able, what do you go to sea so
much for?"

"Well, now, my lad," replied the Captain, evidently at first a little
puzzled, "that's a question that would require more time to explain than
we have to devote to it to-day. Besides" (he was fully recovered now),
"you know that going to sea in the cabin is as different from going to
sea in the forecastle as you are from a Yahoo Indian. But never mind
that, I must get on with my story, or it will never come to an end. I've
hardly begun it yet."

CHAPTER V.

In which the Ancient Mariner, continuing his Story,
borrows an Illustration from the "Ancient Mariner"
of Song, and then proceeds to tell how they
went into the Cold, and were cast away there.

"'And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice mast-high came floating by,
As green as emerald.'

"I recite this from a famous poem because it suits so well what came of
us, for you must understand that, while all I have been telling you was
going on, we were approaching the northern regions, and were getting
into the sea where ice was to be expected. A man was accordingly kept
aloft all the time to look out for it: for you will remember that we
were going after seals, and it is on the ice that the seals are found.
The weather now became very cold, it being the month of April.

"At length the man aloft cried out that he saw ice. 'Where away?'
shouted the red-faced mate. 'Off the larboard bow,' was the answer. So
the course of the ship was changed, and we bore right down upon the ice,
and very soon it was in sight from the deck, and gradually became more
and more distinct. It was a very imposing sight. The sea was covered all
over with it, as far as the eye could reach,--a great plain of
whiteness, against the edge of which the waves were breaking and sending
the spray flying high in the air and sending to our ears that same
dull, heavy roar which the breakers make when beating on the land.

"As we neared this novel scene, I observed that it consisted mostly of
flat masses of ice, of various sizes (called by the sealers 'floes');
some were miles in extent, and others only a few feet. The surface of
these ice floes or fields rose only about a foot or so above the surface
of the water. Between them there were in many places very broad
openings, and when I went aloft and looked ahead, these ice-fields
appeared like a great collection of large and small flat white islands,
dotted about in the