d 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 tha