She just cleared it, and that was all. For her and her crew, five little seconds and a cat’s-paw of wind spanned the infinite gulf that separates safety from destruction, life from death. For a moment they could hardly realize they had escaped, and as the monster swept sullenly past them, still revolving like a gigantic millstone seeking to grind to powder all who dared oppose it, they gazed at it in silence and with bloodless faces. But the reaction came quickly. The men who fish on the Newfoundland Banks learn to forget their perils almost before they have passed. At the hoarse command of “Ready about! Stand by the jib-sheets!” the crew of the Vixen seemed to awaken as from a troubled dream. Within fifteen minutes their vessel was again at anchor in nearly the same place she had occupied before the berg drove them from it. Her sails were furled, and all who could be accommodated at the little mess-table were eating, with a relish, the breakfast that the cook had been steadily preparing amid all the exciting scenes that had just passed. He knew that, to live and to work, men must eat, and that so long as the vessel held together and floated, it was his duty to prepare food for them. The berg that had caused all this trouble and anxiety was a solitary rover that had left its frigid companions in order to pursue its own erratic course. It was not even accompanied by large floe-cakes, but only by quantities of the small drift or “lolly” ice. This would not interfere to any great extent with the handling of the trawls, though it would render the work particularly cold and disagreeable. As the daylight strengthened, however, practised eyes on board the _Vixen_ detected a pale glimmer on the northern horizon that indicated the presence of those vast ice-fields that frequently sweep over the Newfoundland Banks in the spring of the year. They often carry death and destruction to the fishermen and their vessels, always bring hard, dangerous work, and threaten a disastrous loss of gear. Therefore, on the present occasion the skipper hurried the men through their meal, and despatched them as quickly as possible in the dories to haul their trawls. They were ordered to cut the lines if necessary, and to return to the schooner with all speed the moment the close approach of the ice should be indicated by the signal of the ship’s flag displayed in the main rigging. In the present position of the schooner the trawl belonging to dory No. 6 was at some distance astern of her, and our dorymates had a long pull before reaching its outer buoy. They worked like beavers in getting the trawl aboard; and as it was nearly bare of fish, the ice having seemingly driven them away, they succeeded in hauling the whole of it before the recall signal was shown.