To tack would have been instant destruction; to wear, there was no room.
Every moment we expected to feel the awful crash as the stout ship
encountered the hard ice. Captain Carr rushed forward. We must dash
onward. Though no opening could be seen, there might be one! Onward we
careered. Every man held his breath; and pale, I doubt not, turned the
faces of the bravest. Suddenly, high above us, on the weather-side,
appeared another iceberg. The sea became almost calm; but it was a
calmness fraught with danger rather than safety. The sails, caught by
the eddy-wind, were taken aback. In another moment we might have been
driven, without power of saving ourselves, under that frowning cliff of
ice. The storm raged above us--before us--behind us--on every side but
there we lay, as if exhausted. Still the ship had way on her, and we
continued our course. The channel was too narrow to allow the helm to
be put up.
Just as she was losing her way, and would inevitably, through the force
of the eddy-wind, have got stern-way on her, her headsails again felt
the force of the gale, and, like a hound loosed from the leash, she
started forward on her course. Again we were plunging madly through the
wildly breaking seas; but the wind blew steadily, and the ice-fields
widened away on either side till they were lost to view. Once again we
were saved by a merciful Providence from an almost inevitable
destruction. Still, we had some hours of darkness before us, and an
unknown sea full of ice-islands through which we must pass. Not an eye
was closed that night. Again we were close to one, but we were now
better able to distinguish them than at first. This time we had to keep
away, and run to the northward; but before long, there arose ahead of us
a fourth iceberg. Again we sprung to the braces, the helm was put down,
and, once more close-hauled, we weathered the danger.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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