'We are embayed,' I answered. 'We are got under the lee of something.' Just as I spoke those words a harsh, grating roar ran through the hull; the vessel trembled as though in the first throe of bursting; another like roar succeeded; I felt the thrill of the scraping of the bilge and keel as the fabric was rushed by some ponderous heave of swell. Again, another huge thrust of the sea, another long roar of scraping keel and bilge, another quiver and thrill throughout the hulk as though every timber was straining ere flying to the shock of an explosion. She lay right over to starboard. The lamp swung and lay hard against the upper deck. Whatever was movable fetched away. So acute was the angle that Miss Otway, unable to maintain her seat upon the couch, shot from it to me; but I was firmly planted, saw her coming, and received her so that she was not hurt, and with a vigorous swing I cleared and placed her breathless and moaning in a cleated armchair that stood close to where I sat. The blind, soft, thunderous thrusts of the sea continued. I heard the water in tons washing over the decks, but every time this happened a roar of grinding and scaling shook the hull as she was driven by the wash of the swell higher and yet higher. The companion was closed and no water descended. I knew by the noise of the sea that the hull lay broadside to the swing of the swell. I got out of my chair, but was heavily thrown, and could scarcely regain my feet, so extreme was the slant, and so completely did it pin me against the cabin wall. As regular as the rush of the floating folds was the thrust of them, and now I grew sensible that the heave was like to strand us high and dry, the job of it being a different labour than rocks or the grit of the beach of earth would have made, so greasy was the ice. The water poured over the decks every time the swell struck the hull, but in a little while I found each volume to be weakening in weight, and after the fabric had been driven in this grinding way in a sort of pulsing of blows, deafening with the bursts of the brine against the side and over the decks, each onward slide grew shorter and shorter, until presently she lay without motion, with an occasional shudder running through her from the beat of the sea, but at intervals so varying as to persuade me she was fairly high and dry, and within the wash of the foam of the larger rollers only. But the list or angle was horrible. I was unable to move without going on all fours. I crawled in this wise to Miss Otway, and told her to remain where she was, not to attempt to stir lest she should break her neck, whilst I crept on deck to take a look at our situation if it was visible. 'What has happened do you think?' she cried. 'We are stranded upon some beach of an ice island I expect,' I replied. 'Hark to that!' she shrieked, as a sudden sea smote the bilge and roared in foaming recoil. 'If you go on deck you'll be washed away.'