It needed another hour of careful sailing to expose the hull anew: then through the glass I saw her clearly. She lay, a large black hulk of ship, upon a projection of ice that was at least thirty feet above the sea. I made out her bowsprit, and the stump of her foremast. The cliffs soared sheer and abrupt at the back of her to a great height. Even at that distance it was not hard to guess that, after having stranded, she had been lifted by some earthquake dislocation of ice into the posture she rested in. Suppose the sea clear, she must have been visible to passing ships for leagues. The seamen were congregated in the bows, leaning over the rail, Bodkin amongst them pointing eagerly. The mate roared to them to keep a bright look-out, they then scattered, but the sight of that wreck had brought them heedlessly together as one man. Cliffe's glass was not a powerful one, yet the hull in the lens lay within half a mile, and I saw her plainly. She had her head towards the cliffs, and sat very nearly upon a level keel. A great portion of her starboard bulwarks were gone. She was a mass of ice under her stern: looked to be fixed there to her bed of white pillars. The sun shot sparkles into her as we advanced, and still she showed black, as though the ice that coated her was as glass. Nothing moved: I strained my vision till my brain reeled and the object swung in the glass and was eclipsed: Cliffe looked, he saw no smoke nor signs of life any more than I. 'If there's anyone alive aboard her,' said he, 'now's our time for letting them know we're here.' 'Right,' I answered, speaking with my teeth almost set; 'do what you will, Cliffe; do what is for the best.' He called to Bland and a man, and they fetched a number of blank charges for the cannon. The little skipper left the gun to the mate's handling, himself taking charge of the brig, which needed exquisite watching and management, so crowded was the water here with loose ice. 'Let fly fast as you can load, Mr. Bland,' said the captain; 'fire six rounds.' As he spoke came a cry from the forecastle: 'Lie close under the port bow, sir!' Thus was it, thus had it been, saving that now the pack stuff had thickened perilously. The gun was fired; it made a noble thunder, and roared in dying echoes from near ice crag to ice crag. Again it was fired, yet again; all this while the brig was rolling forwards with her helm going up and down to the cries from the forecastle and to the gestures of the little captain.