"Let me try it, sir!"
"No."
"Ay, sir! I'm lighter."
"No."
Billy Topsail crossed then like a cat before he could be stopped—on tiptoe and swiftly; and he came to the other side with his heart in a flutter.
"Whew!"
The ice had yielded without breaking. It had creaked, perhaps—nothing worse. Doctor Luke crossed the space without accident. It was what is called "rubber ice." There was more of it—there were miles of it. As yet the pans were close together. Always however the intervals increased. The nearer the open sea the more wide-spread was the floe. Beyond—hauling down the Spotted Horses, which lay in the open—the proportion of new ice would be vastly greater.
At a trot, for the time, over the pans, which were flat, and in delicate, mincing little spurts across the bending ice, Doctor Luke and Billy Topsail proceeded. In a confidence that was somewhat flushed—they had rested—Doctor Luke went forward. And presently, midway of a lane of green ice, he heard a gurgle, as the ice bent under his weight. Water washed his boots. He had been on the lookout for holes. This hole he heard—the spurt and gurgle of it. He had not seen it.
"Back!" he shouted, in warning.
Billy ran back.