Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 2.djvu/320

 in sight where he found shelter, and which he called Port Kennedy.

Bellot's Strait is about a mile wide and seventeen long, with a current running from six to seven knots. It is encased in mountains calculated at 1600 feet high. The Forward had to proceed cautiously, but still she made progress. Storms are frequent in such a narrow space, and the brig did not escape heavy seas and strong squalls of wind. In spite of every precaution taken by the captain in reefing and lowering masts and sails, it was a fatiguing strain on the ship. It was impossible almost to stand on deck, and most of the men studied their own comfort, and went off, leaving Hatteras with Shandon and Johnson. The little Doctor did not feel any more inclination than the sailors to brave the snow and rain, but, acting on his old rule, always to do that which is most disagreeable to him, he went up to bear the others company; and since he could not hear himself speak, and even barely see himself, he was obliged to keep his reflections for his own benefit.

He found Hatteras trying to pierce through the curtain of fog before him, for, according to his reckoning, they ought to have come to the end of the strait by six o'clock; but no outlet was visible, and the only thing that could be done was to anchor the ship fast to an iceberg, and wait till morning.

It was fearful weather; every instant it seemed as if the Forward would snap her chains, and there was great danger of the iceberg itself giving way beneath the violence of the west wind, and drifting along, ship and all. The officers were on the qui vive the whole night, and felt the gravest apprehensions. There was not only a perfect waterspout of snow, but showers of hail lashed up by the hurricane from the ice-fields; the whole atmosphere was, as it were, bristling with sharp arrows.

Strangely enough, there was a great rise in the temperature during this fearful night. The thermometer stood at 57°, and the Doctor, to his great surprise, thought he saw several flashes of lightning in the south, followed by very distant thunder.

About five in the morning, the weather changed again with astonishing rapidity, and the thermometer fell to freezing point. The wind veered north, and became calm. The