the masts, rigging, and decks,
and as this ice, like the pendants, was very sparklingly bright, it gave
back all the hues of the sunbeam, so that, stepping from the darkness of
the cabin into this effulgent scene, you might easily have persuaded
yourself that before you stood the fabric of a ship fashioned out of a
rainbow.

My attention, however, was quickly withdrawn from this shining spectacle
by the appearance of the starboard cliff over against our quarter. The
whole shoulder of it had broken away and I could just catch a view of
the horizon of the sea from the deck by stretching my figure. The sight
of the ocean showed me that the breakage had been prodigious, for to
have come to that prospect before, I should have had to climb to the
height of the main lower masthead. No other marked or noteworthy change
did I detect from the deck; but on stepping to the larboard side to peer
over I spied a split in the ice that reached from the very margin of the
ravine, I mean to that end of it where it terminated in a cliff, to past
the bows of the schooner by at least four times her own length.

I returned to the cook-room and went about the old business of lighting
the fire and preparing the breakfast--this job by an understanding
between the Frenchman and me, falling to him who was first out of
bed--and in about twenty minutes Tassard arrived.

"The wind is gone," said he.

"Yes," I replied, "it is a bright still morning. I have been on deck.
There has been a great fall of ice close to."

"Does it block us?"

"No, on the contrary, it clears the way to the sea; the ocean is now
visible from the deck. Not that it mends our case," I added. "But there
is a great rent in the ice that puts a fancy into my head; I'll speak of
it later after a closer look."

The breakfast was ready, and we fell to in a hurry, the Frenchman
gobbling like a hog in his eagerness to make an end. When we were
finished he wrapped himself up in three or four coats and cloaks,
warming the under ones before folding them about him, and completing his
preparations for the excursion by swallowing half a pint of raw brandy.
I bade him arm himself with a short-headed spear to save his neck; and
thus equipped we went on deck.

He stood stock-still with his eyes shut on emerging through the hatch,
crying out with a number of French oaths that he had been struck blind.
This I did not believe, though I readily supposed that the glare made
his eyeballs sma