Hurry up! we have struck.' They evidently
could not see us. The line was fastened to the anchor in an instant, and
the second mate shouted, 'Haul in! haul in!' There was no answer but
'Hurry up! we have struck.' 'Haul in! haul in!' shouted the second mate,
but still there was no answer. 'They can't hear nor see,' said he,
hurriedly; and then, turning to me, said, 'Hardy, you watch the anchor
that it don't give way. Boys, jump in the boat, and we'll go nearer the
ship so they can hear.' The boat was gone quickly into the fog, and I
was then alone on the ice by the anchor,--how much and truly alone you
shall hear.

"Quick as the lightning flash, sudden as the change of one second to
another, there broke upon me a sound that will never leave my ears. It
was as if a volcano had burst forth, or an earthquake had instantly
tumbled a whole city into ruins. A fearful shock, like a sudden
explosion, filled the air. I saw faintly through the thick mists the
masts of the ship reeling over, and I saw no more;--vessel and iceberg
and the disappearing boat were buried in chaos. The whole side of the
berg nearest the vessel had split off, hurling thousands and hundreds of
thousands of tons of ice, and thousands of fragments, crashing down upon
the doomed ship. Escape the vessel could not, nor her crew, the shock
came so suddenly. The spray thrown up into the air completely hid
everything from view; but the noise which came from out the gloom told
the tale.

"Presently there was a loud rush. Great waves, set in motion by the
crumbling iceberg, with white crests that were frightful to look upon,
came tearing out of the obscurity, and, perceiving the danger of my
situation, I ran from it as fast as I could run. And I was just in time;
for the waves broke up the ice where I had been standing into a hundred
fragments, and crack after crack opened close behind me.

"I had not, however, far to run before I had reached a place of safety,
for the force of the waves was soon spent. And when I saw what had
happened, I fell down flat upon the ice, crying, 'Saved, but for what?
to freeze or starve! O that I had perished with the rest of them!'

"So now you see that I was really and truly _cast away in the cold_. In
almost a single instant the ship which had borne me through what had
seemed great perils was, so far as appeared to me, swallowed up in the
sea,--crushed and broken into fragments by the falling ice, and every
one of my companions w