Chapter 14 - Page 2

go over that there ice. If we are to put back, there is not a moment
to lose, for it may be even now questioned whether the ship would
claw off, as we are, with a sending sea, and this heavy norther."

I believe I would, at that moment, gladly have given up all my
social stakes to be well rid of the adventure. Still pride, that
substitute for so many virtues, the greatest and the most potent of
all hypocrites, forbade my betraying the desire to retreat. I
deliberated, while the ship flew; and when, at length, I turned to
the captain to suggest a doubt that might, at an earlier notice,
possibly have changed the whole aspect of affairs, he bluntly told
me it was too late. It was safer to proceed than to return, if
indeed, return were possible, in the present state of the winds and
waves. Making a merit of necessity, I braced my nerves to meet the
crisis, and remained a submissive, and, apparently, a calm spectator
of that which followed.

The Walrus (such was the name of our good ship) by this time was
under easy canvas, and yet, urged by the gale, she rolled down with
alarming velocity towards the boundary of foam where the congealed
and the still liquid element held their strife. The summits of the
frozen crags waved in their glittering glory in a way just to show
that they were afloat; and I remembered to have heard that, at
times, as their bases melted, entire mountains had been known to
roll over, engulfing all that lay beneath. To me it seemed but a
moment, before the ship was fairly overshadowed by these shining
cliffs, which, gently undulating, waved their frozen summits nearly
a thousand feet in air. I looked at Noah, in alarm, for it appeared
to me that he intentionally precipitated us to destruction. But,
just as I was about to remonstrate, he made a sign with his hand,
and the vessel was brought to the wind. Still retreat was
impossible; for the heave of the sea was too powerful, and the wind
too heavy, to leave us any hope of long keeping the Walrus from
drifting down upon the ragged peaks that bristled in icy glory to
leeward. Nor did Captain Poke himself seem to entertain any such
design; for, instead of hugging the gale, in order to haul off from
the danger, he had caused the yards to be laid perfectly square, and
we were now running, at a great rate, in a line nearly parallel with
the frozen coast, though gradually setting upon it.

"Keep full! Let her go through water, you Jim Tiger," said the old
sealer, whose professional ardor was fairly aroused. "Now, Sir John,
unluckily, we are on the wrong side of these ice mountains, for the
plain reason that Leaphigh lies to the south'ard of them. We must be
stirring, therefore, for no craft that was ever