"'Tis Billy!" cried Watt.
Billy staggered into the circle of light. He stared stupidly at the fire. Then he tottered a step or two nearer, and stood swaying; and again he stared at the fire in a stupid way.
"I seed the fire!" he mumbled. "The punt's nipped, sir—an' I seed the fire—an' crawled over the ice. 'Twas hard to find you."
Tom Topsail and Bill Watt understood. They, too, had travelled rough ice in a blizzard, and they understood.
Billy was wet to the waist. That meant that, blinded by the snow or deceived by the night, he had slipped through some opening in the ice, some crack or hole. The bare thought of that lonely peril was enough to make the older men shudder. But they asked him no questions. They led him to the fire, prodigally replenished it, and sat him down between them. By and by he was so far recovered that he was able to support his father's argument that the wind had not changed.
"Oh, well," replied Watt, doggedly, "you can say what you likes; but I tells you that the wind's veered to the south. 'Twould not surprise me if the pack was drivin' Cape Wonder way."
"No, no, Bill," said Topsail sadly; "there's been no change. We're drivin' straight out. When the wind drops the pack'll go to pieces, an' then——"
Thus the argument was continued, intermittently, until near dawn. Of a sudden, then, they heard a low, far-off rumble. It was a significant, terrifying noise. It ran towards them, increasing in volume. It was like the bumping that runs through a freight-train when the engine comes to a sudden stop.
The pack trembled. There was then a fearful confusion of grinding, crashing sounds. Everywhere the ice was heaving and turning. The smaller pans were crushed; many of the greater ones were forced on end; some were lifted bodily out of the water, and fell back in fragments, broken by their own weight. On all sides were noise and awful upheaval. The great pan upon which the seal-hunters had landed was tipped up—up—up—until it was like the side of a steep hill. There it rested. Then came silence.