g half a league
distant when it overset. It was a small berg, though large compared with
most of the others; yet such a mighty volume of foam boiled up as gave
me a startling idea of the prodigious weight of the mass. The sight made
me very anxious about my own state, and to satisfy my mind I got upon
the ice and walked round the vessel, and to get a true view of her
posture went to the extreme end of the rocks beyond her bows, and
finally came to the conclusion that, supposing the ice should crumble
away from her sides so as to cause the weight of the schooner to render
it top-heavy, her buoyancy on touching the water would certainly tear
her keel out of its frosty setting and leave her floating. Indeed, so
sure was I of this that I saw, next to the ice splitting and freeing her
in that way, the best thing that could happen would be its capsizal.

I regained the ship, and had paused an instant to look over the side,
when I perceived the very block of ice on which I had come to a halt
break from the bed with a smart clap of noise, and completely roll
over. Only a minute before had I been standing on it, and thus had sixty
seconds stood between me and death, for most certainly must I have been
drowned or killed by being beaten against the ice by the swell! I fell
upon my knees and lifted up my hands in gratitude to God, feeling
extraordinarily comforted by this further mark of His care of me, and
very strongly persuaded that He designed I should come off with my life
after all, since His providence would not work so many miracles for my
preservation if I was to perish by this adventure.

These thoughts did more for my spirits than I can well express; and the
intolerable sense of loneliness was mitigated by the knowledge that I
was watched, and therefore not alone.

The day passed I know not how. The shadow as of tempest hung in the air,
but never a cats-paw did I see to blurr the rolling mirror of the ocean.
The hidden sun sank out of the breathless sky, tingeing the atmosphere
with a faint hectic, which quickly yielded to the deepest shade of
blackness. The mysterious desperate silence, however, that on deck
weighed oppressively on every sense, as something false, menacing, and
malignant in these seas, was qualified below by the peculiar straining
noises in the schooner's hold caused by the swinging of the ice upon the
swell. I was very uneasy; I dreaded a gale. It was impossible but that
the vessel must quickly go to