Some averred stoutly that they could distinguish a flag flying at her gaff peak; others that she had no gaff peak whatever, but had one man seated in her fore rigging. Hartly ridiculed these fancies, saying that the intensity of the cold, and the dazzling glare of the sun shining on a sea covered by white ice, bewildered the vision of most men; and so, full of vague conjectures as to what our neighbours might be, we saw the sun set and night close in upon us.
Next morning another large field of ice was discovered on our larboard quarter, closing in upon us with considerable rapidity. It extended along the offing for twelve or fourteen miles, and increased to the eye as it was borne towards us by an under-current.
Hartly conjectured it had drifted down Hudson's Strait from the Bay, and to avoid being beset like the unfortunate craft we had been observing, he brought off the ice-anchor and made sail on the brig, steering due west and keeping her close hauled with his starboard tacks on board; but the field of ice we endeavoured to leave kept close alongside, as if it sailed or floated with us, which I have no doubt it did.
Thus both fields verged towards each other rapidly, one before the wind, the other before a current; and so, ere sunset, we were closely wedged in a frozen sea—BESET, amid a wilderness of pack-ice, of bergs, and hummocks, which extended, as far as the eye could discern from the main-crosstrees, in every direction, and probably far beyond the horizon.
Though this predicament was not without great peril, still it was preferable by many degrees to our last situation; for here we could pursue the object of our expedition, and hoped to have our cargo complete, the hatches battened down, and all ready for our return to Newfoundland when the ice broke up, amid the warmer water of more southern latitudes, towards which we expected the field, like others, would be borne by the currents.
Alas! how little did we then foresee how long we and our desolate neighbour, whose disordered aspect and bare spars made her resemble a withered bush or bunch of reeds at the horizon, were to remain in sight of each other.
CHAPTER XVI.
BESET WITHOUT HOPE.
I cared little about the slaughter of the seals,—indeed, I rather disliked it—and for several days my attention was excited solely by the vessel which was beset so far from us.
My imagination drew many painful scenes. I endeavoured to picture how long she had been there—weeks, months, it might be years!