“Be quick.”
Up in the workshop they quickly nailed two short boards together like a V. This was lashed to the stem of the Pinta to protect her when they crashed into the ice. They took a reef in the mainsail, for though the wind does not seem to travel any swifter, yet in winter it somehow feels more hard and compact and has a greater power on what it presses against. Just before they cast loose, Frances appeared on the bank above, she had called at the house, and hearing what they were about, hastened up to join the expedition. So soon as she had got a comfortable seat, well wrapped up in sealskin and muff, they pushed off, and the Pinta began to run before the wind. It was very strong, much stronger than it had seemed ashore, pushing against the sail as if it were a solid thing. The waves followed, and the grey cold water lapped at the stern.
Beyond the battle-field as they entered the broadest and most open part the black north roared and rushed at them, as if the pressure of the sky descending forced a furious blast between it and the surface. Angry and repellent waves hissed as their crests blew off in cold foam and spray, stinging their cheeks. Ahead the red sun was sinking over New Formosa, they raced towards the disc, the sail straining as if it would split. As the boat drew near they saw the ice jammed in the channel between the two islands.
It was thin and all in fragments; some under water, some piled by the waves above the rest, some almost perpendicular, like a sheet of glass standing upright and reflecting the red sunset. Against the cliff the waves breaking threw fragments of ice smashed into pieces; ice and spray rushed up the steep sand and slid down again. But it was between the islands that the waves wreaked their fury. The edge of the ice was torn into jagged bits which dashed against each other, their white saw-like points now appearing, now forced under by a larger block.
Farther in the ice heaved as the waves rolled under: its surface was formed of plates placed like a row of books fallen aside. As the ice heaved these plates slid on each other, while others underneath striving to rise to the surface struck and cracked them. Down came the black north as a man might bring a sledge-hammer on the anvil, the waves hissed, and turned darker, a white sea-gull (which had come inland) rose to a higher level with easy strokes of its wings.
Splinter—splanter! Crash! grind, roar; a noise like thousands of gnashing teeth.
“O!” said Frances, dropping her muff, and putting her hands to her ears. “It is Dante!”
Bevis had his hand on the tiller; Mark his on the halyard of the mainsail; neither spoke, it looked doubtful. The next instant the Pinta struck the ice midway between the islands, and the impetus with which she came drove her six or seven feet clear into the splintering fragments. They were jerked forwards, and in an instant the following wave broke over the stern, and then another, flooding the bottom of the boat. Mark had the mainsail down, for it would have torn the mast out.
With a splintering, grinding, crashing, roaring, a horrible and inexpressible noise of chaos—an orderless, rhythmless noise of chaos—the mass gave way and swept slowly through the channel. The impact of the boat acted like a battering-ram and started the jam. Fortunate it was for them that it did so, or the boat might have been swamped by the following waves. Bevis got out a scull, so did Mark, and their exertions kept her straight; had she turned broadside it would have been awkward even as it was. They swept through the channel, the ice at its edges barking willow branches and planing the shore, large plates were forced up high and dry.
“Hurrah!” shouted Mark.