Near by there was a hummock of ice. He sought the lee of it, and there, protected from the wind, he sat down to wait.
Often, when the men were spinning yarns in the cottages of Ruddy Cove of a winter night, he had listened, open-mouthed, to the tales of seal-hunters who had been cast away. Now he was himself drifting out to sea. He had no fire, no food, no shelter but a hummock of ice. He had the bitterness of the night to pass through—the hunger of to-morrow to face.
"But sure," he muttered, with characteristic hopefulness, "I've a boat, an' many a man has been cast away without one."
He thought he had better make another effort to haul the boat on the ice. Some movement of the pack might close the arm where it floated. So he stumbled towards the place.
He stared round in amazement and alarm; then he uttered a cry of terror. The open water had disappeared.
"She's been nipped!" he sobbed. "She's been nipped—nipped to splinters! I've lost meself!"
Night came fast. An hour before, so dense was the storm, nothing had been visible sixty paces away; now nothing was to be seen anywhere. Where was the rodney? Had his father and Bill Watt escaped from the floe by some new opening? Were they safe at home? Were they still on the floe? He called their names. The swish of the storm, the cracking and crunching of the ice as the wind swept it on—that was all that he heard.
For a long time he sat in dull despair. He hoped no longer.
By and by, when it was deep night, something occurred to distract him. He caught sight of a crimson glow, flaring and fading. It seemed to be in the sky, now far off, now near at hand. He started up.
"What's that?" he muttered.