The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1888-08-17
CHAPTER XIII.
THE ICE FREAKS AWAY.

my mind, under a great surprise, ana was
not sleepy. filed a pipe, made me little
pannikin of punch, and sat down before the
fire to think If ever l had suspected the
accuracy of my conjecture that the French
mans sudden astonishing indispoSition was
the effect of his extreme age coming upon
him and breaking down the artificial vitality
with which he had bristled into life under
my hands, l must have found fifty signs to
set my misgivings mt rest i'm his dro wsiness,
nodding, bowed form, weakness, his tottering
and trembling, and other features of his
latest behavior. Ii l was right, then had
reason to be thankful Ia Almighty God for
this unparalleled and most happy dispense
ton; for now / should have nothing to fear
from the old rogue's vindictiveness and hor-
rid greed
Thus I sat for an hour smoking and wet
ting my lips with the punch, while the fire
burned low, so eXulting in the thought of my
escape from the treacherous villain had re-
covered from the grave, and in the feeling
that / might now be able to go to rest, to
move here and there, to act ms | pleased
without being haunted and terrified by the
shadow of his foul intent, that l hardly gave
my mind for moment to the situation of
the schooner nor to the barren consequences
of my fine scheme of mines.
The wind blew strong. l could hear the
humming of it in every fiber of the vessel.
The bed on which she rested trembled To the
blows of the seas upon the rocks From
time to time, in the midst of my musinG, L
started TO the sharp claps of parted ice. Still
feeling sleepless threw few Goals on the
fire, and, catching sight of the pirate flag,
opened it on the deck as wide as the space
md 70 70
the hideous insignia embroidered on it. My
mind filled with a hundred fancieS us my
gaze went from the skull on the black field
to the deaths head pipe that had fallen from
the grasp of Tassard and lay on the deck :;
and was sitting lost in deep dream like
contemplation, when l was startled and
shocked into instantaneous activity by a
blast of noise, louder than any thunder clap
that ever l heard, ringing and booming
through the schooner. This was followed by
a second and then third, at intervals dur
ing which you might have counted ten, and
l became sensible of n strange, sickening
motion, which lasted about twenty or thirty
moments, such as might be experienced by
one swiftly descending in a balloon, or in
falling from height while pent up in a
coach.
For a little while the schooner heeled over
so violently that the benches and all things
movable i'll the cook room slid as far as they
could 60, and l heard n great chatter and
commotion among the freight in the hold.
She thencame upright again, and simultane-
ously with this a vast mass of water tum-
bled on to the deck and washed over my
head, and then fell another and then an
other, all in such a way as to make me know
that the ice had broken and slipped the
schooner close to the ocean, where she lay ex-
posed to its surges-but not free of the ice,
for she did not toss or roll.
l seized the lantern and sprang to the
cabin, where l hung it up, and mounted the
companion steps. But as put my hand to
the door to thrust it open a sea broke over
the side and filled the decks, bubbling and
laundering past the companion hatch in such
a way as to advise me that need but open
the door to drown the cabin. | waited my
heart beating very hard, mad to see what
had happened, but not daring to trust myself
on deck lest l should be Immediately swept
into the sea.
Half an hour must have passed, during
which time the decks were necessarily swept
by the seas, insomuch that / never once
burst open the door, even to look out But
nothing having happened to increase my
movement in the schooner was that Of a very
ponderous and majestical rolling and heav-
ing, showing her bed to be afloat, began to
find my spirits, and to listen and wait with
some buildings of hope and confidence. At
the expiration of this time the seas began to
fall less heavily and regularly on to the deck,
and presently could only hear them break
ing forward, but without quarter of their
former weight, and nothing worse came aft
than large, brisk showers of spray.
/ armed myself with additional clothing
for the encounter of the wet, cold and wind,
and then pushed open the door and stepped
forth. The sky was dark with rolling clouds,
but the ice put its own light into the air, and
/ could see as plain as if the first of the dawn
had broken. 1t was as l had supposed; the
mass of the valley in which the schooner had
been sepulchred for eight and forty years
had come away from the main, and lay float
ing within cables length of the coast A
stranger, more wonderful picture human eye
never beheld. The island shore ran a ram
part of faintness along the darkness to where
it died out in liquid dust to right and left.
The schooner sat Eupon n bed of ice that
showed a surface of about half an acre; her
stern was close to the sea, and about six feet
above it. On her larboard quarter the slope
or shoulder of the ACTIVITY had been broken
by the rupture, and you looked over the side
into the clear sea beyond the limit of the ice
there; but abreast of the foreshrouds the ice
lose in a kind of wall, great splinter it
looked of what was before a small broad
browed hill, and the wind or the sea having
caused the body on which the schooner lay to
veer this wall stood as a shield betwixt the
vessel and the surges, and was now receiving
those blows which had heretofore struck
her starboad side amidships and filled her
decks.
The wind blew from the southwest, but the
trend OF the island coast was northeast; and
as the mass of ice was upon, in parting
from the main, had foated to q cables
length from the cliffs there was not much
danger, while the wind and sea held, of the
berg Gf 1 may SO term it being thrown upon
the island. That the ice under the schooner
was moving, and if so at what rate, it was
too dark to enable me to know by observing
the marks on the coast. There was to be no
sleep for me that night, and, knowing this,
stepped below and built up good fire, and
then went with the lantern to see how Tas-
sard did, and to give him the news; but he
was in so deep sleep that after pulling him
a little without awakening him / let him lie,
nothing but the sound of his breathing per-
suading me that he had not lapSed into his
old frozen state again.
OF oil long nights this was the longest l
ever passed through. l did truly believe
that the day was never to break again over
the ocean.
All night kept the fire going, and on sew
eral occasions visited the Frenchman, but
found him motionless in sleep.
AT last the day broke l went on deck and
found the dawn Frightening into morning.
The wind had fallen, and with it the sea; but
there still ran middling strong surge, and
che breeze was such as, In sailors language,
you would have shown your topgallantsails
to- could now take measure of our situa-
ton, and was not a little astonished and de-
lighted to observe the island to be at least a
mile distant from us, and the northeast end
lying very plain, the ocean showing beyond
it, though in the southwest the ice died out
upon the sea line. That we had been set
away from the main by some current was
very certain. There was a westerly ten
dency in all the bergs which broke from the
island, the small ones moving more quickly
than the large; for the sea in the north and
west was dotted with at least fifty of these
white masses, great and little. On the other
hand, the wind and seas were answerable fol-
tne pIoSTesS We hdu Hldue 10 Jiie hoTLn
The wall of ice, as l call it, that had stood
over against the larboard bow, was gone,
and the seas tumbled, with much heaviness
of froth and much noise, over the ice, past
the bows, and washed past the bends on
either side in froth, rising as high as the
channels. / noticed a great quantity of
broken ice sinking and rising in the dark
green curls of the pillows, and big blocks
would be hurled on to the schooner's bed and
then be swept off, sometimes fetching the
bilge such a thump as seemed to swing bel