"The sky darkens fast; and see—see!" he added, with wild joy expressed in all his features, his eyes, and voice; "the captain expects something—they've cast loose the courses, and are hoisting the topsailyards—THE ICE IS BREAKING UP!"
These words made every pulse quicken, and as if in corroboration of his surmise, we felt the field on which we trod agitated by convulsive throes, and these increased as the fierce and darkening blast, armed with showers of hailstones large as peas, that fell aslant the cold grey sky, deepened the atmosphere around us. Madly we toiled, scrambled, and rolled—fell, rose, and fell again—shouted and cheered to each other, as we surmounted the endless succession of glassy hummocks and snowy hollows to reach the Leda; but the gloom increased so fast, that in less than half an hour we could no longer distinguish where she lay.
We did not feel cold—our brains seemed on fire, our bloodshot eyes were wild and eager in expression, as we toiled on and on—but where was the brig?
A misty veil of hail and snow—an atmosphere dark as the twilight of the Scandinavian gods—enveloped us like a curtain. We paused at times in our desperation, and uttered a simultaneous hallo; but no voice replied, no sound responded, save the hiss of the hailstones as they showered on the hard hummocks. Then we heard from time to time a stunning crash, as the field was rent asunder into floes, that were surged and driven against each other with such force as the waves of an irresistible sea can alone exert.
To us this crisis was, as I have said, maddening. We tossed away our rifles, shot-belts, knives, bats, and everything that might impede our progress, and toiled in wild despair in search of the Leda—but alas, alas! the Leda was nowhere to be seen!
"Can we have passed her?" we asked repeatedly.
To return was to acknowledge still more that we were at fault.
Left upon the breaking ice, with night deepening, and a tempest, perhaps, coming on together; the ice-field rending into floes, and the Leda, when last seen, with her topsails loose for sea, and now we knew not where, but assuredly not within call of our united voices, which the envious wind, the very spirit of the wintry storm, swept from our trembling lips, as if in mockery of efforts and struggles so feeble as those of man when contending with the warring elements of God,—how terrible was our situation!
Inspired either by the activity of youth, or a greater dread of perishing, I left my companions some twenty yards behind me. In this race for life and death poor Dick Abbot was failing, and his younger brother was loth to leave him a single pace behind.
"Mr. Manly," I heard him cry, "take time, please; do you see anything yet, sir—of the brig, I mean?" "Not a vestige," said I, turning to wait until they joined me.