The lad’s terror increased as he witnessed the changed condition of the sea. It seemed to him that the great mass of heavy ice which closed upon the ship on every side must inevitably crush the little vessel and send her to the bottom. As he ran forward, another and heavier shock than any that had preceded sent him sprawling upon the deck.
Paul had scarcely regained his feet when the gruff voice of Captain Bluntt exclaimed:
“Well! Well, lad! And what brings you out o’ your snug berth at this time o’ night?”
“What’s--what’s happened? Are we wrecked?” asked the frightened Paul.
“Wrecked? No, no, lad! Just a bit of ice--just a bit of ice. ’Tis all right, b’y. Go below and sleep. ’Tis wonderful raw above decks for them thin clothes you’re wearin’.”
Paul, dressed only in pajamas, his feet bare, was indeed shivering. Much relieved, he turned down the companionway, glad to tuck himself in his warm berth, presently to fall asleep to the distant, monotonous call of the ice pilot, “Port! Starboard! Port! Starboard!” and in spite of repeated shocks, as the vessel charged the ice, alternately backing and forging ahead at full speed in her attack upon the pack.
The ice was left behind them during the night, and when morning dawned a stiff northeast breeze, cold and damp, had sprung up, and a sea was rising. The ship began to roll disagreeably, and at midday Remington encountered Paul, deathly pale, unsteadily groping his way to his stateroom.
The call had come for dinner, but Paul was not interested, and retired to his berth. The fog mist thickened, and all that afternoon and night the fog horn sounded at regular intervals, a warning to fishing craft of the vessel’s proximity.
For three days Paul, in the throes of seasickness, was unable to leave his berth, but on the morning of the fourth day he reappeared on deck, where his friends greeted him with good-natured jokes.
They were entering Hudson Straits. On their port, near at hand, lay the rocky, verdureless Button Islands, and far to the southward rose the rugged, barren peaks of the Torngaek Mountains in northeastern Labrador. To the northward in hazy outline Resolution Island marked the southern extremity of Baffin Land.
Here and there, spread over the sea, were small vagrant ice pans, messengers from the far Arctic, which gave evidence of the high latitude the ship had attained.