had shipped these and was pulling
with all his might away from that ill-omened neighbourhood.

The progress of his clumsy craft was painfully slow; but it did move,
and at the end the dreaded ice monster was beyond both sight and
hearing. The exercise of rowing had warmed Cabot as well as
temporarily diverted his mind from a contemplation of the terrible
scenes through which he had so recently passed. Now, however, as he
rested on his oars, a full sense of his wretched plight came back to
him, and he grew sick at heart as he realised how forlorn was his
situation. He wondered if he could survive the night that was rapidly
closing in on him, and, if he did, whether the morrow would find him
any better off. He had no idea of the direction in which wind and
current were drifting him, whether further out to sea or towards the
land. He was again shivering with cold, he was hungry and thirsty, and
so filled with terror at the black waters leaping towards him from all
sides that he finally flung himself face downward on the wet platform
to escape from seeing them.

When he next lifted his head he found himself in utter darkness,
through which he fancied he could still hear the sound of waters
dashing against frigid cliffs, and with an access of terror he once
more sprang to his oars. Now he rowed with the wind, keeping it as
directly astern as possible; nor did he pause in his efforts until
compelled by exhaustion. Then he again lay down, and this time dropped
into a fitful doze.

Waking a little later with chattering teeth, he resumed his oars for
the sake of warming exercise, and again rowed as long as he was able.
So, with alternating periods of weary work and unrefreshing rest, the
slow dragging hours of that interminable night were spent. Finally,
after he had given up all hope of ever again seeing a gleam of
sunshine, a faint gray began to permeate the fog that still held him in
its wet embrace, and Cabot knew that he had lived to see the beginnings
of another day.

To make sure that the almost imperceptible light really marked the
dawn, he shut his eyes and resolutely kept them closed until he had
counted five hundred. Then he opened them, and almost screamed with
the joy of being able to trace the outlines of his raft. Again and
again he did this until at length the black night shadows had been
fairly vanquished and only those of the fog remained.

With the assurance that day had fairly come, and that t