r
was before, and so terrible were the blows they suffered that many a
time they thought the planks must be wrenched from the vessel's
sides. Nevertheless they let fall sail, thinking to force their way
through the ice before they were stowed to pieces, and, though the
wind was low, yet the ship felt the canvas and cleared the shoals
that encompassed her. The wind then fell to a calm, but still the fog
hung heavily over the sea, which was black and smelt horribly. And
when they thought to try their soundings, knowing that somewhere
thereabouts the land must surely be, they heard a noise that seemed
at first like the tract of the shore. It was worse than that, for it
was the rut of a great bank of ice, two hundred miles deep, breaking
away from the far shores of Greenland, and coming with its steady
sweep, such as no human power could resist, towards the coasts of
Iceland. Between that vast ice floe and the land they lay, with its
hollow and terrible voice in their ears, and with no power to fly
from it, for their sail hung loose and idle in the dead stillness of
the air.

Oh! it is an awful thing to know that death is swooping down on you
hour by hour; to hear it coming with its hideous thunder, like the
groans of damned souls, and yet to see nothing of your danger for the
day darkness that blinds you. But the shipmaster was a stout-hearted
fellow, and while the fog continued and he was without the help of
wind or compass, he let go a raven that he had aboard to see if it
could discover land. The raven flew to the northeast, and did not
return to the ship, and by that token the master knew that the land
of Iceland lay somewhere near on their starboard bow. So he was for
lowering the long boat, to stand in with the coast and learn what
part of Iceland it was, when suddenly the wind larged again, and
before long it blew with violence.

At this their peril was much increased, for the night before had been
bitterly cold, and the sails had been frozen where they hung
outspread, and some of the cables were as stiff as icicles and half
as thick as a man's body. Thus under wind that in a short space rose
to a great storm, with canvas that could not be reefed, an ocean of
ice coming down behind, and seas beneath of an untouchable depth,
they were driven on and on towards an unknown shore.

From the like danger may God save all Christian men, even as he
saved old Adam and his fellowship, for they had begun to prepare
themsel