THE COUNCIL.--PASSING THE CAPE.
Drawing his coat tightly around him, La Salle first drew aside the
rubber blanket which had been hung up for a door, and crawled out into
the storm. The snow still fell heavily, but although the wind blew very
hard, few drifts were formed, owing to the wet and heavy nature of the
large, soft flakes, although at times a flurry of sharp, stinging hail
rattled against the boats and the roof of the ice-chamber.
As nearly as he could judge, the wind was north-east, or perhaps a point
or two south of that, for at times there came warmer gusts, as if the
wind veered to a milder quarter. The roar of the sea could be plainly
heard, but evidently far up to windward, and there was little doubt that
they need have no apprehensions from that source at present.
Re-entering he found his friends anxiously awaiting his report on the
aspect of things outside, and he plunged at once into the gist of the
matter before them.
"I see no reason to expect any change in our situation until the tide
turns, which will be in about an hour. I can notice no change in the
wind, nor do I think we have shifted our relative position to its
course. Should the storm decrease towards morning, we shall probably
find ourselves up the straits, in the vicinity of the capes. Only one
danger can possibly assail us, and that is being ground to pieces on the
New Brunswick shore. We must keep a watch to-night, commencing at about
twelve o'clock. Regnar, will you keep the first watch of an hour and a
half, and then call me?"
"Yes, sir; all right. I wake any time, and I know what 'nip' means. We
must not get caught napping if that happens."
"Can't we get ashore and off of this horrid floe, if we strike on the
other shore?" asked Waring, a little dolorously.
"I'm afraid not, my dear George. The straits here, nearly thirty miles
wide, converge to about twelve at the capes; and this terrible gale,
although we feel it scarcely at all in the heart of this berg, will
drive us with the rising ebb, at a velocity little less than ten miles
an hour, through that narrow, choked pass, bordered by the ice-cliffs
which form, on the shallows every winter, to the height of from ten to
twenty feet above the water."
"Should this berg be driven against the verge of these immovable cliffs,
our only resource will be to take to our boats and retreat farther off
on the floes; for a single mishap in crossing the terrible chasm which
borders the irresistible course of this great ice-stream, would consign
us all to irremediable destruction. I propose that we thank God for his
mercies thus far, and implore his aid in the future. Then we may lie
down secure in His protection, and gather new strength for whatever may
be before us."
Thus saying, La Salle knelt, and in solemn but unfaltering tones
repeated the short but inimitable prayer which embodies the needs of
every petitioner. Peter crossed himself at the close, and broke out,--
"I feel 'fraid, all time till now. I hear Lund see ghost. I think we
never get back. Now I feel sure all go right, and I worry like woman no
more."
"Thank you, Peter. I shall depend on good service from you; and I may
say that I have little doubt of landing somewhere to-morrow, if the
weather clears so that we can see. Come, Regnie, get the rest of those
dry decoys out of the boat, and we'll turn in for two or three hours,
when you must take the first watch."
Regnar brought in about twenty bundles more of fir-twigs, which were
piled against the wall so as to form a kind of slanting pillow, against
which the party might rest their backs and heads in a half-sitting
posture, without being chilled by the ice-wall of their narrow
dormitory. Waring drew his seal-skin cap over his ears, turned up his
wide coat-collar of the same costly fur, and placed himself next to
Peter, who, as the worst clad of the party, wrapped himself in his dingy
blanket, and seated himself at the back of the hut. Regnar, in his
Canadian capote, was next, and La Salle with difficulty found room
between himself and the door for his faithful dog, whose natural warmth
had already dried his long fur, and made him a very welcome bed-fellow
under such circumstances. Thus disposed, it was not long before they all
fell asleep; and at twelve o'clock, La Salle, only half awake, gave
Regnar his watch, and saw the resolute boy go out into the storm to
commence his lonely vigil.
Scarcely feeling that he had more than got fairly to sleep again, he was
again awakened by Regnar, who said in a low voice, "'Tis two o'clock,
master; but I would not waken you if I did not think that the floe has
shifted sides, for we are no longer under a lee. I hear too, at times,
cracking and grinding of the ice, and I think we are not far from
shore."
La Salle hurriedly went out. The wind blew into his very teeth, as he
emerged from the narrow door; but it seemed no warmer or colder, and the
snow fell much the same as before. Near them, through the storm, another
berg of equal height with their own seemed to appear at times, and the
crash of falling and breaking ice arose on all sides. Still, for an hour
nothing could be seen, until between three and four the snow gave place
to a sleety rain, and the watchers saw that they were passing with
frightful rapidity a line of jagged ice-cliffs, not two hundred yards
away. La Salle called his companions, and they watched for nearly an
hour in constant expectation of having to take to their boat.
The pressure was tremendous, and on every side floes heaped up their
debris on each other, and pinnacles forced into collision were ground
into common ruin. Now shut out from view in darkness and storm, and now
close at hand in the multitudinous shiftings of the ice, the immovable
and gigantic buttresses of the ice-pool ground into powder acres of
level floe, and bergs containing hundreds of thousands of tons of ice.
Along that terrible line of impact rolled and heaved a chaos of mealy
sludge and gigantic fragments, while from time to time a mass of many
tons would be thrown, like a child's plaything, high up amid the debris
already heaped along the inaccessible shore. Half a dozen times the
startled voyagers seized their boat to drag her down from the berg, as
the shore-ice gnawed into the sides of their narrowing ice-field.
At last a move appeared inevitable. The distance between their refuge
and the shore was less than fifty yards, and in the gray of the morning
they saw castle after castle crushed off by this fearful attrition,
while high above their heads rose the ruin-strewed and inhospitable
ice-foot.
"Stand by, lads, to move the boats, when I give the word. Look, Regnar!
What is that above the cliff?"
"That a light-house, I think. Guess that on Cape Torment. No light there
in winter; not many vessels here then."
"Yes, we are passing the capes, and not a mile distant is the hostelry
of Tom Allan. Well, we can't land, that's certain; and as we can't, I
hope we shall soon get into a wider channel. How the trees fly past! Ah,
here the pressure lessens; we shall soon be above the narrows, and if
the tide only serves--Good Heaven! what is that?"
An eddy seemed to catch the floe as he spoke, and whirling like a top,
it brought between it and the shore a fantastically-shaped berg, at
least twenty-five feet high. The "nip" was but momentary; but the lofty
shaft and its floating base cracked like a mirror, the huge fabric fell
into ruins, and one of its pieces, striking the smaller boat, crushed it
into utter uselessness.
La Salle viewed the wreck of his little bark ruefully a moment.
"Well, the worst is over, and we are fortunate in losing so little, for
it might have struck the larger boat, and that would have been indeed a
loss. Come, boys, we have passed Cape Torment; let us pick some of those
birds and get breakfast, for we shan't land this day, with an easterly
gale hurrying the ice-pack thus to the north-west."