'I'm for shoving on, sir, but we'll take no risks.'
'None, though the job of heaving the land into view should fill another month.'
And still expectation and excitement so worked in me, I felt ill with the conflict. I was up and down ceaselessly till the dusk blackened the scene out. The cold drove me below, restlessness forced me above again. It was always the same picture, the rolling and plunging figure of the brig, gleaming with barbs, and spears, and motionless pennons of ice: the glare of her band of topsail dingy against the ice beyond as she swung it through the howling sweep of wind: the quick dazzle of froth recoiling in thunder from the thrust of the bows: the large grey swell coursed by the breaking surge, and to right and left, and ahead and astern, the shadows and clear shapes of ice, some with brows in the flying scud, some table-like and flashing like sunlight as the seas charged them and burst, one showing a hatchet-like edge till our rolling brig, opened it into a coast of marble that vanished in a haze of mist and spray.
Happily, after it had been dark about an hour, the brig still blowing forward under reefed topsail and foresail, whilst I sat in the cabin warming myself, drinking some hot brandy and water, but always with ears straining to catch a cry on deck, Cliffe came below, and gave me the good news of a shift of wind into the north-west, with a scanting of it, and a plenty of starlight, and the Southern Cross looking almost upright.
'What does that signify?' said I.
'Nothing,' he answered with a cheerful grimace. 'Except, that as the Southern Cross is upright at midnight on one day only in the year, the sight of it almost on end now is interesting.'
'When is it actually upright?'
'On March 26.'
'D'ye know, Cliffe,' said I, getting up, meaning to take a look round, 'that it's comforted me sometimes to think of that symbol of God overhanging these waters. It should be a sight to freshen a man's faith in a time of distress.'