"I—I can't very well."
"The floe's started down the Run, sir."
"Yes-s," the Doctor admitted, uneasily; "but you see, Skipper James, I—I——"
[CHAPTER XXV]
In Which a Stretch of Slush is to be Crossed and Billy Topsail Takes the Law in His Own Hands
It was falling dusk and blowing up when Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail, gaffs in hand, left the heads of Candlestick Cove for the ice of Ships' Run; and a spit of frosty snow—driving in straight lines—was in the gale. Amen Island, lying nearly in the wind's eye, was hardly distinguishable, through the misty interval, from the blue-black sky beyond.
There was more wind in the northeast—more snow and a more penetrating degree of frost. It was already blowing at the pitch of half a gale: it would rise to a gale in the night, thick with snow, it might be, and blowing bitter cold—the wind jumping over the point of Amen Island on a diagonal and sweeping down the Run.
Somewhere to leeward of Candlestick Cove the jam had yielded to the rising pressure of the wind. The floe was outward bound from the Run. It was already moving in the channel, scraping the rocks of both shores—moving faster as the pans below ran off to open water and removed their restraint.