stood at the helm, and although no steering was required, as there was no wind, he kept his hands on the spokes of the wheel, and glanced occasionally at the compass. The first mate, who had the watch on deck, was up at the masthead, observing the state of the ice.
“How glorious!” exclaimed the youth, as he swept his sparkling eye round the horizon. “Ah, Croft! is not this splendid?”
“So it is, sir,” said the seaman, turning the large quid of tobacco that bulged out his left cheek. “It’s very beautiful, no doubt, but it’s comin’ rather thick for my taste.”
“How so?” inquired Gregory. “There seems to me plenty of open water to enable us to steer clear of these masses. Besides, as we have no wind, it matters little, I should think, whether we have room to sail or not.”
“You’ve not seed much o’ the ice yet, that’s plain,” said Croft, “else you’d know that the floes are closin’ round us, an’ we’ll soon be fast in the pack, if a breeze don’t spring up to help us.”
As the reader may not, perhaps, understand the terms used by Arctic voyagers in regard to the ice in its various forms, it may be as well here to explain the meaning of those most commonly used.
When ice is seen floating in small detached pieces and scattered masses, it is called “floe” ice, and men speak of getting among the floes. When these floes close up, so that the whole sea seems to be covered with them, and little water can be seen, it is called “pack” ice. When the pack is squeezed together, so that lumps of it are forced up in the form of rugged mounds, these mounds are called “hummocks.” A large mass of flat ice, varying from one mile to many miles in extent, is called a “field,” and a mountain of ice is called a “berg.”
All the ice here spoken of, except the berg, is sea-ice; formed by the freezing of the ocean in winter. The berg is formed in a very different manner. Of this more shall be said in a future chapter.
“Well, my lad,” said Gregory, in reply to Jim Croft’s last observation, “I have not seen much of the ice yet, as you truly remark, so I hope that the wind will not come to help us out of it for some time. You don’t think it dangerous to get into the pack, do you?”
“Well, not exactly dangerous, sir,” replied Croft, “but I must say that it aint safe, ’specially when there’s a swell on like this. But that’ll go down soon. D’ye know what a nip is, Dr Gregory?”
“I think I do; at least I have read of such a thing. But I should be very glad to hear what you have to say about it. No doubt you have felt one.”
“Felt one!” cried Jim, screwing up his face and drawing his limbs together, as if he were suffering horrible pain, “no, I’ve never felt one. The man what feels a nip aint likely to live to tell what his feelin’s was. But I’ve seed one.”
“You’ve seen one, have you? That must have been interesting. Where was it?”
“Not very far from the Greenland coast,” said Croft, giving his quid another turn. “This was the way of it. You must know that there was two ships of us in company at the time. Whalers we was. We got into the heart of the pack somehow, and we thought we’d never get out of it again. There was nothin’ but ice all round us as far as the eye could see. The name of our ship was the Nancy. Our comrade was the Bullfinch. One mornin’ early we heard a loud noise of ice rubbin’ agin the sides o’ the ship, so we all jumped up, an’ on deck as fast as we could, for there’s short time given to save ourselves in them seas sometimes. The whole pack, we found, was in motion, and a wide lead of water opened up before us, for all the world like a smooth river or canal windin’ through the pack. Into this we warped the ship, and hoistin’ sail, steered away cheerily. We passed close to the Bullfinch, which was still hard and fast in the pack, and we saw that her crew were sawin’ and cuttin’ away at the ice, tryin’ to get into the lead that we’d got into. So we hailed them, and said we would wait for ’em outside the pack, if we got through. But the words were no sooner spoken, when the wind it died away, and we were becalmed about half a mile from the Bullfinch.
“‘You’d better go down to breakfast, boys,’ says our captain, says he, ‘the breeze won’t be long o’ comin’ again.’
“So down the men went, and soon after that the steward comes on deck, and, says he to the captain, ‘Breakfast, sir.’ ‘Very good,’ says the captain, and down he went too, leavin’ me at the wheel and the mate in charge of the deck. He’d not been gone three minutes when I noticed that the great field of ice on our right was closin’ in on the field on our left, and the channel we was floatin’ in was closin’ up. The mate noticed it, too, but he wouldn’t call the captain ’cause the ice came so slowly and quietly on that for a few minutes we could hardly believe it was movin’ and everything around us looked so calm and peaceful like that it was difficult to believe our danger was so great. But this was only a momentary feelin’, d’ye see. A minute after that the mate he cries down to the captain:—
“‘Ice closin’ up, sir!’
“And the captain he runs on deck. By this time there was no mistake about it; the ice was close upon us. It was clear that we were to have a nip. So the captain roars down the hatchway, ‘Tumble up there! tumble up! every man alive! for your lives!’ And sure enough they did tumble up, as I never seed ’em do it before—two or three of ’em was sick; they came up with their clothes in their hands. The ice was now almost touchin’ our sides, and I tell you, sir, I never did feel so queerish in all my life before as when I looked over the side at the edge of that great field of ice which rose three foot out o’ the water, and was, I suppose, six foot more below the surface. It came on so slow that we could hardly see the motion. Inch by inch the water narrowed between it and our sides. At last it touched on the left side, and that shoved us quicker on to the field on our right. Every eye was fixed on it—every man held his breath. You might have heard a pin fall on the deck. It touched gently at first, then there was a low grindin’ and crunchin’ sound. The ship trembled as if it had been a livin’ creetur, and the beams began to crack. Now, you must know, sir, that when a nip o’ this sort takes a ship the ice usually eases off, after giving her a good squeeze, or when the pressure is too much for her, the ice slips under her bottom and lifts her right out o’ the water. But our Nancy was what we call wall-sided. She was never fit to sail in them seas. The consequence was that the ice crushed her sides in. The moment the captain heard the beams begin to go he knew it was all up with the ship; so he roared to take to the ice for our lives! You may be sure we took his advice. Over the side we went, every man Jack of us, and got on the ice. We did not take time to save an article belongin’ to us; and it was as well we did not, for the ice closed up with a crash, and we heard the beams and timbers rending like a fire of musketry in the hold. Her bottom must have been cut clean away, for she stood on the ice just as she had floated on the sea. Then the noise stopped, the ice eased off, and the ship began to settle. The lead of water opened up again; in ten minutes after that the Nancy went to the bottom and left us standing there on the ice.
“It was the mercy of God that let it happen so near the Bullfinch. We might have been out o’ sight o’ that ship at the time, and then every man of us would have bin lost. As it was, we had a hard scramble over a good deal of loose ice, jumpin’ from lump to lump, and some of us fallin’ into the water several times, before we got aboard. Now that was a bad nip, sir, warn’t it?”
“It certainly was,” replied Gregory; “and although I delight in being among the ice, I sincerely hope that our tight little brig may not be tried in the same way. But she is better able to stand it, I should think.”
“That she is, sir,” replied Croft, with much confidence. “I seed her in dock, sir, when they was a-puttin’ of extra timbers on the bow, and
