The Sea Lions; Or, The Lost Sealers

by James Fenimore Cooper

"Well," called out the last, "you see I was right, Garner; wind enough out here, and more, still further from the land. We have only to push in among them bergs while it is light, pick out a clear spot, and heave-to during the night. It will hardly do for us to travel among so much ice in the dark."

"I wish we had got out earlier, that we might have made a run of it by day-light," answered Roswell. "Ten hours of such a wind, in my judgment, would carry us well towards clear water."

"The delay could not be helped. I had so many traps ashore, it took time to gather them together. Come, fill away, and let us be moving. Now we are under way, I'm in as great haste as you are yourself."

Roswell complied, and away the two schooners went, keeping quite near to each other, having smooth water, and still something of a moderated gale, in consequence of the proximity and weatherly position of the island. The course was towards a spot to leeward, where the largest opening appeared in the ice, and where it was hoped a passage to the northward would be found. The further the two vessels got from the land, the more they felt the power of the wind, and the greater was their rate of running. Daggett soon found that he could spare his consort a good deal of canvass, a consequence of his not being full, and he took in his topsail, though, running nearly before the wind, his spar would have stood even a more severe strain.

As the oldest mariner, it had been agreed between the two masters that Daggett should lead the way. This he did for an hour, when both vessels were fairly out of the great bay, clear of the group altogether, and running off north-easterly, at a rate of nearly ten knots in the hour. The sea got up as they receded from the land, and everything indicated a gale, though one of no great violence. Night was approaching, and an Alpine-like range of icebergs was glowing, to the northward, under the oblique rays of the setting sun. For a considerable space around the vessels, the water was clear, not even a cake of any sort being to be seen; and the question arose in Daggett's mind, whether he ought to stand on, or to heave-to and pass the night well to windward of the bergs. Time was precious, the wind was fair, the heavens clear, and the moon would make its appearance about nine, and might be expected to remain above the horizon until the return of day. This was one side of the picture. The other presented less agreeable points. The climate was so fickle, that the clearness of the skies was not to be depended on, especially with a strong south-west wind--a little gale, in fact; and a change in this particular might be produced at any moment. Then it was certain that floes, and fragments of bergs, would be found near, if not absolutely among the sublime mountain-like piles that were floating about, in a species of grand fleet, some twenty miles to leeward. Both of our masters, indeed all on board of each schooner, very well understood that the magnificent array of icy islands which lay before them was owing to the currents, for which it is not always easy to account. The clear space was to be attributed to the same cause, though there was little doubt that the wind, which had now been to the southward fully eight-and-forty hours, had contributed to drive the icy fleet to the northward. As a consequence of these facts, the field-ice must be in the vicinity of the bergs, and the embarrassment from that source was known always to be very great.

It required a good deal of nerve for a mariner to run in among dangers of the character just described, as the sun was setting. Nevertheless, Daggett did it; and Roswell Gardiner followed the movement, at the distance of about a cable's length. To prevent separation, each schooner showed a light at the lower yard-arm, just as the day was giving out its last glimmerings. As yet, however, no difficulty was encountered; the alpine-looking range being yet quite two hours' run still to leeward. Those two hours must be passed in darkness; and Daggett shortened sail in order not to reach the ice before the moon rose. He had endeavoured to profit by the light as long as it remained, to find a place at which he might venture to enter among the bergs, but had met with no great success. The opening first seen now appeared to be closed, either by means of the drift or by means of the change in the position of the vessels; and he no longer thought of that. Fortune must be trusted to, in some measure; and on he went, Roswell always closely following.

The early hours of that eventful night were intensely dark. Nevertheless, Daggett stood down towards the icy range, using no other precautions than shortening sail and keeping a sharp look-out. Every five minutes the call from the quarter-deck of each schooner to "keep a bright look-out" was heard, unless, indeed, Daggett or Roswell was on his own forecastle, thus occupied in person. No one on board of either vessel thought of sleep. The watch had been called, as is usual at sea, and one half of the crew was at liberty to go below and turn in. What was more, those small fore-and-aft rigged craft were readily enough handled by a single watch; and this so much the more easily, now that their top-sails were in. Still, not a man left the deck. Anxiety was too prevalent for this, the least experienced hand in either crew being well aware that the next four-and-twenty hours would, in all human probability, be decisive of the fate of the voyage.

Both Daggett and Gardiner grew more and more uneasy as the time for the moon to rise drew near, without the orb of night making its appearance. A few clouds were driving athwart the heavens, though the stars twinkled as usual, in their diminutive but sublime splendour. It was not so dark that objects could not be seen at a considerable distance; and the people of the schooners had no difficulty in very distinctly tracing, and that not very far ahead, the broken outlines of the chain of floating mountains. No alpine pile, in very fact, could present a more regular or better defined range, and in some respects more fantastic outlines. When the bergs first break away from their native moorings, their forms are ordinarily somewhat regular; the summits commonly resembling table-land. This regularity of shape, however, is soon lost under the rays of the summer sun, the wash of the ocean, and most of all by the wear of the torrents that gush out of their own frozen bosoms. A distinguished navigator of our own time has compared the appearance of these bergs, after their regularity of shape is lost, and they begin to assume the fantastic outlines that uniformly succeed, to that of a deserted town, built of the purest alabaster, with its edifices crumbling under the seasons, and its countless unpeopled streets, avenues and alleys. All who have seen the sight unite in describing it as one of the most remarkable that comes from the lavish hand of nature.

About nine o'clock on the memorable night in question, there was a good deal of fog driving over the ocean to increase the obscurity. This rendered Daggett doubly cautious, and he actually hauled up close to the wind, heading off well to the westward, in order to avoid running in among the bergs, in greater uncertainty than the circumstances would seem to require. Of course Roswell followed the movement; and when the moon first diffused its mild rays on the extraordinary scene, the two schooners were pitching into a heavy sea, within less than a mile of the weather-line of the range of bergs. It was soon apparent that floes or field ice accompanied the floating mountains, and extended so far to the southward of them as to be already within an inconvenient if not hazardous proximity to the two vessels. These floes, however, unlike those previously encountered, were much broken by the undulations of the waves, and seldom exceeded a quarter of a mile in diameter; while thousands of them were no larger than the ordinary drift ice of our own principal rivers in the time of a freshet. Their vicinity to the track of the schooners, indeed, was first ascertained by the noise they produced in grinding against each other, which soon made itself audible even above the roaring of the gale.

Both of our masters now began to be exceedingly uncomfortable. It was soon quite apparent that Daggett had been too bold, and had led down towards the ice without sufficient caution and foresight. As the moon rose, higher and higher, the difficulties and dangers to leeward became at each minute more and more apparent. Nothing could have been more magnificent than the scene which lay before the eyes of the mariners, or would have produced a deeper feeling of delight, had it not been for the lively consciousness of the risk the two schooners and all who were in them unavoidably ran, by being so near and to windward of such an icy coast, if one may use the expression as relates to floating bodies. By that light it was very easy to imagine Wilkes' picture of a ruined town of alabaster. There were arches of all sizes and orders; pinnacles without number; towers, and even statues and columns. To these were to be added long lines of perpendicular walls, that it was easy enough to liken to fortresses, dungeons and temples. In a word, even the Alps, with all their peculiar grandeur, and certainly on a scale so vastly more enlarged, possess no one aspect that is so remarkable for its resemblance to the labours of man, composed of a material of the most beautiful transparency, and considered as the results of human ingenuity, on a scale so gigantic. The glaciers have often been likened, and not unjustly, to a frozen sea; but here were congealed mountains seemingly hewed into all the forms of art, not by the chisel it is true, but by the action of the unerring laws which produced them.