ith gusts and great waves.

And in the night it came on to blow very hard from the east, with a
freezing sleet, which yet grew colder, until snow mixed with it, and
at last came in stifling clouds. It blew harder: we drove on,
submerged in racing froth to the hatches, sheathed in ice, riding on a
beam, but my uncle, at the wheel, standing a-drip, in cloth of ice, as
long ago he had stood, in the first of the cruise of the _Shining
Light_, would have no sail off the craft, but humored her northward in
chase of the _Likely Lass_. 'Twas a reeling, plunging, smothered
progress through the breaking sea, in a ghostly mist of snow swirling
in the timid yellow of our lights, shrouding us as if for death in the
rush and seethe of that place. There was a rain of freezing spray upon
us--a whipping rain of spray: it broke from the bows and swept past,
stinging as it went. 'Twas as though the very night--the passion of
it--congealed upon us. There was no reducing sail--not now, in this
cold rage of weather. We were frozen stiff and white: 'twas on the
course, with a clever, indulgent hand to lift us through, or 'twas
founder in the crested waves that reached for us.

"Dannie!" my uncle shouted.

I sprang aft: but in the roar of wind and swish and thud of sea could
not hear him.

"Put your ear close," he roared.

I heard that; and I put my anxious ear close.

"I'm gettin' kind o' cold," says he. "Is ye got a fire in the cabin?"

I had not.

"Get one," says he.

I got a fire alight in the cabin. 'Twas a red, roaring fire. I called
my uncle from the cabin door. The old man gave the wheel to the fool
and came below in a humor the most genial: he was grinning, indeed,
under the crust of ice upon his beard; and he was rubbing his stiff
hands in delight. He was fair happy to be abroad in the wind and sea
with the _Shining Light_ underfoot.

"Ye got it warm in here," says he.

"I got more than that, sir," says I. "I got a thing to please you."

Whereupon I fetched the bottle of rum from my bag.

"Rum!" cries he. "Well, well!"

I opened the bottle of rum.

"Afore ye pours," he began, "I 'low I'd best--God's sake! What's
that?"

'Twas a great sea breaking over us.

"Moses!" my uncle hailed.

The schooner was on her course: the fool had clung to the wheel.

"Ice in that sea, Dannie," says my uncle. "An' ye got a bottle o' rum!
Well, well! Wonderful sight o' ice t' the nor'ard. Ye'll find, I bet
ye, that the fishin' fl