I went on deck. The dusk of the night was hard and clear, and I observed a keen blue in the trembling gleam of many of the stars. But though there was no wet in the air, I had never felt the cold so bitter as on this night. The sight of the nearer of the ice mountains in the gloom under the light of the stars was marvellously fine and awful; some shone with a light of their own; it was the snow upon them, I suppose, that made that sheen. I noticed, however, that though the sea was covered with these faint and pallid masses, there was plenty of sea-room in the lanes and highways they made. A startling and alarming part was the crackling and crashing noises which came from them, and shortly before I was driven below by the cold, an island on the port quarter, wan as a cloud touched by a corner of moon, vanished; it may have shown in another shape by daylight; it had overset and perhaps rose flat and invisible in that light. But the spectacle was wonderful: it made a deep impression on me. Cliffe who saw it bid me listen, and sure enough after a little there came slanting through the wind such a prodigious noise of hissing and seething that, but for knowing what made it, you would have looked in its direction for the foaming waters of a sudden gale. There was to be little rest for the crew that night. Cliffe informed me the men had been told that all hands would have to stand by throughout the dark hours, ready to jump to the first call if the brig was to remain a brig. A seaman was stationed on each bow: a third aloft on the foreyard: the mate and the boatswain were to relieve each other every two hours in keeping a look-out on the forecastle. A man was stationed aft ready in a breath to help at the helm. The galley fire was kept burning all night, and hot coffee, and at longer intervals small drams of rum, were served out to the crew. The chief peril lay in the smaller blocks of ice floating on the water; they were hard to see before they were dangerously close to; and yet, comparatively small as they were, any one of them was big enough to knock a hole in the brig's bottom, and founder her out of hand. Right through the night we held on. At first the cries of 'Ice ahead,' 'Ice on the port bow,' 'Starboard your helm,' and the like, alarmed me; but I presently got used to them, nor indeed were they so frequent as to be terrifying; once only, that is, in my hearing, was a cry raised as for life or death in a sudden passion or panic; then it was an immense flat ragged-edged piece of ice under the bow; a swift turn of the helm sent the brig clear, giving us a sight of the stuff alongside, and the brave little ship ploughed her way onwards.