I was on deck, with my eyes trying to pierce the darkness to leeward, and fancying that I saw another iceberg rising close to the ship, and that I heard strange shrieks and cries, when I felt a hand placed on my shoulder: “Well, lad, what do you think of it?” said a voice which I recognised as that of Silas Flint.
“I would rather be in a latitude where icebergs do not exist,” I replied. “But how is it, old friend, you seemed to have forgotten me altogether since we sailed?” I added.
“It is because I am your friend, lad, that I do not pretend to be one,” he answered in a low tone. “I guessed from the first the sort of chap you’ve got for a skipper, and that you’d very likely want my aid; so I kept aloof; the better to be able to afford it without being suspected, d’ye see? You lead but a dog’s life on board here, Peter, I am afraid.”
“It is bad enough, I own,” I answered; “but I don’t forget your advice to ‘grin and bear what can’t be cured’; and Mr Bell and some of my messmates seem inclined to be good-natured.”
“Maybe; but you, the son of a gentleman, and, for what I see, a gentleman yourself, should be better treated,” he observed. “If I was you, I wouldn’t stand it a day longer than I could help.”
“I would not if I could help it; but I cannot quit the ship,” I answered.
“But you may when you get to Quebec,” he remarked. “I wouldn’t go back in her on any account, for many a reason. There’s ill luck attends her, trust to that.” What the ill luck was, my friend did not say, nor how he had discovered it.
Flint spent the night on deck, and during it he talked a good deal about America, and the independent wild life he led in the backwoods and prairies. The conversation made a considerable impression on my mind, and I afterwards was constantly asking myself why I should go back in the Black Swan.
When daylight broke the next morning, the dangerous position in which the ship was placed was seen. On every side of us appeared large floes of ice, with several icebergs floating like mountains on a plain among them; while the only opening through which we could escape was a narrow passage to the north-east, through which we must have come. What made our position the more perilous was, that the vast masses of ice were approaching nearer and nearer to each other, so that we had not a moment to lose if we would effect our escape.
As the light increased, we saw, at the distance of three miles to the westward, another ship in a far worse predicament than we were, inasmuch as she was completely surrounded by ice, though she still floated in a sort of basin. The wind held to the northward, so that we could stand clear out of the passage should it remain open long enough. She by this time had discovered her own perilous condition, as we perceived that she had hoisted a signal of distress, and we heard the guns she was firing to call our attention to her; but regard to our own safety compelled us to disregard them till we had ourselves got clear of the ice.