tood 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 milk; '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