162 THE WHALEMAN ; OR, 



frozen to death ; his mortal life had fled ; his 

 spirit had gone to God, who gave it ! 



In the winding sheet of drifting snow we let 

 him remain. What a scene that was to us ! 

 We were struggling for life amid elements of 

 destruction such as but few of our countrymen 

 ever witnessed, and, we trust, never will. 



Only two of us were now left to pursue our 

 sad, and in some respects almost hopeless, jour- 

 ney. It seems quite incredible that we should 

 have had any courage to make another ef- 

 fort in struggling forward, after what we had 

 just witnessed, and that, at once, we should not 

 have surrendered ourselves to the fate which ap- 

 peared to follow and surround us. 



The captain said to Cox, his only remaining 

 companion, " The best foot forward now, or we 

 shall be left out here ; and to be out one more 

 night, we are gone." 



Having traveled two or three miles, as we 

 should judge, from the place where our shipmate 

 died, we discovered something in the distance, 

 from one to two miles, skimming along appar- 

 ently on the ice, which at first had the appear- 

 ance of a flock of crows. Cox said to the cap- 

 tain, " The crows have come for us already." 

 But upon further inspection, and the object ap- 

 proaching nearer, it turned out to be four or five 



