as fast, and with a little driving and that breeze over her
quarter she would bear them south towards warmth and ease at some two
hundred miles a day, while the way they were going it would be a fight
for every fathom with bitter, charging seas, and there lay ahead of
them only cold and peril and toil incredible.

There are times at sea when human nature revolts from the strain the
over-taxed body must bear, the leaden weariness of worn-out limbs, and
the sub-conscious effort to retain warmth and vitality in spite of the
ceaseless lashing of the icy gale. Then, as aching muscles grow lax,
the nervous tension becomes more insupportable, unless, indeed, utter
weariness breeds indifference to the personal peril each time the decks
are swept by a frothing flood, or a slippery spar must be clung to with
frost-numbed and often bleeding hands. That is, at least, on board the
sailing ships where man must still, with almost brutal valour, pit all
the feeble powers of flesh and blood against the forces of the elements.

They knew this, and it was to their credit that they obeyed when
Dampier gave the word to put the helm up and trim the sheets over.
Their leader, however, stood a little apart with a hard-set face, and
he looked forward over the plunging bows, for he was troubled by a
sense of responsibility such as he had not felt since he had, one night
several years ago, asked for volunteers. He realised that an account
of these men's lives might be demanded from him.

It was a fortnight later, and they had twice made a perilous landing
without finding any sign of life on or behind the hammered beach, when
they ran into the first of the ice. The grey day was almost over, and
the long heave ran sluggishly after them faintly wrinkled here and
there, when creeping through a belt of haze they came into sight of
several blurrs of greyish white that swung with the dim, green swell.
The _Selache_ was slowly lurching over it with everything aloft to the
topsails then. Dampier glanced at the ice disgustedly.

"Earlier than I expected," he said. "Anyway, it's a sure thing there's
plenty more where that came from."

"Big patch away to starboard!" cried a man in the foremast shrouds.

Dampier turned to Wyllard. "What are you going to do?"

"What's most advisable?"

The skipper laughed grimly. "Well," he said, "that's quite simple.
Get out of this, and head her south just as soon as we can, but I guess
that's not quite what