"Keep her full. Don't check her way. That won't do now," I said
warningly.

"I can't see the sails very well," the helmsman answered me, in strange,
quavering tones.

Was she close enough? Already she was, I won't say in the shadow of the
land, but in the very blackness of it, already swallowed up as it were,
gone too close to be recalled, gone from me altogether.

"Give the mate a call," I said to the young man who stood at my elbow as
still as death. "And turn all hands up."

My tone had a borrowed loudness reverberated from the height of the
land. Several voices cried out together: "We are all on deck, sir."

Then stillness again, with the great shadow gliding closer, towering
higher, without a light, without a sound. Such a hush had fallen on
the ship that she might have been a bark of the dead floating in slowly
under the very gate of Erebus.

"My God! Where are we?"

It was the mate moaning at my elbow. He was thunderstruck, and as it
were deprived of the moral support of his whiskers. He clapped his hands
and absolutely cried out, "Lost!"

"Be quiet," I said, sternly.

He lowered his tone, but I saw the shadowy gesture of his despair. "What
are we doing here?"

"Looking for the land wind."

He made as if to tear his hair, and addressed me recklessly.

"She will never get out. You have done it, sir. I knew it'd end in
something like this. She will never weather, and you are too close now
to stay. She'll drift ashore before she's round. Oh my God!"

I caught his arm as he was raising it to batter his poor devoted head,
and shook it violently.

"She's ashore already," he wailed, trying to tear himself away.

"Is she?... Keep good full there!"

"Good full, sir," cried the helmsman in a frightened, thin, childlike
voice.

I hadn't let go the mate's arm and went on shaking it. "Ready about,
do you hear? You go forward"--shake--"and stop there"--shake--"and hold
your noise"--shake--"and see these head-sheets properly
overhauled"--shake, shake--shake.

And all the time I dared not look towards the land lest my heart should
fail me. I released my grip at last and he ran forward as if fleeing for
dear life.

I wondered what my double there in the sail locker thought of this
commotion. He was able to hear everything--and perhaps he was able to
understand why, on my conscience, it had to be thus close--no less. My
first order "Hard alee!" re-echoed ominously under the towering shadow
of Koh-ring as