“James Malone was the first to speak.
“‘Charles Halcott,’ he said—and I think I hear the earnest, manly tones of his voice at this moment—‘Charles Halcott, we have a duty to perform, and it leads us to the northward and west.’
“I stood up now, and our hands met and clasped.
“‘James Malone,’ I replied, ‘Heaven helping us, we will perform that duty faithfully and well.’
“‘Amen, sir! Amen!’”
Book Two—Chapter Six.
“O my Friend, my Brother,” I Cry.
“That same forenoon,” continued Halcott, “the wind went veering round to the southward and east. The sea was darkly, intensely blue all day. The sky was intensely blue at night, and the stars so big and bright and near they seemed almost to touch the topmasts. But here and there in the darkness, on every side of us, loomed white icebergs like sheeted ghosts, and every now and then there rolled along our beam—thudding against the timbers as they swept aft—the smaller bergs or ‘bilts’ we could not avoid.