other word he hastened up the
ladder.

I dropped out of my hammock, pulled on my boots and monkey-jacket, and
went on deck, noting the hour by the cabin clock to be twenty minutes
before eleven. The captain stood at the mizzen-rigging with a
telescope at his eye, and beside him stood Mr. Sweers, likewise
holding a glass, and both men pointed their telescopes towards the sea
on the lee bow, where--never having before beheld an iceberg--I
perceived what I imagined to be an island covered with snow.

An iceberg it was--not a very large one. It was about five miles
distant; it had a ragged sky line which made it resemble a piece of
cliff gone adrift--such a fragment of cliff as, let me say, a quarter
of a mile of the chalk of the South Foreland would make, if you can
imagine a mass of the stuff detaching itself from under the verdure at
the top and floating off jagged and precipitous. There was nothing to
be seen but that iceberg. No others. The sea ran smooth as oil, and of
a hard green, piebald foam lines as in the earlier morning, with but a
light swell out of the west, which came lifting stealthily to the side
of the schooner. There was a small breeze; the sky had a somewhat
gloomy look; the schooner was at this hour crawling along at the rate
of about four and a half knots.

I said to Halsted: "There was nothing in sight when I went below at
eight bells. Where's that berg come from?"

"From behind the horizon," he answered. "The breeze freshened soon
after you left the deck, and only slackened a little while since."

"What can they see to keep them staring so hard?" said I, referring to
the captain and Mr. Sweers, who kept their glasses steadily levelled
at the iceberg.

"They've made out a ship upon the ice," he answered; "a ship high and
dry upon a slope of foreshore. I believe I can see her now--the gleam
of the snow is confusing; there's a black spot at the base almost
amidships of the berg."

I had a good sight in those days. I peered awhile and made out the
object, but with the naked eye I could never have distinguished it as
a ship at that distance.

"She's a barque," I heard Mr. Sweers say.

"I see that," said the captain.

"She's got a pretty strong list," continued the mate, talking with the
glass at his eye; "her topgallantmasts are struck, but her topmasts
are standing."

"I tell you what it is," said the captain, after a pause, likewise
speaking whilst he gazed through his telescope, "that s