“Well, get below,” said the doctor; “and the sooner you find your sea-legs the better.”
So our new member of the exploring expedition crawled below, and we set to and trimmed sails, for the weather was changing, steam being reserved till we wanted it to go through the ice.
We did not get along very fast, for the doctor was always stopping the vessel for something, and the men soon fell in with his whims, and began to enjoy helping him. One day, they would be busy bucketing up water, for him to fill bottles with specimens of whales’ food; another time, we tried after a whale with a small gun and a harpoon fired from it, to the great delight of the men. Then we came in sight of the first iceberg, slowly sailing south, like a fairy castle on a fairy rock, that had broken away from its land in the North, and taken to the sea. The sun was shining upon it, and it was like one grand mass of turrets and spires, glistening with silver, gold, and gems of every colour. Here and there, it was split into great openings, with arches over them like bridges; and near the sea were more archways, leading like into caves, and all these places were of the most deep sapphire blue. All was so beautiful, that even the old salts like Abram and Scudds said they had never seen anything like it up North.
Of course, the doctor couldn’t pass it without landing; and as there were some seals and a few birds sitting on the farther side, I ran the steamer close in, till, in the still water on the lee, we were able to bring her close alongside of what was just like a natural wharf of ice; when Scudds and four more got on the berg, a couple of ice-anchors were passed over to them, and soon after we were made fast, and the doctor took a gun, his nephew followed, and we had a good climb along the wonderful sides of the iceberg.
“If we could only get on the top I wouldn’t mind,” said the doctor, after making half a dozen tries; but every one was a failure, for it was for all the world like climbing the side of a slippery board.
“Suppose you did get up, sir—what then?” I said.
“What then, Captain Cookson? Why, I could take observations; notice the structure of the ice; chip off specimens; but I suppose I must be disappointed.”
But he was not, for when toward evening we were sitting on deck, I said to him, “I suppose we may cast loose now, doctor, and get on?” there suddenly came a strange scraping noise, and a peculiar motion of the ship.
“Cut away those ice-cables!” I roared, running to get an axe, for I scented the danger.
But I was too late, and stopped paralysed, holding on by one of the shrouds! for I suddenly woke to the fact that in going close in to the visible part of the iceberg, we had sailed in over a part of it that was under water, and now the huge mass of ice having grown top-heavy, it was slowly rolling over, but fortunately away from us, though the result seemed to threaten destruction.