“Splendid! splendid!” cried William; “I wish I could do it.”
“I’ll teach you,—it’s easy learned,” answered the Captain; “but look out there, or you’ll go overboard; get up to windward, and trim the boat; you see we are leaning over to the other side now.”
And thus the Captain kept on “tacking” across the harbor, going to and fro, for more than an hour, enjoying every minute of it just as much as the children did. When at length, however, the children began to quiet down a little (the sharp edge of novelty being worn off), the Captain ran into shoal water, and brought his boat’s head once more up into the wind; but this time, instead of letting her head “pay” off to starboard, he steered her right into the wind’s eye, with the sails shivering all the time, until the boat stopped, when he cried out to Main Brace to “let go the anchor,” which Main Brace did promptly, with an “Ay, ay, sir!” and then he “clewed” up the sails, and spread a white and red striped and red-fringed awning over the place where they were seated, and said he was now going on with the story. “Isn’t this a tip-top place,” said he, “for story-telling?” And the children all said it was “tip-top,” and “jolly,” and “grand,” and made many little speeches about it, which to put down here would make this account so long that everybody would get tired before getting to the end of it.
“Now I call this a much better place than the ‘Crow’s Nest,’” went on the Captain; “for, don’t you see, when we knocked off yesterday I was standing in the middle of the sea, on a great ice-raft. To be sure we are not exactly in the middle of the sea here, nor on an ice-raft either, but we are on salt water, and that’s where I like to be. The air is better for the wits, and the tongue too, for that matter, than on the land there, which is a good enough place to be when there is no wind; but I like to be on the water, and have plenty of sea-room, when the wind blows, especially when it blows a gale,—for on land, at such times, I’m always afraid that the trees will blow over on me, or the house will blow down on my head, or some dreadful accident will happen, whereas on the sea one has no fears at all; and besides, at sea one is always at home,—come rain or shine, he’s always his house with him, and never has to go groping about for shelter.”
“Only you mustn’t be in the forecastle,” put in cunning William, who remembered the Captain’s fright when he first found himself at sea in the Blackbird.
“Never mind that, lad,” replied the Captain, “I was only a boy then, and hadn’t come to years of discretion. I’ve made better friends with the sea since that day. But let us go on, or we’ll never get through with this story, any more than the Flying Dutchman will get into port, though he keeps on beating up and down forever; and as for to-day, why, we’ll leave off just where we began, like thieves in a treadmill, if we don’t get started pretty soon.
“Well, you see, as I was saying, you left me standing on an ice-raft in the middle of the Arctic Sea, cast away in a cold and forbidding place, and all alone. My shipmates were all either drowned or killed outright by the falling ice, so far at least as I knew. The prospect ahead was not a pleasing one, for of course, as I think I have said before, the first thought which crossed my mind was, that I should starve or freeze to death very soon. I was greatly astonished by what had happened, and indeed it was hard for me to believe my senses, so suddenly had this great disaster come upon me. I stood staring into the mist, and listening to the terrible sounds which came out of it, as one petrified; yet after a little time I recovered myself sufficiently to realize my situation. The instinct of life is strong in every living thing, and young sailor-boys are no exception to the rule; so, after I had stood in the presence of this frightful chaos for I have not the least idea how long, I began to think what I should do to save myself.
“The waves which had been raised after a while began steadily to subside, and, as the sea became more calm, I found that I could approach nearer to where the wreck had happened by jumping over some of the cracks which had been made in the ice, and walking across piece after piece of it. These pieces were all in motion, rolling on the swell of the sea, and, the farther I went, of course the greater the motion became. I had to proceed cautiously, and when I jumped from one fragment of ice to another, I was obliged to look carefully what I was about, for if I missed my footing I should fall into the sea, and be either drowned or ground up by the moving ice.
“Had the iceberg all gone to pieces at once, the sea would soon have become quiet; but it was evident from the noises which reached me that a considerable part of the berg was still holding together, and was wallowing in the sea in consequence of its equilibrium being disturbed by the first crash, and was still keeping the waters moving. I could indeed vaguely see this remaining fragment, swaying to right and left, and I could also perceive that, with every roll, fresh masses were breaking off, with loud reports, like the crash of artillery. I could, however, discover nothing of the ship nor either of the boats. I was able to detect, even at a considerable distance, some fragments of ice floating and rolling about, when the fog would clear up a little; and, as I peered into the gloom, I thought at one time that I saw a man standing upon one of them. It was but a moment, for the fog closed upon the object, whatever it may have been, and it vanished as a spectral figure.