Though they were born to lives of hardship and peril, though they had long been used to the chances of the sea, not one of the castaways had ever before fallen into a predicament so barren of hope. Flung on an iceberg, adrift on the wild North Atlantic, derelict where no ships passed, at the mercy of the capricious winds, without food or fire: there seemed to be no possibility of escape. But for a time they did not despair; and, moreover, for a time each felt it a high duty to make light of the situation, to joke of cold-storage and polar bears, that the spirits of the others might be encouraged. As dusk approached, however, the ghastly humour failed. Ruin, agony, grief, imminent death; in the moody silence, they dwelt, rather, upon these things.
It was not yet dark when a faint shock, a hardly perceptible shiver, a crash from aloft, a subsiding rumble, apprised the castaways of a portentous change of condition.
It was a cruelly anxious moment. Only the event itself would determine whether or not the berg was to turn turtle. They waited.
"She's grounded, I 'low!" exclaimed the skipper.
There was no further disturbance. Whatever had happened, the equilibrium of the berg had been maintained.
"I'm thinkin'," said the skipper, "that I'll take a little look about."
The skipper's "little look about" developed what appeared to be a saving opportunity. The berg had grounded; it had also jammed a wandering pack of drift-ice against the land. What that shore was, whether mainland or island, the skipper did not wait to ascertain; it was sufficient for him to know that the survivors of the _Fish Killer_ might escape from a disintegrating berg to solid ground.
He returned, breathless, with the enlivening news; and in lively fashion, which almost approached a panic, the castaways abandoned the berg. It was a hard, painful, dangerous scramble, made in the failing light, and the cook had an unwelcome bath in the icy water between two pans; but it had a successful issue. Before dark, they were all ashore--more hopeful, now, than they had been, but still staring death in the face.
So curious was Skipper Libe that, taking advantage of the last of the light, he set out to discover the character of the refuge. He returned discouraged.