"Packed right solid a couple of miles ahead."
Wyllard lifted one hand, and let it suddenly fall again.
"Lee, oh! We'll have her round," he said, and spun the wheel.
The rest of them breathed more easily as they jumped for the sheets, and with a great banging and thrashing of sailcloth she shot up to windward, and turned as on a pivot. Then, as she gathered way on the other tack, they glanced at their leader, for her bows were pointing to the south-east again. They felt that was not the way he was going.
In the meanwhile, Wyllard turned to. Dampier with a little wry smile.
"Baulked again!" he said. "It would have been a relief to have rammed her in. With this breeze we'd have picked that creek up in the next six hours."
"Sure!" said Dampier, who glanced at the swirling wake.
"Then, if we can't get through it we can work her round. Stand by to flatten all sheets in, boys."
They did it cheerfully, though they knew it meant a thrash to windward along the perilous edge of the ice, and, for the sea was getting up, she flung the spray all over her forward half as she smashed the growing combers with her bows. Soon the windlass was caked with glistening ice, and long spikes of it hung from her rail, while the slippery crystals gathered thick on deck. Then lumps and floes of ice detached themselves from the parent mass, and sailed out to meet her, crashing on one another, while it seemed to the men who watched him that Wyllard tried how closely he could shave them before he ran the schooner off with a vicious drag at the wheel. None of them, however, cared to say a word to him.
They brought her round when she had stretched out on the one tack a couple of miles, and standing in again close-hauled found the ice thicker than ever. Then she came round once more, and until the early dusk fell Wyllard stood at the jarring helm or high up in the forward shrouds. Then he called Dampier aside.