our heads.

We could not bring our minds to realise that we were to be left aboard
this ice-stranded whaler all night, and perhaps all next day, and for
heaven alone knows how much longer for the matter of that; and it was
not until the darkness of the evening had drawn down, coming along
early with the howling gloom of the storm-shrouded ocean, without so
much as a rusty tinge of hectic to tell us where the West lay, that we
abandoned our idle task of staring at the sea, and made up our minds
to go through with the night as best we could.

And first of all we entered the galley, and by the aid of such dim
light as still lived we contrived to catch sight of a tin lamp with a
spout to it dangling over the coppers. There was a wick in the spout,
but one might swear that the lamp hadn't been used for months and
months.

"We must have a light anyhow," said Sweers, "and if this _President_
be a whaler, there should be no lack of oil aboard."

After groping awhile in some shelves stocked with black-handled knives
and forks, tin dishes, pannikins, and the like, I put my hand upon a
stump of candle-end. This we lighted, Sweers luckily having a box of
lucifers in his pocket, and with the aid of the candle-flame, we
discovered in the corner of the galley a lime-juice jar half-full of
oil. With this we trimmed the lamp, and then stepped on deck to grope
our way to the cabin, meaning to light the lamp down there, for no
unsheltered flame would have lived an instant in the fierce draughts
which rushed and eddied about the decks.

We stayed a moment to look seawards, but all was black night out
there, touched in places with a sudden flash of foam. The voice of the
gale was awful with the warring noise of the waters, and with the
restless thunder of seas smiting the ice on the weather side, and with
the wild and often terrific crackling sounds which arose out of the
heart of the solid mass of the berg itself, as though earthquakes in
endless processions were trembling through it, and as though, at any
moment, the whole vast bulk would be rent into a thousand crystal
splinters. Sweers was silent until we had gained the cabin and lighted
the lamp. He then looked at me with an ashen face, and groaned.

"This gale's going to blow the schooner away," said he. "We're lost
men, David. I'd give my right eye to be aboard the _Lightning_. D'ye
understand the trick of these blooming icebergs? They wash away
underneath, grow topheavy, and