MIST AND ICE. 
205 
the deck of the other. Notwithstanding the great care 
and skill with which the steamer threaded her way 
among the loose floes, it was impossible sometimes to 
prevent fragments of ice striking us with considerable 
violence on the bows; and as we lay in bed at night, 
I confess that until we got accustomed to the noise, it 
was by no means a pleasant thing to hear the pieces 
angrily scraping along the ship’s sides—within two 
inches of our ears. On the evening of the fourth day 
it came on to blow pretty hard, and'at midnight it had 
freshened to half a gale; but by dint of standing well 
away to the eastward we had succeeded in reaching 
comparatively open water, and I had gone to bed in 
great hopes that at all events the breeze would brush 
off the fog, and enable us to see our way a little more 
clearly the next morning. 
At five o’clock A. M. the officer of the watch jumped 
down into my cabin, and awoke me with the news—* 
“That the Frenchman was a-saying summat on his black 
board!” Feeling by the motion that a very heavy 
sea must have been knocked up during the night, I 
began to be afraid that something must have gone 
wrong with the towing-gear, or that a hawser might 
