no telling what instant we should be dashed against some drifting
ice-pack. The tremendous swells would heave us up to the very
peaks of mountainous waves, then plunge us down into the depths
of the sea's trough as if our fishing-sloop were a fragile shell.
Gigantic white-capped waves, like veritable walls, fenced us
in, fore and aft.

This terrible nerve-racking ordeal, with its nameless horrors of
suspense and agony of fear indescribable, continued for more than
three hours, and all the time we were being driven forward at
fierce speed. Then suddenly, as if growing weary of its frantic
exertions, the wind began to lessen its fury and by degrees to
die down.

At last we were in a perfect calm. The fog mist had also
disappeared, and before us lay an iceless channel perhaps ten or
fifteen miles wide, with a few icebergs far away to our right,
and an intermittent archipelago of smaller ones to the left.

I watched my father closely, determined to remain silent until he
spoke. Presently he untied the rope from his waist and, without
saying a word, began working the pumps, which fortunately were
not damaged, relieving the sloop of the water it had shipped
in the madness of the storm.

He put up the sloop's sails as calmly as if casting a
fishing-net, and then remarked that we were ready for a favoring
wind when it came. His courage and persistence were truly
remarkable.