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We waited for some hours in the ice, but no answering signal came, so the Captain decided to turn back, as he thought it impossible to force his way through the ice. We therefore went back again on our course, the Captain hoping that the wind would change and cease blowing the icefloes from off the shores of Greenland. That morning is unforgettable.
I passed within twenty miles of Niagara; I saw the serried icefloes sweeping down from Lake Erie to the cataract; and I did not go to see them plunge over. In the first place, I had been there before; in the second place, I should have had to sacrifice six hours of Chicago, where I wanted, not six hours less, but six weeks more.
Scaring the wolf-cub, Scaring the horn-owl out, Shaking the snow-wreaths Down from the pine-boughs, Up to the star-roof Rang out their song. Singing how Winil men Over the icefloes Sledging from Scanland on Came unto Scoring; Singing of Gambara Freya's beloved. Mother of Ayo Mother of Ibor.
Even the Captain's dog was more comfortable than we were! On the morning of February 7th we for the first time encountered icefloes, when attempting the northern passage between Greenland and Iceland. About 11 a.m. we stopped and hooted for the Wolf, as a fog had come on the first time we had heard a steamer's siren since the day of our capture.
The legends are given for what they are worth. There is no need to relate the fate of the mutineers. The fate of mutineers is the same the world over. They quarrelled among themselves. They lost themselves among the icefloes. When they found their way back through the straits all provisions were exhausted. While they were prisoners in the icefloes, scurvy assailed the crew.
Christianity was precisely the principle which set itself to work against this savagery; just as later, through the whole of the Middle Age, the Church and its hierarchy were most necessary to set limits to the savage barbarism of those masters of violence, the princes and knights: it was what broke up the icefloes in that mighty deluge.
Ootah pointed to Venus, the brightest of the stars to the Eskimos an old man who waits by a blow-hole in the heavenly icefloes and listens for the breathing of seals. "Thou wilt come to Ootah, who loves thee? Answer, Annadoah! Ootah listens." He soothed her little hands. A wondrous light burned in his eyes. Every fibre of his being yearned for her.
He was going home a failure, balked, beaten, thrown back by the waves that had been beating the icefloes to the mournful call of the desolate wind all winter. There were tears in the eyes of the old captain as he handed out the last of the bread. Any one who has watched what snapping mongrels do when the big dog goes down, need not be told what happened now.
At daylight on the 11th we were still among icefloes, but going away from instead of meeting them, and on that morning we saw in the distance the coast of Iceland, which the Germans tried to persuade us was the sails of fishing boats, as they did not wish us to think we were so near the Icelandic coast, the first land that we had seen since the Maldive Islands, a week after our capture, i.e. more than four months before.
The wind proved perverse. Icefloes, driving towards the south end of the Bay, delayed the sloops. Again Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville could not constrain patience to await the favour of wind and weather. With crews of voyageurs he pushed off from the ship in two canoes. Fog fell.
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