Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net THE FROZEN PIRATE. BY W. CLARK RUSSELL AUTHOR OF "THE WRECK OF THE GROSVENOR," "THE LADY MAUD," "A SAILOR'S SWEETHEART," ETC., ETC. PH[OE]NIX PUBLISHING CO., NEW YORK. CONTENTS. I. The Storm II. The Iceberg III. I Lose My Companions IV. I Quit the Wreck V. I Sight a White Coast VI. An Island of Ice VII. I am Startled by a Discovery VIII. The Frozen Schooner IX. I Lose my Boat X. Another Startling Discovery XI. I Make Further Discoveries XII. A Lonely Night XIII. I Explore the Hold and Forecastle XIV. An Extraordinary Occurrence XV. The Pirate's Story XVI. I Hear of a Great Treasure XVII. The Treasure XVIII. We Talk over our Situation XIX. We Take a View of the Ice XX. A Merry Evening XXI. We Explore the Mines XXII. A Change Comes Over the Frenchman XXIII. The Ice Breaks Away XXIV. The Frenchman Dies XXV. The Schooner Frees Herself XXVI. I am Troubled by Thoughts of the Treasure XXVII. I Encounter a Whaler XXVIII. I Strike a Bargain with the Yankee XXIX. I Value the Lading XXX. Our Progress to the Channel XXXI. The End Postscript THE FROZEN PIRATE. CHAPTER I. THE STORM. The _Laughing Mary_ was a light ship, as sailors term a vessel that stands high upon the water, having discharged her cargo at Callao, from which port we were proceeding in ballast to Cape Town, South Africa, there to call for orders. Our run to within a few parallels of the latitude of the Horn had been extremely pleasant; the proverbial mildness of the Pacific Ocean was in the mellow sweetness of the wind and in the gentle undulations of the silver-laced swell; but scarce had we passed the height of forty-nine degrees when the weather grew sullen and dark, a heavy bank of clouds of a livid hue rose in the north-east, and the wind came and went in small guns, the gusts venting themselves in dreary moans, insomuch that our oldest hands confessed they had never heard blasts more portentous. The gale came on with some lightning and several claps of thunder and heavy rain. Though it was but two o'clock in the afternoon, the air was so dusky that the men had to feel for the ropes; and when the first of the tempest stormed down upon us the appearance of the sea was uncommonly terrible, being swept and mangled into boiling froth in the north-east quarter, whilst all about us and in the south-west it lay in a sort of swollen huddle of shadows, glooming into the darkness of the sky without offering the smallest glimpse of the horizon.