'As God's my hope, Mr. Moore, it's a woman!'
The glass so shook in my hands that I could not use it; I took a few turns, then looked again. The figure watched us from the same place, but I could not tell whether it was a man or a woman. If it was a woman, then it might be Mrs. Burke. I wanted three figures to make sure of Marie; I saw but two; where was the third?
I strained my sight at the telescope with a heart of fever, half strangled by conflicting passions.
The figure that had hoisted the colour went to the side of the other, and they both stood watching, nothing visible of them above their waists. It was blowing a fresh breeze, and before this time Cliffe had taken in certain canvas; I think the brig was under topsails only, the foresail hauled up and hanging in its gear; the vessel drove slowly with an occasional crackling noise of ice along her sides when she sheared through some thin sludge stuff you could not see till you were in it; fortunately the drift ice that had threatened a thick surface just now had loosened here and tossed scattered; as we advanced moreover, we found that the icebergs which had looked to sit close in with the coast rode with a good offing; the sea was covered with these floating islands off that part of the island marked Foul Point; the eastern horizon was also like a terrace of ice, but the face of the cliffs from Foul Point down to where the land rounded into Lewthwaite Strait was fairly open.
All this while the sun shone brightly and with warmth. The sea streamed in a glorious dye of violet; we rolled slowly onwards till we were within about three-quarters of a mile of the coast and right abreast of the wreck. The helm was then put down; the main topsail laid aback; the gun again fired, and the ensign dipped. It was now about noon.
By this time I had made out that one of the figures was a woman; I saw but two persons. Who the woman was I could not tell, fierce as had been the struggle of my vision to resolve the glimmer of her face into lineaments.
When the brig had been brought to a stand, Cliffe called a council. We had ample sea room. The nearest floating ice lay about a quarter of a mile distant on the port quarter; the smaller blocks were not numerous, nor was there weight of sea to make them dangerous. All along the base of the ice-clad cliffs the water was pouring in a thunder of boiling surf; it was not the breakers but the great breathing swell of this mighty ocean which worked all that noise and fury along the cliffs' foot. The white brine sometimes shot twenty feet high, though it blew but a moderate fresh breeze, and the surge ran small.
Cliffe, myself, Bland, and the boatswain Bodkin came together at the companion hatch to consider. We had swept with the glass the line of coast from the beach under the hull to as far as we could see on the right, and beheld nothing but lofty coils of frothing combers raging in surf; there was no chance for a boat anywhere that way. The left presented a like scene, saving that there was a point in Palmer's Bay that, cruising eastwards, shut out the view of perhaps a quarter of a mile of the water it enclosed. Upon that point our eyes were fastened.
'We must lower a boat,' said Cliffe, 'and find out how the land lies past that arm of land.'
'It's the only sheltered bit along the whole boiling, I allow,' said Bland.