s I have said. My bed
was a cabin locker, on which I had placed a mattress and a bear-skin.
Both Sweers and I turned in of a night, unless it was clear weather;
though if I awoke I'd sometimes steal on deck to take a peep, for
nothing could come of our keeping a look-out if it was blowing hard,
and if it was black and thick.

This night it was a bit muddy and dark, with a moderate breeze out of
the south-west, as far as we could guess at the bearings of the wind.
I was awakened from a deep slumber by an extraordinary convulsion in
the ship. I was half-stupefied with sleep, and can therefore but
imperfectly recall my sensations and the character of what I may term
the throes and spasms of the vessel. I was thrown from the locker and
lay for some moments incapable of rising by the shock of the fall. But
one thing my senses, even when they were scarce yet awake, took note
of, and that was a prodigious roaring noise, similar in effect to what
might be produced by a cannon-ball rolling along a hollow wooden
floor, only that the noise was thousands of times greater than ever
could have been produced by a cannon-ball. The lamp was out, and the
cabin in pitch blackness. I heard Sweers from some corner of the
cabin, bawling out my name; but before I could answer, and even whilst
I was staggering to my feet, a second convulsion threw me down again;
the next instant there was a sensation as of the vessel being hove up
into the air, attended by an extraordinary grinding noise, that
thrilled through every beam of her; next, in the space of a few beats
of the heart, she plunged into the sea, raising such a boiling and
roaring of waters, as, spite of the sounds being dulled to our ears by
our being in the cabin, persuaded us that the vessel was foundering.

But even whilst I thus thought, holding my breath and waiting for the
death that was to come with the pouring of the water down the open
companion-way, I felt the ship right; she lifted buoyant under foot,
and I sprang to the steps which conducted on deck, with Sweers--as I
might know by his voice--close at my heels, roaring out, "By tunder,
we're adrift and afloat!"

The stars were shining, there was a red moon low in the west, the
weather had cleared, and a quiet wind was blowing. At the distance of
some hundred yards from the ship stood a few pallid masses--the
remains of the berg. It was just possible to make out that the water
in the neighbourhood of those dim heaps was cov