“Cheer up, my lad, never mind it; we shall be in summer again, and find it pretty hot too, when we round the Horn,” observed the first mate.
“I don’t mind it,” answered Walter, his teeth chattering. “Do you think it will last long?”
“That depends on the way the wind blows,” answered the first mate.
Dark seas rose up on every side, higher than he had ever seen them before; the foam driven aft in white sheets, their combing crests shining brilliantly as the sun burst forth from the driving clouds.
“Now you have seen enough of it; you had better go below,” said the mate. “One of those seas might break aboard and sweep you off the deck. As you can do nothing now, it is useless to expose your life to danger.”
Walter, who would have wished to remain had the wind been less cutting, thought the mate right, and obeyed him. He had been for some time in the cabin when the fourth mate came down.
“Come on deck, Walter,” he said, “and see something you have never before set eyes on.” Walter followed the mate up the companion-ladder.
As far as the eye could reach, the sea was of a dark-blue tint; the waves still high and foam-crested, sparkling in the rays of the sun, while at some distance on the larboard bow rose a vast mountain-island, its numerous pinnacles glittering in the sun like the finest alabaster, and its deep valleys thrown into the darkest shade. The summit of the mighty mass was covered with snow, and its centre of a deep indigo tint.
“What island is that?” asked Walter.
“It’s an island, though it’s afloat. That is an iceberg,” answered the mate. “It’s little less, I judge, than three miles in circumference, and is several hundred feet in height.”