232 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
and forced her into a small opening. While doing this, 
and before the vessel had moved half her length, an im- 
pending mass of ice and snow fell in her wake. Had this 
fallen only a few seconds earlier, it must have crushed 
the vessel to atoms.” 
For days the ship remained in the direst peril, labour- 
ing frightfully in the trough of the heavy sea, grinding 
and striking against the masses of ice, while her boats 
made desperate efforts to plant the ice-anchors to control 
