over her. On one frightful night, when they expected their hulk to turn
over with them every moment, a heavy sea broke on board, deluged the
store-rooms and spoiled the best part of the remaining provisions. It
seems the hatch had not been properly secured. This instance of neglect
is characteristic of utter discouragement. Falk tried to inspire some
energy into his captain, but failed. From that time he retired more into
himself, always trying to do his utmost in the situation. It grew worse.
Gale succeeded gale, with black mountains of water hurling themselves on
the Borgmester Dahl. Some of the men never left their bunks; many became
quarrelsome. The chief engineer, an old man, refused to speak at all to
anybody. Others shut themselves up in their berths to cry. On calm days
the inert steamer rolled on a leaden sea under a murky sky, or showed,
in sunshine, the squalor of sea waifs, the dried white salt, the rust,
the jagged broken places. Then the gales came again. They kept body and
soul together on short rations. Once, an English ship, scudding in a
storm, tried to stand by them, heaving-to pluckily under their lee. The
seas swept her decks; the men in oilskins clinging to her rigging looked
at them, and they made desperate signs over their shattered bulwarks.
Suddenly her main-topsail went, yard and all, in a terrific squall; she
had to bear up under bare poles, and disappeared.

Other ships had spoken them before, but at first they had refused to be
taken off, expecting the assistance of some steamer. There were very few
steamers in those latitudes then; and when they desired to leave this
dead and drifting carcase, no ship came in sight. They had drifted south
out of men's knowledge. They failed to attract the attention of a lonely
whaler, and very soon the edge of the polar ice-cap rose from the sea
and closed the southern horizon like a wall. One morning they were
alarmed by finding themselves floating amongst detached pieces of ice.
But the fear of sinking passed away like their vigour, like their hopes;