CHAPTER XI 
THE SINKING OF THE KARLVK 
During the night of New Year’s Day we could 
hear, when we were below, a rumbling noise not 
unlike that which one often hears singing along the 
telegraph wires on a country road. The sound 
was inaudible from the deck. It was clear that 
there was tremendous pressure somewhere, though 
there were no visible indications of it in the vicinity 
of the ship. We were practically stationary. Ap¬ 
parently the great field of ice in which we had been 
zigzagging for so many months had finally brought 
up on the shore of Wrangell Island and was com¬ 
paratively at rest, while the running ice outside 
this great field was still in active motion and tended 
to force the ice constantly in the direction of the 
island. 
On Saturday, with a fresh north wind, in spite of 
which ship and ice still remained stationary, the 
rumbling noise could again be heard in the interior 
of the ship. 
On Sunday the fourth there was an increasing 
easterly wind which sent us slowly westward. Evi¬ 
dently we could make no movement towards the 
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