“You remember what I told you in the fighting-top,” she said. “I am sure of it now.”
I did not answer, but together our eyes followed the white way to the south.
A light snow had fallen during the forenoon, and dull clouds were banked heavily against the sky. From our high vantage we could command a vast circle of sunless, melancholy cold. Beyond this there lay another horizon, and beyond that still another, and yet another. In this deep solitude the distant black outline of the Billowcrest marked our only human tie.
A silence and an awe fell upon us—a mysterious fear of this pale land that was not a land, but a chill spectral semblance, with amazing forces and surprising shapes. We descended hastily and set out for the ship without speaking. From among the bergs the creeping gloom gathered and shut us in. Uncanny sea-leopards and mournful penguins regarded us as we hurried past.
We were clumsy on our snow-shoes, but we consumed no unnecessary time in reaching the vessel, and not until we were warmed and cheered by a good dinner were we altogether restored. But then came weariness, and with the Billowcrest now moveless and silent, we realized that night more fully than ever before the perfect blessing of dreamless, Antarctic sleep.
And now passed some days in which I grew ever more uneasy, but maintained as far as possible a cheerful outward calm. The cold lingered, and the way seaward did not open. Huge cracks split the pack here and there, but they did not reach the Billowcrest. Then came that terror of all polar expeditions—the ice pressure—the meeting and closing in of enormous ice-fields moving irresistibly in opposite directions.
We were awakened rather rudely by a sudden harsh grinding below, and felt the vessel heave, first to one side, then to the other. Then there was an ominous rumble, which became a deafening roar. I hurried on deck, to find that a strong pressure was taking place, and that we were directly in its midst. Our peril was great and imminent. I was turning hastily toward the cabin, when Captain Biffer ran down the deck yelling:
“Take to the ice! Take to the ice! She’s going down!”
At the same instant Chauncey Gale hurried out of the cabin, followed by Edith Gale and the others. The sailors were skurrying about helplessly.
“To the ice!” roared the Captain. “To the ice! She’s going down!”