There was no sail to take in, for we were running under steam only, now, but the sailors had enough to do at first to keep everything movable from washing overboard, and then, a little later, themselves. At each end of the vessel the officers were roaring out commands, and the men striving to obey. There was no thought of sleep, of course, and everybody was on deck or in the cabins. Zar was praying swiftly and inclusively so as to have everybody in readiness at a moment’s notice, and nobody discouraged this undertaking. From stray bits that came to me now and then above the uproar I gathered that she believed our Thanksgiving services, as well as the expedition generally, had been of a character to provoke Divine wrath. “Oh, Lawd,” she howled, “what can dese po’ sinful people expect, a-goin’ a hop-scotchin’ aroun’ on Thanksgivin’ Day, an’ a-huntin’ foh a fool pole in a lan’ wheah dey ain’ nuffin but ice, an’ wheah de sun shine at midnight? What can dey spect, Lawd? What can dey spect?” As a matter of fact we were expecting almost anything at that moment, and we were not surprised, or more frightened than we had been, when Captain Biffer came in and roared at us that we were being driven into the pack! “Let her go in!” yelled Gale. “Be smashed, if we do. Go to hell in five minutes!” “Don’t care! hell can’t be worse than this!” In the electric blaze of the cabin I looked more closely at Gale. There was a green pallor over his features that was not due to fright. Even in that awful hour there came upon me a proper and malicious joy. He was seasick! I did not blame him. We were rolling fearfully and I felt some discomfort, myself. But the spirit of my ancestors had waxed strong now, and prevailed. The others, too, were getting pale, all except Zar, who turned a peculiar blue, and discontinued her prayer service. The brawny stewardess and myself assisted both her and her mistress to their staterooms, where I spoke a reassuring word to Edith Gale, and hastened back to the others. But Gale and Ferratoni had both disappeared, and I saw them no more during that fearful night. Plunging and battering we jammed our way into that mass of thundering ice. Our search-lights, of which we had two, were kept going constantly, but even so, we were likely at any moment to collide with a berg in that surging blackness. The sight from the deck—the shouting sea, with the ice tossing and flashing as it was borne into the angle of our electric rays—was as the view of a riotous inferno that was making ready to crush us into its sombre depths.