ays that the ship could only scud under
bare poles before a tornado wind that seemed to be driving
north-northwest. The ship was a chip in a maelstrom. There were only
fifteen casks of water fit to drink. All food was exhausted but mouldy
sea-biscuits. One sailor a day was now dying of scurvy, and those left
were so weak that they had no power to man the ship. The sailors were
so emaciated they had to be carried back and forward to the rudder, and
the underling officers were quarrelling among themselves. The crew
dared not hoist sails, because not a man of the _St. Peter_ had the
physical strength to climb and lower canvas.[14]

{33} The rain turned to sleet. The sleet froze to the rotting sails,
to the ice-logged hull, to the wan yardarms frost-white like ghosts.
At every lurch of the sea slush slithered down from the rigging on the
shivering seamen. The roar of the breakers told of a shallow sea, yet
mist veiled the sky, and they were above waters whose shallows drop to
sudden abysmal depths of three thousand fathoms. Sheets of smoking
vapor rose from the sea, sheets of flame-tinged smoke from the
crevasses of land volcanoes which the fogs hid. Out of the sea came
the hoarse, strident cry of the sea-lion, and the walrus, and the hairy
seal. It was as if the poor Russians had sailed into some under-world.
The decks were slippery as glass, the vessel shrouded in ice. Over all
settled that unspeakable dread of impending disaster, which is a
symptom of scurvy, and saps the fight that makes a man fit to survive.

Waxel, alone, held the vessel up to the wind. Where were they? Why
did this coasting along unknown northern islands not lead to Kamchatka?

The councils were no longer the orderly conferences of savants over
cut-and-dried maps. They were bedlam. Panic was in the marrow of
every man, even the passionate Steller, who thought all the while they
were on the coast of Kamchatka and made loud complaint that the
expedition had been misled by "unscrupulous leaders."

At eight o'clock on the morning of October 30 it was seen that the
ice-clogged ropes on the starboard {34} side had been snapped by the
wind like dry sticks. Offerings, vows, prayers went up from the
stricken crew. Piety became a very real thing. The men prayed aloud
and conferred on ways to win the favor of God. The colder weather
brought one relief. The fog lifted and the air was clear. The wind
veered northeast, and on November 4, t