The watch sprang to the braces and bowlines, while the rest of the crew tumbled up from below, and the captain and other officers rushed out of their cabins: the helm was kept up, and the yards swung round, and the ships head turned towards the direction whence we had come. The captain glanced his eye round, and then ordered the courses to be brailed up, and the main top-sail to be backed, so as to lay the ship to. I soon discovered the cause of these manoeuvres; for before the ship had quite wore round, I perceived close to us a towering mass with a refulgent appearance, which the look-out man had taken for the white sails of a ship, but which proved in reality to be a vast iceberg; and attached to it and extending a considerable distance to leeward, was a field or very extensive floe of ice, against which the ship would have run had it not been discovered in time, and would in all probability instantly have gone down with every one on board. In consequence of the extreme darkness it was dangerous to sail either way, for it was impossible to say what other floes or smaller cakes of ice might be in the neighbourhood, and we might probably be on them before they could be seen. We therefore remained hove to. As it was, I could not see the floe till it was pointed out to me by Derrick. I was on deck, with my eyes trying to pierce the darkness to leeward, and fancying that I saw another iceberg rising close to the ship, and that I heard strange shrieks and cries, when I felt a hand placed on my shoulder: "Well, lad, what do you think of it?" said a voice which I recognised as that of Silas Flint. "I would rather be in a latitude where icebergs do not exist," I replied. "But how is it, old friend, you seemed to have forgotten me altogether since we sailed?" I added. "It is because I am your friend, lad, that I do not pretend to be one," he answered in a low tone. "I guessed from the first the sort of chap you've got for a skipper, and that you'd very likely want my aid; so I kept aloof; the better to be able to afford it without being suspected, d'ye see? You lead but a dog's life on board here, Peter, I am afraid." "It is bad enough, I own," I answered; "but I don't forget your advice to `grin and bear what can't be cured'; and Mr Bell and some of my messmates seem inclined to be good-natured." "Maybe; but you, the son of a gentleman, and, for what I see, a gentleman yourself, should be better treated," he observed. "If I was you, I wouldn't stand it a day longer than I could help." "I would not if I could help it; but I cannot quit the ship," I answered. "But you may when you get to Quebec," he remarked. "I wouldn't go back in her on any account, for many a reason. There's ill luck attends her, trust to that." What the ill luck was, my friend did not say, nor how he had discovered it.