“And ice—there was ice everywhere! It must have been all round us, though we never saw it, only, as the bos’n said, ‘schmelt’ it and heard it. Sometimes there would be the sound of the seas breaking along it for miles; sometimes there would be the weird noises—shrieks and groans—that the bergs make when they are ‘calving’; now and then cracks like musketry fire—and in the midst of it all the penguins would make you jump out of your skin with calling out exactly like human voices.
“There the Old Man stood on the poop, the whole time, more like a frozen image than a man—his arms laid along the spanker boom, and his chin resting on them—for hours, never speaking or moving.
“I went up to him at last and begged him to lie down, promising to call him if anything happened. He seemed to wake out of a dream just as he had done that day in the cabin at Victoria. His breath had congealed and frozen his beard to his sleeve, and he had to give a regular tug to get it loose. And he had to tear his hand away from the iron of the spar and leave the skin behind.
“I got him a cup of coffee, and he drank it down, and then he lay down on the settee in the chart-room. He called me back as I was leaving him, as if he were going to say something. But he only said, ‘Never mind—it is nothing,’ and lay down again.
“I looked in on him when the mate relieved me at eight bells. He was still fast asleep, and it came over me all of a sudden how old and tired he looked. I didn’t see any sense in waking him, so I tiptoed off and left him.
“When I woke at seven bells I could tell at once by the movement of the ship that she had much less way on her. I don’t mind owning I was more than a little relieved. The Old Man’s cracking on had begun to get on my nerves a bit since the fog had come on. It was so unusual there was something uncanny about it. I don’t suppose I should have cared a cuss if he’d been one of your dare-devil, Hell-or-Melbourne, what-she-can’t-carry-she-must-drag sort of blighters. But, being the man he was, that he should suddenly bust out like this—well, it staggered me. It was like one’s favourite uncle going Fanti.
“What had really happened, as it turned out, was that Mister Mate had taken the bull by the horns, and shortened sail while the Old Man was safely out of the way. It was dead against his orders, and when the skipper came on deck, which he did just as I turned up, there was a rare to-do.
“I never saw a man in such a passion. He was white and shaking with anger. He went for Arnot in a regular fury. Was he master of his own ship, or was he not? and so on, and so on. And then Arnot, who had lost his head altogether, started bawling back at him about barratry and Board of Trade inquiries.
“‘You damned insubordinate hound!’ yells the Old Man. I could see the big veins swell up on his forehead. I thought he would have struck the mate.
“And then—something happened. There was a jar and a grinding crash forward, and we were all thrown sprawling in a heap on the deck.