o the surface, lashing violently with
its tail; huge spouts of water were dashed up by it and fell in
torrents on the boat, which now approached rapidly; Simpson had taken
a long lance and was prepared to meet the whale face to face.

[Illustration: "The whale swam away from the brig and hastened towards
the moving icebergs."]

But it plunged rapidly into a pass between two icebergs. Further
pursuit seemed dangerous.

"The devil!" said Johnson.

"Forward, forward, my friends," shouted Simpson, eager for the chase;
"the whale is ours."

"But we can't follow it among the icebergs," answered Johnson, turning
the boat away.

"Yes, yes!" cried Simpson.

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

"Yes!" cried others.

During this discussion the whale had got between two icebergs which
the wind and waves were driving together.

The whale-boat was in danger of being dragged into this dangerous
pass, when Johnson sprang forward, axe in hand, and cut the line.

It was time; the two icebergs met with irresistible force, crushing
the whale between them.

"Lost!" cried Simpson.

"Saved!" said Johnson.

"Upon my word," said the doctor, who had not flinched, "that was well
worth seeing!"

The crushing power of these mountains is enormous. The whale was the
victim of an accident that is very frequent in these waters. Scoresby
tells us that in the course of a single summer thirty whalers have
been lost in this way in Baffin's Bay; he saw a three-master crushed
in one minute between two walls of ice, which drew together with
fearful rapidity and sank the ship with all on board. Two other ships
he himself saw cut through, as if by a long lance, by huge pieces of
ice more than a hundred feet long.

A few moments later the whale-boat returned to the brig, and was
hauled up to its usual place on deck.

"That's a lesson," said Shandon, aloud, "for those who are foolhardy
enough to venture into the passes!"

CHAPTER XX.
BEECHEY ISLAND.

June 25th the _Forward_ sighted Cape Dundas, at the northwest
extremity of Prince of Wales Land. There they found more serious
difficulties amid thicker ice. The channel here grows narrower, and
the line of Crozier, Young, Day, and Lowther Islands ranged in a line,
like forts in a harbor, drive the ice-streams nearer together. What
would otherwise have taken the brig a day now detained her from June
25th to the end of the month; she was continually obliged to stop, to
retreat, and