elm down a spoke or two, which was easy, and then as
the bows swung high again there was a harsh cry from the man who stood
above Dampier in the shrouds.

"Ice!" he roared. "Big pack of it right under your weather bow."

Dampier shouted something, but Wyllard did not hear what he said. He
was only conscious that he had to decide what he must do in the next
few seconds. If he let the _Selache_ come up to avoid the boat, there
was the ice ahead, and at the speed she was travelling it would
infallibly crush her bows in, while if he held her straight there was
the boat close in front of her. To swing her clear of both by going to
leeward he must bring the mainsail and boom-foresail over with a
tremendous shock, but that seemed preferable, and with his heart in his
mouth he pulled his helm up.

He fancied he cried out in warning, but was never sure of it, though
three men came running to seize the mainsheet. The schooner fell off a
little, swinging until the boom-foresail came over with a thunderous
bang and crash. She rolled down, heaving a wide strip of wet planking
out of the sea, and now for a moment or two there were great breadths
of canvas swung out on either hand. Then the ponderous mainboom went
up high above his head, and he saw three shadowy figures dragged aft as
they tried in vain to steady it. The big mainsail was bunched up, a
vast, portentous shape above him, and then he set his lips, and pulled
up the helm another spoke as it swung. He never quite knew what
happened after that. There was a horrible crash, and the schooner
appeared to be rolling over bodily. The spokes he clung to desperately
reft themselves from his grasp, the deck slanted until one could not
stand upon it, and something heavy struck him on the head. He dropped,
and Dampier flung himself upon the wheel above his senseless body.

Then there was mad confusion, and a frantic banging of canvas as the
schooner came up beam to the wind, with her rent mainsail flogging
itself to tatters. Its ponderous boom was broken, and the
mainmast-head had gone, but it was not the first time the sealermen had
grappled with somewhat similar difficulties, and Dampier kept his head.
He had the boat to think of, and she was somewhere to windward, hidden
in the sudden darkness and the turmoil of the quickly rising sea, but
in the meanwhile the schooner counted most of all. His crew could
scarcely hear him through the uproar the thundering canvas mad