ked round her, not knowing but that on the other
side, concealed from the landing-place by the interposition of the
hull, some remains of her people might be lying; but there was nothing
in that way to see. We united our voices in a loud "Hallo!" and the
rocks re-echoed us; but all was still, frozen, lifeless.

"Let's get aboard," said Mr. Sweers, gazing, nevertheless, up at the
ship's side with a flat face of reluctance and doubt.

I grasped a boat's fall and went up hand over hand, and Sweers
followed me. The angle of the deck was considerable, but owing to the
flat bilge of the whaler's bottom, not greater than the inclination of
the deck of a ship under a heavy press of canvas. It was possible to
walk. We put our legs over the rail and came to a stand, and took a
view of the decks of the ship. Nothing, saving the boats, seemed to be
missing. Every detail of deck furniture was as complete as though the
ship were ready for getting under way, with a full hold, for a final
start home. Caboose, scuttle-butts, harness-cask, wheel, binnacle,
companion-cover, skylight, winch, pumps, capstan--nothing was wanting;
nothing but boats and men.

"Is it possible that all hands can be below?" said Sweers, straining
his ear.

I looked aloft and about me, wondering that the body of the vessel and
her masts and rigging should not be sheathed with ice; but if ever the
structure had been glazed in her time, when she lay hard and fast far
to the north of Spitzbergen, for all one could tell, nothing was now
frozen; there was not so much as an icicle anywhere visible about her.
The decks were dry, and on my kicking a coil of rope that was near my
feet the stuff did not crackle, as one could have expected, as though
frosted to the core.

"The vessel seems to have been thawed through," said I, "and I expect
that this berg is only a fragment of the mass that broke adrift with
her."

"Likely enough," said Sweers. "Hark! what is that?"

"What do you hear?" I exclaimed.

"Why, _that_!" cried he, pointing to a shallow fissure in the icy
rocks which towered above the ship: and down the fissure I spied a
cascade of water falling like smoke, with a harsh, hissing noise,
which I had mistaken for the seething of the sea. I ran my eye over
the face of the heights and witnessed many similar falls of water.

"There'll not be much of this iceberg left soon," said I, "if the
drift is to the southward."

"What d'ye think,--that the drift's nort