bbing
against the boat. When the whale seemed to be going along a little
more slowly, the cord was pulled in little by little and rolled up;
the whale soon reappeared on the surface of the sea, which she beat
with her formidable tail: veritable waterspouts fell in a violent
rain on to the boat. It was getting nearer. Simpson had seized a long
lance, and was preparing to give close battle to the animal, when
all at once the whale glided into a pass between two mountainous
icebergs. The pursuit then became really dangerous.

"The devil!" said Johnson.

"Go ahead," cried Simpson; "we've got her!"

"But we can't follow her into the icebergs!" said Johnson, steering
steadily.

"Yes we can!" cried Simpson.

"No, no!" cried some of the sailors.

"Yes, yes!" said others.

During the discussion the whale had got between two floating mountains
which the swell was bringing close together. The boat was being
dragged into this dangerous part when Johnson rushed to the fore,
an axe in his hand, and cut the cord. He was just in time; the two
mountains came together with a tremendous crash, crushing the
unfortunate animal.

"The whale's lost!" cried Simpson.

"But we are saved!" answered Johnson.

"Well," said the doctor, who had not moved, "that was worth seeing!"

The crushing force of these ice-mountains is enormous. The whale was
victim to an accident that often happens in these seas. Scoresby
relates that in the course of a single summer thirty whales perished
in the same way in Baffin's Sea; he saw a three-master flattened in
a minute between two immense walls of ice. Other vessels were split
through, as if with a lance, by pointed icicles a hundred feet long,
meeting through the planks. A few minutes afterwards the boat hailed
the brig, and was soon in its accustomed place on deck.

"It is a lesson for those who are imprudent enough to adventure into
the channels amongst the ice!" said Shandon in a loud voice.

CHAPTER XX

BEECHEY ISLAND

On the 25th of June the _Forward_ arrived in sight of Cape Dundas
at the north-western extremity of Prince of Wales's Land. There the
difficulty of navigating amongst the ice grew greater. The sea is
narrower there, and the line made by Crozier, Young, Day, Lowther,
and Garret Islands, like a chain of forts before a roadstead, forced
the ice-streams to accumulate in this strait. The brig took from the
25th to the 30th of June to make as much way as she would have do