No sooner was Jim Tall at the end of the bowsprit than Bill was underway. The skipper grimly watched his terrified progress.
In turn, Jack Sop scrambled out and dropped to the berg. The schooner was fast receding from the ledge. Alexander Budge, John Swan, Archibald Mann, completing the fishing crew, with the exception of Tom Watt, the first hand, and the skipper, won the ice.
"Tom!" Skipper Libe roared; and you may be sure that Tom Watt waited no longer.
Only the skipper was left. The change from his passive attitude--from his unbending, reposeful attitude, with a hand carelessly laid on the windlass--was so sudden and unequivocal that Jim Tall, the cook, who was ever the wag of the crew, startled even himself with laughter. It was instant. Skipper Libe in a flash turned from a petrified man into a terrified and marvellously agile monkey. He bounded for the bowsprit, nimbly ran the broken length of it, and there stood swaying. The vessel was now so far from the ledge, and so fast receding, that he paused. Delay had but one issue. This was so apparent that horror tied the tongues of the crew. Not a cry of warning was uttered. The situation was too intense, too brief, for utterance.
"Tom," said the skipper to the first hand, "catch!"
"Skipper," said Tom Watt, in the uttermost confusion, an instant later, "glad t' see you! Come in! You isn't a minute too early."
In this way, proceeding with admirable self-possession, the souls aboard the _Fish Killer_ jumped from the frying-pan. Whether or not it was into the fire was not for a moment in doubt. When the schooner had once fairly reached the sea, which immediately happened, she sank. They saw her waver, slowly settle, disappear; when her topmast went tottering under water the end had come.
Whatever may be said of a frying-pan, nobody can accuse the crew of the _Fish Killer_ of having come within reach of a fire. Aboard the berg it was cold--awfully cold. Icebergs carry an atmosphere of that sort even into the Gulf Stream; they radiate cold so effectively that the captains of steamers take warning and evade them. It was cold--very, very cold. There was nothing to temper the numbing bitterness of the situation. And what the night might bring could only be surmised.