"Yes!" cried others.
During this discussion the whale had got between two icebergs which the wind and waves were driving together.
The whale-boat was in danger of being dragged into this dangerous pass, when Johnson sprang forward, axe in hand, and cut the line.
It was time; the two icebergs met with irresistible force, crushing the whale between them.
"Lost!" cried Simpson.
"Saved!" said Johnson.
"Upon my word," said the doctor, who had not flinched, "that was well worth seeing!"
The crushing power of these mountains is enormous. The whale was the victim of an accident that is very frequent in these waters. Scoresby tells us that in the course of a single summer thirty whalers have been lost in this way in Baffin's Bay; he saw a three-master crushed in one minute between two walls of ice, which drew together with fearful rapidity and sank the ship with all on board. Two other ships he himself saw cut through, as if by a long lance, by huge pieces of ice more than a hundred feet long.
A few moments later the whale-boat returned to the brig, and was hauled up to its usual place on deck.
"That's a lesson," said Shandon, aloud, "for those who are foolhardy enough to venture into the passes!"