act rolled and heaved a chaos of mealy
sludge and gigantic fragments, while from time to time a mass of many
tons would be thrown, like a child's plaything, high up amid the debris
already heaped along the inaccessible shore. Half a dozen times the
startled voyagers seized their boat to drag her down from the berg, as
the shore-ice gnawed into the sides of their narrowing ice-field.

At last a move appeared inevitable. The distance between their refuge
and the shore was less than fifty yards, and in the gray of the morning
they saw castle after castle crushed off by this fearful attrition,
while high above their heads rose the ruin-strewed and inhospitable
ice-foot.

"Stand by, lads, to move the boats, when I give the word. Look, Regnar!
What is that above the cliff?"

"That a light-house, I think. Guess that on Cape Torment. No light there
in winter; not many vessels here then."

"Yes, we are passing the capes, and not a mile distant is the hostelry
of Tom Allan. Well, we can't land, that's certain; and as we can't, I
hope we shall soon get into a wider channel. How the trees fly past! Ah,
here the pressure lessens; we shall soon be above the narrows, and if
the tide only serves--Good Heaven! what is that?"

An eddy seemed to catch the floe as he spoke, and whirling like a top,
it brought between it and the shore a fantastically-shaped berg, at
least twenty-five feet high. The "nip" was but momentary; but the lofty
shaft and its floating base cracked like a mirror, the huge fabric fell
into ruins, and one of its pieces, striking the smaller boat, crushed it
into utter uselessness.

La Salle viewed the wreck of his little bark ruefully a moment.

"Well, the worst is over, and we are fortunate in losing so little, for
it might have struck the larger boat, and that would have been indeed a
loss. Come, boys, we have passed Cape Torment; let us pick some of those
birds and get breakfast, for we shan't land this day, with an easterly
gale hurrying the ice-pack thus to the north-west."

CHAPTER XI.

TAKING AN INVENTORY.--SETTING UP THE STOVE.

Peter was already picking a dead goose, and Regnar and Waring were about
to follow his example, when La Salle interposed.

"Let us skin the birds, for it may be that we shall be unable to land
for several days, and if so, we shall need all the covering we can get,
for this thaw is sure to be followed by a severe frost or two."

"Sposum tide turn, ice lun down to ca