266 A VOYAGE IN THE NORTH SEAS. 



tedious to narrate their sufferings from cold, wet, and the necessity 

 of using a short allowance, while their work was very fatiguing ; or, 

 to describe their frequent " hair-breadth escapes" from being swamped 

 by eddying winds issuing from confined channels of ice, or upset 

 on floes which lay (though often unseen by the eye) only a few inches 

 beneath the surface, or wedged in among floating ice in a stream, or 

 arrested among sludge, or from the other manifold dangers to which 

 the navigators of the polar seas, in a fog, are necessarily exposed. 

 To all the dangers and discomforts of their situation, were in a short 

 time added the fear of starvation and avowed enmity. Arundel 

 had possession of the provisions ; and the smuggler, from at first 

 expressing his dissatisfaction at the small share he received, at length 

 demanded to have his ration increased. Arundel peremptorily 

 refused his request. " Then, by God ! young fellow, you or I 

 shall go overboard," said the seaman, fiercely rising up from the 

 thoft, and stretching himself as if for a deadly encounter. He 

 stepped forward, and Frank, having given him a warning, at which 

 the desperate ruffian laughed in derision, drew a pistol, and fired. 

 The ball cut off part of the flap of his sou'wester, and grazed the 

 side of his head. He had not expected that any of the fire-arms 

 were in a serviceable state ; he was half staggered by the blow, and 

 seeing another pistol in Arundel's hand, he retired, cursing, to his 

 old station. It wanted but this to complete the utter wretchedness 

 of Frank and his unhappy companion. When over- wrought nature 

 drove him to seek brief repose, he obliged Bill, by threatening to 

 shoot him, to make fast the boat to a berg or floe, and then with a 

 loaded pistol in each hand, he slept in such a position, that, on being 

 aroused by Flora, who watched meantime, he would be ready for 

 instant action. Dreadful were the vigils of the unhappy girl, as she 

 sat gazing perforce on the wakeful gleam of the smuggler's eyes, and 

 was compelled to listen to his horrible blasphemies, fearful every 

 moment that he would spring up and perhaps murder her lover 

 before he could resist. At the portioning out of the scanty pro- 

 visions, too, it was dreadful to mark the increasing ferocity with 

 which the wretch snatched his share, and the envious glances which 

 he cast upon that of his companions. Nor were Flora and Arundel 

 altogether devoid of the same feeling, and they shuddered even, as 

 they pressed their thin lips together, to think that the time might 

 shortly come, when they would look on each other with sensations 

 ten thousands times worse than loathing. It was in whispers of 

 horror that they communicated this hideous fancy to each other, and 

 both resolved that, at the first birth of such sensations, they would 

 destroy themselves ; satisfied that, even in the eye of Infinite Goodness, 

 the deed would be considered one of virtue. 



At length, on the seventh day, as they thought it must be from 

 their obscure reckoning, when the last portion of provision had been 

 consumed, the fog, which had at divers times partially cleared up 

 and then fallen again, suddenly dispersed, and as it retired, 



"Overhead a rainbow, bursting through 

 The scattering clouds, shone spanning the dark sea, 

 Resting its bright base on the quivering blue ; 

 And all within its arch, appeared to be 



