Then the shrill cry of "All hands on deck!"
startles the watch below from the bunks.
Anxiously now does the whole ship's company lean
upon the weather-rail and peer out into the thick
air with an earnestness born of terror. "Surely,"
says the master to his mate, "I am past the
Magdalens, and still far from Anticosti, yet we have
breakers; which way can we turn?" The riddle
solves itself; for out of the gloom come whitened
walls, beautiful but terrible to behold.

Those terror-stricken sailors watch the slowly
moving berg as it drifts past their vessel, fearing
that their own ship will be drawn towards it
from the peculiar power of attraction they believe
the iceberg to possess. And as they watch,
against the icy base of the mountain in the sea
the waves beat and break as if expending their
forces upon a rocky shore. Down the furrowed
sides of the disintegrating berg streamlets trickle,
and miniature cascades leap, mingling their
waters with the briny sea. The intruder slowly
drifts out of sight, disappearing in the gloom,
while the sailor thanks his lucky stars that he has
rid himself of another danger. The ill-omened
Anticosti, the graveyard of many seamen, is yet
to he passed. The ship skirts along its southern
shore, a coast destitute of bays or harbors of
any kind, rock-bound and inhospitable.