rdly see fifty
yards ahead. There was a great chasm or hole just in front of me. This
was the place where the main body of the sea-ice had been separated from
the shore-ice that was aground. Here every rise and fall of the tide
had broken it afresh, so that the rent was twenty yards wide, and full
of large blocks that had been tossed about in confusion. Across this I
gazed into the gloom, and thought I saw an object that looked like a
large block of rounded ice. Before I could make up my mind how to act,
the block of ice rose up with a furious roar and charged me. The chasm
checked him for a moment. But for this I should have been caught
immediately. While he was scrambling over it I took to my heels, and
ran along the edge of the ice at the top of my speed.

"There was a narrow part of the chasm which I had looked at in daylight,
and wondered whether I might venture to leap across it. I had made up
my mind that it was too wide and dangerous to be attempted. But it is
wonderful how quickly a man changes his mind on such a point when a
polar bear is roaring at his heels. I came to the gap in the ice. It
was ten feet deep and thirteen or fourteen feet across. The jagged
lumps of ice at the bottom lay there in horrible confusion. There was
barely light enough to see where the hole was when I came within ten
yards of it, but I did not hesitate. A rush! a bound! and I went over
like a cat. Not so the bear. He had not measured the place with his
eye in daylight, as I had done. He made a gallant leap, it is true, but
fell short, as I knew from the bursting sound and the growl of rage with
which he came against the edge of the ice, and fell back among the
broken blocks. I did not wait to see how he got out, you may be sure,
but ran as I never ran before in all my life! I reached the brig quite
out of breath. The bear had not followed me up, for I did not see him
that night again. Long Davy laughed at me a good deal, and said he was
sure I had been frightened at a shadow. It gave a wonderfully loud roar
for a shadow! I hope that Davy himself may get a chase before the
winter is over, just to convince him of his error in not believing me!"

The kind wish thus expressed in the young doctor's journal was gratified
sooner than might have been expected.

Only two days after the incident above described, poor Davy Butts met
with the same bear, face to face, and had a run for his life, that
turned the laugh fr