oked quite insignificant.

"Pat kept on the forecastle, looking out and directing the course of the
vessel, as the cap'en, who had just come on deck, roused by the noise,
thought the Irishman's experience in the Arctic seas would make him more
useful even than himself in coursing the ship.

"The skipper was right as usual; and Pat had soon a chance of showing
that his choice had not been misplaced.

"`Kape her away! kape her away!' Pat shouted out in a minute or two
after the cap'en had come on deck `The top of the berg is loosenin', yer
honour; and sure it's falling on us it will be in a brace of shakes!
Kape her away, or, be jabers, it's lost we'll be for sartin!'

"The old brig, although she wouldn't come up to the wind when we wanted
her, and thus saved our lives by disobeying orders, now answered her
helm promptly without any demur, and dashed away from the mass of ice
before the gale at, I should be ashamed to say what speed.

"Bless the old _Cranky Jane_! How could we ever have reviled her and
despised her? She seemed almost as if she had human intelligence and a
kind of foresight.

"We only just weathered the berg when the summit toppled over with a
crash, missing the after-part of the brig by a very few yards, and
churning up the sea far around with a sort of creamy surf, that dashed
over our decks, and swept us fore and aft.

"It was a marvellous escape, and only second to that we had just before
had in avoiding running on to the same gigantic mass of floating ice,
which had probably come up from the Antarctic regions for the summer
season--at least, that was Pat O'Brien's explanation for our meeting
with it there.

"All that night and next morning we were passing through bergs of every
size, big and little, although none were so large as the one which had
been so risky to us--bergs that in their splendid architecture and
magnificence, with fantastic peaks and fine pinnacles, that glittered in
the rising sun with all the colours of the rainbow, flashing out rays
and lights of violet and purple, topaz blue and emerald green, blush
rose and pink and red, mingled with shades of crimson and gleams of
gold, with a frosting over all of silver and bright white light--Those
who haven't seen an iceberg at sea at sunrise have no idea of the depth
and breadth of beauty in nature, though I, one who has served his time
before the mast, says so. But, avast with such flummery and wordage!"

"Good gracious me!"