Page:Letters from New Zealand (Harper).djvu/100

82 rushed to help the men at the wheel, shouting, "Hard aport," and the next minute, sheering off, the vessel heeled over so that the main yard nearly touched the water, and we swept past a great flat floe, hundreds of yards in length, about twelve feet out of the water, and very broad, so close that I could have thrown a stone on it. Had we run upon it, stern on, we must have gone to the bottom. Then came fierce, blinding snow squalls, and, fearing the chance of other ice, the Captain, without shortening sail, threw the vessel up into the wind, in order to lie to. Crack went the main and fore topsails, split in pieces, with loud reports, the remnants of the canvas flung hither and thither, breaking loose from the lower yards with a noise like volleys of musketry. With great difficulty and splendid daring, sailors climbed the ice-bound rigging, and. somehow, at last managed to cut the wreckage clear of the yards; every moment I expected to see them hurled into the sea from their perilous perch on the frozen spars; the hatches were battened down, and the vessel lay helpless, tossed like a mere walnut shell, as the huge waves lifted her on high and then let her sink into the valleys beneath, drenching everything and everyone with tons of spray, against which it was impossible to stand without a firm grip of rail or rope.

I went down into the first saloon. Panic reigned; all the women kind had left their cabins, and were huddled together in the two spacious stern staterooms, on the floor, with mattresses and blankets, kindly brought there by the stewards. It calmed them a little to hear that there was no immediate danger, and I promised to be up and down on the deck, and to bring them word from time to time how