Billy looked up steadily. The fright had left his eyes. He had recovered his self-possession.
"No, sir," he said, quietly. "'Tis gettin' less all the while."
At that moment the ship lurched slightly and slid off the shelf. The skipper shouted an order to raise the foresail, and ran aft to take the wheel. But the fall of the topmast had so tangled the rigging and jammed the gaff and boom that before the crew could remove the unconscious cook and lift the sail, the wind had turned the schooner and was driving her stern foremost, as it appeared, on the ice.
The skipper, from his station at the wheel, calmly observed the nearing berg, and gave the schooner up for lost. There was no time to raise the sail—no room for beating out of danger. He saw, too, that if she struck with force, the quarter-boat, which was swinging from davits astern, would be crushed to splinters.
"She's lost!" he thought. "Lost with all hands!"
Nearer approach, however, disclosed the strange fact that there was a break in the ice. When the schooner was still a few fathoms nearer, it was observed that the great berg was in reality composed of two masses of ice, with a narrow strait leading between them.
The light was now stronger, and the fog had somewhat thinned; it was possible to distinguish shadowy outlines—to see that great cliffs of ice descended on each side of the passage to the water's edge. Still deeper in the mist it was lighter, as if the strait indeed led directly through the berg to the open sea beyond. The crew was gathered aft, breathlessly awaiting the schooner's fate, helpless to fend or aid; and the cook was lying on the roof of the cabin, where they had laid him down, revived in part, and desperately struggling to recover his senses.
