The
noise was deafening. Dick barked with rage at this new kind of enemy.
The obscurity of the night came to add to the horror of the situation,
but did not hide the threatening blocks, their white surface reflected
the last gleams of light. Hatteras's orders were heard in the midst
of the crew's strange struggle with the icebergs. The ship giving
way to the tremendous pressure, bent to the larboard, and the
extremity of her mainyard leaned like a buttress against the iceberg
and threatened to break her mast.

Hatteras saw the danger; it was a terrible moment; the brig threatened
to turn completely over, and the masting might be carried away. An
enormous block, as big as the steamer itself, came up alongside her
hull; it rose higher and higher on the waves; it was already above
the poop; it fell over the _Forward_. All was lost; it was now upright,
higher than the gallant yards, and it shook on its foundation. A cry
of terror escaped the crew. Everyone fled to starboard. But at this
moment the steamer was lifted completely up, and for a little while
she seemed to be suspended in the air, and fell again on to the
ice-blocks; then she rolled over till her planks cracked again. After
a minute, which appeared a century, she found herself again in her
natural element, having been turned over the ice-bank that blocked
her passage by the rising of the sea.

"She's cleared the ice-bank!" shouted Johnson, who had rushed to the
fore of the brig.

"Thank God!" answered Hatteras.

The brig was now in the midst of a pond of ice, which hemmed her in
on every side, and though her keel was in the water, she could not
move; she was immovable, but the ice-field moved for her.

"We are drifting, captain!" cried Johnson.

"We must drift," answered Hatteras; "we can't help ourselves."

When daylight came, it was seen that the brig was drifting rapidly
northward, along with a submarine current. The floating mass carried
the _Forward_ along with it. In case of accident, when the brig might
be thrown on her side, or crushed by the pressure of the ice, Hatteras
had a quantity of provisions brought up on deck, along with materials
for encamping, the clothes and blankets of the crew. Taking example
from Captain McClure under similar circumstances, he caused the brig
to be surrounded by a belt of hammocks, filled with air, so as to
shield her from the thick of the damage; the ice soon accumulated
under a temperature of 7 degrees, and the