

"You have a better opinion of him than I," said I; "and I 
do not know that you have much claim upon his loyalty 
either, seeing that you will cross yourself and call upon 
the Madonna and saints when the occasion arises."

"Pooh, mere habit," cried he, sarcastically. "I have seen 
Barros praying to a little wooden saint in a gale of wind 
and then knock its head off and throw it overboard 
because the storm increased." And here he fell to talking 
very impiously, professing such an outrageous contempt 
for every form of religion, and affirming so ardent a 
belief in the goodwill of Satan and the like, that I 
quitted my bench at last in a passion, and told him that 
he must be the devil himself to talk so, and that for my 
part his sentiments awoke in me nothing but the utmost 
scorn, loathing, and horror of him.

His face fell, and he looked at me with the eye of one 
who takes measure of another and does not feel sure.

"Tut!" cried he, with a feigned peevishness; "what are my 
sentiments to you, or yours to me? you may be a Quaker 
for all I care. Come, fill your pannikin and let us drink 
a health to our own SOULS!"

But though he said this grinning, he shot a savage look 
of malice at me, and when he put his pannikin down his 
face was very clouded and sulky.

We finished our meal in silence, and then I rose, saying, 
"Let us now see what the gunpowder is going to do for 
us."

My rising and saying this worked a change in him. He 
exclaimed briskly, "Ay, now for the great experiment," 
and made for the companion-steps with an air of bustle.

The wind as before was in the south-west, blowing without 
much weight; but the sky was overcast with great masses 
of white clouds with a tint of rainbows in their 
shoulders and skirts, amid which the sky showed in a 
clear liquid blue. Those clouds seemed to promise wind 
and perhaps snow anon; but there was nothing to hinder 
our operations. We got upon the ice, and went to work to 
fix matches to the barrels and bags, and to sling them by 
the beams we had contrived ready for lowering when the 
matches were fired, and this occupied us the best part of 
two hours. When all was ready I fired the first match, 
and we lowered the barrel smartly to the scope of line we 
had settled upon; so with the others. You may reckon we 
worked with all imaginable wariness, for the stuff we 
handled was mighty deadly, and if a barrel should fall 
and burst with the match alight, we might be blown in an 
instant into rags, it being impossible to tell how deep 
the rents went.

The bags being lighter there was less to fear, and 
presently all the barrels and bags with the matches 
burning were poised in the places and hanging at the 
depth we had fixed upon, and we then returned to the 
schooner, the Frenchman breaking into a run and tumbling 
over the rail in his alarm with the dexterity of a 
monkey.

Each match was supposed to burn an hour, so that when the 
several explosions happened they might all occur as 
nearly as possible at once, and we had therefore a long 
time to wait. The zzz friar-gin may look unreasonable in 
the face of our despatch, but you will not think it 
unnecessary if you consider that our machinery might not 
have worked very smooth, and that meanwhile all that was 
lowered was in the way of exploding. So interminable a 
period as now followed I do believe never before entered 
into the experiences of a man. The cold was intense, and 
we had to move about; but also were we repeatedly coming 
to a halt to look at our watches and cast our eyes over 
the ice. It was like standing under a gallows with the 
noose around the neck waiting for the cart to move off. 
My own suspense became torture; but I commanded my face. 
The Frenchman, on the other hand, could not control the 
torments of his expectation and fear.

"Holy Virgin!" he would cry, "suppose we are blown up 
too? suppose we are engulphed in the ice? suppose it 
should be vomited up in vast blocks which in falling upon 
us must crush us to pulp and smash the decks in?"

At one moment he would call himself an idiot for not 
remaining on the rocks at a distance and watching the 
explosion, and even make as if to jump off the vessel, 
then immediately recoil from the idea of setting his foot 
upon a floor that before he could take ten strides might 
split into chasms, with hideous uproar under him. At 
another moment he would run to the companion and descend 
out of my sight, but reappear after a minute or two 
wildly shaking his head and swearing that if waiting was 
insupportable in the daylight, it was ten thousand times 
worse in the gloom and solitude of the interior.

I was too nervous and expectant myself to be affected by 
his behaviour; but his dread of the explosion upheaving 
lumps of ice was sensible enough to determine me to post 
myself under the cover of the hatch and there await the 
blast, for it was a stout cover and would certainly 
screen me from the lighter flying pieces.

It was three or four minutes past the hour and I was 
looking breathlessly at my watch when the first of the 
explosions took place. Before the ear could well receive 
the shock of the blast the whole of the barrels exploded 
along with some twelve or fourteen parcels. Tassard, who 
stood beside me, fell on his face, and I believed he had 
been killed. It was so hellish a thunder that I suppose 
the blowing up of a first-rate could not make a more 
frightful roar of noise. A kind of twilight was caused by 
the rise of the volumes of white smoke out of the ice. 
The schooner shook with such a convulsion that I was 
persuaded she had been split. Vast showers of splinters 
of ice fell as if from the sky, and rained like arrows 
through the smoke, but if there were any great blocks 
uphove they did not touch the ship. Meanwhile, the other 
parcels were exploding in their places, sometimes two and 
three at a time, sending a sort of sickening spasms and 
throes through the fabric of the vessel, and you heard 
the most extraordinary grinding noises rising out of the 
ice all about, as though the mighty rupture of the powder 
crackled through leagues of the island. I durst not look 
forth till all the powder had burst, lest I should be 
struck by some flying piece of ice, but unless the 
schooner was injured below she was as sound as before, 
and in the exact same posture, as if afloat in harbour, 
only that of course her stern lay low with the slope of 
her bed.

I called to Tassard and he lifted his head. "Are you 
hurt?" said I.

"No, no," he answered. "'Tis a Spaniard's trick to fling 
down to a broadside. Body of St. Joseph, what a furious 
explosion!" and so saying he crawled into the companion 
and squatted beside me. "What has it done for us?"

"I don't know yet," said I; "but I believe the schooner 
is uninjured. That was a powerful shock!" I cried, as a 
half-dozen of bags blew up together in the crevices deep 
down.

The thunder and tumult of the rending ice accompanied by 
the heavy explosions of the gunpowder so dulled the 
hearing that it was difficult to speak. That the mines 
had accomplished our end was not yet to be known; but 
there could not be the least doubt that they had not only 
occasioned tremendous ruptures low down in the ice, but 
that the volcanic influence was extending far beyond its 
first effects by making one split produce another, one 
weak part give way and create other weaknesses, and so 
on, all round about us and under our keel, as was clearly 
to be gathered by the shivering and spasms of the 
schooner, and by the growls, roars, blasts, and huddle of 
terrifying sounds which arose from the frozen floor.

It was twenty minutes after the hour at which the mines 
had been framed to explode when the last parcel burst; 
but we waited another quarter of an hour to make sure 
that it was the last, during all which time the growling 
and roaring noises deep down continued, as if there was a 
battle of a thousand lions raging in the vaults and 
hollows underneath. The smoke had been settled away by 
the wind, and the prospect was clear. We ran below to see 
to the fire and receive five minutes of heat into our 
chilled bodies, and then returned to view the scene.

I looked first over the starboard side and saw the great 
split that had happened in the night torn in places into 
immense yawns and gulfs by the fall of vast masses of 
rock out of its sides; but what most delighted me was the 
hollow sound of washing water. I lifted my hand and 
listened.

"'Tis the swell of the sea flowing into the opening!" I 
exclaimed.

"That means," said Tassard, "that this side of the block 
is dislocated from the main."

"Yes," cried I. "And if the powder ahead of the bows has 
done its work, the heave of the ocean will do the rest."

We made our way on to the forecastle over a deep bed of 
splinters of ice, lying like wood-shavings upon the deck, 
and I took notice as I walked that every glorious crystal 
pendant that had before adorned the yards, rigging, and 
spars had been shaken off. I had expected to see a 
wonderful spectacle of havoc in the ice where the barrels 
of gunpowder had been poised, but saving many scores of 
cracks where none was before, and vast ragged gashes in 
the mouths of the crevices down which the barrels had 
been lowered, the scene was much as heretofore.

The Frenchman stared and exclaimed, "What has the powder 
done? I see only a few cracks."

"What it may have done, I don't know," I answered; "but 
depend on it, such heavy charges of powder must have 
burst to some purpose. The dislocation will be below; and 
so much the better, for 'tis there the ice must come 
asunder if this block is to go free."

He gazed about him, and then rapping out a string of 
oaths, English, Italian, and French, for he swore in all 
the languages he spoke, which, he once told me, were 
five, he declared that for his part he considered the 
powder wasted, that we'd have done as well to fling a 
hand-grenade into a fissure, that a thousand barrels of 
powder would be but as a popgun for rending the 
schooner's bed from the main, and in short, with several 
insulting looks and a face black with rage and 
disappointment, gave me very plainly to know that I had 
not only played the fool myself, but had made a fool of 
him, and that he was heartily sorry he had ever given 
himself any trouble to contrive the cursed mines or to 
assist me in a ridiculous project that might have 
resulted in blowing the schooner to pieces and ourselves 
with it.

I glanced at him with a sneer, but took no further notice 
of his insolence. It was not only that he was so 
contemptible in all respects, a liar, a rogue, a thief, a 
poltroon, hoary in twenty walks of vice, there was 
something so unearthly about a creature that had been as 
good as dead for eight-and-forty years, that it was 
impossible anything he said could affect me as the 
rancorous tongue of another man would. I feared and hated 
him because I knew that in intent he was already my 
assassin; but the mere insolences of so incredible a 
creature could not but find me imperturbable.

And perhaps in the present instance my own disappointment 
put me into some small posture of sympathy with his 
passion. Had I been asked before the explosions happened 
what I expected, I don't know that I should have found 
any answer to make; and yet, though I could not have 
expressed my expectations, which after all were but 
hopes, I was bitterly vexed when I looked over the bows 
and found in the scene nothing that appeared answerable 
to the uncommon forces we had employed. Nevertheless, I 
felt sure that my remark to the Frenchman was sound. A 
great show of uphove rocks and fragments of ice might 
have satisfied the eye; but the real work of the mines 
was wanted below; and since the force of the mighty 
explosion must needs expend itself somewhere, it was 
absurd to wish to see its effects in a part where its 
volcanic agency would be of little or no use.

"There is nothing to be seen by staring!" exclaimed the 
Frenchman presently, speaking very sullenly. "I am hungry 
and freezing, and shall go below!" And with that he 
turned his back and made off, growling in his throat as 
he went.

I got upon the ice and stepped very carefully to the 
starboard side and looked down the vast split there. The 
sea in consequence of the slope did not come so far, but 
I could hear the wash of the water very plain. It was 
certain that the valley in which we lay was wholly 
disconnected from the main ice on this side. I passed to 
the larboard quarter, and here too were cracks wide and 
deep enough to satisfy me that its hold was weak. It was 
forward of the bows where the barrels had been exploded 
that the ice was thickest and had the firmest grasp; but 
its surface was violently and heavily cracked by the 
explosions, and I thought to myself if the fissures below 
are as numerous, then certainly the swell of the sea 
ought to fetch the whole mass away. But I was now half 
frozen myself and pining for warmth. It was after one 
o'clock. The wind was piping freshly, and the great heavy 
clouds in swarms drove stately across the sky.

"It may blow to-night," thought I; "and if the wind hangs 
as it is, just such a sea as may do our business will be 
set running." And thus musing I entered the ship and went 
below.

CHAPTER V.

A CHANGE COMES OVER THE FRENCHMAN.

TASSARD was dogged and scowling. Such was his temper that 
had I been a small or weak man, or a person likely to 
prove submissive, he would have given a loose to his foul 
tongue and maybe handled me very roughly. But my 
demeanour was cold and resolved, and not of a kind to 
improve his courage. I levelled a deliberate semi-
contemptuous gaze at his own fiery stare, and puzzled 
him, too, I believe, a good deal by my cool reserve. He 
muttered whilst we ate, drinking plentifully of wine, and 
garnishing his draughts with oaths and to spare; and 
then, after falling silent and remaining so for the space 
of twenty minutes, during which I lighted my pipe and sat 
with my feet close to the furnace, listening with eager 
ears to the sounds of the ice and the dull crying of the 
wind, he exclaimed sulkily, "Your scheme is a failure. 
The schooner is fixed. What's to be done now?"

"I don't know that my scheme is a failure," said I. "What 
did you suppose? that the blast would blow the ice with 
the schooner on it into the ocean clear of the island? If 
the ice is so shaken as to enable the swell to detach it, 
my scheme will have accomplished all I proposed."

"If!" he cried scornfully and passionately. "If will not 
deliver us nor save the treasure. I tell you the schooner 
is fixed--as fixed as the damned in everlasting fire. Be 
it so!" he cried, clenching his fist. "But you must 
meddle no more! The Boca del Dragon is mine--mine, d'ye 
see, now that they're all dead and gone but me"--smiting 
his bosom--"and if ever she is to float, let nature or 
the devil launch her: no more explosions with the risks 
your failure has made her and me run!"

His voice sank; he looked at me in silence, and then with 
a wild grin of anger he exclaimed, "What made you awake 
me? I was at peace--neither cold, hungry, nor hopeless! 
What demon forced you to bring me to this--to bring me 
back to this?"

"Mr. Tassard," said I coldly, "I don't ask your pardon 
for my experiment; I meant well, and to my mind it is no 
failure yet. But for disturbing your repose I do 
sincerely beg your forgiveness, and solemnly promise you, 
if you will return to the state in which I found you, 
that I will not repeat the offence."

He eyed me from top to toe in silence, filled and lighted 
his hideous pipe, and smoked with his back turned upon 
me.

Had there been another warm place in the schooner I 
should have retired to it, and left this surly and 
scandalous savage to the enjoyment of his own company. 
His temper rendered me extremely uneasy. The arms-room 
was full of weapons; he might draw a pistol upon me and 
shoot me dead before I should have time to clench my 
hand. Nor did I conceive him to have his right mind. His 
panic terrors and outbursts of rage were such extremes of 
behaviour as suggested some sort of organic decay within. 
He had been for eight-and-forty years insensible; in all 
that time the current of life had been frozen in him, not 
dried up and extinguished; therefore, taking his age to 
be fifty-five when the frost seized him, he would now be 
one hundred and three years old, having subsisted into 
this great span of time in fact, though confronting me 
with the aspect of an elderly man merely. Death ends 
time, but this man never had been dead, or surely it 
would not have been in the power of brandy and chafing 
and fire to arouse him; and though all the processes of 
nature had been checked in him for near half a century, 
yet he must have been throughout as much alive as a 
sleeping man, and consequently when he awoke he arose 
with the weight of a hundred and three years upon his 
brain, which may suffice to account for the preternatural 
peculiarities of his character.

After sitting a long while sullenly smoking in silence, 
he fetched his mattress and some covers, lay down upon 
it, and fell fast asleep. I admired and envied this 
display of confidence, and heartily wished myself as safe 
in his hands as he was in mine. The afternoon passed. I 
was on deck a half-dozen times, but never witnessed the 
least alteration in the ice. My spirits sank very low. 
There was bitter remorseless defiance in the white, 
fierce rigid stare of the ice, and I could not but 
believe with the Frenchman that all our labour and 
expenditure of powder was in vain. There was no more 
noticeable weight in the wind, but the sea was beginning 
to beat with some strength upon the coast, and the 
schooner sometimes trembled to the vibrations of the 
blows. There was also a continuous crackling noise coming 
up out of the ice, and just as I came on deck on my third 
visit, a block of ice, weighing I dare say a couple of 
hundred tons, fell from the broken shoulder on the 
starboard quarter, and plunged with a roar like a 
thunderclap into the chasm that had opened in the night.

I sat before the furnace extremely dejected, whilst the 
Frenchman snored on his mattress. I could no longer 
flatter myself that the explosions had made the 
impression I had expected on the ice, and my mind was 
utterly at a loss. How to deliver myself from this 
horrible situation I could not imagine. As to the 
treasure, why, if the chests had all been filled with 
gold, they might have gone to the bottom there and then 
for me, so utterly insignificant did their value seem as 
against the pricelessness of liberty and the joy of 
deliverance. Had I been alone I should have had a stouter 
heart, I dare say, for then I should have been able to do 
as I pleased; but now I was associated with a bloody-
minded rogue whose soul was in the treasure, and who was 
certain to oppose any plan I might propose for the 
construction of a boat or raft out of the material that 
formed the schooner. The sole ray of hope that gleamed 
upon me broke out of the belief that this island was 
going north, and that when we had come to the height of 
the summer in these seas, the wasting of the coast or the 
dislocation of the northern mass would release us.

Yet this was but poor comfort too; it threatened a 
terrible long spell of waiting, with perhaps 
disappointment in the end, and months of enforced 
association with a wretch with whom I should have to live 
in fear of my life.

When I was getting supper Tassard awoke, quitted his 
mattress, and came to his bench. "Has anything happened 
whilst I slept?" said he.

"Nothing," I answered.

"The ice shows no signs of giving?"

"I see none," said I.

"Well," cried he, with a sarcastic sneer, "have you any 
more fine schemes?"

"'Tis your turn now," I replied.

"But you English sailors," said he, wagging his head and 
regarding me with a great deal of wildness in his eye, 
"speak of yourselves as the finest seamen in the world. 
Justify the maritime reputation of your nation by showing 
me how we are to escape with the schooner from the ice."

"Mr. Tassard," said I, approaching him and looking him 
full in the face, "I would advise you to sweeten your 
temper and change your tone. I have borne myself very 
moderately towards you, submitted to your insults with 
patience, and have done you some kindness. I am not 
afraid of you. On the contrary, I look upon you as a 
swaggering bully and a hoary villain. Do you understand 
me? I am a desperate man in a desperate situation. But if 
I don't fear death, depend upon it, I don't fear you--and 
I take God to witness that if you do not use me with the 
civility I have a right to expect, I will kill you."

My temper had given way; I meant every word I spoke, and 
my air and sincerity rendered my speech very formidable. 
I approached him by another stride; he started up as I 
thought, to seize me, but in reality to recoil, and this 
he did so effectually as to tumble over his bench, and 
down he fell, striking his bald head so hard that he lay 
for several minutes motionless.

I stood over him till he chose to sit erect, which he 
presently did, rubbing his poll and looking at me with an 
air of mingled bewilderment and fear.

"This is scurvy usage to give a shipmate in distress," 
said he. "'Od's life, man! I had thought there was some 
sense of humour in you. Your hand, Mr. Rodney; I feel 
dazed."

I helped him to rise, and he then sat down in a somewhat 
rickety manner, rubbing his eyes. It might have been 
fancy, it might have been the illusion of the furnace 
light combined with the venerable appearance his long 
hair and naked pate gave him, but methought in those few 
minutes he had grown to look twenty years older.

"Try your hand. If you fail, I promise you I shall not be 
disappointed."

"Never concern yourself about my humour, Mr. Tassard," 
said I, preserving my determined air and coming close to 
him again. "How is it to stand between us? I leave the 
choice to you. If you will treat me civilly you'll not 
find me wanting in every disposition to render our 
miserable state tolerable; but if you insult me, use me 
injuriously, and act the pirate over me, who am an honest 
man, by God, Mr. Tassard, I will kill you."

He stooped away from me, and raised his hand in a posture 
as if to fend me off, and cried in a whining manner, "I 
lost my head--this gunpowder business hath been a hellish 
disappointment, look you, Mr. Rodney. Come! We will drink 
a zzz can to our future amity!"

I answered coldly that I wanted no more wine and bade him 
beware of me, that he had gone far enough, that our 
hideous condition had filled my soul with desperation and 
misery, and that I would not have my life on this frozen 
schooner made more abominable than it was by his swagger, 
lies, and insults, and I added in a loud voice and in a 
menacing manner that death had no terrors for me, and 
that I would dispatch him with as little fear as I should 
meet my doom, whatever shape it took.

I marched on deck, not a little astounded by the 
cowardice of the old rascal, and very well pleased with 
the marked impression my bearing and language had 
produced on him. Not that I supposed for a moment that my 
bold comportment would save me from his knife or his 
pistol when he should think proper to make away with me. 
No. All I reckoned upon was cowing him into a civiller 
posture of mind, and checking his aggressions and 
insolence. As to his murdering me, I was very sure he 
would not attempt such an act whilst we remained 
imprisoned. Loneliness would have more horrors for him 
than for me; and though my machinery of mines had 
apparently failed, he was shrewd enough, despite his rage 
of disappointment, to understand that more was to be done 
by two men than by one, and that between us something 
might be attempted which would be impracticable by a 
simple pair of hands, and particularly old hands, such as 
his.

I stayed but a minute or two on deck. Such was the cold 
that I do not know I had ever felt it more biting and 
bitter. The sound of foaming waters filled the wind, and 
the wind itself was blowing fairly strong, in gusts that 
screamed in the frozen rigging or in blasts that had the 
deep echo of the thunder-claps of the splitting ice. The 
clouds were numerous and dark with the shadow of the 
night; and the swiftness of their motion as they sailed 
up out of the south-west quarter was illustrated by the 
leaping of the few bright stars from one dusky edge to 
another.

I returned below and sat down. The Frenchman asked me no 
questions. He had his can in the oven and his death's 
head in his great hand, and puffed out clouds of smoke of 
the colour of his beard, and indeed in the candle and 
fire light looked like a figure of old time with his long 
nose and bald head. I addressed one or two civil remarks 
to him, which he answered in a subdued manner, 
discovering no resentment whatever that I could trace in 
his eyes or the expression of his countenance; and being 
wishful to show that I bore no malice I talked of pirates 
and their usages, and asked him if the Boca del Dragon 
fought under the red or black flag.

"Why, the black flag, certainly," said he; "but if we met 
with resistance, it was our custom to haul it down and 
hoist the red flag, to let our opponents know we should 
give no quarter." 

"Where is your flag locker?" said I. "In my berth," he 
answered.

"I should like to see the black flag," I exclaimed: "'tis 
the one piece of bunting, I believe, I have never 
viewed."

"I'll fetch it," said he, and taking the lanthorn went 
aft very quietly, but with a certain stagger in his walk, 
which I should have put down to the wine if it was not 
that his behaviour was free from all symptoms of zzz 
ebriation. The change in him surprised me, but not so 
greatly as you might suppose; indeed, it excited my 
suspicions rather than my wonder. Fear worked in him 
unquestionably, but what I seemed to see best was some 
malignant design which he hoped to conceal by an air of 
conciliation and a quality of respectful bonhomie.

He came back with a flag in his hand, and we spread it 
between us; it was black, with a yellow skull grinning in 
the middle, over this an hourglass, and beneath a cross-
bones.

"What consternation has this signal caused and does still 
cause!" said I, surveying it, whilst a hundred fancies of 
the barbarous scenes it had flown over, the miserable 
cries for mercy that had swept up past it to the ear of 
God, crowded into my mind. "I think, Mr. Tassard," said 
I, "that our first step, should we ever find ourselves 
afloat in this ship, must be to commit this and all other 
flags of a like kind on board to the deep. There is 
evidence in this piece of drapery to hang an angel."

He let fall his ends of the flag and sat down suddenly.

"Yes," he answered, sending a curious rolling glance 
around the cook-room and at the same time bringing his 
hand to the back of his head, "this is evidence to dangle 
even an honester man than you, sir. All flags but the 
ensign we resolve to sail under must go--all flags, and 
all the wearing apparel, and--and--but"--here he muttered 
a curse--"we are fixed--there is to be no sailing."

He shook his head and covered his eyes. His manner was 
strange, and the stranger for his quietude.

I said to him, "Are you ill?"

He looked up sharply and cried vehemently, "No, no!" then 
stretched his lips in a very ghastly grin and turned to 
take the can from the oven, but his hand missed it, and 
he appeared to grope as if he were blind, though he 
looked at the can all the time. Then he catched it and 
brought it to his mouth, but trembled so much that he 
spilt as much as he drank, and after putting the can back 
sat shaking his beard and stroking the wet off it, 
methought, in a very mechanical lunatic way.

I thought to myself, "Is this behaviour some stratagem of 
his? What device can such a bearing hide? If he is 
acting, he plays his part well."

I rolled the black flag into a bundle and flung it into a 
corner, and, resuming my seat and my pipe, continued, 
more for civility's sake than because of any particular 
interest I took in the subject, to ask him questions 
about the customs and habits of pirates.

"I believe," said I, "the buccaneers are so resolute in 
having clear ships that they have neither beds nor seats 
on board."

"The English," he answered, speaking slowly and letting 
his pipe droop whilst he spoke with his eyes fixed on 
deck, "not the Spanish. 'Tis the custom of most English 
pirates to eat and sleep upon the decks for the sake of a 
clear ship, as you say. The Spaniard loves comfort--you 
may observe his fancy in this ship."

"How is the plunder partitioned?" I asked. 

"Everything is put into the common chest, as we call it, 
and brought to the mast and sold by auction-- Strange!" 
he cried, breaking off and putting his hand to his brow. 
"I find my speech difficult. Do you notice	I halt and 
utter thickly?"

I replied, No; his voice	seemed to be the same as 
hitherto.

"Yet I feel ill. Holy Mother of God, what is this feeling 
coming upon me? O Jesus, how faint and dark!"

He half rose from his bench, but sat again, trembling as 
if the palsy had seized him, and I noticed his head 
dotted with beads of sweat. He had drunk so much wine and 
spirits throughout the day that a dram would have been of 
no use to him.

I said, "I expect it will be the blow on the back of your 
head, when you fell just now, that has produced this 
feeling of giddiness. Let me help you to lie down" (for 
his mattress was on deck); "the sensation will pass, I 
don't doubt."

If he heard he did not heed me, but fell a-muttering and 
crying to himself. And now I did certainly remark a 
quality in his voice that was new to my ear; it was not, 
as he had said, a labour or thickness of utterance, but a 
dryness and parchedness of old age, with many breaks from 
high to low notes, and a lean noise of dribbling 
threading every word. He sweated and talked and muttered, 
but this was from sheer terror; he did not swoon, but sat 
with a stoop, often pressing his brows and gazing about 
him like one whose senses are all abroad.

"Gracious Mother of all angels!" he exclaimed, crossing 
himself several times, but with a feeble, most agitated 
hand, and speaking in French and English, and sometimes 
interjecting an invocation in Italian or Spanish, though 
I give you what he said in my own tongue; "surely I am 
dying. O Lord, how frightful to die! O holy Virgin, be 
merciful to me. I shall go to hell--O Jesu, I am past 
forgiveness--for the love of heaven, Mr. Rodney, some 
brandy! Oh that some saint would interpose for me! Only a 
few years longer--grant me a few years longer--I beseech 
for time that I may repent!" and he extended one 
quivering hand for the brandy (of which a draught stood 
melted in the oven) and made the sign of the cross upon 
his breast with the other, whilst he continued to whine 
out in his cracked pipes the wildest appeals for mercy, 
saying a vast deal that I durst not venture to set down, 
so plentiful and awful were his clamours for time that he 
might repent, though he never lapsed into blasphemy, but 
on the contrary discovered an agony of religious horror.

I was much astonished and puzzled by this illness that 
had come upon him, for, though he talked of darkness and 
faintness and of dying, he continued to sit up on his 
bench and to take pulls at the can of brandy I had handed 
to him. It might be, indeed, that a sudden faintness had 
terrified him nearly out of his senses with a prospect of 
approaching death; but that would not account for the 
peculiar note and appearance of age that had entered his 
figure, face, and voice. Then an extraordinary fancy 
occurred to me: Had the whole weight of the unhappy 
wretch's years suddenly descended upon him? Or, if not 
wholly arrived, might not these indications in him mark 
the first stages of a gradually increasing pressure? The 
heat, the vivacity, the fierceness, spirits, and temper 
of the life I had been instrumental in restoring to him 
probably illustrated his character as it was eight-and-
forty years since; that had flourished artificially from 
the moment of his awakening down to the present hour; but 
now the hand of Time was upon this man, whose age was 
above an hundred. He might be decaying and wasting, even 
as he sat there, into such an intellectual condition and 
physical aspect as he would possess and submit had he 
come without a break into his present age.

I was fascinated by the mystery of his vitality, and 
breathlessly watched him as if I expected to witness some 
harlequin change in his face and mark the transformation 
of his polished brow into the lean austerity of wrinkles. 
His voice sank into a mere whisper at last, and then, 
ceasing to speak altogether, he dropped his chin on to 
his bosom and began to sway from side to side, catching 
himself from falling with several paralytic starts, but 
without lifting his head or opening his eyes that I could 
see, and manifesting every symptom of extreme drowsiness.

I got up and laid my hand on his shoulder, on which he 
turned his face and viewed me with one eye closed, the 
other scarce open.

"How are you feeling now?" said I. 

"Sleepy, very sleepy," he answered.

"I'll put your mattress into your hammock," said I, "and 
the best thing you can do is to go and turn in properly 
and get a long night's rest, and to-morrow morning you'll 
feel yourself as hearty as ever."

He mumbled some answer which I interpreted to signify 
"Very well!" so I shouldered his mattress and slung a 
lanthorn in his cabin, and then returned to help him to 
bed. He sat reeling on the bench, his chin on his breast, 
catching himself up as before with little sharp terrified 
recoveries, and I was forced to put my hand on him again 
to make him understand I had come back. He then made as 
if to rise, but trembled so violently that he sank down 
again with a groan, and I was obliged to put my whole 
strength to the lifting of him to get him on to his legs. 
He leaned heavily upon me, breathing hard, stooping very 
much and trembling. When we got to his cabin I perceived 
that he would never be able to climb into his hammock, 
nor had I the power to hoist a man of his bulk so high. 
To end the perplexity I cut the hammock down and laid it 
on the deck, and covering him with a heap of clothes, 
unslung the lanthorn, wished him good-night, closed the 
door, and returned to the furnace.

CHAPTER ZZZ

THE ICE BREAKS AWAY.

It was not yet eight o'clock. I was restless in my mind, 
under a great surprise, and was not sleepy. I filled a 
pipe, made me a little pannikin of punch, and sat down 
before the fire to think. If ever I had suspected the 
accuracy of my conjecture that the Frenchman's sudden 
astonishing indisposition was the effect of his extreme 
age coming upon him and breaking clown the artificial 
vitality with which he had bristled into life under my 
hands, I must have found fifty signs to set my misgivings 
at rest in his drowsiness, nodding, bowed form, weakness, 
his tottering and trembling, and other features of his 
latest behaviour. If I was right, then I had reason to be 
thankful to Almighty God for this unparalleled and most 
happy dispensation, for now I should have nothing to fear 
from the old rogue's vindictiveness and horrid greed. 
Supposing him to be no more than a hundred, the 
infirmities of five score years would stand between him 
and me, and protect me as effectually as his death. I had 
nothing to dread from a man who could scarce stand, whose 
palsied hand could scarce clasp a knife, whose evil 
tongue could scarce articulate the terrors of his soul or 
the horrors of his recollection.

The wonder of it all was so great it filled me with 
admiration and astonishment. Had he been dead and come to 
life again, as Lazarus, or one of those bodies which 
arose during the time our Lord hung upon the cross, then, 
questionless, he must have picked up the chain of his 
life at the link which death had broken, and continued 
his natural walk into age and decay (though interrupted 
by a thousand years of the sepulchre) as if his life had 
been without this black hiatus, and he was proceeding 
steadily and humanly from the cradle. But collecting that 
the vital spark could never have been extinguished in 
him, I understood that time, which has absolute control 
over life, still knew him as its prey during all those 
forty-eight years in which he had lain frozen; that it 
had seized him now and suddenly, and pinned upon his back 
the full burden of his lustres. This I say, I believed; 
but the morrow, of course, would give me further proof.

Well, 'twas a happy and gracious deliverance for me. He 
could do me no hurt; the scythe had sheared his talons, 
and all without occasioning my conscience the least 
uneasiness whatever: whereas, but for this interposition, 
I did truly and solemnly believe that it must have come 
to my having had to slay him that I might preserve my own 
life.

Thus I sat for an hour smoking and wetting my lips with 
the punch, whilst the fire burned low, so exulting in the 
thought of my escape from the treacherous villain I had 
recovered from the grave, and in the feeling that I might 
now be able to go to rest, to move here and there, to act 
as I pleased without being haunted and terrified by the 
shadow of his foul intent, that I hardly gave my mind for 
a moment to the situation of the schooner nor to the 
barren consequences of my fine scheme of mines.

The wind blew strong. I could hear the humming of it in 
every fibre of the vessel. The bed on which she rested 
trembled to the blows of the seas upon the rocks. From 
time to time, in the midst of my musing, I started to the 
sharp claps of parted ice. Still feeling sleepless, I 
threw a few coals on the fire, and catching sight of the 
pirate flag opened it on the deck as wide as the space 
would permit, and sat down to contemplate the hideous 
insignia embroidered on it. My mind filled with a hundred 
fancies as my gaze went from the skull on the black field 
to the death's-head pipe that had fallen from the grasp 
of Tassard and lay on the deck, and I was sitting lost in 
a deep dreamlike contemplation, when I was startled and 
shocked into instantaneous activity by a blast of noise, 
louder than any thunder-clap that ever I heard, ringing 
and booming through the schooner. This was followed by a 
second and then a third, at intervals during which you 
might have counted ten, and I became sensible of a 
strange sickening motion, which lasted about twenty or 
thirty moments, such as might be experienced by one 
swiftly descending in a balloon, or in falling from a 
height whilst pent up in a coach.

For a little while the schooner heeled over so violently 
that the benches and all things movable in the cook-room 
slided as far as they could go, and I heard a great 
clatter and commotion among the freight in the hold. She 
then came upright again, and simultaneously with this a 
vast mass of water tumbled on to the deck and washed over 
my head, and then fell another and then another, all in 
such a way as to make me know that the ice had broken and 
slipped the schooner close to the ocean, where she lay 
exposed to its surges, but not free of the ice, for she 
did not toss or roll.

Zzz seized the lanthorn and sprang to the cabin, where I 
hung it up, and mounted the companion-steps. But as I put 
my hand to the door to thrust it open a sea broke over 
the side and filled the decks, bubbling and thundering 
past the companion-hatch in such a way as to advise me 
that I need but open the door to drown the cabin. I 
waited, my heart beating very hard, mad to see what had 
happened, but not daring to trust myself on deck lest I 
should be immediately swept into the sea. 'Twas the most 
terrible time I had yet lived through in this experience. 
To every blow of the billows the schooner trembled 
fearfully; the crackling noises of the ice was as though 
I was in the thick of a heavy action. The full weight of 
the wind seemed to be upon the ship, and the screeching 
of it in the iron-like shrouds pierced to my ear through 
the hissing and tearing sounds of the water washing along 
the decks, and the volcanic notes of the surges breaking 
over the vessel. I say, to hear all this and not to be 
able to see, to be ignorant of the situation of the 
schooner, not to know from one second to another whether 
she would not be crushed up and crumbled into staves, or 
be hurled off her bed and be pounded to fragments upon 
the ice-rocks by the seas, or be dashed by the 
cannonading of the surge into the water and turned bottom 
up, made this time out and away more terrible than the 
collision between the Laughing Mary and the iceberg.

I drew my breath with difficulty, and stood upon the 
companion-ladder hearkening with straining ears, my hand 
upon the door. I was now sensible of a long-drawn, 
stately, solemn kind of heaving motion in the schooner, 
which I put down to the rolling of the ice on which she 
rested; and this convinced me that the mass in whose 
hollow she had been fixed had broken away and was afloat 
and riding upon the swell that under-ran the billows. But 
I was far too much alarmed to feel any of those 
transports in which I must have indulged had this issue 
to my scheme happened in daylight and in smooth water. I 
was terrified by the apprehensions which had occurred to 
me even whilst I was at work on the mines; I mean, that 
if the bed broke away the schooner would make it top-
heavy and that it would capsize; and thus I stood in a 
very agony of expectancy, caged like a rat, and as 
helpless as the dead.

Half an hour must have passed, during which time the 
decks were incessantly swept by the seas, insomuch that I 
never once durst open the door even to look out. But 
nothing having happened to increase my consternation in 
this half-hour, though the movement in the schooner was 
that of a very ponderous and majestical rolling and 
heaving, showing her bed to be afloat, I began to find my 
spirits and to listen and wait with some buddings of hope 
and confidence. At the expiration of this time the seas 
began to fall less heavily and regularly on to the deck, 
and presently I could only hear them breaking forward, 
but without a quarter their former weight, and nothing 
worse came aft than large brisk showers of spray.

I armed myself with additional clothing for the encounter 
of the wet, cold, and wind, and then pushed open the door 
and stepped forth. The sky was dark with rolling clouds, 
but the ice put its own light into the air, and I could 
see as plain as if the first of the dawn had broken. It 
was as I had supposed: the mass of the valley in which 
the schooner had been sepulchred for eight-and-forty 
years had come away from the main, and lay floating 
within a cable's length of the coast. A stranger, 
wonderfuller picture human eye never beheld. The island 
shore ran a rampart of faintness along the darkness to 
where it died out in liquid dusk to right and left. The 
schooner sat upon a bed of ice that showed a surface of 
about half an acre; her stern was close to the sea, and 
about six feet above it. On her larboard quarter the 
slope or shoulder of the acclivity had been broken by the 
rupture, and you looked over the side into the clear sea 
beyond the limit of the ice there; but abreast of the 
fore-shrouds the ice rose in a kind of wall, a great 
splinter it looked of what was before a small broad-
browed hill, and the wind or the sea having caused the 
body on which the schooner lay to veer, this wall stood 
as a shield betwixt the vessel and the surges, and was 
now receiving those blows which had heretofore struck her 
starboard side amidships and filled her decks.

Oh for a wizard's inkhorn, that I might make you see the 
picture as I view it now, even with the eye of memory! 
The posture of the little berg pointed the schooner's 
head seawards, about west; the ice-terraces of the island 
lay with the wild strange gleam of their own snow 
radiance upon them upon the larboard quarter; around the 
schooner was the whiteness of her frozen seat, and her 
outline was an inky, exquisitely defined configuration 
upon it; above the crystal wall on the larboard bow rose 
the spume of the breaking surge in pallid bodies, 
glancing for an instant, and sometimes shaking a thunder 
into the snip when a portion of the seething water was 
flung by the wind upon the forecastle deck; at moments a 
larger sea than usual overran the ice on the larboard 
beam and quarter, and boiled up round about the buttocks 
of the schooner. To leeward the smooth backs of the 
billows rolled away in jet, but the fitful throbbings and 
feeble flashings of froth commingled with the dim shine 
of the ice were over all, tincturing the darkness with a 
spectral sheen, giving to everything a quality of 
unearthliness that was sharpened yet by the sounds of the 
wind in the gloom on high and the hissing and foaming of 
waters sending their leagues-distant voices to the ear 
upon the wings of the icy blast.

The wind, as I have said, blew from the southwest, but 
the trend of the island-coast was northeast, and as the 
mass of ice I was upon in parting from the main had 
floated to a cable's length from the cliffs, there was 
not much danger, whilst the wind and sea held, of the 
berg (if I may so term it) being thrown upon the island. 
That the ice under the schooner was moving, and if so, at 
what rate, it was too dark to enable me to know by 
observing the marks on the coast. There was to be no 
sleep for me that night, and knowing this, I stepped 
below and built up a good fire, and then went with the 
lanthorn to see how Tassard did and to give him the news; 
but he was in so deep a sleep, that after pulling him a 
little without awakening him I let him lie, nothing but 
the sound of his breathing persuading me that he had not 
lapsed into his old frozen state again.

Of all long nights this was the longest I ever passed 
through. I did truly believe that the day was never to 
break again over the ocean. I must have gone from the 
fire to the deck thirty or forty times. The schooner 
continued upright. I had no fear of her oversetting; she 
sat very low, and the ice also showed but a small head 
above the water, and as the body of it lay pretty flat, 
then, even supposing its submerged bulk was small, there 
was little chance of its capsizing. I also noticed that 
we were setting seawards--that is to say, to the 
westward--by a noticeable shrinking of the pallid coast. 
But I never could stay long enough above to observe with 
any kind of narrowness, the wind being full of the wet 
that was flung over the ice-wall and the cold 
unendurable.

All night I kept the fire going, and on several occasions 
visited the Frenchman, but found him motionless in sleep. 
I kept too good a lookout to apprehend any sudden 
calamity short of capsizal, which I no longer feared, and 
during the watches of that long night I dreamt a hundred 
waking dreams of my deliverance, of my share of the 
treasure, of my arriving in England, quitting the sea for 
ever, and setting up as a great squire, marrying a 
nobleman's daughter, driving in a fine coach, and ending 
with a seat in Parliament and a stout well-sounding 
handle to my name.

At last the day broke; I went on deck and found the dawn 
brightening into morning. The wind had fallen and with it 
the sea; but there still ran a middling strong surge, and 
the breeze was such as, in sailors' language, you would 
have shown your top-gallant sails to. I could now take 
measure of our situation, and was not a little astonished 
and delighted to observe the island to be at least a mile 
distant from us, and the northeast end lying very plain, 
the ocean showing beyond it, though in the south-west the 
ice died out upon the sea-line. That we had been set away 
from the main by some current was very certain. There was 
a westerly tendency in all the bergs which broke from the 
island, the small ones moving more quickly than the 
large, for the sea in the north and west was dotted with 
at least fifty of these white masses, great and little. 
On the other hand, the wind and seas were answerable for 
the progress we had made to the north.

The wall of ice (as I call it) that had stood over 
against the larboard bow was gone, and the seas tumbled 
with some heaviness of froth and much noise over the ice, 
past the bows, and washed past the bends on either side 
in froth rising as high as the channels. I noticed a 
great quantity of broken ice sinking and rising in the 
dark green curls of the billows, and big blocks would be 
hurled on to the schooner's bed and then be swept off, 
sometimes fetching the bilge such a thump as seemed to 
swing a bellow through her frame. It was only at 
intervals, however, that water fell upon the decks, for 
the ice broke the beat of the moderating surge and forced 
it to expend its weight in spume, which there was not 
strength of wind enough to raise and heave. Since the 
vessel continued to lie head to sea, my passionate hope 
was that these repeated washings of the waves would in 
time loosen the ice about her keel, in which case it 
would not need much of a billow, smiting her full bows 
fair, to slide her clean down and off her bed and so 
launch her. There were many clouds in the heavens, but 
the blue was very pure between. The morning brightening 
with the rising of the sun, I directed an earnest gaze 
along the horizon, but there was nothing to see but ice. 
Some of the bergs, however, and more particularly the 
distant ones, stole out of the blue atmosphere to the 
sunshine with so complete a resemblance to the lifting 
canvas of ships that I would catch myself staring 
fixedly, my heart beating fast. But there was no 
dejection in these disappointments; the ecstasy that 
filled me on beholding the terrible island, the hideous 
frozen prison whose crystal bars I had again and again 
believed were never to be broken, now lying at a distance 
with its northern cape imperceptibly opening to our 
subtle movement, was so violent that I could not have 
found my voice for the tears in my heart.

This, then, was the result of my scheme; it was no 
failure, as Tassard had said; as he owed his life to me, 
so now did he owe me his liberty. Nay, my transports were 
so great that I would not suffer myself to feel an 
instant's anxiety touching the condition of the schooner-
-I mean whether she would leak or prove  sound when she 
floated--and how we two men were to manage to navigate so 
large a craft, that was still as much spellbound aloft in 
her frozen canvas and tackle as ever she had been in the 
sepulchre in which I discovered her.

I went below, and put the provisions we needed for 
breakfast into the oven, and entered Tassard's cabin. On 
bringing the lanthorn to his face as he lay under half a 
score of coats upon the deck, I perceived that he was 
awake, and, my heart being full, I cried out cheerily, 
"Good news! good news! the gunpowder did its work! The 
ice is ruptured and we are afloat, Mr. Tassard, afloat--
and progressing north!"

He looked at me vacantly, and giving his head a shake 
exclaimed, "How can I crawl from this mound? My strength 
is gone."

If I was amazed that the joyful intelligence I had 
delivered produced no other response than this querulous 
inquiry, I was far more astonished by the sound of his 
voice. It was the most cracked and venerable pipe that 
ever tickled the throat of old age, a mingling of wailing 
falsettos and of hollow gasping growls, the whole very 
weak. I threw the clothes off him, and said, "Do you wish 
to rise? I will bring your breakfast here if you wish."

He looked at me, but made no answer. I bawled again, and 
observed (by the dim lanthorn light) that he watched my 
lips with an air of attention; and whilst I waited for 
his reply he said, "I don't hear you."

Anxious to ascertain to what extent his hearing was 
impaired, I kneeled on the deck, and putting my lips to 
his ear said, not very loud, "Will you come to the cook-
house?" which he did not hear; and then louder, "Will you 
come to the cook-house?" which he did not hear either. I 
believed him stone-deaf till, on roaring with all the 
power of my lungs, he answered "Yes."

I took him by the hands and hauled him gently on to his 
feet, and had to continue holding him or he must have 
fallen. Time was beginning with him when he had gone to 
bed, and the remorseless old soldier had completely 
finished his work whilst his victim slept. I viewed the 
Frenchman whilst I grasped his hands, and there stood 
before me a shrunk, tottering, deaf, bowed, feeble old 
man. What was yesterday a polished head was now a 
shrivelled pate, as though the very skull had shrunk and 
left the skin to ripple into wrinkles and sit loose and 
puckered. His hands trembled excessively. But his lower 
jaw was held in its place by his teeth, and this 
perpetuated in the aged dwindled countenace something of 
the likeness of the fierce and sinister visage that had 
confronted me yesterday. I was thunderstruck by the 
alteration, and stood overwhelmed with awe, confusion, 
and alarm. Then, re-collecting my spirits, I supported 
the miserable relic to the fire, putting his bench to the 
dresser that he might have a back to lean against.

He could scarce feed himself--indeed, he could hardly 
hold his chin off his breast. He had gone to bed a man, 
as I might take it, of fifty-six, and during the night 
the angel of Time had visited him, and there he sat, a 
hundred and three years of age!

He looked it. Ha, thought I, I was dreading your 
treachery yesterday; there is nothing more to fear. 
Besides that he was nearly stone deaf, he could hardly 
see; and I was sure, if he should be able to move at all, 
he could not stir a leg without the help of sticks. I was 
going to roar out to him that we were adrift, but he 
looked so imbecile that I thought, to what purpose? If 
there be aught of memory in him, let him sit and chew the 
cud thereof. He cannot last long; the cold must soon stop 
his heart. And with that I went on eating my breakfast in 
silence, but greatly affected by this astonishing mark of 
the hand of Providence, and under a very heavy and 
constant sense of awe, for the like of such a 
transformation I am sure had never before encountered 
mortal eyes, and it was terrifying to be alone with it.

CHAPTER VII.

THE	FRENCHMAN DIES.

HOWEVER, if I expected my Frenchman to sit very long 
silent, he soon undeceived me by beginning to complain in 
his tremulous aged voice of his weakness and aching 
limbs.

"'Tis the terrible cold that has affected me," said he, 
whilst his head nodded nervously. "I feel the rheumatism 
in every bone. There is no weakness like the rheumatic, I 
have heard, and 'tis true, 'tis true. It may lay me 
along--yes, by the Virgin, 'tis rheumatism--what else?" 
Here he was interrupted by a long fit of coughing, and 
when it was ended he turned to address me again, but 
looked at the bulkhead on my right, as if his vision 
could not fix me. "But my capers are not over!" he cried, 
setting up his rickety shrill throat; "no, no! Vive 
l'amour! vive la joie! The sun is coming the sun is the 
fountain of life--ay, mon brave, there are some shakes in 
these stout legs yet!" He shook his head with a fine air 
of cunning and knowingness, grinning very oddly; and 
then, falling grave with a startling suddenness, he began 
to dribble out a piratical love-story he had once before 
favoured me with, describing the charms of the woman with 
a horrid leer, his head nodding with the nervous 
affection of age all the time, whilst he looked blindly 
in my direction--a hideous and yet pitiful object!

I could not say that his mind was gone, but he talked 
with many breaks for breath, and not very coherently, as 
though the office of his tongue was performed by habit 
rather than memory, so that he often went far astray and 
babbled into sentences that had no reference to what had 
gone before, though on the whole I managed to collect 
what he meant. I was sure he had not power enough of 
vision to observe me in the dim reddish light of the 
cook-room, and this being so, he could not know I was 
present, more particularly as he could not hear me, yet 
he persisted in his poor babble, which was a behaviour in 
him that, more than even the matter of his speech, 
persuaded me of his imbecility.

He made no reference to our situation, and in solemn 
truth I believe his memory retained no more than a few 
odds and ends of the evil story of his life, like bits of 
tarnished lace and a rusty button or two lying in the 
bottom of a dark chest that has long been emptied of the 
clothes it once held.

But my condition made such heavy demands upon my thoughts 
that I had very much less attention to give to this 
surprising phenomenon of senility than its uncommon 
merits deserved. It has puzzled every member of the 
faculty that I have mentioned it to, the supposition 
being that, given the case of suspended animation, there 
is no waste, and the person would quit his stupor with 
the same powers and aspect as he possessed when he 
entered it, though it lasted a thousand years. But 
granting there is no waste, Time is always present 
waiting to settle accounts when the sleeper lifts his 
head. There may be an artificial interval, during which 
the victim might show as my pirate did, but the poised 
load of years is severed on a sudden by the scythe and 
becomes superincumbent, and with the weight comes the 
transformation; and this theory, as the only eye-witness 
ofthe marvellous thing, I will hold and maintain whilst! 
have breath in my body to support it.

I left him gabbling to himself, sometimes grinning as if 
greatly diverted, sometimes lifting a trembling hand to 
help his ghostly recital by an equally ghostly dumb-show, 
and went on deck, satisfied that he was too weak to get 
to the fire and meddle with it, but sufficiently 
invigorated by his long night's rest to sit up with out 
tumbling off the bench.

This time I carried with me an old perspective glass I 
had noticed in the chest in my cabin--the chest in which 
were the nautical instruments, charts, and papers--and 
levelled it along the coast of the island, but it was a 
poor glass, and I found I could manage nearly as well 
with the naked eye. There was no change of any kind, only 
that there was a sensible diminution in the blowing of 
the wind and a corresponding decrease in the height of 
the seas. The ice stretched in a considerable bed on 
either hand the ship and ahead of her; the water frothed 
freely over it, and there was a great jangling and 
flashing of broken pieces, but the hull was no longer 
heavily hit by them.

I got into the main chains to view the body of the 
vessel, and noticed with satisfaction that the constant 
pouring of the sea had thinned down the frozen snow to 
the depth of at least a foot. This encouraged me to hope 
that the restless tides would sap to her keel at least, 
and put her into a posture to be easily launched by the 
blow of a surge upon her bows--that is if fortune 
continued to keep her head on. But by this time, my 
transports having moderated, I was grown fully sensible 
of the extreme peril of our position. Should the sea rise 
and the ice bring her broadside to it, it was inevitable, 
it seemed to me, that she must go to pieces. Or if the 
ice on which she floated, fouled some other berg it might 
cost us all our spars. Then again occurred the dismal 
question, Suppose she should launch herself, would she 
float? For eight-and-forty years she had been high and 
dry; never a caulker's hammer had rung upon her in all 
that time. Tassard had spoken of her as a stout ship, and 
so she was, I did not doubt; but the old rogue talked as 
if she had been stranded six months only! I had no other 
hope than that the intense cold had treated her timbers 
as it had treated the bodies of her people, an 
expectation not unreasonable when I considered the state 
of her stores and the manifest substantiality of her 
inward fabric.

I regained the deck and stepped over to the pumps. There 
were two of them, but built up in snow. My business was 
to save my life if I could, and the schooner too, for the 
sake of the great treasure in her. Nothing must 
disconcert me I said to myself--I must spare no labour, 
but act a hearty sailor's part and ask for God's 
countenance. So I trotted below, and selecting some 
weapons from the arms-room, such as a tomahawk, a spade-
headed spear, a pike and a chopper, I returned to the 
pumps and fell upon them with a will. The ice flew about 
me, but I continued to smite, the exercise making me hot 
and renewing my spirits, and in an hour--but it took me 
an hour--I had chopped, hacked, and beaten one of the 
pumps pretty clear of its thick crystal coat. They were 
what is called brake-pumps--that is to say, pumps which 
are worked by handles. The ice, of course, held them 
immovable, but they looked to be perfectly sound, in good 
working order, though there would be neither chance nor 
need to test them until the schooner went afloat.

I cleared the other one and was well satisfied with my 
morning's work. But I did bitterly lament the lack of a 
little crew. Even the Frenchman as he was yesterday would 
have served my turn for between us we might have made 
shift to clamber aloft, and with hatchets break the sails 
free of their ice bonds, and so expose canvas enough to 
hold the wind, which could not have failed to impart a 
swifter motion to the berg. But with my single pair of 
hands I could only look up idly at the yards and gaffs 
standing hard as granite. Still, even such surface as the 
spars and rigging offered to the breeze helped our 
progress. We were but a very little berg, nay, not a 
berg, but rather a sheet of ice lying indifferently flat 
upon the sea, and, as I believe, without much depth. Our 
spars and gear were as if the ice itself were rigged as a 
ship, and then there was the height of the hull besides 
to offer to the breeze a tolerable resistance for its 
offices of propulsion. In this way I explain our 
progress; but whatever the cause, certain it was that our 
bed of ice was fairly under weigh, and at noon the island 
of ice bore at least half a league distant from us, and 
we had opened the sea broadly past its northern cape.

I have often diverted myself with wondering what sort of 
impression the posture of our schooner would have made on 
the minds of sailors sighting us from their deck. We 
looked to be floating out of water, and mariners who 
regard the devil as a conjuror must have accepted us as 
one of his pet inventions.

The many icebergs which encumbered the sea filled me with 
anxiety. We were travelling faster than they, and it 
seemed impossible that we could miss striking one or 
another of them. Yet perilous as they were, I could not 
but admire their beautiful appearance as they floated 
upon the dark blue of the running waters, flashing out 
very gloriously to the sun with a sparkling of tints upon 
their whiteness as if fires of twenty different colours 
had been kindled upon their craggy steeps, and then 
fading into a sulky watcher to the dull violet shadowing 
of the passing clouds. I particularly marked a very 
brilliant scene on the opening of five or six of them to 
the sunshine. They lay in such wise that the shadow of 
the cloud covered them all as with a veil, the skirts of 
which, trailing, left them to leap one after the other 
into the noontide dazzle; and as each one shot from the 
shadow the flash was like a volcanic spouting of white 
flame enriched with the prismatic dyes of emeralds, 
rubies, sapphires, and gems of lovely hue.

To determine the hour and our position I fetched a 
quadrant from my cabin, and was happily just in time to 
catch the sun crossing the meridian. My watch was half an 
hour fast, so I had been out of my reckoning to the 
extent of thirty minutes ever since I had been cast away. 
I made our latitude to be sixty-four degrees twenty-eight 
minutes south, and the computation was perhaps near 
enough.

This business ended, I went to the cook-house to prepare 
dinner, and the first object I saw was Tassard flat upon 
his face near the door that opened into the cabin. He 
groaned when I picked him up, which I managed without 
much exertion of strength, for so much had he shrunk that 
I dare say more than half his weight lay in his clothes; 
and set him upon his bench with his back to the dresser. 
I put my mouth to his ear and roared, "Are you hurt?" His 
head nodded as if he understood me, but I question if he 
did. He was the completest picture of old age that you 
could imagine. I fetched a couple of spears from the 
arms-room, and, cutting them to his height, put one in 
each hand that he might keep himself propped; and whilst 
my own dinner was broiling I made him a mess of broth 
with which I fed him, for now that he had the sticks he 
would not let go of them. But in any case I doubt if his 
trembling hand could have lifted the spoon to his lips 
without capsizing the contents down his beard.

With some small idea of rallying the old villain, I mixed 
him a very stiff bumper of brandy, which he supped down 
out of my hand with the utmost avidity. The draught soon 
worked in him, and he began to move his head about, 
seeking me in his blind way, and then cried in his broken 
notes, "I have lost the use of my legs and cannot walk. 
Mother of God, what shall I do! O holy St. Antonio, what 
is to become of me?"

I guessed from this that, impelled by habit or some small 
spur of reason, he had risen to go on deck and fallen. He 
went on vapouring pitifully, gazing with sufficient 
steadfastness to let me understand that his vision 
received something of my outline, though he would fix his 
eyes either to left or right of me, as though he was not 
able to see if he looked straight; and this and his 
mournful cackle and his nodding head, bowed form, propped 
hands, and diminished face made him as distressful and 
melancholy a picture of Time as ever mortal man viewed. 
He broke off in his rambling to ask for more brandy, 
taking it for granted that I was still in the cook-room, 
for I never spoke, and I filled a can for him and as 
before held it to his mouth, which he opened wide, a 
piece of behaviour which went to show that some of his 
wits still hung loose upon him. This was a strong dose, 
and co-operating with the other, soon seized hold on his 
head, and presently he began to laugh to himself and 
talk, and even broke into a zzz stave or two--some French 
song which he delivered in a voice like the squeaking of 
a rat alternating with the growling of a terrier.

I guess his stumbling upon this old French zzz catch 
(which I took it to be from seeing him feebly flourish 
one of his sticks as if inviting a chorus) put him upon 
speaking his own tongue altogether, for though he 
continued to chatter with all the volubility his breath 
would permit during the whole time I sat eating, not one 
word of English did he speak, and not one word therefore 
did I understand. Seeing how it must be with him 
presently, I brought his mattress and rugs from his 
cabin, and had scarce laid them down when he let fall one 
of his sticks and drooped over. I grasped him, and partly 
lifting, partly hauling, got him on his back and covered 
him up. In a few minutes he was asleep.

I trust I shall not be deemed inhuman if I confess that I 
heartily wished his end would come. 

If he went on living he promised to be an intolerable 
burden to me, being quite helpless. Besides, he was much 
too old for this world, in which a man who reaches the 
age of ninety is pointed to as a sort of wonder.

As there was nothing to be done on deck, I filled my pipe 
and made myself comfortable before the furnace, and was 
speedily sunk in meditation. I reviewed all the 
circumstances of my case and considered my chances, and 
the nimble heels of imagination carrying me home with 
this schooner, I asked myself, suppose I should have the 
good fortune to convey the treasure in safety to England, 
how was I to secure it? Let me imagine myself arrived in 
the Thames. The whole world stares at the strange antique 
craft sailing up the river; she would be boarded and 
rummaged by the customs people, who of course would light 
upon the treasure. What then? I knew nothing of the law; 
but I reckoned, since I should have to tell the truth, 
that the money, ore, and jewellery would be claimed as 
stolen property, and I dismissed with a small reward for 
bringing it home. There was folly in such contemplation 
at such a time, when perhaps at this hour to-morrow the 
chests might be at the bottom of the sea, and myself a 
drowned sailor floating three hundred fathoms deep. But 
man is a froward child, who builds mansions out of 
dreams, and, jockeyed by hope, sets out at a gallop along 
the visionary road to his desires; and my mind was so 
much taken up with considering how I should manage when I 
brought the treasure home, that I spent a couple of hours 
in a conflict of schemes, during which time it never once 
occurred to me to reflect that I was a good way from home 
still, and that much must happen before I need give 
myself the least concern as to the securing of the 
treasure.

Nothing worth recording happened that day. The wind 
slackened, and the ice travelled so slow that at sundown 
I could not discover that we had made more than a quarter 
of a mile of progress to the north since noon, though we 
had settled by half as much again that distance 
westwards. Whilst I was below I could hear the ice 
crackling pretty briskly round about the ship, which gave 
me some comfort; but I could never see any change of 
consequence when I looked over the side or bows, only 
that at about four o'clock, whilst I was taking a view 
from the forecastle, a large block broke away from beyond 
the starboard bow with the report of a swivel gun.

I had not closed my eyes on the previous night, and was 
tired out when the evening arrived, and, as no good could 
come of my keeping a watch, for the simple reason that it 
was not in my power to avert anything that might happen, 
I tumbled some further covering over the Frenchman, who 
had lain on the deck all the afternoon, sometimes dozing, 
sometimes waking and talking to himself, and appearing on 
the whole very easy and comfortable, and went to my 
cabin.

I slept sound the whole night through, and on waking went 
on deck before going to the cook-house and lighting the 
furnace (as was my custom), so impatient was I to observe 
our state and to hear such news as the ocean had for me. 
It was a very curious day, somewhat darksome, and a dead 
calm, with a large long swell out of the south-east. The 
sky was full of clouds, with a stooping appearance in the 
hang of them that reminded you of the belly of a hammock; 
they were of a sallow brown, very uncommon; some of them 
round about sipped the sea-line, and their shadows, 
obliterating those parts of the cincture which they 
overhung, broke the continuity of the horizon as though 
there were valleys in the ocean there. A good part of our 
bed of ice was gone, at least a fourth of it; but the 
schooner still lay as strongly fixed as before. I had 
come to the deck half expecting to find her afloat from 
the regular manner of her heaving, and was bitterly 
disappointed to discover her rooted as strongly as ever 
in the ice, though the irritation softened when I noticed 
how the bed had diminished. The mass with the ship upon 
it rose and sank with the sluggish squatting motion of a 
water-logged vessel. It was an odd sensation to my legs 
after their long rest from such exercise. The heaving 
satisfied me that the base of the bed did not go deep, 
but at the same time it was all too solid for me, I could 
not doubt, for had the sheet been as thin as I had hoped 
it, it must have given under the weight of the schooner 
and released her.

The island lay a league distant on the larboard beam, and 
looked a wondrous vast field of ice going into the south, 
and it stared very ghastly upon the dark green sea out of 
the clouds whose gloom sank behind it. I could not 
observe that we had drifted anything to the north, whilst 
our set to the westwards had been steady though snail-
like. The sea in the north and north-west swarmed with 
bergs, like great snowdrops on the green undulating 
fields of the deep. Now and again the swell, in which 
fragments of ice floated with the gleam of crystal in 
liquid glass, would be too quick for our dull rise and 
overflow the bed, brimming to the channels with much 
noise of foam and pouring waters, but the interposition 
of the ice took half its weight out of it, and it never 
did more than send a tremble through the vessel.

What to make of the weather I knew not, Certainly, of all 
the caprices of this huge cold sea, its calms are the 
shortest lived, but this knowledge helped me to no other. 
The clouds did not stir. In the north-east a beam of 
sunshine stood like a golden waterspout, its foot in a 
little flood of glory.

It stayed all the while I was on deck, showing that the 
clouds had scarce any motion, and made the picture of the 
sea that way beyond nature to my sight, by the contrast 
of the defined shaft of gold, burning purely, with the 
dusk of the clouds all about, and of the pool of dazzle 
at its foot with the ugly green of the water that melted 
into it.

I went below and got about lighting the fire. The 
Frenchman lay very quiet, under as many clothes as would 
fill a half-dozen of sacks. It was bitterly cold, sharper 
in the cook-house than I had ever remembered it, and I 
could not conceive why this should be, until I 
recollected that I had forgotten to close the companion-
hatch before going to bed. I prepared some broth for my 
companion, and dressed some ham for myself, and ate my 
breakfast, supposing he would meanwhile awake. But after 
sitting some time and observing that he did not stir, a 
suspicion flashed into my mind; I kneeled down, and 
clearing his face, listened. He did not breathe. I 
brought the lanthorn to him, but his countenance had been 
so changed by his unparalleled emergence from a state of 
middle life into extreme old age, he was so puckered, 
hollowed, gaunt, his features so distorted by the great 
weight of his years that I was not to know him dead by 
merely viewing him. I threw the clothes off him, listened 
at his mouth breathlessly, felt his hands, which were 
ice-cold. Dead indeed! thought I. Great Father, 'tis Thy 
will! And I rose very slowly and stood surveying the 
silent figure with an emotion that owed its inspiration 
partly to the several miracles of vitality I had beheld 
in him during our association, and to a bitter feeling of 
loneliness that swelled up in me.

Yes! I had feared and detested this man, but his quick 
transformation and silent dark exit affected me, and I 
looked down upon him sadly. Yet, to be perfectly candid 
with you, I recollect that, though it occurred to me to 
test if life was out of him by bringing him close to the 
fire and chafing him and giving him brandy, I would not 
stir. No, I would not have moved a finger to recover him, 
even though I should have been able to do so by merely 
putting him to the furnace. He was dead, and there was an 
end; and without further ado I carried him into the 
forecastle and threw a hammock over him, and left him to 
lie there till there should come clear water to the ship 
to serve him for a grave.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE	SCHOONER FREES HERSELF.

All day long the weather remained sullen and still, and 
the swell powerful. I was on deck at noon, looking at an 
iceberg half a league distant when it overset. It was a 
small berg, though large compared with most of the 
others; yet such a mighty volume of foam boiled up as 
gave me a startling idea of the prodigious weight of the 
mass. The sight made me very anxious about my own state, 
and to satisfy my mind I got upon the ice and walked 
round the vessel, and to get a true view of her posture 
went to the extreme end of the rocks beyond her bows, and 
finally came to the conclusion that, supposing the ice 
should crumble away from her sides so as to cause the 
weight of the schooner to render it top-heavy, her 
buoyancy on touching the water would certainly tear her 
keel out of its frosty setting and leave her floating.

Indeed, so sure was I of this that I saw, next to the ice 
splitting and freeing her in that way, the best thing 
that could happen would be its capsizal.

I regained the ship, and had paused an instant to look 
over the side, when I perceived the very block of ice on 
which I had come to a halt break from the bed with a 
smart clap of noise, and completely roll over. Only a 
minute before had I been standing on it, and thus had 
sixty seconds stood between me and death, for most 
certainly must I have been drowned or killed by being 
beaten against the ice by the swell! I fell upon my knees 
and lifted up my hands in gratitude to God, feeling 
extraordinarily comforted by this further mark of His 
care of me, and very strongly persuaded that He designed 
I should come off with my life after all, since His 
providence would not work so many miracles for my 
preservation if I was to perish by this adventure.

These thoughts did more for my spirits than I can well 
express; and the intolerable sense of loneliness was 
mitigated by the knowledge that I was watched, and 
therefore not alone.

The day passed I know not how. The shadow as of tempest 
hung in the air, but never a cats-paw did I see to blurt 
the rolling mirror of the ocean. The hidden sun sank out 
of the breathless sky, tingeing the atmosphere with a 
faint hectic, which quickly yielded to the deepest shade 
of blackness. The mysterious desperate silence, however, 
that on deck weighed oppressively on every sense, as 
something false, menacing, and malignant in these seas, 
was qualified below by the peculiar straining noises in 
the schooner's hold caused by the swinging of the ice 
upon the swell. I was very uneasy; I dreaded a gale. It 
was impossible but that the vessel must quickly go to 
pieces in a heavy sea upon the ice if she did not 
liberate herself. But though this excited a depression 
melancholy enough, nothing else that I can recollect 
contributed to it. When I reviewed the apprehension the 
Frenchman had raised, and reflected how unsupportable a 
burden he must have become, I was very well satisfied to 
be alone. Time had fortified me; I had passed through 
experiences so surprising, encountered wonders so 
preternatural, that superstition lay asleep in my soul, 
and I found nothing to occasion in me the least 
uneasiness in thinking of the lifeless shrivelled figure 
of What was just now a fierce, cowardly, untamed villain, 
lying in the forecastle.

I made a good supper, built up a large fire, and mixed 
myself a hearty bowl of punch, not with the view of 
drowning my anxieties--God forbid! I was too grateful for 
the past, too expectant of the future, to be capable of 
so brutish a folly--but that I might keep myself in a 
cheerful posture of mind; and being sick of my own 
company took the lanthorn to the cabin lately used by the 
Frenchman, and found in a chest there, among sundry 
articles of attire, a little parcel of books, some in 
Dutch and Portuguese, and one in English.

It was a little old volume, the author's name not given, 
and proved to be a relation of the writer's being taken 
by pirates, and the many dangers he underwent. There was 
nothing in it, to be sure, that answered to my own case, 
yet it interested me mightily as an honest unvarnished 
narrative of sea perils; and I see myself now in fancy 
reading it, the lanthorn hanging by a lanyard close 
beside my head, the book in one hand, my pipe in the 
other, the furnace roaring pleasantly, my feet close to 
it, and the atmosphere of the oven fragrant with the 
punch that I put there to prevent it from freezing. I had 
come to a certain page and was reading this passage:  
"Soon after we were on board we all went into the great 
cabin, where we found nothing but destruction. Two zzz 
scrutores jr had there were broke zzz lo fiz˘ces, and all 
the fine goods and necessaries in them were all gone. 
Moreover, two large chests that had books in them were 
zzz erafly, and I was afterwards informed they had been 
all thrown overboard, for one of the pirates on opening 
them swore there was zzz jaw-work enough (as he called 
it) to serve a nation, and proposed that they might be 
cast into the sea, for he feared there might be some 
books amongst them that might breed mischief enough, and 
prevent some of their comrades from going on in their 
voyage to hell, whither they were all bound"--I say, I 
was reading this passage, not a little affected by the 
impiety of the rascal, for whose portrait my dead 
Frenchman might very well have sat, when I was terrified 
by an extraordinary loud explosion, that burst so near 
and rang with such a prodigious clear note of thunder 
through the schooner that I vow to God I believed the 
gunpowder below had blown up. And in this suspicion I 
honestly supposed myself right for a moment, for on 
running into the cabin I was dazzled by a crimson flame 
that clothed the whole interior with a wondrous gush of 
fire; but this being instantly followed by such another 
clap as the former, I understood a thunderstorm had 
broken over the schooner.

It was exactly overhead, and that accounted for the 
violence of the crashes, which were indeed so extreme 
that they sounded rather like the splitting of enormous 
bodies of ice close to, than the flight of electric 
bolts. The hatch lay open; I ran on deck, but scarce had 
passed my head through the companion when down came a 
storm of hail, every stone as big as a pigeon's egg, and 
in all my time I never heard a more hellish clamour. 
There was not a breath of air. The hail fell in straight 
lines, which the fierce near lightning flashed up into 
the appearance of giant harp strings, on which the black 
hand of the night was playing those heavy notes of 
thunder. I sat in the shelter of the companion, very 
anxious and alarmed, for there was powder enough in the 
hold to blow the ship into atoms; and the lightning 
played so continuously and piercingly that it was like a 
hundred darts of fire, violet, crimson, and sun-coloured, 
in the grasp of spirits who thrust at the sea, all over 
its face, with swift movement of the arms, as though 
searching for the schooner to spear her.

The hailstorm ceased as suddenly as it had burst. I 
stepped on to the deck, and 'twas like treading on 
shingle. There was not the least motion in the air, and 
the stagnation gave an almost supernatural character to 
the thunder and lightning. The ocean was lighted up to 
its furthest visible confines by the flames in the sky, 
and the repeated explosions of thunder exceeded the 
roaring of the ordnance of a dozen squadrons in hot 
fight. The ice-coast in the east, and the two score bergs 
in the north and west leapt out of one hue into another; 
and were my days in this world to exceed those of old 
Abraham, I should to my last breath remember the solemn 
and terrible magnificence of that picture of lightning-
coloured ice, the sulphur-tinctured shapes of the swollen 
bodies of clouds bringing their dark electric mines 
together in a huddle, the answering flash of the face of 
the deep to the lancing of each spiral dazzling bolt, 
with the air as still as the atmosphere of a cathedral 
for the thunder to roll its echoes through.

There was a second furious shower of hail, and when that 
was over I looked forth, and observed that the storm was 
settling into the north-east, whence I concluded that 
what draught there might be up there sat in the south-
west. Nor was I mistaken; for half an hour after the 
first of the outburst, by which time the lightning played 
weak and at long intervals low down, and the thunder had 
ceased, I felt a crawling of air coming out of the south-
west, which presently briskened into a small steady 
blowing. But not for long. It freshened yet and yet; the 
wrinkles crisped into whiteness on the black heavings; 
they grew into small surges with sharp cubbish snarlings 
pre-ludious of the lion's voice; and by ten o'clock it 
was blowing in strong squalls, the seas rising, and the 
clouds sailing swiftly in smoke-coloured rags under the 
stars.

The posture of the ice inclined the schooner's starboard 
bow to the billows; and in a very short time she was 
trembling in every bone to the blows of the surges which 
rolled boiling over the ice there and struck her, 
flinging dim clouds of spume in the air, which soon set 
the scuppers gushing. My case was that of a stranded 
ship, with this difference only, that a vessel ashore 
lies solid to the beating of the waves, whereas the ice 
was buoyant, it rose and fell, sluggishly it is true, and 
so somewhat mitigated the severity of the shocks of 
water. But, spite of this, I was perfectly sure that 
unless the bed broke under her or she slipt off it, she 
would be in pieces before the morning. It was not in any 
hull put together by human hands to resist the pounding 
of those seas. The weight of the mighty ocean along whose 
breast they raced was in them, and though the wind was no 
more than a brisk gale, each billow by its stature showed 
itself the child of a giantess. The ice-bed was like a 
whirlpool with the leap and flash and play of the froth 
upon it. The black air of the night was whitened by the 
storms of foam-flakes which flew over the vessel. The 
roaring of the broken waters increased the horrors of the 
scene. I firmly believed my time was come. God had been 
merciful, but I was to die now. As to making any shift to 
keep myself alive after the ship should be broken up, the 
thought never entered my head. What could I do? There was 
no boat. I might have contrived some arrangement of booms 
and casks to serve as a raft, but to what purpose? How 
long would it take the wind and sea to freeze me.?

I crouched in the companion-way hearkening to the uproar 
around, feeling the convulsions of the schooner, fully 
prepared for death, dogged and hopeless. No, I was not 
afraid. Suffering and expectation had brought me to that 
pass that I did not care. "'Tis such an end as hundreds 
and thousands of sailors have met," I remember thinking; 
"it is the fittest exit for a mariner. I have sinned in 
my time, but the Almighty God knows my heart." To this 
tune ran my thoughts. I held my arms tightly folded upon 
my breast, and with set lips waited for the first of 
those crashing and rending sounds which would betoken the 
ruin and destruction of the schooner.

So passed half an hour; then, being half perished with 
the cold, I went to the furnace, for when the vessel went 
to pieces it would matter little in what part of her I 
was, and warmed myself and took a dram as a felon 
swallows a draught on his way to the scaffold. Were I to 
attempt to describe the character of the thunderous 
noises in the ship I should not be believed. The seas 
raised a most deafening roaring as they boiled over the 
ice and rolled their volumes against the vessel's sides. 
Every curl swung a load of broken frozen pieces against 
the bows and bends, and the shocks resounded through her 
like blows from cyclopean hammers. It was as if I had 
been seated in the central stagnant heart of a small 
revolving hurricane, feeling no faintest sigh of air upon 
my cheek, whilst close around whirled the hellish 
tormenting conflict of white waters and yelling blasts.

On a sudden--in a breath--I felt the vessel rise. She was 
swung up with the giddy velocity of a hunter clearing a 
tall gate; she sank again, and there was a mighty 
concussion forward, then a pause of steadiness whilst you 
might have counted five, then a wild upward heave, a sort 
of sharp floating fall, a harsh grating along her keel 
and sides, as though she was being smartly warped over 
rocks, followed by an unmistakable free pitching and 
rolling motion.

I had sprung to my feet and stood waiting. But the 
instant I gathered by the movements of her that she was 
released I sprang like a madman up the companion-steps. 
The sea, breaking on her bow, flew in heavy showers along 
the deck and half blinded me. But I was semi-delirious, 
and having sat so long with Death's hand in mine was in a 
passionately defiant mood, with a perfect rage of scorn 
of peril in me, and I walked right on to the forecastle, 
giving the flying sheets of water there no heed. In a 
minute a block of sea tumbled upon me and left me 
breathless; the iciness of it cooled my mind's heat, but 
not my resolution. I was determined to judge as best I 
could by the light of the foam of what had happened, and 
holding on tenaciously to whatever came to my hand and 
progressing step by step I got to the forecastle and 
looked ahead.

Where the ice was the water tumbled in zzz milk; 

Zzz 'twas four or five ship's lengths distant,	and I 
could distinguish no more than that. I peered over the 
lee bow, but could see no ice. The vessel had gone clear; 
how, I knew not and can never know, but my own fancy is 
that she split the bed with her own weight when the sea 
rose and threw the ice up, for she had floated on a 
sudden, and the noises which attended her release 
indicated that she had been forced through a channel.

I returned aft, barely escaping a second deluge, and 
looked over the quarter; no ice was there visible to me. 
The vessel rolled horribly, and I perceived that she had 
a decided list to starboard, the result of the shifting 
of what was in her when the ice came away from the main 
with her, and it was this heel that brought the sea 
washing over the bow. I took hold of the tiller to try 
it, but either the helm was frozen immovable or the 
rudder was jammed in its gudgeons or in some other 
fashion fixed.

Had she been damaged below? was she taking in water? I 
knew her to be so thickly sheathed with ice that, unless 
it had been scaled off in places by the breaking of her 
bed, I had little fear (until this covering melted or 
dropped off by the working of the frame) of the hull not 
proving tight. I should have been coated with ice myself 
had I stayed but a little longer in my wet clothes in 
that piercing wind, so I ran below, and bringing an 
armful of clothes from my cabin to the cook-room, was 
very soon in dry attire, and making an extraordinary 
figure, I don't question, in the buttons, lace, and 
fripperies of the old-fashioned garments.

The incident of the schooner's release from the ice had 
come upon me so suddenly, and at a time too when my mind 
was terribly disordered, that I scarce realized the full 
meaning of it until I had shifted myself and fortified my 
heart with a dram and got warm in the glow of the 
furnace. By this time she had fallen into the trough and 
was labouring like a cask; that she would prove a heavy 
roller in a seaway a single glance at her fat buttocks 
and swelling bilge might have persuaded me, but I never 
could have dreamt she would wallow so monstrously. The 
oscillation was rendered more formidable by her list, and 
there were moments when I could not keep my feet. She was 
shipping water very freely over her starboard rail, but 
this did not much concern me, for the break of the poop-
deck kept the after part of the vessel indifferently dry, 
and the forecastle and main hatches were well secured. 
But there was one great peril I knew not how to provide 
against --I mean the flotilla of icebergs in the north 
and west. They lay in a long chain upon the sea, and 
though to be sure there was no doubt a wide channel 
between each, through which it might have been easy to 
carry a ship under control, yet there was every 
probability of a vessel in the defenceless condition of 
the schooner, without a stitch of sail on her and under 
no other government of helm than a fixed rudder, being 
swept against one of those frozen floating hills when 
indeed it would be good-night to her and to me too, for 
after such a catastrophe the sun would never rise for me 
or her again.

Meanwhile I was crazy to ascertain if the schooner was 
taking in water. If there was a sounding-rod in the ship 
I did not know where to lay my hands upon it. But he is a 
poor sailor who is slow at substitutes. There were 
several spears in the arms-room (piratical plunder, no 
doubt) with mere spikes for heads, like those weapons 
used by the Caffres and other tribes in that country; 
they were formed of a hard heavy wood. I took a length of 
ratline line and secured it to one of these spears, and 
carried it on deck with the powder-room bull's-eye lamp; 
but when I probed the sounding-pipe I found it full of 
ice, and as it was impossible to draw the pumps, I flung 
my ingenious sounding-rod down in a passion of grief and 
mortification.

Yet was I not to be beaten. Such was my temper, had the 
devil himself confronted me, I should have defied him to 
do his worst, for I had made up my mind to weather him 
out. I entered the forecastle, lanthorn in hand, prized 
open the hatch and dropped into the hold. It needed an 
experienced ear to detect the sobbing of internal waters 
amid the yearning gushes, the long gurgling washings, the 
thunderous blows, and shrewd rain-like hissings of the 
seas outside. I listened with strained hearing for some 
minutes, but distinguished no sounds to alarm me with 
assurance of water in the hold. I could not mistake. I 
hearkened with all my might, but the noise was outside. I 
thanked God very heartily, and got out of the hold and 
put the hatch on. There was no need to go aft and listen. 
The schooner was by the head, and there could be no water 
in the run that would not be forward too.

Being reassured in respect of the staunchness of the 
hull, I returned to the fire and proceeded to equip 
myself for a prolonged watch on deck. Whilst I was 
drawing on a great pair of boots I heard a knocking in 
the after part of the vessel. I supposed she had drifted 
into a little field of broken ice, and that she would go 
clear presently, and I finished arming myself for the 
weather; but the knocking continuing, I went into the 
cabin where I heard it very plain, and walked as far as 
the lazarette hatch, where I stood listening. The noises 
were a kind of irregular thumping accompanied by a 
peculiar grinding sound. In a moment I guessed the truth, 
rushed on deck, and by the dim light in the air saw the 
long tiller mowing to and fro! The beat of the beam seas 
had unlocked the frozen bonds of the rudder, and there 
swung the tiller, as though like a dog the ship was 
wagging her tail for joy!

The vessel lay along, rolling so as to bring her 
starboard rail to a level with the sea; her main deck was 
full of water, and the froth of it combined with the ice 
that glazed her made her look like a fabric of marble as 
she swung on the black zzz .fold ere it broke into snow 
about her. I seized the tiller and ran it over hard a-
starboard, and I had not held it in that posture half a 
minute when to my inexpressible delight I observed that 
she was paying off. Her head fell slowly from the sea; 
she lurched drunkenly, and some tons of black water 
rolled over the bulwarks; she reeled consumedly to 
larboard, and rose squarely and ponderously to the height 
of the surge that was now abaft the beam. In a few 
moments she was dead before it, the helm amidships, the 
wind blowing sheer over the stern with half its weight 
seemingly gone through the vessel running, the tall seas 
chasing her high stern and floating it upwards, till 
looking forward was like gazing down the slope of a hill.

My heart was never fuller than then. I was half crazy 
with the passion of joy that possessed me. Consider the 
alternations of hope and bitter despair which had been 
crowded into that night! We may wonder in times of 
security that life should be sweet, and admit the justice 
of the arguments which several sorts of writers, and the 
poets even more than the parsons, use in defence of 
death. But when it comes to the pinch human nature breaks 
through. When the old man in zzz Aesop calls upon Death 
to relieve him, and the skeleton suddenly rises, the old 
man changes his mind, and thinks he will go on trying for 
himself a little longer. I liked to live, and had no mind 
for a wet shroud, and this getting the schooner before 
the wind, along with the old familiar feeling of the 
decks reeling and soaring and sinking under my feet, was 
so cordial an assurance of life that, I tell you, my 
heart was full to breaking with transport.

However, I was still in a situation that made prodigious 
demands upon my coolness and wits. The wind was south-
west, the schooner was running north-east; the bulk of 
the icebergs lay on the larboard bow, but there were 
others right ahead, and to starboard, where also lay the 
extremity of the island, though I did not fear that if I 
could escape the rest. It was a dark night; methinks 
there should have been a young moon curled somewhere 
among the stars, but she was not to be seen. The clouds 
flew dark and hurriedly, and the frosty orbs between were 
too few to throw a light. The ocean ahead and around was 
the duskier for the spectral illumination of the near 
foam and the glimmer of the ice-coated ship. I tested the 
vessel with the tiller and found she responded but dully; 
she would be nimbler under canvas no doubt, but it was 
enough that she should answer her helm at all. Oh, I say, 
I was mighty thankful, most humbly grateful. My heart was 
never more honest to its Maker than then.

She crushed along, pitching pitifully, the dark seas on 
either hand foaming to her quarters, and her rigging 
querulous with the wind. Had the Frenchman been alive to 
steer the ship, I might have found strength enough for my 
hands in the vigour of my spirit to get the spritsail 
yard square and chop its canvas loose--nay, I might have 
achieved more than that even; but I could not quit the 
tiller now. I reckoned our speed at about four miles an 
hour, as fast as a hearty man could walk. The high stern, 
narrow as it was, helped us; it was like a mizzen in its 
way; and all aloft being stout to start with and greatly 
thickened yet by ice, the surface up there gave plenty 
for the gale to catch hold on; and so we drove along.

I could just make out the dim pallid loom of the coast of 
ice upon the starboard beam, and a blob or two of 
faintness--most elusive and not to be fixed by the eye 
staring straight at them--on the larboard bow. But it was 
not long before these blobs, as I term them, grew 
plainer, and half a score swam into the dusk over the 
bowsprit end, and resembled dull small visionary openings 
in the dark sky there, or like stars magnified and dimmed 
into the merest spectral light by mist. I passed the 
first at a distance of a quarter of a mile; it slided by 
phantasmally, and another stole out right ahead. This I 
could have gone widely clear of by a little shift of the 
helm, but whilst I was in the act of starboarding three 
or four bergs suddenly showed on the larboard bow, and I 
saw that unless I had a mind to bring the ship into the 
trough again I must keep straight on. So I steered to 
bring the berg that was right ahead a little on the bow, 
with a prayer in my soul that there might be no low-lying 
block in the road for the schooner to split upon. It went 
by within a pistol-shot. I was very much accustomed to 
the sight of ice by this time, yet I found myself 
glancing at this mass with pretty near as much wonder and 
awe as it I had never seen such a thing before. It was 
not above thirty feet high, but its shape was exactly 
that of a horse's head, the lips sipping the sea, the 
ears cocked, the neck arching to the water. You would 
have said it was some vast courser rising out of the 
deep. The peculiar radiance of ice trembled off it like a 
luminous mist into the dusk. The water boiled about its 
nose, and suggested a frothing caused by the monster 
steed's expelled breath. Let a fire have been kindled to 
glow red where you looked for the eye, and the illusion 
would have been frightfully grand.

The poet speaks of the spirits of the vasty deep; if you 
want to know what exquisite artists they are, enter the 
frozen silences of the south.

Thus threading my way I drove before the seas and wind, 
striking a piece of ice but once only, and that a small 
lump which hit the vessel on the bow and went scraping 
past, doing the fabric no hurt; but often forced to slide 
perilously close by the bergs. I needed twenty instead of 
one pair of eyes.	With ice already zzz either bow, on a 
sudden it would glimmer out right ahead, and I had to 
form my resolution on the instant. If ever you have been 
amid a pack of icebergs on a dark night in a high sea you 
will understand my case; if not, the pen of a Fielding or 
a Defoe could not put it before you. For what magic has 
ink to express the roaring of swollen waters bursting 
into tall pale clouds against the motionless crystal 
heights, the mystery of the configuration of the 
faintness under the swarming shadows of the flying night, 
the sudden glares of breaking liquid peaks, the 
palpitating darkness beyond, the plunging and rolling of 
the ship, making her rigging ring upon the air with the 
reeling of her masts, the gradual absorption of the solid 
mass of dim lustre by the gloom astern, the swift 
spectral dawn of such another light over the bows, with 
many phantasmal outlines slipping by on either hand, like 
a procession of giant ocean-spectres, travelling white 
and secretly towards the silent dominions of the Pole?

Half this ice came from the island, the rest of it was 
formed of bergs too tall to have ever belonged to the 
north end of that great stretch. It took three hours to 
pass clear of them, and then I had to go on clinging to 
the tiller and steering in a most melancholy famished 
condition for another long half-hour before I could 
satisfy myself that the sea was free.

But now I was nearly dead with the cold. I had stood for 
five hours at the helm, during all which time my mind had 
been wound up to the fiercest tension of anxiety, and my 
eyes felt as if they were strained out of their sockets 
by their searching of the gloom ahead, and nature having 
done her best gave out suddenly, and not to have saved my 
life could I have stood at the tiller for another ten 
minutes.

The gear along the rail was so iron-hard that I could not 
secure the helm with it, so I softened some lashings by 
holding them before the fire, and finding the schooner on 
my return to be coming round to starboard, I helped her 
by putting the tiller hard a port and securing it. I then 
went below, built up the fire, lighted my pipe, and sat 
down for warmth and rest.

CHAPTER IX.

I AM TROUBLED BY THOUGHTS OF THE TREASURE.

The weight of the wind in the rigging steadied the 
schooner somewhat, and prevented her from rolling too 
heavily to starboard, whilst her list corrected her 
larboard rolls. So as I sat below she seemed to me to be 
making tolerably good weather of it. Not much water came 
aboard; now and again I would hear the clatter of a fall 
forwards, but at comfortably long intervals.

I sat against the dresser with my back upon it, and being 
dead tired must have dropped asleep on a sudden--indeed, 
before I had half smoked my pipe out, and I do not 
believe l gave a thought to my situation before I 
slumbered, so wearied was I. The cold awoke me. The fire 
was out and so was the candle in the lanthorn, and I was 
in coffin darkness. This the tinder-box speedily 
remedied. I looked at my watch--seven o'clock, as I was a 
sinner! so that my sleep had lasted between three and 
four hours.

I went on deck and found the night still black upon the 
sea, the wind the same brisk gale that was blowing when I 
quitted the helm, the sea no heavier, and the schooner 
tumbling in true Dutch fashion upon it. I looked very 
earnestly around but could see no signs of ice. There 
would be daylight presently, so I went below, lighted the 
fire, and got my breakfast, and when I returned the sun 
was up and the sea visible to its furthest reaches.

It was a fine wintry piece; the sea green and running in 
ridges with frothing heads, the sky very pale among the 
dark snow-laden clouds, the sun darting a ray now and 
again, which was swung into the north by the shadows of 
the clouds until they extinguished it. Remote in the 
northwest hung the gleam of an iceberg; there was nothing 
else in sight. Yes--something that comforted me 
exceedingly, though it was not very many days ago that a 
like object had heavily scared me--an albatross, a noble 
bird, sailing on the windward close enough to be shot. 
The sight of this living thing was inexpressibly 
cheering; it put into my head a fancy of ships being at 
hand, thoughts of help and of human companions. In truth, 
my imagination was willing to accept it as the same bird 
that I had frightened away when in the boat, now returned 
to silently reproach me for my treatment of it. Nay, my 
lonely eye, my subdued and suffering heart might even 
have witnessed the good angel of my life in that solitary 
shape of ocean beauty, and have deemed that, though 
unseen, it had been with me throughout, and was now made 
visible to my gaze by the light of hope that had broken 
into the darkness of my adventure.

Well, supposing it so, I should not have been the only 
man who ever scared his good angel away and found it 
faithful afterwards.

I unlashed the tiller and got the schooner before the 
wind and steered until a little before noon; letting her 
drive dead before the sea, which carried her north-east. 
Then securing the helm amidships I ran for the quadrant, 
and whilst waiting for the sun to show himself I observed 
that the vessel held herself very steadily before the 
wind, which might have been owing to her high stern and 
the great swell of her sides and her round bottom; but be 
the cause what it might, she ran as fairly with her helm 
amidships as if I had been at the tiller to check her, a 
most fortunate condition of my navigation, for it 
privileged me to get about other work, whilst, at the 
same time, every hour was conveying me nearer to the 
track of ships and further from the bitter regions of the 
south.

I got an observation and made out that the vessel had 
driven about fifteen leagues during the night. She must 
do better than that, thought I; and when I had eaten some 
dinner I took a chopper, and, going on to the forecastle, 
lay out upon the bowsprit, and after beating the 
spritsail-yard block clear of the ice, cut away the 
gaskets that confined the sail to the yard, heartily 
beating the canvas, that was like iron, till a clew of it 
fell. I then came in and braced the yard square, and the 
wind, presently catching the exposed part of the sail, 
blew more of it out, and yet more, until there was a good 
surface showing; then to a sudden hard blast of wind the 
whole sail flew open with a mighty crackling, as though 
indeed it was formed of ice; but to render it useful I 
had to haul the sheets aft, which I could not manage 
without the help of the tackles we had used in slinging 
the powder over the side; so that, what with one 
hindrance and another, the setting of that sail took me 
an hour and a half.

But had it occupied me all day it would have been worth 
doing. Trifling as it was as a cloth, its effect upon the 
schooner was like that of a cordial upon a fainting man. 
It was not that she sensibly showed nimbler heels to it; 
its lifting tendency enabled her to ride the under-
running seas more buoyantly, and if it increased her 
speed by half a knot an hour it was worth a million to 
me, whose business it was to take the utmost possible 
advantage of the southerly gale.

I returned to the helm, warm with the exercise, and gazed 
forward not a little proud of my work. Though the sail 
was eight-and-forty years old and perhaps older, it 
offered as tough and stout a surface to the wind as if it 
was fresh from the sailmaker's hands, so great are the 
preserving qualities of ice. I looked wistfully at the 
topsail, but on reflecting that if it should come on to 
blow hard enough to compel me to heave the brig to she 
would never hull with that canvas abroad, I resolved to 
let it lie, for I could cut away the spritsail if the 
necessity arose and not greatly regret its loss; but to 
lose the topsail would be a serious matter, though if I 
did not cut it adrift it might carry away the mast for 
me; so, as I say, I would not meddle with it.

Finding that the ship continued to steer herself very 
well, and the better for the spritsail, I thought I would 
get the body of the old Frenchman overboard and so obtain 
a clear hold for myself so far as corpses went. I carried 
the lanthorn into the forecastle, but when I pulled the 
hammock off him I confess it was not without a stupid 
fear that I should find him alive. Recollection of his 
astounding vitality found something imperishable in that 
ugly anatomy, and though he lay before me as dead and 
cold as stone, I yet had a fancy that the seeds of life 
were still in him, that 'twas only the current of his 
being that had frozen, that if I were to thaw him afresh 
he might recover, and that if I buried him I should 
actually be despatching him.

But though these fancies possessed, they did not control 
me. I took his watch and whatever else he had in that 
way, carried him on deck and dropped him over the side, 
using as little ceremony as he had employed in the 
disposal of his shipmates, but affected by very different 
emotions; for there was not only the idea that the vital 
spark was still in him; I could not but handle with awe 
the most mysterious corpse the eye had ever viewed, one 
who had lived through a stupor or death-sleep, for eight-
and-forty years, in whom in a few hours Time had 
compressed the wizardry he stretches in others over half 
a century; who in a night had shrunk from the aspect of 
his prime into the lean, puckered, bleared-eyed, deaf, 
and tottering expression of a hundred years.

But now he was gone! The bubbles which rose to the plunge 
of his body were his epitaph; had they risen blood-red 
they would have better symbolized his life. The albatross 
stooped to the spot where he had vanished with a hoarse 
salt scream like the laugh of a delirious woman, and the 
wind, freshening, momentarily in a squall, made one think 
of the spirit of Nature as eager to purify the air of 
heaven from the taint of the dead pirate's passage from 
the bulwarks to the water's surface.

All that day and through the night that followed the 
schooner drove, rolling and plunging before the seas, 
into the north-east, to the pulling of the spritsail. I 
made several excursions into the forehold, but never 
could hear the sound of water in the vessel. Her sides in 
places were still sheathed in ice, but this crystal 
armour was gradually dropping off her to the working of 
her frame in the seas, so that, since she was proving 
herself tight, it was certain her staunchness owed 
nothing to the glassy plating. I had seen some strange 
craft in my day; but nothing to beat the appearance this 
old tub of a zzz hooker submitted to my gaze as I viewed 
her from the helm. How so uncouth a structure, with her 
tall stern, flairing bows, fat buttocks, sloping masts, 
forecastle-well, and massive head-timbers ever managed to 
pursue and overhaul a chase was only to be unriddled by 
supposing all that she took to be more unwieldy and 
clumsy than herself. What would a pirate of these days, 
in his clean-lined polacca or arrowy schooner, have 
thought of such an instrument as this for the practice of 
his pretty trade? The ice aloft still held for her spars 
and rigging the resemblance of glass, and to every 
sunbeam that flashed upon her from between the sweeping 
clouds she would sparkle, out into many-coloured 
twinklings, marvellously delicate in colour, and changing 
their tints twenty times over in a breath through the 
swiftness of the reeling of the spars.

I should but fatigue you to follow the several little 
stories of these hours one by one; how I got my food, 
snatched at sleep, stood at the helm, gazed around the 
sea-line and the like. Just before sundown I saw a large 
iceberg in the north, two leagues distant; no others were 
in sight, but one was enough to make me uneasy, and I 
spent a very troubled night, repeatedly coming on deck to 
look about me. The schooner steered herself as if a man 
stood at the helm. The spritsail further helped her in 
this, for, if the curl of a sea under her forefoot 
brought her to larboard or starboard, the sail forced her 
back again. Still, it was a very surprising happy quality 
in her, the next best thing to my having a shipmate, and 
a wonderful relief to me who must otherwise have brought 
her to, under a lashed helm, every time I had occasion to 
leave the deck.

The seaworthiness of the craft, coupled with the 
reasonable assurance of presently falling in with a ship, 
rendered me so far easy in my mind as to enable me to 
think very frequently of the treasure and how I was to 
secure it. If I fell in with an enemy's cruiser or a 
privateer I must expect to be stripped. This would be the 
fortune of war, and I must take my chance. My concern did 
not lie that way; how was I to protect this property, 
that was justly mine, against my own countrymen, suppose 
I had the good fortune to carry the schooner safely into 
English waters? I had a brother-in-law, Jeremiah Mason, 
Esq., a Turkey merchant in a small way of business, whose 
office was in the City of London, and, if I could manage 
to convey the treasure secretly to him, he would, I knew, 
find me a handsome account in his settlement of this 
affair. But it was impossible to strike out a plan. I 
must wait and attend the course of events. Yet riches 
being things which fever the coldest imaginations, I 
could not look ahead without excitement and irritability 
of fancy, I should reckon it a hard fate indeed after my 
cruel experiences, my freeing the vessel from the ice, my 
sailing her through some thousand of miles of perilous 
seas, and arriving finally in safety, to be dispossessed 
of what was strictly mine--as much mine as if I had 
fished it up from the bottom of the sea, where it must 
otherwise have lain till the crack of doom.

I remember that, among other ideas, it entered my head to 
tell the master of the first ship I met, if she were 
British, the whole story of my adventure, to acquaint him 
with the treasure, to offer to tranship it and myself to 
his vessel and abandon the schooner, and to propose a 
handsome reward for his offices. But I could not bring my 
mind to trust any stranger with so great a secret. The 
mere circumstance of the treasure not being mine, in the 
sense of my having earned it, of its being piratical 
plunder, and as much one's as another's, might dull the 
edge even of a fair-dealing conscience and expose me to 
the machinations of a heavily tempted mind.

Therefore, though I had no plan, I was resolved at all 
hazards to stick to the schooner, and, with a view to 
providing against the curiosity or rummaging of any 
persons who should come aboard I fell to the following 
work after getting my breakfast. I hung lanthorns in the 
run and hatchways and cabin to enable me to pass easily 
to and fro; I then emptied one of the chests in my cabin 
and carried it to where the treasure was. The chest I 
filled nearly three-parts full with money, jewellery, 
&c., which sank the contents of the other chests to the 
depth I wanted. I then fetched a quantity of small arms, 
such as pistol, s and hangers and cutlasses, and filled 
up the chests with them, first placing a thickness of 
canvas over the money and jewellery, that no glitter 
might show through. To improve the deception I brought 
another chest to the run, and wholly filled it with 
cutlasses, powder-horns, pistols, and the like, and so 
fixed it that it must be the first to come to hand. My 
cunning amounted to this: that, suppose the run to be 
rummaged, the contents of the first chest were sure to be 
turned out, but, on the other chests being opened, and 
what they appeared to contain observed, it was as likely 
as not that the rummagers would be satisfied they were 
arms-chests, and quit meddling with them.

Here now might I indulge in a string of reflections on 
the troubles and anxieties which money brings, quote from 
Juvenal and other poets, and hold myself up to your 
merriment by a contemptuous exhibition of myself, a 
lonely sailor, labouring to conceal his gold from 
imaginary knaves, toiling in the dark depth of the 
vessel, and never heeding that, even whilst he so worked, 
his ship might split upon some half-tide rock of ice, and 
founder with him and his treasure too, and so on, and so 
on. But the fact is I was not a fool. Here was money 
enough to set me up as a fine gentleman for life, and I 
meant to save it and keep it too, if I could. A man on 
his deathbed, a man in such peril that his end is 
certain, can afford to be sentimental. He is going where 
money is dross indeed, and he is in a posture when to 
moralize upon human greed and the vanity of wishes and 
riches becomes him. But would not a man whose health is 
hearty, and who hopes to save his life, be worse off than 
a sheep in the matter of brains not to keep a firm grip 
of Fortune's hand when she extended it? I know I was very 
well pleased with my morning's work when I had 
accomplished it, and had no mind to qualify my 
satisfaction by melancholy and romantic musings on my 
condition and the uncertainty of the future. This was 
possibly owing to the fineness of the weather; a heavy 
black gale from the north would doubtless have given a 
very different turn to my humours.

The wind at dawn had weakened and come into the west. 
There was a strong swell--indeed there always is in this 
ocean--but the seas ran small. The sky looked like 
marble, with its broad spreadings of high white clouds 
and the veins of blue sky between. I wished to make all 
the northing that was possible, but there was nothing to 
be done in that way with the spritsail alone. Had not the 
capstan been frozen I should have tried to get the 
mainsail upon the ship, but without the aid of machinery 
I was helpless. So, with helm amidships, the schooner 
drove languidly along with her head due east, lifting as 
ponderously as a line-of-battle ship to the floating 
launches of the high swell, and the albatross hung as 
steadfastly in the wake of my lonely ocean path as though 
it had been some messenger sent by God to watch me into 
safety.

CHAPTER X.

I ENCOUNTER A WHALER.

I had been six days and nights at sea, and the morning of 
the seventh day had come. With the exception of one day 
of strong south-westerly winds, which ran me something to 
the northwards, the weather had been fine, bitterly cold 
indeed, but bright and clear. In this time I had run a 
distance of about six hundred and fifty miles to the 
east, and with no other cloths upon the schooner than her 
spritsail.

I confess, as the hours passed away and nothing hove into 
view, I grew dispirited and restless; but, on the other, 
hand, I was comforted by the bright weather and the 
favourable winds, and particularly by the vessel's 
steering herself, which enabled me to get rest, to keep 
myself warm with the fire, and to dress my food, yet ever 
pushing onwards (however slowly) into the navigated 
regions of this sea.

On the morning of the seventh day I came on deck, having 
slept since four o'clock. The wind was icy keen, pretty 
brisk, about west by south; the movement in the sea was 
from the south, and rolled very grandly; there was a fog 
that way, too, that hid the horizon, bringing the ocean-
line to within a league of the schooner; but the other 
quarters swept in a dark, clear, blue line against the 
sky, and there was such a clarity of atmosphere as made 
the distances appear infinite.

I went below and lighted the fire and got my breakfast, 
all very leisurely, and when I was done I sat down and 
smoked a pipe. It was so keen on deck that I had no mind 
to leave the fire, and, as all was well, I lounged 
through the best part of two hours in the cook-house, 
when, thinking it was now time to take another survey of 
the scene I went on deck.

On looking over the larboard bulwark rail, the first 
thing I saw was a ship about two miles off. She was on 
the larboard tack, under courses, topsails, and main-
topgallant sail, heading as if to cross my bows. The 
sunshine made her canvas-look as white as snow against 
the skirts of the body of vapour that had trailed a 
little to leeward of her, and her black hull flashed as 
though she discharged a broadside every time she rose wet 
to the northern glory out of the hollow of the swell with 
a curl of silver at her cutwater.

My heart came into my throat; I seemed not to breathe; 
not to have saved my life could I have uttered a cry, so 
amazed and transported was I by this unexpected 
apparition. I stared like one in a dream, and my head 
felt as if all the blood in my body had surged into it. 
But then, all on a sudden, there happened a revulsion of 
feeling. Suppose she should prove a privateer--a French 
war-vessel of a nation hostile to my own. zzz Thought so 
wrought in me that I trembled like an idiot in a fright. 
The telescope was too weak to resolve her, I could do 
better with my eyes; and I stood at the bulwarks gazing 
and gazing as if she were the spectre ship of the 
Scandinavian legend.

There were flags below and I could have hoisted a signal 
of distress: but to what purpose?

If the appearance of the schooner did not sufficiently 
illustrate her condition, there was certainly no virtue 
in the language and declarations of bunting to exceed her 
own mute assurance. I watched her with a passion of 
anxiety, never doubting her intention to speak to me, at 
all events to draw close and look at me, wholly 
concerning myself with her character. The swell made us 
both dance, and the blue brows of the rollers would often 
hide her to the height of her rails; but we were closing 
each other middling fast she travelling at seven and I at 
four miles in the hour, and presently I could see that 
she carried a number of boats.

A whaler, thought I; and after a little I was sure of it 
by perceiving the rings over her topgallant rigging for 
the look-out to stand in.

On being convinced of this, I ran below for a shawl that 
was in my cabin, and, jumping on to the bulwarks, stood 
flourishing it for some minutes to let them know that 
there was a man aboard. She luffed to deaden her way, 
that I might swim close, and as we approached each other 
I observed a crowd of heads forward looking at me, and 
several men aft, all staring intently.

A man scrambled on to the rail, and with an arm clasping 
a backstay hailed me:

"Schooner ahoy!" he bawled, with a strong nasal twang in 
his cry. "What ship's that?" "The Boca del Dragon," I 
shouted back. "Where are you from, and where are you 
bound to?"

"I have been locked up in the ice," I cried, "and am in 
want of help. What ship are you?"

"The Susan Tucker, whaler, of New Bedford, twenty-seven 
months out," he returned. "Where in creation got you that 
hooker?"

"I'm the only man aboard," I cried, "and have no boat. 
Send to me, in the name of God, and let the master come!"

He waved his hand, bawling, "Put your helm down--you're 
forging ahead!" and so saying, dismounted.

I immediately cast the tiller adrift, put it hard over, 
and secured it, then jumped on to the bulwarks again to 
watch them. She was Yankee beyond doubt; I had rather met 
my own countrymen; but, next to a British, I would have 
chosen an American ship to meet. Somehow, despite the 
Frenchman, I felt to have been alone throughout my 
adventure; and so sore was the effect of that solitude 
upon my spirits that it seemed twenty years since I had 
seen a ship, and since I had held commune with my own 
species. I was terribly agitated, and shook in every 
limb. Life must have been precious always; but never 
before had it appeared so precious as now, whilst I gazed 
at that homely ship, with her main-topsail to the mast, 
swinging stately upon the swell, the faces of the seamen 
plain, the smoke of her galley-fire breaking from the 
chimney, the sounds of creaking blocks and groaning 
barrels stealing from her. Such a fountain of joy broke 
out of my heart that my whole being was flooded with it, 
and had that mood lasted I believe I should have exposed 
the treasure in the run, and invited all the men of the 
whaler to share in it with me.

They stared fixedly; little wonder that they should be 
astounded by such an appearance as my ship exhibited. One 
of the several boats which hung at her davits was 
lowered, the oars flashed, and presently she was near 
enough to be hit with a biscuit; but when there the 
master, as I supposed him to be, who was steering, sung 
out, "'Vast rowing!" the boat came to a stand, and her 
people to a man stared at me with their chins upon their 
shoulders as if I had been a fiend. It was plain as a 
pikestaff that they were frightened, and that the 
superstitions of the forecastle were hard at work in them 
whilst they viewed me. They looked a queer company: two 
were negroes, the others pale-faced bearded men, wrapped 
up in clothes to the aspect of scarecrows. The fellow who 
steered had a face as long as a wet hammock, and it was 
lengthened yet to the eye by a beard like a goat's 
hanging at the extremity of his chin.

He stood up--a tall, lank figure, with legs like a pair 
of compasses--and hailed me afresh, but the, high swell, 
regular as the swing of a pendulum, interposed its brow 
between him and me, so that at one moment he was a 
sharply-lined figure against the sky of the horizon, and 
the next he and his boat and crew were sheer gone out of 
sight, and this made an exchange of sentences slow and 
troublesome.

"Say, master," he sung out, "what d'ye say the schooner's 
name is?"

"The Boca del Dragon," I replied.

"And who are you, matey?"

"An English sailor who has been cast away on an island of 
ice," I answered, talking very shortly that the replies 
might follow the questions before the swell sank him.

"Ay, ay," says he," that's very well; but when was you 
cast away, bully?"

I gave him the date.

"That's not a month ago," cried he.

"It's long enough, whatever the time," said I.

Here the crew fell a-talking, turning from one another to 
stare at me, and the negroes' eyes showed as big as 
saucers in the dismay of their regard.

"See, here, master," sung out the long man, "if you han't 
been cast away more than a month, how come you clothed as 
men went dressed a century since, hey?"

The reason of their misgivings flashed upon me. It was 
not so much the schooner as my appearance. The truth was, 
my clothes having been wetted, I had ever since been 
wearing such thick garments as I met with in the cabin, 
keeping my legs warm with jackboots, and I had become so 
used to the garb that I forgot I had it on. You will 
judge, then, that I must have presented a figure very 
nicely calculated to excite the wonder and apprehension 
of a body of men whose superstitious instincts were 
already sufficiently fluttered by the appearance of the 
schooner, when I tell you that, in addition to the 
jackboots and a great fur cap, my costume was formed of a 
red plush waistcoat laced with silver, purple breeches, a 
coat of frieze with yellow braiding and huge cuffs, and 
the cloak that I had taken from the body of Mendoza.

"Captain," cried I, "if so be you are the captain, in the 
name of God and humanity come aboard, sir." Here I had to 
wait till he reappeared. "My story is an extraordinary 
one. You have nothing to fear. I am a plain English 
sailor; my ship was the Laughing Mary, bound in ballast 
from Callao to the Cape." Here I had to wait again. 
"Pray, sir, come aboard. There is nothing to fear. I am 
alone--in grievous distress, and in want of help. Pray 
come, sir!"

There was so little of the goblin in this appeal that it 
resolved him. The crew hung in the wind, but he addressed 
them peremptorily. I heard him damn them for a set of 
curs, and tell them that if they put him aboard they 
might lie off till he was ready to return, where they 
would be safe, as the devil could not swim; and presently 
they buckled to their oars again and the boat came 
alongside. The long man, watching his chance, sprang with 
great agility into the chains, and stepped on deck. I ran 
up to hint and seized his hand with both mine.

"Sir," cried I, speaking with difficulty, so great was 
the' tumult of my spirits and the joy and gratitude that 
swelled my heart, "I thank you a thousand times over for 
this visit. I am in the most helpless condition that can 
be imagined. I am not astonished that you should have 
been startled by the appearance of this vessel and by the 
figure I make in these clothes, but, sir, you will be 
much more amazed when you have heard my story."

He eyed me steadfastly, examining me very earnestly from 
my boots to my cap, and then cast a glance around him 
before he made any reply to my address. He had the 
gauntness, sallowness of complexion, and deliberateness 
of manner peculiar to the people of New England. And 
though he was a very ugly, lank, uncouth man, I protest 
he was as fair in my sight as if he had been the 
ambrosial angel described by Milton.

"Well, cook my gizzard," he exclaimed presently, through 
his nose, and after another good look at me and along the 
decks and up aloft, "if this ain't miraculous, zzz tew. 
Durned if we didn't take this hooker for some ghost ship 
riz from the sea, in charge of a merman rigged out to fit 
her age. Y' are all alone, air you?"

"All alone," said I.

"Broach me every barrel aboard if ever I see sich a 
vessel," he cried, his astonishment rising with the 
searching glances he directed aloft and alow. "How old be 
she?"

"She was cast away in seventeen hundred and fifty-three," 
said I.

"Well, I'm durned. She's froze hard, sirree; I reckon 
she'll want a hot sun to thaw her. Split me, mister, if 
she ain't worth sailing home as a show-box."

I interrupted his ejaculations by asking him to step 
below, where we could sit warm whilst I related my story, 
and I asked him to invite his boat's crew into the cabin 
that I might regale them with a bowl of such liquor as I 
ventured to say had never passed their lips in this life. 
On this he went to the side, and, hailing the men, 
ordered all but one to step aboard and drink to the 
health of the lonesome sailor they had come across. The 
word "drink" acted like a charm; they instantly hauled 
upon the painter and brought the boat to the chains and 
tumbled over the side, one of the negroes remaining in 
her. They fell together in a body, and surveyed me and 
the ship with a hundred marks of astonishment.

"My lads," said I, "my rig is a strange one, but I'll 
explain all shortly. The clothes I was cast away in are 
below, and I'll show you them. I'm no spectre, but as 
real as you; though I have gone through so much that, if 
I am not a ghost, it is no fault of old ocean, but owing 
to the mercy of God. My name is Paul Rodney, and I'm a 
native of London. You, sir," says I, addressing the long 
man, "are, I presume, the master of the Susan Tucker?"

"At your zzz sarvice--Josiah Tucker is my name, and that 
ship is my wife Susan,"

"Captain Tucker, and you, men, will you please step 
below," says I. "The weather promises fair; I have much 
to tell, and there is that in the cabin which will give 
you patience to hear me."

I descended the companion-stairs, and they all followed, 
making the interior that had been so long silent ring 
with their heavy tread, whilst from time to time a gruff, 
hoarse whisper broke from one of them. But superstition 
lay strong upon their imagination, and they were awed and 
quiet. The daylight came down the hatch, but for all that 
the cabin was darksome.

I waited till the last man had entered, and then said, 
"Before we settle down to a bowl and a yarn, captain, I 
should like to show you this ship. It'll save me a deal 
of description and explanation if you will be pleased to 
take a view."

"Lead on, mister," said he; "but we shall have to snap 
our eyelids and raise fire in that way, for durned if I, 
for one, can see in the dark."

I fetched three or four lanthorns, and, lighting the 
candles, distributed them among the men, and then, in a 
procession, headed by the captain and me, we made the 
rounds. I had half-cleared the arms-room, but there were 
weapons enough left, and they stared at them like yokels 
in a booth. I showed them the cook-house and the 
forecastle, where the deck was still littered with 
clothes, and chests, and hammocks; and, after carrying 
them aft to the cabins, gave them a sight of the hold. I 
never saw men more amazed. They filled the vessel with 
their exclamations. They never offered to touch anything, 
being too much awed, but stepped about with their heads 
uncovered, as quietly as they could, as though they had 
been in a crypt, and the influence of strange and 
terrifying memorials was upon them. I also showed them 
the clothes I had come away from the Laughing Mary in; 
and, that I might submit such an aspect to them as should 
touch their sympathies, I whipped off the cloak and put 
on my own pilot-cloth coat.

There being nothing more to see, I led them to the cook-
room, and there brewed a great hearty bowl of brandy-
punch, which I seasoned with lemon, sugar, and spices 
into as relishable a draught as my knowledge in that way 
could compass, and, giving every man a pannikin, bade him 
dip and welcome, myself first drinking to them with a 
brief speech, yet not so brief but that I broke down 
towards the close of it, and ended with a dry sob or two.

They would have been unworthy their country and their 
calling not to have been touched by my natural 
manifestation of emotion; besides, the brandy was an 
incomparably fine spirit, and the very perfume of the 
steaming bowl was sufficient to stimulate the kindly 
qualities of sailors who had been locked up for months in 
a greasy old ship, with no diviner smells about than the 
stink of the try-works. The captain, standing up, called 
upon his men to drink to me, promising me that he was 
very glad to have fallen in with my schooner, and then, 
looking at the others, made a sign, whereupon they all 
fixed their eyes upon me and drank as one man, every one 
emptying his pot and inverting it as a proof, and 
fetching a rousing sigh of satisfaction.

This ceremony ended, I began my story, beginning with the 
loss of the Laughing Mary, and proceeding step by step. I 
told them of the dead body of Mendoza, but said nothing 
about the Frenchman and the mate, and the Portugal 
boatswain, lest I should make them afraid of the vessel, 
and so get no help to work her. As to acquainting them 
with my recovery of Tassard, after his stupor of eight-
and-forty years, I should have been mute on that head in 
any case, for so extraordinary a relation could, from 
such people, have earned me but one of two opinions: 
either that I was mad and believed in an impossibility, 
or that I was a rogue and dealt in magic, and to be 
vehemently shunned. Yet there were wonders enough in my 
story without this, and I recited it to a running 
commentary of all sorts of queer Yankee exclamations.

There were seven seamen and the captain and I made nine, 
and we pretty nearly filled the cook-room. 'Twas a scene 
to be handled by a Dutch brush. We were a shaggy company, 
in several kinds of rude attire, and the crimson light of 
the furnace, whose playing flames darted shadows through 
the steady light of the lanthorns, caused us to appear 
very wild. The mariners' eyes gleamed redly as their 
glances rove round the place, and, had you come suddenly 
among us, I believe you would have thought this band of 
pale, fire-touched, hairy men, with the one ebon visage 
among them, rendered the vessel a vast deal more ghostly 
than ever she could have shown when sailing along with me 
alone on board.

They were a good deal puzzled when I told them of the 
mines I had made and sprung in the ice. They reckoned the 
notion fine, but could not conceive how I had, single-
handed, broken out the powder-barrels, got them over the 
side, and fixed them.

"Why," said I, "'twas slow, heavy work, of course; but a 
man who labours for his life will do marvellous things. 
It is like the jump of a hunted stag."

"True for you," says the captain. "A swim of two miles 
spends me in pleasurin'; but I've swum eight mile to save 
my life, and stranded fresh as a new-hooked cod. What's 
your intentions, sir?"

"To sail the schooner home," said I, "if I can 	get help. 
She's too good to abandon. She'll fetch money in 
England."

"Ay, as a show."

"Yes, and as a coalman. Rig her modernly, and carry your 
forecastle deck into the head, captain, and she's a brave 
ship, fit for a Baltimore eye." He stroked down the hair 
upon his chin.

"Dip, captain, dip, my lads; there's enough of this to 
drown ye in the hold," said I, pointing to the bowl. 
"Come, this is a happy meeting for me; let it be a merry 
one. Captain, I drink to the Susan Tucker."

"Sir, your servant. Here's to your sweetheart, be she 
wife or maid. Bill, jump on deck and take a look round. 
See to the boat."

One of the men went out.

"Captain," said I, "you are a full ship?" "That's so." 
"Bound home?" "Right away."

"You have men enough and to spare. Lend me three of your 
hands to help me to the Thames, and I'll repay you thus; 
there should be near a hundred tons of wine and brandy, 
of exquisite vintage, and choice with age beyond language 
in the hold. Take what you will of that freight; there'll 
be ten times the value of your lay in your pickings, 
modest as you may prove. Help yourself to the clothes in 
the cabin and forecastle; they will turn to account. For 
the men you will spare, and who will volunteer to help 
me, this will be my undertaking: the ship and all that is 
in her to be sold on her arrival, and the proceeds 
equally divided. Shall we call it a thousand pounds 
apiece? Captain, she's well found: her inventory would 
make a list as long as you; I'd name a bigger sum, but 
here she is, you shall overhaul her hold and judge for 
yourself."

I watched him anxiously. No man spoke, but every eye was 
upon him. He sat pulling down the hair on his chin, then, 
jumping up on a sudden and extending his hand, he cried, 
"Shake! it's a bargain, if the men'll jine."

"I'll jine!" exclaimed a man.

There was a pause.

"And me," said the negro.

I was glad of this, and looked earnestly at the others.

"Is she tight?" said a man. "As a bottle," said I. They 
fell silent again.

"Joe Wilkinson and Washington Cromwell--them two jines," 
said the captain. "Bullies, he wants a third. Don't speak 
all together."

The man named "Bill" at this moment returned to the cook-
room, and reported all well above.

My offer was repeated to him, but he shook his head.

"This is the Horn, mates," said he. "There's a deal o' 
water 'tween this and the Thames. How do she sail?--no 
man knows."

"I want none but willing men," said I. "Americans make as 
good sailors as the English. What an English seaman can 
face any of you can. There is another negro in the boat. 
Will you let him step aboard, captain? He may join."

A man was sent to take his place. Presently he arrived, 
and I gave him a cup of punch.

"'Splain the business to him, sir," said the captain, 
filling his pannikin; "his name's Billy Pitt."

I did so; and when I told him that Washington Cromwell 
had offered, he instantly said, "All right, massa, I'll 
be zzz ob yah."

This was exactly what I wanted, and had there been a 
third negro I'd have preferred him to the white man.

"But how are you going to navigate this craft home with 
three men˘" said the man "Bill" to me.

"There'll be four; we shall do. The fewer the more 
dollars, hey, Wilkinson?"

He grinned, and Cromwell broke into a ventral laugh.

They seemed very well satisfied, and so was I.

CHAPTER XI.

I STRIKE A BARGAIN WITH THE YANKEE.

The captain put his cup down; the bowl was empty; I 
offered to brew another joturn, but he thanked me and 
said no, adding significantly that he would have no more 
here, by which he meant that he would brew for himself in 
his own ship anon. The drink had made him cheerful and 
good-natured. He recommended that we should go on deck 
and set about transhipping whilst the weather held, for 
he was an old hand in these seas and never trusted the 
sky longer than a quarter of an hour.

"This here list," says he, "wants remedying and that'll 
follow our easin' of the hold."

"Yes," said I, "and I should be mighty thankful if some 
of your men would see all clear aloft for me, that we 
might start with running rigging that will travel, 
capstans that'll revolve, and sails that'll spread."

"Oh, we'll manage that for you," said he. "Truly, she's 
been bad froze, very bad froze. Durned if ever I see a 
worse freeze."

So saying he called to "Bill," who seemed the principal 
man of the boat's crew, and gave him some directions, and 
immediately afterwards all the men entered the boat and 
rowed away to the ship.

Whilst they were absent I carried the captain into the 
hold and left him to overhaul it. I told him that all the 
spirits, provisions, and the like were in the hold and 
lazarette, which was true enough, wanting to keep him out 
of the run, though, thanks to the precaution I had taken, 
I was in no fear even if he should penetrate so deep aft. 
Before he came out five-and-twenty stout fellows arrived 
in four boats from the ship, and when we went on deck, we 
found them going the rounds of the vessel, scraping the 
guns to get a view of them, peering down the companion, 
overhauling the forecastle-well, as I call the hollow 
beyond the forecastle, and staring aloft with their faces 
full of grinning wonder. The captain sang out to them and 
they all mustered aft.

"Now, lads," said he, "there's a big job before you--a 
big job for Cape Horn, I mean; and you'll have to slip 
through it as if you was grease. When done there'll be a 
carouse, and I'll warrant ye all such a sup that the most 
romantic among ye'll never cast another pining thought in 
the direction o' your mother's milk."

Having delivered this preface, he divided the men into 
two gangs; one, under the boatswain, to attend to the 
rigging, clear the canvas of the ice, get the pumps and 
the capstans to work, and see all ready for getting sail 
on the schooner; the other, under the second mate, to get 
tackles aloft and break out the cargo, taking care to 
trim ship whilst so doing.

They fell to their several jobs with a will.

'Tis the habit of our countrymen to sneer at the 
Americans as sailors, affirming that if ever they win a 
battle at sea it is by the help of British renegades. But 
this I protest; after witnessing the smartness of those 
Yankee whale-men, I would sooner charge the English than 
the Americans with lubberliness came the nautical merits 
of the two nations ever before me to decide upon. They 
had the hatches open, tackles aloft, and men at work 
below whilst the mariners of other countries would have 
been standing looking on and "jawing" upon the course to 
be taken. Some overran the fabric aloft, clearing, 
cutting away, pounding, making the ice fly in storms; 
others sweated the capstans till they clanked; others 
fell to the pumps, working with hammers and kettles of 
boiling water. The wondrous old schooner was never 
busier, no, not in the heyday of her flag, when her guns 
were blazing and her people yelling.

I doubt whether even a man-of-war could have given this 
work the despatch the whaler furnished. She had eight 
boats and sixty men, and every boat was afloat and 
alongside us ready to carry what she could to the ship. I 
wished to help, but the captain would not let me do so; 
he kept me walking and talking, asking me scores of 
questions about the schooner; and all so shrewd that, 
without appearing reserved, I professed to know little. 
The great show of clothes puzzled him. He also asked if 
the crucifix in the cabin was silver. I said I believed 
it was, fetched it, and asked him to accept it, saying if 
he would give me the smallest of his boats for it I 
should be very much obliged.

"Oh, yes," says he, "you can have a boat. The men would 
not sail with you without a boat," and after weighing the 
crucifix without the least exhibition of veneration in 
his manner, he put it in his pocket, saying he knew a man 
who would give him a couple of hundred dollars for the 
thing on his telling him that the Pope had blessed it.

"Ay, but," says I, "how do you know the Pope has blessed 
it?"

"Then I'll bless it," cried he; "why, am I a cold Johnny-
cake that my blessing ain't as good as another man's?"

I was glad I had hidden the black flag; I mean, that I 
had stowed it away in the cabin of the Frenchman after he 
was dead. The Yankee needed but the sight to make his 
suspicions of the original character of the Boca del 
Dragon flame up; and you may suppose that I was 
exceedingly anxious he should not be sure that the 
schooner had been a pirate, lest he might have been 
tempted to scrutinize her rather more closely than would 
have been agreeable to me.

He asked me if I had met with any money in her' and I 
answered evasively that in searching the dead man on the 
rocks, I had discovered a few pieces in his pocket, but 
that I had left them, being much too melancholy and 
convinced of my approaching end to meddle with such a 
useless commodity. From time to time he would quit me to 
go to the hatch and sing down orders to the second mate 
in the hold. How many casks he meant to take I did not 
know; when he asked me how much I would give, I replied: 
"Leave me enough to keep me ballasted; that will satisfy 
me."

The high swell demanded caution, but they managed 
wonderfully well. They never swung more than three casks 
into a boat, and with this cargo she would row away to 
the ship that lay hove-to close, and the men in her 
hoisted the casks aboard.

The wind remained light till half-past three; it then 
freshened a bit. Though all hands had knocked off at noon 
to get dinner--and a fine meal I gave them of ham, 
tongue, beef, biscuits, wine, and brandy--by half-past 
three they had eased the hold of ten boatloads of casks, 
besides clearing out the whole of the clothes from the 
forecastle along with as much of the bedding as we did 
not require; and I began to think that my Yankee intended 
to leave me a clean ship to carry home, though I durst 
not remonstrate. Yet was my turn handsomely served too. 
The pumps had been cleared and tried, and found to work 
well, and--which was glad news to me--the well found dry. 
The running rigging had been overhauled, and it travelled 
handsomely. The sails had been loosed and hoisted and 
lowered again, and the canvas found in good condition. 
The jibboom had been run out, and the stays set up. The 
stock of fresh water had been examined and found 
plentiful, and the casks in the head brought out and 
secured on the main deck. In short, the American 
boatswain had worked with the judgment and care of a 
master-rigger, of a great artist in ropes, booms, and 
sails, and the schooner was left to my hands as fit for 
any navigation as the whaler that rose and fell on our 
quarter.

But, as I have said, at half-past three in the afternoon, 
the breeze began to sit in dark curls upon the water, and 
there was evidence enough in the haziness in the west, 
and in the loom of the shoulders of vapour in the dark-
blue obscure there, to warrant a sackful for this capful 
presently.

"I reckon," says the captain to me, after looking into 
the west, "that we'd best knock off now. There's snow and 
wind yonder, and we'd better see all snug while there's 
time."

He called to one of the men to tell the second mate to 
come up from below and get the hatches on, and bringing 
me to the rail, he pointed to a boat, and asked if that 
would do? I said yes, and thanked him heartily for the 
gift, which was handsome, I must say, the boat being a 
very good one, though, to be sure, he had got many times 
its value out of the schooner; and a party of men were 
forthwith told off to get the boat hoisted and stowed.

"Now, Mr. Rodney," said the captain, standing in the 
gangway, "how can I serve you further?"

"Sir," said I, "you are very obliging. Two things I stand 
sadly in need of: a chart of these waters and a 
chronometer."

"I'll send you a chart," said he, "that'll carry you as 
high as San Roque; but I've only got one chronometer, 
sir, and can't spare him."

"Well then," said I, "if, when you get aboard, you'll 
give me the time by your chronometer, I'll set my watch 
by it; but I'll thank you very much for the chart. The 
tracings below are as shapeless as the moon setting in a 
fog."

"You shall have the chart," said he, and then called to 
Wilkinson and the two negroes. "Lads," said he, "you're 
quite content, I hope?" They answered "Yes."

"You've all three a claim upon me for the amount of 
what's owing ye," said he, "and when you turn up at New 
Bedford you shall have it--that's square. I see fifteen 
hundred dollars a man on this job, if so be as ye don't 
broach too thirstily as you go along. Mr. Rodney, Joe 
here's a steady, 'spectable man, and'll make you a good 
mate. Cromwell and Billy Pitt are black only in their 
hides; all else's as good as white."

He then shook me by the hand, and, calling a farewell to 
Wilkinson and the negroes, scrambled into the chains and 
dropped into his boat, very highly satisfied, I make no 
doubt, with the business he had done that day.

A boat's crew were left behind to help us to make sail. 
But the weather looking somewhat wild in the west with 
the red light of the sun among the clouds there, and the 
dark heave of the swell running into a sickly crimson 
under the sun and then glowing out dusky again, I got 
them to treble-reef the mainsail and hoist it, and then 
thanking them, advised them to be off. Then, putting 
Cromwell to the tiller, I went forward with the others 
and set the topsail and forestaysail (the spritsail lying 
furled), which would be show enough of canvas till I saw 
what the weather was to be like. I kept the topsail 
aback, waiting for a boat to arrive with my chart, and in 
a few minutes the boat we had cheered returned with what 
I wanted.

Meanwhile they were shortening sail on the whaler, and 
though she was no beauty, yet, I tell you, I found her as 
picturesque as any ship I had ever beheld as she lay with 
her main topgallant-sail clewed up, her topsail yards on 
the caps, and the heads of men knotting the reef-points 
showing black over the white cloths, her hull floating up 
out of the hollow and flinging a wet orange gleam to the 
west, a tumble of creamy foam about her to her rolling, 
shadows like the passage of phantom hands hurrying over 
her sails to the swaying of her masts, and the swelling 
sea darkling from her into the east.

I hollowed my hands, and, hailing the captain, who was on 
the quarter-deck, asked him for the time by his 
chronometer. He flourished his arm and disappeared and, 
presently returning, shouted to know if I was ready. I 
put the key in my watch and answered yes, and then he 
gave me the time. My watch, though antique, was a noble 
piece of mechanism, and I have little doubt, as 
trustworthy as his chronometer. But I was careful to let 
it lie snug in my hand. I did not want the negro at the 
tiller nor the others to see it. They would wonder that 
so fine a jewelled piece as this should be in the 
possession of the second mate of a little brig, and it 
was my business to manage that they never should have 
cause to wonder at anything in that way.

The dusk of the evening came quick out of the east, and 
the wind freshened with a long cry in our rigging as if 
the eastern darkness was a foe it was rushing out of the 
west to meet. I brought the schooner north-north-east by 
my compass and watched her behaviour anxiously. The swell 
was on the quarter, and the wind and sea a trifle abaft 
the larboard beam; she leaned a little to the weight of 
her clothes, but was surprisingly stiff considering how 
light she was. Wilkinson and the negro came and stood by 
my side. The sea broke heavily from the weather bow, and 
the water roared white under the lee bends and spread 
astern in a broad wake of foam. The whaler did not brace 
his yards up till after we had started, and now hung a 
pale faint mass in the windy darkness on the quarter. A 
tincture of rusty red hovered like smoke coloured by the 
furnace that produces it, in the west, but the night had 
drawn down quick and dark; the washing noise of the water 
was sharp, the wind piercingly cold; each sweep of the 
schooner's masts to windward was followed by a dull 
roaring of the blast rushing out of the hollows of the 
canvas, and she swung to the seas with wild yaws, but 
with regularity sufficient to prove the strict government 
of the helm.

But it was being at sea! homeward bound too! There was no 
wish of mine, engendered by my hideous loneliness on the 
ice, by my abhorred association with the Frenchman, that 
I could not refer to as, down to this moment, gratified. 
My heart bounded; my spirits could not have been higher 
had this ocean been the Thames, and yonder dark flowing 
hills of water the banks of Erith and the Gravesend 
shore.

I turned to the three men. "My lads," said I, "you prove 
yourselves fine bold fellows by thus volunteering. Do not 
fear: if God guides us home--to my home, I mean--you 
shall find a handsome account in this business."

"Six more chaps would have jined had th'ole man bin 
willin'," said Wilkinson. "But best as it is, master, 
though she's a trifle shorthanded."

"Why, yes," said I; "but being fore and aft, you know! It 
isn't as if we'd got courses to hand and topsails to 
reef."

"Ay, ay, dat's de troof," cried Billy Pitt. "I tort o' 
dat. Fore an' aft makes de difference. Don't guess I 
should hab volunteer had she been a brig."

"There are four of us," said I. "You're my chief mate, 
Wilkinson. Choose your watch."

"I choose Cromwell," said he; "he was in my watch aboard 
the whaler." "Very well," I exclaimed; and this being 
settled, and both negroes declaring themselves good 
cooks, we arranged that they should alternately have the 
dressing of our victuals, that Wilkinson should have the 
cabin next mine, and the negroes the one in which the 
Frenchman had slept, one taking the other's place as he 
was relieved.

I asked Wilkinson what he thought of the schooner. He 
answered that he was watching her.

"There's nothing to find fault with yet," said he; "she's 
a whale at rolling, sartinly. I guess she walks, though. 
I reckon she's had enough of the sea, like me, and's got 
the scent o' the land in her nose. I guess old Noah 
wasn't far off when her lines was laid. Mebbe his sons 
had the building of her. There's something scriptural in 
her cut. How old's she, master?"

"Fifty years and more," said I.

"Dere's nuffin' pertickier in dat," cried Cromwell. "I 
knows a wessel dat am a hundred an' four year old, s'elp 
me as I stand."

"I don't know how the whaler's heading," said I, "but 
this schooner's a canoe if we aren't dropping her!"

Indeed she was scarce visible astern, a mere windy 
flicker hovering upon the pale flashings of the foam. It 
might be perhaps that the whaler was making a more 
northerly course than we, and under very snug canvas, 
though ours was snug enough, too; but be this as it may, 
I was mighty pleased with the slipping qualities of the 
schooner. I never could have dreamt that so odd and ugly 
a figure of a ship would show such heels. But I think 
this: we are too prone to view the handiwork of our sires 
with contempt. I do not know but that their ships were as 
fast as ours. They made many good passages. They might 
have proved themselves fleeter navigators had they had 
the sextant and chronometer to help them along. Fifty 
years hence perhaps mankind will be laughing at our 
crudities; at us, by heaven, who flatter ourselves that 
the art of ship-building and navigation will never be 
carried higher than the pitch to which we have raised 
them!

Cromwell being at the tiller, I told Billy Pitt to go 
below and get supper, instructing him what to dress and 
how much to melt for a bowl, for as you know there was 
nothing but spirits and wine to season our repasts with. 
I saw Cromwell grin widely into the binnacle candle flame 
when he heard me talk of ham, tongue, sweetmeats, 
marmalade and the like for supper, together with a can of 
hot claret, and knowing sailor's nature middling well, I 
did not doubt that the fare of the schooner would bring 
the three men more into love with the adventure than even 
the reward that was to follow it.

I had noticed that the bundles which had been sent from 
the whaler as belonging to the poor fellows were meagre 
enough and showed indeed like the end of a long voyage, 
and I detained Billy Pitt a minute whilst I told them 
that there was a handsome stock of clothes in the cabins, 
together with linen, boots, and other articles of that 
sort; that, though the coats, breeches, and waistcoats 
were of bright colour and old-fashioned, they would keep 
them as warm as if they had been cut by a tailor of 
today.

"These things," said I, "you can wear at sea, keeping 
your own clothes ready to slip on should we be spoken or 
to wear when we arrive in England. To-morrow they shall 
be divided among you, and they will become your property. 
The suit you saw me in to-day is all that I shall need."

Both negroes burst into a most diverting laugh of joy on 
hearing this. Nothing delights a black man more than 
coloured apparel. They had seen the clothes in the 
forecastle and guessed the kind of garments I meant to 
present them with.

Whilst supper was getting, I walked the deck with 
Wilkinson, both of us keeping a bright lookout, for it 
was blowing fresh; the darkness lay thick about us, there 
might be ice near us, and the schooner was storming under 
her reefed mainsail, topsail, and staysail through the 
hollow seas, thundering with a great roaring seething 
noise into the trough, and lifting to the foaming slope 
with her masts wildly aslant. I talked to my companion 
very freely, being anxious to find out what kind of 
person he was, and I must say that there was something in 
his conversation that impressed me very favourably. He 
told me that he had a wife at New Bedford, that he was 
heartily sick of the sea, and that he hoped the money he 
would get by this adventure, added to his pay, would 
enable him to set up for himself ashore.

"Well," said I, "we will see to-morrow what cargo Captain 
Tucker has left us. But that you may be under no 
misapprehension, Wilkinson, if we are fortunate enough to 
bring the ship safely to England, I will enter into a 
bond to pay you five hundred pounds sterling for your 
share one week after the date of our arrival."

He answered that if he could get that sum he would be a 
made man for life. "But it's too much to expect, sir," 
says he.

I told him that he had no idea of the value of the cargo. 
The wines and spirits were of such a quality I would 
stake my interest in the schooner in their fetching a 
large sum of money.

"That'll depend," said he, "on how much the capt'n left 
us."

"He helped himself freely," I answered, "but we are well 
off too. You shall judge to-morrow. Then there's the 
schooner--as she stands: besides a noble stock of stores 
of all kinds, sails, ropes, tools, ammunition and several 
chests of small arms. I tell you I will give you five 
hundred pounds for your share."

His satisfaction was expressed by his silence. "But," 
continued I, "we must act with judgment. What we have we 
must keep. Are the negroes trustworthy men?"

"Yes, they are honest fellows. I wouldn't have shipped 
with them else."

"We shall not require much for ourselves," said I, "and 
the rest we'll batten down and keep snug. There'll be 
some manoeuvring needed in order to come off clear with 
this booty when we arrive: but there's plenty of time to 
think that over, and our business till then is to look 
after the ship and pray for luck to keep clear of 
anything hostile."

And then we fell to other talk; in the course of which he 
told me he was an Englishman born, but having been 
pressed into a man-o-war, deserted her at Halifax and 
made several voyages in American ships. He was wrecked on 
the Peruvian coast and became a beachcomber, and then got 
a berth in a whaler. 

He married at New Bedford and sailed with Captain Tucker-
-this trip, he said, was his second whalling and he wanted 
no more. I told him I was glad to learn that he was a 
countryman of mine, but not surprised. His speech was 
well-larded with Americanisms, "but," said I, "the true 
twang is wanting, and," added I, laughing, "I should know 
you for Hampshire for all your reckons and guesses if I 
had to eat you should I be mistaken."

"The press-gang's the best friend the Yankees has," said 
he a little sheepishly. "Do any man suppose I hadn't 
sooner hail from my native town Southampton than from New 
Bedford? Half the American fo'c'sles is made up of 
Yankees who'd prove hearts of oak if it wasn't for the 
press."

His candour gratified me as showing that he already 
looked upon me as a shipmate to be trusted, and, as I 
have said, this first chat with the man left me strongly 
disposed to consider myself fortunate in having him as an 
associate.

CHAPTER XII.

I VALUE THE LADING.

The day had been so full of business, there had been so 
much to engage my mind, that it was not until I was 
seated at supper in the old cook-room in which I had 
passed so many melancholy hours, that I found myself able 
to take a calm survey of my situation, and to compare the 
various motions of my fortunes. I could scarcely indeed 
believe that I was not in a dream from which I should 
awake presently, and discover myself still securely 
imprisoned in the ice, and all those passages of the 
powder-blasts, the liberation of the schooner, my lonely 
days in her afloat, my encounter with the whaler, as 
visionary and vanishing as those dusky forms of vapour 
which had swarmed in giant-shape over my little open 
boat.

But even if confirmation had been wanting in the sable 
visage of Billy Pitt, who sat near the furnace munching 
away with prodigious enjoyment of his food and bringing 
his can of hot spiced wine from his vast blubber lips 
with a mighty sigh of deep delight, I must have found it 
in each hissing leap and roaring plunge of the old 
piratical bucket, so full of the vitality of the wind-
swollen canvas, so quick with all the life-instincts of a 
vessel storming through the deep with buoyant keel and 
under full control. Oh, heaven! how different from the 
dull ambling of the morning, the sluggish pitching and 
rolling to the weak pulling of the spritsail!

Wilkinson and Cromwell kept the deck whilst Billy Pitt 
and I got our supper, and I had some talk with my negro, 
who seemed to be a very simple childish fellow, heartily 
in love with his stomach and very eager to see England. 
He told me that he had heard it was a fine country, and 
his wish to see it was one reason of his volunteering.

"Dey say," said he, "dar Lunnon's a very fine place, sah, 
bigger dan Philadelphy, and data man's skin don' tell 
agin him among de yaller gals dere."

I laughed and said, that in my country people were judged 
rather by the colour of their hearts than by the hue of 
their faces.

"But dollars count for something too, sah, I spects?" 
said he.

"Why, yes," said I, "with dollars enough you can make 
black white in England."

"Hum!" cried he, scratching his head. "I guess it 'ud 
take an almighty load of dollars to make me white, 
massa."

"Put money in your pocket and chink it," said I, "and 
your face'll be found white enough, I warrant."

"By golly!" cried he, "I'll do it den. S'elp me de Lord, 
massa, I'd chink twenty year for a white face. Dat comes 
ob bein' civilized. Tell ye what dey dew, massa, dey 
makes you feel like a white man, but dey lets you keep 
black, blast 'em!"

I checked his excitement by telling him that in my 
country he would find that the negro was a person held in 
very high esteem, that the women in particular valued him 
for that very dinginess which the Americans found 
distasteful, and told him that I could name several 
ladies of quality who had married their black servants.

He looked surprised, but not incredulous, and said in his 
peculiar dialect that he had no doubt I spoke the truth, 
as he had always heard that England was a fine country to 
live in. I then led him insensibly from this topic to 
talk of the sea and his experiences, and found that he 
had seen a very great deal, having been freed when young, 
and keeping to the ocean ever since in many different 
sorts of craft. Indeed, I was as much pleased with him as 
with Wilkinson, but then I had foreseen a simplicity in 
both the negroes, and in expectation of finding this 
quality, so useful to one in my strange position, I was 
overjoyed when they consented to help me sail the 
schooner to the Thames.

We went on deck to relieve Wilkinson and Cromwell. Billy 
Pitt took the tiller and I walked to either rail and 
stared into the darkness. It was very thick with 
occasional squalls of snow, which put a screaming as of 
tortured cats into the wind as they swung through it. The 
sea was high, but the schooner was making excellent 
weather of it, whilst she rolled and pitched through the 
troubled darkness at seven knots in the hour. 'Twas noble 
useful sailing, yet a speed not to be relished in these 
waters amid so deep a shadow. Still the temptation to 
"hold on all," as we say, was very great; every mile 
carried us by so much nearer to the temperate parallels, 
and shortened to that extent the long, long passage that 
lay before us.

I was pacing the deck briskly, for the wind was horribly 
keen, when Pitt suddenly called out, "I say, massa!"

"Hullo," I replied.

"Sah," he cried, "I smell ice!"

I knew that this was a capacity not uncommon among men 
who had voyaged much in the frosty regions of the deep, 
and instantly exclaimed, "Luff, then, luff! shake the way 
out of her!" sniffing as I spoke, but detecting no added 
shrewdness in the air that was already freezingly cold. 
He put the helm down, and I called to the others below to 
come on deck and flatten in the main sheet. They were up 
in a trice and tailed on with me, asking no questions, 
till we had the boom nearly amidships.

I was about to speak when Wilkinson cried out, "I smell 
ice." He sniffed a moment: "Yes, there's an island 
aboard. Anybody see it?"

"Ay, dere it am, sure enough!" cried Cromwell. "Dere--on 
de lee-bow--see it, sah? See it, Billy?"

Yes, I saw it plain enough when I knew where to look for 
it. 'Twas just such another lump of faintness as had 
wrecked the Laughing Mary, a mass of dull spectral light 
upon the throbbing blackness, and it lay exactly in a 
line with the course we had been steering when Pitt first 
called out, so that assuredly we had not shifted our helm 
a minute too soon. We chopped and wallowed past it 
slowly, keeping a sharp look-out for like apparitions in 
other quarters, and when it had disappeared, I made up my 
mind to heave the schooner to and keep her in that 
posture till daylight, unless the night cleared. So we 
got the mainsail down and stowed it, clewed up the top-
sail (which I lent a hand to roll up), and let the vessel 
lie under a reefed foresail with her helm lashed. The 
weather, however, must have ultimately compelled what the 
thickness had required; for by ten o'clock it was blowing 
a hard gale, with a frequent hoariness of clouds of snow 
upon the blackness, the seas very high and foaming, and 
the wind crying madly in the rigging.

I let some time go by, and then sounded the well and 
found no more water than the depth at which the pumps 
sucked. This did wonders in the way of reassuring the 
men, who were rendered uneasy by the violent motions of 
the unwieldy vessel, and by the very harsh straining 
noises which rose out of the hold, which latter they 
would naturally attribute to the craziness of the fabric, 
though the true cause of it lay in the number of loose, 
movable bulkheads.

"It's amazin' to me that she holds together at all," 
cried Wilkinson, "so ancient she is!"

"She's only old," said I, "in the sound of the years 
she's been in existence. The ice has kept her young. 
Would the hams and tongues we're eating be taken to be 
half a century old? yet where could you buy sweeter and 
better meat of the kind ashore? A ship's well is your 
only honest reporter of her condition. Ours has vouched 
in a way that should keep you easy."

"Arter de Soosan Tucker dis is like bein' hung up to 
dry," exclaimed one of the negroes. "It war pump, pump 
dere and no mistake. I call dis a werry beautiful little 
sheep, massa; yes, s'elp me de Lord, dere's nuffin could 
persuade me she ain't what I says she am."

However, I was up and down a good deal during the night. 
But for the treasure I should have been less anxious, I 
dare say. I had come so successfully to this point that I 
was resolved, if my hopes were to miscarry, the 
misfortune should not be owing to want of vigilance on my 
part; and there happened an incident which inevitably 
tended to sharpen my watchfulness, though I was perfectly 
conscious there was a million to one against its 
occurring a second time. I came on deck to relieve 
Wilkinson, at midnight, after a half-hour's nodding doze 
by the furnace below. He went to his cabin; I stood under 
the lee of a cloth seized in the weather main rigging. 
Pitt arrived, and I told him he could return to the cook-
house and stay there till I called him. The helm being 
lashed, and the schooner doing very well, nothing wanted 
watching in particular, yet I would not have-the deck 
abandoned, and meant to keep a look-out, turn and turn 
about with Pitt, as Wilkinson and Cromwell had. The snow 
had ceased; but it was very dark and thick, the ocean a 
roaring shadow; palpitating upon the eyes in rolling 
folds of blackness, with the quick expiring flash of foam 
to windward.	On a sudden, looking over the weather 
quarter, methought I discerned a deeper shade in the 
night there than was elsewhere perceptible. It was like a 
great blot of ink upon the darkness. Even whilst I 
speculated, it drew out in the shape of a ship running 
before the gale. She seemed to be heading directly for 
us. The roof of my mouth turned dry as desert-sand; my 
tongue and limbs refused their office; I could neither 
cry nor stir, being indeed paralyzed by the terrible 
suddenness of that apparition and the imminence of our 
peril. It all happened whilst you could have told thirty. 
The great black mass surged up with the water boiling 
about the bows; she brought a thunder along with her in 
her rigging and sails as she soared to the crowns of the 
seas she was sweeping before. I could not tell what 
canvas she was under, but her speed was a full ten knots, 
and as I did not see her till she was close, she looked 
to come upon us as with a single bound. She passed us to 
windward within a stone's throw, and vanished like a dark 
cloud melting into the surrounding blackness. Not a gleam 
of light broke from her; you heard nothing but the 
boiling at her bows and the thunderous pealing of the 
gale in her canvas. A quarter turn of the wheel would 
have sent us to the bottom, and her, no doubt, on top of 
us. Whether she was the Susan Tucker, or some other 
whaler, or a big South-Sea-man driven low and getting 
what easting she could out of the gale, I know not. She 
was as complete a mystery of the ocean night as any 
spectral fabric, and a heavier terror to me than a 
phantasm worked by ghosts could have proved.

I knew such a thing could not happen again, yet when I 
called Pitt I talked to him about it as though we must 
certainly be run down if he did not keep a sharp look-
out, and when my watch below came round at four o'clock, 
I was so agitated that I was up and down till daybreak, 
as though my duty did not end till then.

The gale moderated at sunrise, and, though it was a 
gloomy, true Cape Horn morning, with dark driving clouds, 
the sea a dusky olive, very hollow, and frequent small 
quick squalls of sleet which brought the wind to us in 
sharp guns, yet as we could see where we were going, I 
got the schooner before it, heading her east-north-east, 
and under a reefed topsail, mainsail, and staysail, the 
old bucket stormed through it with the sputter and rage 
of a line-of-battle ship. There was a log-reel and line 
on deck, and I found a sand-glass in the chest in my 
cabin in which I had met with the quadrants, perspective 
glass, and the like, and I kept this log regularly going, 
marking a point of departure on the chart the American 
captain had given me, which I afterwards found to be 
within two leagues and a half of the true position. But 
for three days the weather continued so heavy that there 
was nothing to be done in the shape of gratifying the 
men's expectations by overhauling what was left of the 
cargo. Indeed, we had no leisure for such work; all our 
waking hours had to be strictly dedicated to the 
schooner, and in keeping a lookout for ice. But the 
morning of the fourth day broke with a fine sky and a 
brisk breeze from a little to the east of south, to which 
we showed every cloth the schooner had to throw abroad, 
and being now by dead reckoning within a few leagues of 
the meridian of sixty degrees, I shaped a course north by 
east by my compass, with the design of getting a view of 
Staten Island that I might correct my calculations.

When we had made sail and got our breakfast, I told 
Wilkinson and Cromwell (Pitt being at the tiller) that 
now was a good opportunity for inspecting the contents of 
the hold; and (not to be tedious in this part of my 
relation, however I may have sinned in this respect 
elsewhere) we carried lanthorns below, and spent the 
better part of the forenoon in taking stock. From a copy 
of the memorandum I made on that occasion (still in my 
possession), we discovered that the Yankee captain had 
left us the following: thirty casks of rum, twenty-eight 
hogsheads of claret, seventy-five casks of brandy, fifty 
of sherry, and eighteen cases of beer in bottles. In 
addition to this were the stores in the lazarette 
(besides a quantity of several kinds of wine in jars, 
&c.) elsewhere enumerated, besides all the ship's 
furniture, her guns, powder, small-arms, &c., as well as 
the ship herself. I took the men into the run and showed 
them the chests, opening the little one which I had 
stocked with small-arms, and lifting the lids of two or 
three of the others. They were perfectly satisfied, fully 
believing all the chests to be filled with small-arms and 
nothing else, and so we came away and returned to the 
cabin, where, to please them, I put down the value of the 
cargo at a venture, setting figures against each article, 
and making out a total of two thousand six hundred and 
forty pounds. This of course included the ship.

"How much'll dat be a man, massa?" asked Cromwell.

"Six hundred and sixty pounds," I answered. The poor 
fellow was so transported that, after staring at me in 
silence with the corners of his mouth stretched to his 
ears, he tossed up his hands, burst into a roar of 
laughter, and made several skips about the deck.

"Of course," said I, addressing Wilkinson, "my figures 
may be ahead or short of the truth. But if you are 
disposed to take the chance, I'll tell you what I'll do; 
I'll stand by my figures, accepting the risk of the value 
of the lading being less than what I say it is, and 
undertake to give each man of you six hundred and sixty 
pounds for your share."

"Well, sir," said he," I don't know that I ought to 
object. But a few pounds is a matter of great consequence 
to me, and I reckon if these here goods and the wessel 
should turn out to be worth more than ye offer, the loss 
'ud go agin the grit, ay, if 'twere twenty dollars a 
man."

I laughed, and told him to let the matter rest, there was 
plenty of time before us; I should be willing to stand to 
my offer even if I lost by it, so heartily obliged was I 
to them for coming to my assistance. And in this I spoke 
the truth, though, as you will understand who know my 
position, I had to finesse. It went against my conscience 
to make out that the chests were full of small-arms, but 
I should have been mad to tell them the truth, and, 
perhaps, by the truth made devils of men who were, and 
promised to remain, steady, temperate, honest fellows. I 
was not governed by the desire to keep all the treasure 
to myself; no, I vow to God I should have been glad to 
give them a moiety of it, had I not apprehended the very 
gravest consequences if I were candid with them. But 
this, surely, must be so plain that it is idle to go on 
insisting on it.

The fine weather, the golden issue that was to attend our 
successful navigation, the satisfactory behaviour of the 
schooner, put us into a high good-humour with one 
another; and when it came to my collecting all the 
clothes in the after cabins and distributing them among 
the three men, I thought Billy Pitt and Cromwell would 
have gone mad with delight. To the best of my 
recollection the apparel that had been left us by the 
American captain (who, as you know, had cleared the 
forecastle of the clothes there) consisted of several 
coats of cut velvet, trimmed with gold and silver lace, 
some frocks of white drab with large plate buttons, 
brocade waistcoats of blue satin and green silk, crimson 
and other coloured cloth breeches, along with some 
cloaks, three-corner hats, black and white stockings, a 
number of ruffled shirts, and other articles, of which I 
recollect the character, though my ignorance of the 
costumes of that period prevents me from naming them.

Any one acquainted with the negro's delight in coloured 
clothes will hardly need to be told of the extravagant 
joy raised in the black breasts of Cromwell and Pitt by 
my distribution of this fine attire. The lace, to be 
sure, was tarnished, and some of the colours faded, but 
all the same the apparel furnished a brave show; and such 
was the avidity with which the poor creatures snatched at 
the garments as I offered them first to one and then 
another, that I believe they would have been perfectly 
satisfied with the clothes alone as payment for their 
services. I made this distribution on the quarter-deck, 
or little poop, rather, that all might be present: 
Wilkinson was at the tiller, and appeared highly 
delighted with the bundle allotted him, saying that he 
might reckon upon a hearty welcome from his wife when she 
came to know what was in his chest. The negroes were wild 
to clothe themselves at once; I advised them to wait for 
the warm weather, but they were too impatient to put on 
their fine feathers to heed my advice. They ran below, 
and were gone half an hour, during which time I have no 
doubt they put on all they had; and when at last they 
returned, their appearance was so exquisitely absurd that 
I laughed till I came near to suffocating. Each negro had 
tied a silver laced hat on to his woolly head; one wore a 
pair of crimson, the other a pair of black, velvet 
breeches; over their cucumber shanks they had drawn white 
silk stockings, regardless of the cold; their feet were 
encased in buckled shoes, and their costumes were 
completed by scarlet and blue waistcoats which fell to 
their knees, and crimson and blue coats with immense 
skirts. What struck me as most astonishing was their 
gravity. Their self-complacency was prodigious; they eyed 
each other with dignified approbation, and strutted with 
the air of provincial mayors and aldermen newly arrived 
from the presence of royalty.

"They're in keepin' with the schooner, any ways," said 
Wilkinson.

And so perhaps they were. The antique fabric needed the 
sparkle-of those costumes on her deck to make her aspect 
fit in with the imaginations she bred. But, as I had 
anticipated, the cold proved too powerful for their 
conceit, and they were presently glad to ship their more 
modern trousers, though they clung obstinately to their 
waistcoats, and could not be persuaded to remove their 
hats on any account whatever.

CHAPTER XIII.

OUR	PROGRESS TO THE CHANNEL.

WHEN I started to relate my adventure I never designed to 
write an account of the journey home at large. On the 
contrary, I foresaw that, by the time I had arrived at 
this part, you would have had enough of the sea. Let me 
now, then, be as brief as possible.

The melting of the ice and the slowly increasing power of 
the sun were inexpressibly consoling to me who had had so 
much of the cold that I do protest if Elysium were bleak, 
no matter how radiant; and the abode of the fiends as hot 
as it is pictured, I would choose to turn my back upon 
the angels. I cannot say, however, that the schooner was 
properly thawed until we were hard upon the parallels of 
the Falkland Islands; she then showed her timbers naked 
to the sun, and exposed a brown solid deck rendered ugly 
by several dark patches which, scrape as we might, we 
could not obliterate. We struck the guns into the hold 
for the better ballasting of the vessel, got studding-
sail booms aloft, overhauled her suits of canvas and 
found a great square sail which proved of inestimable 
importance in light winds and in running. After the ice 
was wholly melted out of her frame she made a little 
water, yet not so much but that half an hour's spell at 
the pump twice a day easily freed her. But, curiously 
enough, at the end of a fortnight she became tight again, 
which I attribute to the swelling of her timbers.

We were a slender company, but we managed extraordinarily 
well. The men were wonderfully content; I never heard so 
much as a murmur escape one of them; they never exceeded 
their rations nor asked for a drop more of liquor than we 
had agreed among us should be served out. But, as I had 
anticipated, our security lay in our slenderness. We were 
too few for disaffection. The negroes were as simple as 
children, Wilkinson looked to find his account in a happy 
arrival, and if I was not, strictly speaking, their 
captain, I was their navigator without whom their case 
would have been as perilous as mine was on the ice.

Outside the natural dangers of the sea we had but one 
anxiety, and that concerned our being chased and taken. 
This fear was heartily shared by my companions, to whom I 
also represented that it must be our business to give 
even the ships of our country a wide berth; for, though I 
had long since flung all the compromising bunting 
overboard, and destroyed all the papers I could come 
across, which, being written in a language I was ignorant 
of, might, for all I knew, contain some damning 
information, a British ship would be sure to board us and 
I should have to tell the truth or take the risks of 
prevaricating. If I told the truth, then I should have to 
admit that the lading of the vessel was piratical 
plunder; and though I knew not how the law stood with 
regard to booty rescued from certain destruction after 
the lapse of hard upon half a century, yet it was a 
hundred to one that the whole would be claimed in the 
king's name under a talk of restitution, which signified 
that we should never hear more of it. On the other hand 
prevarication would not fail to excite suspicion, and on 
our not being able to satisfactorily account for our 
possession of the ship and what was in her, it might end 
in our actually being seized as pirates and perhaps 
executed.

This reasoning went very well with the men and filled 
them with such anxiety that they were for ever on the 
look-out for a sail. But, as you may guess, my own 
solicitude sank very much deeper; for, supposing the 
schooner to be rummaged by an English crew, it was as 
certain as that my hand was affixed to my arm that the 
chests of treasure would be transhipped and lost to me by 
the law's trickery.

Now, till we were to the north of the equator we sighted 
nothing; no, in all those days not a single sail ever 
hove into view to break the melancholy continuity of the 
sea-line. But between the parallels of zzz 20° and 22° N. 
we met with no less than eight ships, the nearest within 
a league. We watched them as cats watch mice; making a 
point to bear away if they were going our road, or, if 
they were coming towards us, to shift our helm--but never 
very markedly--so as to let them pass us at the widest 
possible distance. Some of them showed a colour, but we 
never answered their signals. That they were all harmless 
traders I will not affirm; but none of them offered to 
chase us. Yet could I have been sure of a ship, I should 
have been glad to speak. My longitude was little more 
than guess-work; my latitude not very certain; and my 
compass was out. However, I supported my own and the 
spirits of my little company by telling them of the early 
navigators; how Columbus, Candish, Drake, Schouten and 
other heroic marine worthies of distant times had 
navigated the globe, discovered new worlds, penetrated 
into the most secret solitudes of the deep without any 
notion of longitude and with no better instruments to 
take the sun's height than the forestaff and astrolabe. 
We were better off than they, and I had not the least 
doubt, I told them, of bringing the old schooner to a 
safe berth off Deal or Gravesend.

But it happened that we were chased when on the polar 
verge of the North-East Trade-wind. It was blowing brisk, 
the sea breaking in snow upon the weather bow, the sky 
overcast with clouds, and the schooner washing through it 
under a single-reefed mainsail and whole topsail. It was 
noon: I was taking an observation, when Pitt at the 
tiller sang out "Sail ho!" and looking, I spied the 
swelling cloud-like canvas of a vessel on a line with our 
starboard cathead. I told Pitt to let the schooner fall 
off three points, and with slackened sheets the old Boca 
del Dragon hummed through it brilliantly, flinging the 
foam as far aft as the gangway. The strange sail rose 
rapidly, and the lifting of her hull discovered her to be 
a line-of-battle ship. We held on as we were, hoping to 
escape her notice; but whether she did not like our 
appearance, or that there was something in the figure we 
cut that excited her curiosity, she, on a sudden, put her 
helm up and steered a true course for us.

At the first sight of her I had called Wilkinson and 
Cromwell on deck, and I now cried out, "Lads, d'ye see, 
she's after us. If she catches us our dream of dollars is 
over. Lively now, boys, and give her all she can stagger 
under; and what she can't carry she must drag." And we 
sprang to make sail, briskly as apes, and every one 
working with two-man power. I knew the old Boca's best 
point; it was with the wind a point abaft the beam; we 
put her to that, got the great square-sail on her, shook 
out all reefs, and gave all she had to the wind. The wake 
roared away from her like a white torrent that flies from 
the foot of a foaming cataract. She had the pirate's 
instincts, and being put to her trumps, was nimble. God! 
how she did swing through it! Never had I driven the aged 
bucket before like this, and I understood that speed at 
sea is not irreconcilable with odd bodies. But the great 
ship to windward hung steady; a cloud of bland and 
swelling cloths. When we had set the studding-sail we had 
nothing more to fly with; and so we stood looking. She 
slapped six shots at us, one after another, as a haughty 
hint to us to stop; but we meant to escape, and at last 
we did, outsailing her by thirteen inches to her foot--
one foot to her twelve--though she stuck to our skirts 
the whole afternoon and kept us in an agony of anxiety.

The sun was setting when she abandoned us: she was then 
some five or six miles distant on our weather quarter. 
What her nation was I did not know; but Wilkinson 
reckoned her French when she gave us up. We rushed 
steadily along the same course into the darkness of the 
night and then, shortening sail, brought the schooner to 
the wind again, after which we drank to the frisky old 
jade in an honestly-earned bowl.

It was on the 5th of December that we sighted the Scilly 
Isles. I guessed what that land was, but so vague had 
been my navigation that I durst not be sure; until, 
spying a smack with her nets over, I steered for her and 
got the information I needed from her people. They 
answered us with an air of fear, and in truth the fellows 
had reason; for, besides the singular appearance of the 
ship, the four of us were apparelled in odds and ends of 
the antique clothes, and I have little doubt they 
considered us lunatics of another country, who had run 
away with a ship belonging to parts where the tastes and 
fashions were behind the age.

Now, as you may suppose, by this time I had settled my 
plans; and as we sailed up channel, I unfolded them to my 
companions. I pointed out that before we entered the 
river it would be necessary to discharge our lading into 
some little vessel that would smuggle the booty ashore 
for us. The figure the schooner made was so peculiar she 
would inevitably attract attention; she would instantly 
be boarded in the Thames on our coming to anchor, and, if 
I told the truth, she would be seized as a pirate, and 
ourselves dismissed with a small reward, and perhaps with 
nothing.

"My scheme," said I, "is this: I have a relative in 
London to whom I shall communicate the news of my arrival 
and tell him my story. You, Wilkinson must be the bearer 
of this letter. He is a shrewd, active man, and I will 
leave it to him to engage the help we want. There is no 
lack of the right kind of serviceable men at Deal, and if 
they are promised a substantial interest in smuggling our 
lading ashore, they will run the goods successfully, do 
not fear. As there is sure to be a man-of-war stationed 
in the Downs, we must keep clear of that anchorage. I 
will land you at Lydd, whence you will make your way to 
Dover and thence to London. Cromwell and Pitt will return 
and help me to keep cruising. My letter to my relative 
will tell him where to seek me, and I shall know his boat 
by her flying a jack. When we have discharged our lading 
we will sail to the Thames, and then let who will come 
aboard, for we shall have a clean hold. This," continued 
I, "is the best scheme I can devise. The risks of 
smuggling attend it, to be sure; but against those risks 
we have to put the certainty of our forfeiting our just 
claims to the property if we carry the schooner to the 
Thames. Even suppose, when there, that we should not be 
immediately visited, and so be provided with an 
opportunity to land our stuff--whom have we to trust? The 
Thames abounds with river thieves, with lumpers, scuffle-
hunters, mud-larks, glutmen, rogues of all sorts, to hire 
whom would mean to bribe them with the value of half the 
lading and to risk their stealing the other half. But 
this is the lesser difficulty; the main one lies in this: 
there are some sixteen hundred men employed in the London 
Custom House, most of whom are on river duty as watchmen; 
thirty of these people are clapped aboard an East 
Indiaman, five or six on West India ships, and a like 
proportion in other vessels. So strange a craft as ours 
would be visited, depend on 't, and smartly, too. D'ye 
see the danger, lads? What do you say, then, to my 
scheme?"

The negroes immediately answered that they left it to me; 
I knew best; they would be satisfied with whatever I did.

Wilkinson mused a while and then said, "Smuggling was 
risky work. How would it be if we represented that we had 
found the schooner washing about with nobody aboard?"

"The tale wouldn't be credited," said I. "The age of the 
vessel would tell against such a story, even if you 
removed all other evidence by throwing the clothes and 
small-arms overboard and whatever else might go to prove 
that the schooner must have been floating about abandoned 
since the year 1750!"

"Musn't lose de clothes, massa, on no account," cried 
Pitt.

"Well, sir," says Wilkinson, after another spell of 
reflection, "I reckon you're right. If so be the law 
would seize the vessel and goods on the grounds that she 
had been a pirate and all that's in her was plunder, why, 
then, certainly, I don't see nothin' else but to make a 
smuggling job of it, as you say, sir."

This being settled (Wilkinson's concurrence being 
rendered the easier by my telling him that, providing the 
lading was safely run, I would adhere to my undertaking 
to give them six hundred and sixty pounds each for their 
share), I went below and spent half an hour over a letter 
to Mr. Jeremiah Mason. There was no ink, but I found a 
pencil, and for paper I used the fly-leaves of the books 
in my cabin. I opened with a sketch of my adventures, and 
then went on to relate that the Boca was a rich ship; 
that as she had been a pirate, I risked her seizure by 
carrying her to London; that I stood grievously in need 
of his counsel and help, and begged him not to lose a 
moment in returning with the messenger to Deal, and there 
hiring a boat and coming to me, whom he would find 
cruising off Beachy Head. That I might know his boat, I 
bade him fly a jack a little below the masthead. "As for 
the Boca del Dragon," I added, "Wilkinson would recognize 
her if she were in the middle of a thousand sail, and 
indeed a farmer's boy would be able to distinguish her 
for her uncommon oddness of figure." I was satisfied to 
underscore the words "a rich ship," quite certain his 
imagination would be sufficiently fired by the 
expression. At anything further I durst not hint, as the 
letter would be open for Wilkinson to read.

When I had finished, I took a lanthorn and the keys of 
the chest and went very secretly and expeditiously to the 
run, and removing the layers of small-arms from the top 
of the case that held the money, I picked out some 
English pieces, quickly returned the small-arms, locked 
the chest, and returned.

All this time we were running up Channel before a fresh 
westerly wind. It was true December weather, very raw, 
and the horizon thick, but I knew my road well, and 
whilst the loom of the land showed, I desired nothing 
better than this thickness.

But wary sailing delayed us; and it was not till ten 
o'clock on the night of the seventh that we hove the 
schooner to off the shingly beach of Lydd within sound of 
the wash of the sea upon it. The bay sheltered us; we got 
the boat over; I gave Wilkinson the letter and ten 
guineas, bidding him keep them hidden and to use them 
cautiously with the silver change he would receive, for 
they were all guineas of the first George and might 
excite comment if he, a poor sailor, ill-clad, should 
pull them out and exhibit them. Happily, in the hurry of 
the time, he did not think to ask me how I had come by 
them. He thrust them into his pocket, shook my hand and 
dropped into the boat, and the negroes immediately rowed 
him ashore.

I stood holding a lanthorn upon the rail to serve them as 
a guide, waiting for the boat to return, and never 
breathed more freely in my life than when I heard the 
sound of oars. The two negroes came alongside, and, 
clapping the tackles on to the boat, we hoisted her with 
the capstan, and then under very small canvas stood out 
to sea again.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE END.

I should require to write to the length of this book over 
again to do full justice by description to the 
difficulties and anxieties of the days that now followed. 
If it had not been thick weather all the time, I do not 
know how I should have fared, I am sure. I was between 
two fires, so to say; on the one side the French cruisers 
and privateers, and on the other side the ships of my own 
country, and particularly the revenue cutters and the 
sloops and the like cruising after the smugglers. As I 
knew that my relative could not be with me under four 
days, I steered out of sight of land into the middle of 
the Channel, betwixt Beachy Head and the Seine coast, and 
there dodged about under very small canvas, heartily 
grateful for the haze that shrouded the sea to within a 
mile of me. I scarcely closed my eyes in sleep, and 
though my worries were now of a very different kind from 
those which had racked me on the ice, they were, in their 
way, to the full as tormenting. Every sail that loomed in 
the dinginess filled me with alarm. Several ships passed 
me close, and I could scarce breathe till they were out 
of sight. Indeed, I lay skulking out upon that sea as if 
I was some common thief broken loose from jail. However, 
it pleased heaven that I should manage to keep out of 
sight of those whom I most strenuously desired not to 
see; and the afternoon of the fourth day found the Boca 
lying off Beachy Head, and I peering over the rail, with 
a haggard face, at the dark shadow of the land.

It had been blowing and snowing all day. The seas ran 
short and spitefully. It was a dismal December afternoon, 
and the more sensibly disgusting to us who were fresh 
from several weeks of the balm and glory of the tropics. 
And yet I would not have exchanged it for a clear fine 
day for all that I was like to be worth.

It was the most reasonable thing in the world that a 
vessel should be hove-to in such sombre weather, and so I 
was under no concern that our posture in this respect 
would excite suspicion, should we be descried. The hours 
stole away one by one. Now and again a little coaster 
would pass, some hoy bound west, a sloop for the Thames, 
a lugger on some unguessable mission: 411 small ships, 
oozing dark and damp out of the snow and mist and passing 
silently. I kept the land close aboard to be out of the 
way of the bigger craft, and held the vessel in the wind 
till it was necessary to reach to our station. The three 
of us were mighty pensive and eager, staring incessantly 
with all our eyes; but it looked as if we were not to 
expect anything that day when the night put its darkness 
into the weather. Then, as I foresaw a serious danger if 
the wind shifted into the south, and as I could not 
obtain a glimpse of a shore-light, I resolved to bring up 
and ride till dawn. Long ago we had got the schooner's 
zzz old anchors at the catheads and the cables bent, so, 
lowering the mainsail and hauling down the stay foresail, 
we let fall the starboard anchor, and the ship came to a 
stand. I put the lead over the side that we might know if 
she dragged, hung a lantern on the forestay and one on 
either quarter that our presence might be marked by my 
relative should he be out in quest of us, and went below, 
leaving Cromwell to keep the look-out.

I was extremely fretful and anxious and had no patience 
to talk with Billy Pitt. There were too many risks, too 
many vague chances in this exploit to render 
contemplation of it tolerable. Suppose my relative should 
be dead? Suppose Wilkinson should be robbed of his money? 
fall to the cutting of capers, as a sailor newly 
delivered to the pleasures of the land with ten guineas 
in his pocket? Get locked up for breaking the peace? Blab 
of us in his cups and start the Customs on our trail? 
There was no end to such conjectures, and I made myself 
so melancholy that I was fool enough to think that the 
treasure was no better than a curse, and that on the 
whole I was better off on the ice than here with the 
anchor in English ground and my native soil within 
gunshot.

I was up and about till midnight, and then, being in the 
cabin and exhausted, I fell asleep across the table, and 
in that posture lay as one dead. Some one dragging at my 
arm, with very little tenderness, awoke me. I was in the 
midst of a dream of the schooner having been boarded by a 
party of French privateersmen, with Tassard at their 
head, and the roughness with which I was aroused was 
exactly calculated to extend into my waking the horror 
and grief of my sleep.

I instantly sprang to my feet and saw Washington 
Cromwell.

"Massa Rodney," he bawled, "Massa Rodney, de gent's 
'longside--him an' Wilkinson--yaas, by de good Lord--
dey'se both dere! Dey hail me an' I answer and say who 
are you, and dey say are you de Boca? We am, I say, and 
dey say----"

I had stood stupidly staring at him, but my full 
understanding coming to ale on a sudden, I jumped to the 
ladder and darted on deck. I heard voices over the 
starboard side and ran there. It was not so dark but that 
I could see the outline of a Deal lugger. Whilst I was 
peering, the voice of my man Wilkinson cried out, "On 
deck, there! Cromwell--Billy--where's Mr. Rodney?" 

"Here I am!" cried I.

"My God! Paul!" exclaimed the voice of Mr. Mason, "this 
encounter is fortunate indeed."

I shouted to the negroes to show a light, and in a few 
minutes Mr. Mason, Wilkinson, and a couple of Deal 
boatmen came over the side. I grasped my relative by both 
hands. I had not seen him for four years.

"This is good of you, indeed!" I cried. "But you must be 
perished with the cold of that open boat. Come below at 
once--come Wilkinson, and you men--there's a fire in the 
cook-room and drink to warm us;" and down I bundled in 
the wildest condition of excitement, followed by Mason 
and the others.

My relative was warmly clad and did not seem to suffer 
from the cold. He took me by the hand and brought me to 
the lanthorn-light, and stood viewing me.

"Ay," said he, "you are your old self: a bit worried 
looking, but that'll pass. Stout and burnt. Odd's heart! 
Paul, if you have passed through the experiences 
Wilkinson has given me a sketch of, we must have your 
life, man, we must have your life--for the booksellers."

Well, I need not detain you by reciting all the 
civilities and congratulations which he and I exchanged. 
He and Wilkinson had arrived at Deal at three o'clock 
that afternoon, and, after a hurried meal, had hired a 
lugger and started at once for Beachy Head. It was now 
three o'clock in the morning; and what I may consider a 
truly extraordinary circumstance is, that they had salted 
as true a course for the schooner as if she had lain 
plain to the gaze at the very start; that since the night 
had drawn down they had met no vessel of any kind or 
description, until they came up to us; that in all 
probability they would have run stem on into us if they 
had not seen our lights, and that their seeing our lights 
had caused them to hail us, their "ship ahoy!" being 
instantly answered by Cromwell.

"Well," said I, "there are stranger things to tell of 
than this, even. Now, Wilkinson, and you Billy, and 
Cromwell, get us a good supper and mix a proper bowl. How 
many more of you are in the lugger?"

"Four, sir," says one of the boatmen.

"Then fetch as many as may safely leave the boat," said 
I. "Billy, get candles and make a good light here. Throw 
on coal, boys; there's enough to carry us home."

I saw Mason gazing curiously about him.

"'Tis like a tale out of the Arabian Nights, Paul," he 
exclaimed.

"Ay," said I," but written in bitter prose, and no hint 
of enchantment anywhere. But, thank God, you are come! I 
have passed a dismal time of expectation, I promise you." 
I added softly, "I have something secret--we will sup 
first, man--I shall amaze you! We must talk apart 
presently." He bowed his head.

Three more boatmen arrived, giving us the company of five 
of them. Soon there was a hearty sound of frying and a 
smell of good things upon the air. Pitt put plates and 
glasses upon the cabin table, two great bowls of punch 
were brewed, and in a little time we had all fallen to. I 
whispered to Wilkinson, who sat next me, "These boatmen 
know nothing of our business; I shall have to take Mr. 
Mason apart and arrange with him. These fellows may not 
be fit for our service. Let no hint escape you."

"Right, sir," said he.

This I said to disarm his suspicions should he see me 
talking alone with Mr. Mason. He entertained us with an 
account of his excursion to London; and then, partly to 
appease the profound curiosity of the boatmen and partly 
to save time when I should come to confer with my 
relative, I gave them the story of my shipwreck, and told 
how I had met with the schooner and how I had managed to 
escape with her.

"And now, Mason," said I, "whilst our friends here empty 
these bowls, come you with me to the cook-room." And with 
that we quitted the cabin.

"D'ye mean to tell me, Paul," was the first question my 
relative asked, "that this vessel was on the ice eight-
and-forty years?" "Yes," I replied. "Surely you dream?" 
"I think not."

"What we have been eating and drinking—is that forty-
eight years old, too?"

'"Ay, and older."

"Well, such a thing shall make me credulous enough to 
duck old women for witches. But what brandy--what brandy! 
Never had spirit such a bouquet. Every pint is worth its 
weight in guineas to a rich man. To think of Deal boatmen 
and niggers swilling such nectar!"

"Mason," said I, speaking low, "give me now your 
attention. In the run of this schooner are ten chests 
loaded with money, bars of silver and gold, and 
jewellery. This vessel was a pirate, and her people 
valued their booty at ninety to a hundred thousand 
pounds.

His jaw fell; he stared as if he knew not whether it was 
he or I that was mad.

"Here is evidence that I speak the truth," said I. "A 
little sample only, but look at it!" And I put the pirate 
captain's watch into his hand.

He eyed it as though he discredited the intelligence of 
his sight, turned it about, and returned it to me with a 
faint "Heaven preserve me!" Then said he, still faintly, 
"You found some of the pirates alive?"

"No."

"Who told you that the people of the vessel valued their 
plunder at that amount?"

I answered by giving him the story of the recovery of the 
Frenchman.

He listened with a gaze of consternation: I saw how it 
was; he believed my sufferings had affected my reason. 
There was only one way to settle his mind; I took a 
lanthorn, and asked him to follow me. As we passed 
through the cabin I whispered Wilkinson that I meant to 
show my relative the lading below', and bade him keep the 
Deal men about him. I had the keys of the chests in my 
pocket: lifting the after-hatch, we entered the 
lazarette, and Mason gazed about him with astonishment. 
But I was in too great a hurry to return to suffer him to 
idly stand and stare. I opened the second hatch and 
descended into the run, and crawling to the jewel chest 
opened it, removed a few of the small-arms, and bade him 
look for himself.

"Incredible! incredible!" he cried. "Is it possible! is 
it possible! Well, to be sure!"

And for some moments he could find no more to say, so 
amazed and confounded was he.

I quickly showed him the gold and silver ingots and then 
returned the firearms and locked the chests.

"These," said I emphatically, pointing to the cases, 
"have been my difficulty; not the lading, though there is 
value there too. My crew know nothing of these chests: of 
their value, I mean; they believe them cases of small-
arms. How am I to get them ashore? If I tell the truth, 
they will be seized as piratical plunder. If I 
equivocate, I may tumble into a pit of difficulties. I 
durst not carry them to the Thames, the river swarms with 
thieves and Custom House people. I am terrified to linger 
here, lest I be boarded and the booty discovered. There 
is but one plan, I think: we must hire some Deal 
smugglers to run these chests and the cargo for us. The 
boat now alongside might serve, and I don't doubt the men 
are to be had at their own price."

My relative had regained his wits, which the sight of the 
treasure had temporarily scattered, and surveyed me 
thoughtfully whilst I spoke; and then said, "Let us 
return to the fire; I think I have a better scheme than 
yours."

The men still sat around the table talking. Some liquor 
yet lay in one of the bowls, and the fellows were happy 
enough. I smiled at Wilkinson as I passed, that he might 
suppose our inspection below very satisfactory, and I saw 
him look meaningly and pleasantly at Washington Cromwell, 
who sat with a laced hat on his head.

"Paul," said Mason, sitting down and folding his arms, 
"your smuggling plan will not do. It would be the height 
of madness to trust those chests to the risks of running 
and to the honesty of the rogues engaged in that 
business." 

"What is to be done?"

"Tell me your lading," said he.

I gave it to him as accurately as I could. "Why," he 
exclaimed, "a single boat would take a long time to 
discharge ye--observe the perils--several boats would 
mean a large number of men; they would eat you up; they 
would demand so much, you would have nothing left. And 
suppose they opened the chests! No, your scheme is 
worthless."

"What's to do, then, in God's name?"

"I'll tell you!" he exclaimed, smiling with the 
complacency of a man who is master of a great fancy. "I 
shall sail to Dover at once. 'Tis now a quarter past 
four. Give me twelve hours to make Dover. I shall post 
straight to London and be there by early morning. Now, 
Paul, attend you to this. To-day is Wednesday; by to-
morrow night you must contrive to bring your ship to an 
anchor off Barking Level."

"The Thames!" I cried.

He nodded.

I looked at him anxiously. He leaned to me, putting his 
hand on my leg.

"I own a lighter," said he: "she will be alongside of you 
at dusk. I have people of my own whom I can trust. The 
lighter will empty your hold and convey the lading to a 
ship chartered by me, arrived from the Black Sea on 
Sunday and lying in the Pool.	The stuff can be 	sold from 
that ship as it is--"

"But the chests--the chests, Mason!"

"They shall be lowered into another boat, and taken 
ashore and put into a waggon that will be in waiting--I 
in it--and driven to my home."

I clapped him on the shoulder in a transport.

"Nobly schemed indeed!" I cried; "but have we nothing to 
fear from the Customs people?"

"No, not low down the river and at dark.

You bring up for convenience, d'ye see. Mind it is dark 
when we anchor. A lighter and boat shall be awaiting you. 
It is down the river, you know, that all the lumpers drop 
with the lighters they go adrift in from ships' sides. 
There's more safety in smuggling over Thames mud than on 
this coast shingle. One thought more: you say that 
Wilkinson believes the chests hold small-arms?"

"Yes."

"Then account to him for sending the chests away 
separately by saying that I have found a purchaser, and 
that they are going to him direct.

"You have your cue--you see all!"

"All."

"Let me hurry, then, Paul; that brandy should fetch you 
half a guinea a pint. You are in luck's way, Paul. See 
that you bring your ship along safely. Till to-morrow 
night!"

He clasped and wrung my hand and ran into the cabin.

"Now, lads, off with us!" he cried. "Off to Dover! Put me 
ashore there smartly and you shall find your account. Off 
now--time presses."

Five minutes afterwards the boat was gone. When fortune 
falls in love with a man she makes him a bounteous 
mistress. Everything fell out as I could have desired. We 
got our anchor at five, and by daybreak were off Hastings 
jogging quietly along towards London river, the weather 
conveniently obscure, the wind south, and forty hours 
before us to do the run in. I exactly explained my 
relative's scheme to Wilkinson and the others, who 
declared themselves perfectly satisfied, Wilkinson adding 
that though he had not objected to the Deal smuggling 
project he throughout considered the risk too heavy to 
adventure. I told them that Mr. Mason believed he could 
immediately find a purchaser for the small-arms, in which 
case they would have to be sent privately ashore; and to 
give a proper colour to this ruse I made them pack away 
all the remaining weapons in the arms-room and carry them 
to the run, ready to be taken with the other chests.

Once fairly round the Forelands half my anxieties fell 
from me. There was no longer the French cruiser or 
privateer to be feared, and however wonderingly the 
people of my own country's vessels might stare at the 
uncommon figure of my schooner, they could find no excuse 
to board us. Besides, as I have said, I was greatly 
helped by the weather, which continuing hazy, though 
happily never so thick as to oblige me to stop, delivered 
me to the sight only of such vessels as passed close, and 
offered me as a mere smudge to the shore.

We arrived off Barking Level on the Thursday night, and 
dropped anchor close to a lighter that lay there with a 
large boat hanging by her. It was then very dark. The 
first person to come on board was Mason. He was followed 
by several men, one of whom he introduced to me as his 
head clerk, who would see to the unloading of the 
schooner and to the transhipment of the goods to the ship 
in the Pool. He informed me that there was a covered van 
waiting on shore; and telling Wilkinson that the small-
arms had been disposed of, and that Mr. Mason would hand 
over the proceeds on our calling at his office, I went 
with a party of my relative's men into the run and 
presently had the whole of the chests in the boat. Mason 
went with her.

Then, as she disappeared in the darkness, but not till 
then, did I draw the first easy breath I had fetched 
since the hour of the collision of the Laughing Mary with 
the iceberg. A sob shook me: I had gone through much: 
many wonderful things had happened to me: I had been 
delivered from such perils that the mere recollection of 
them will stir my hair, though it is years since; my duty 
I knew, and I discharged it by withdrawing to my cabin 
and kneeling with humble and grateful heart before the 
throne of that Being to whom I owed everything.

POSTSCRIPT.

Here concludes the remarkable narrative of Mr. Paul 
Rodney. It is to be wished that he had found the patience 
to tell us a little more. The circumstance of his dying 
in 1823, worth zzz leads me to suspect that his associate 
Tassard greatly exaggerated the value of the treasure. I 
am assured that he lived very quietly, and that the lady 
he married, who bore him two children, both of whom died 
young, was of a nunlike simplicity of character and loved 
show and extravagance as little as her husband. Hence 
there is no reason to suppose that he squandered any 
portion of the fortune that had in the most extraordinary 
manner ever heard of fallen into his hands. I have 
ascertained that he very substantially discharged the 
great obligation that his relative Mason laid him under, 
and that his three men received a thousand pounds apiece. 
It is possible, then, that the pirates were themselves 
deceived, that what they had taken to be gold or silver 
ingots were not all so; or it might be that the case of 
jewellery was less valuable than the admiring and 
astonished eyes of a plain sailor, who admits that he had 
never before seen such a sight, figured it. Be this, 
however, as it may, it is nevertheless certain, as proved 
by Mr. Rodney's last will and testament, that he did 
uncommonly well out of his adventure on the ice.

Whatever may be thought of his story of the Frenchman's 
restoration to life, in other directions Mr. Rodney's 
accuracy seems unimpeachable. It is quite conceivable 
that a stoutly-built vessel locked up in the ice and 
thickly glazed, should continue in an excellent state of 
preservation for years. The confession of his 
superstitious fears exhibits honesty and candour. It is 
related that a Captain Warren, master of an English 
merchant-ship, found a derelict (in August, 1775) that 
had long been ice-bound, with her cabins filled with the 
bodies of the frozen crew. "His own sailors, however, 
would not suffer him to search the vessel thoroughly, 
through superstition, and wished to leave her 
immediately." A pity they did not try their hands at 
thawing one of the poor fellows: the result might have 
kept Mr. Rodney's strange experience in countenance!

Accounts of vast bodies of ice, such as that which Mr. 
Rodney fell in with, will be found in the South Atlantic 
Directory. For instance:--

"Sir James C. Ross crossed zzz Vffeddel's track in Lat. 
65° S., and where he had found an open sea, Ross found an 
ice-pack of an impassable character, along which he 
sailed for 160 miles; and again, when only one degree 
beyond the track of Cook, who had no occasion to enter 
the pack, Ross was navigating among it for fifty six 
days.

"But these appear insignificant when compared with a body 
of ice reputed to have been passed by twenty-one ships 
during the months of December, 1854, and January, 
February, March, and April, 1855, floating in the South 
Atlantic from Lat 44° S., Long. 28° W., to Lat 4°0 S., 
Long. 20° W. Its elevation in no case exceeded 300 feet. 
The first account of it was received from the Great 
Britain, which in December, 1854, was reported to have 
steamed 5(c) miles along the outer side of the longer 
shank." One ship was lost upon it: others embayed.

THE END.

    Source: geocities.com/stuartthiel