Suddenly the captain cried out, "Water is making on the next floe!" An adjoining floe-berg of great size and thickness had split into countless pieces, and where a moment before had been a solid ice surface was a high sea tossing broken ice-masses. Huge pieces of their own berg now broke off, due to the action of the sea and to collision with the crowding pack. While looking with a feeling of despair at the high waves, now gnawing at and rapidly wasting the edges of their floe, they were greatly alarmed to hear a loud, sharp report as of a cannon-shot. Before any one could stir, even had he known where to go, their floe burst with a fearful sound midway between the coal house and the wood-pile. Within a dozen yards of the house now appeared a huge chasm, quickly filled with huge waves which tossed to and fro great ice-blocks which beat against the floe remnant on which the dismayed men stood. Though all seemed lost the crew without exception acted with courage and celerity. By prompt work they dragged up on the sound ice the whale-boat which barely escaped dropping into the sea. Aware that they could not launch and handle in such a storm the largest of their boats, Hegemann told off the men to the two small boats. In the pandemonium death was thought to be close at hand. With this thought they gave a last handshake to each other and said a final farewell as they separated and went to their alloted stations by the boats. The physical conditions were so utterly wretched that some even said that death would be welcome. The roaring of the pack was unceasing, the hurricane-like winds continued, while the temperature was forty-two degrees below freezing. The sharp, cutting snow-pellets of the blizzard not only blinded the vision, but the clothes were saturated with the sand-like ice particles driven through the fur to their very skin, where they were melted by the heat of the body. Food was not to be thought of, save a bit of biscuit which was eaten as they stood. For ten hours they stood fast by their boats in shivering misery and in mental anxiety, knowing that any moment they might be thrown into the sea. But by God's protection, in a providential manner, after being reduced to a diameter of one hundred and fifty feet their floe held together. The dangers of the sea and of the ordinary pack had still another and novel phase. When matters seemed to be at their worst the watch cried out: "We are drifting on a high iceberg!" They stood immovable as the lofty berg loomed far above their heads, close on them, and after hanging a ghastly object over their tiny floe for a moment vanished in the mist while their hearts were yet in their mouths.