pared me for this, but I had not
reflected, at least in this direction, and was therefore not prepared;
and the horrible thrill of that black chill contact went in an agony
through my nerves, and I burst into a violent perspiration.

I backed away with all my hair astir, and then shot up the ladder as if
the devil had been behind me; and when I reached the deck I was
trembling so violently that I had to lean against the companion lest my
knees should give way. Never in all my time had I received such a fright
as this; but then I had gone to it in a fright, and was exactly in the
state of mind to be terrified out of my senses. My soul had been
rendered sick and weak within me by mental and corporeal suffering; my
loneliness, too, was dreadful, and the wilder and more scaring too for
this my unhappy association with the dead; the shrieking in the rigging
was like the tongue given by endless packs of hunting phantom wolves,
and the growling and cracking noises of the ice in all directions would
have made one coming new to this desolate scene suppose that the island
of ice was full of fierce beasts.

But needs must when Old Nick drives; I had either to find courage to
enter the schooner and search her, and so stand to come across the means
to prolong my life, and perhaps procure my deliverance, or perish of
famine and frost on deck.

The companion door was small, and being scarce more than ajar I was not
surprised that only a very faint light entered by it. If the top were
removed I doubted not I should be able to get a view of the cabin,
enough to show me where the windows or port-holes were. So I went to
work with the hanger again, insensibly obtaining a little stock of
courage from the mere brandishing of it. In half an hour I had chipped
and cut away the ice round the companion, and then found it to be one of
those old-fashioned clumsy hatch-covers formerly used in certain kinds
of Dutch ships--namely, a box with a shoulder-shaped lid. This lid,
though heavy, and fitting with a tongue, I managed to unship, on which
the full square of the hatch lay open to the sky.

The light gave me heart. Once more I descended. After a few moments the
bewildering dazzle of the snow faded off my sight, and I could see very
distinctly.

The cabin was a small room. The forward part lay in shadow, but I could
distinguish the outline of the mainmast amidships of the bulkhead there.
In the centre of this cabin was a small square table s