Part 7 (1/2)

”Ice!--it's an iceberg!”

”Hard a-starboard!” yelled Capt. Mazard.

It was not a hundred feet distant. Old Trull and Bonney caught up the pike-poles to fend off with. ”The Curlew” drove on. The vast shadowy shape seemed to approach. A chill came with it. A few seconds more, and the bowsprit punched heavily against the ice-mountain. The shock sent the schooner staggering back like a pugilist with a ”blimmer”

between the eyes. Had we been sailing at our usual rate, it would have stove in the whole bow. The storm immediately forced us forward again; and the bowsprit, again striking, slid along the ice with a dull, crunching sound as the schooner fell off sidewise.

”Stand by those pike-poles!” shouted the captain; for so near was the iceberg, that we could easily reach it with a ten-foot pole from the bulwarks.

Striking the iron spikes into the ice, the men held the schooner off while she drifted past. The rumbling noise, louder than before, seemed now to come from out the solid berg.

”Let's get away from this before it splits or explodes again!”

exclaimed Raed.

”Heavens! it sounds like a big grist-mill in full blast!” said Kit.

”More like a powder-mill, I should judge from the blasts we heard a few minutes ago,” remarked Wade.

More poles were brought up, and we all lent a hand to push off from our dangerous neighbor. After fending along its ma.s.sy side for several hundred yards, we got off clear from an angle.

”Farewell, old thunder-mill!” laughed Kit.

But we had not got clear of it so easily: for the vast lofty ma.s.s so broke off the wind and storm, that, immediately on pa.s.sing it to the leeward, we hadn't a ”breath of air;” and, as a consequence, the berg soon drifted down upon us. Again we pushed off from it, and set the fore-sail. The sail merely flapped occasionally, and hung idly; and again the iceberg came grinding against us. There were no means of getting off, save to let down the boat, and tow the schooner out into the wind,--rather a ticklish job among ice, and in so dim a light.

”The Curlew” lay broadside against the berg, but did not seem to chafe or batter much: on the contrary, we were borne along by the ice with far less motion than if out in open water.

”Well, why not let her go so?” said Kit after we had lain thus a few minutes. ”There doesn't seem to be any great danger in it. This side of the iceberg, so far as I can make it out, doesn't look very dangerous.”

”Not a very seamanlike way of doing business,” remarked the captain, looking dubiously around.

”Catching a ride on an iceberg,” laughed Weymouth. ”That sort of thing used to be strictly forbidden at school.”

”But only listen to that fearful rumble and roar!” said Raed. ”It seems to come from deep down in the berg. What is it?”

”Must be the sea rus.h.i.+ng through some crack, or possibly the rain-water and the water from the melted ice on top streaming down through some hole into the sea,” said the captain.

”But those explosions!--how would you account for those?” asked Wade.

”Well, I can't pretend to explain that. I have an idea, however, that they resulted from the splitting off of large fragments of ice.”

On the whole, it was deemed most prudent to let the schooner lay where she was,--till daylight at least. Planks were got up from below, and thrust down between the side and the ice to keep her from chafing against the sharp angles.

By this time it was near six o'clock, morning, and had begun to grow tolerably light. The rain still continued, however, as did also the bellowings inside the iceberg. Old Trull and Weymouth were set to watch the ice, and the rest of us went down to breakfast. The schooner lay so still, that it seemed like being on sh.o.r.e again. We had got as far as our second cup of coffee, I recollect, when we were startled by another of the same heavy explosions we had heard a few hours previous. It was followed instantly by a second. Then we heard old Trull sing out,--

”Avast from under!”

And, a moment later, there was a tremendous crash on deck, accompanied by a hollow, rattling sound. Dropping our knives and forks, we sprang up the companionway.

”What was that, Trull?” demanded Capt. Mazard.

”A chunk of ice, sir, as big as my old sea-chest!”