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Updated: June 22, 2025
They took the topsails off her, and proceeded cautiously, with two men with logger's pikepoles forward, and another in the eyes of the foremast rigging. As it happened, they struck nothing, and when night came the Selache lay rolling in a heavy, portentous calm.
He waved an arm to the helmsman, who understood that he was to run the schooner in; there was a rattle of blocks as the booms swung out, and as the Selache sped away before the rapidly freshening breeze it seemed to Dampier that he saw the boat hurled upon the ice. Then a blinding haze of snow shut out everything, and he came down with a run.
The Selache swung around, and he gasped with the effort to control her as she drove away furiously into the thickening snow. She was carrying far too much canvas, but they could not heave her to and take it off her now. The boat must be picked up first, and the veins rose swollen to Wyllard's forehead as he struggled with the wheel.
The breeze had, however, freshened before they set it, and there were white caps on the water when the Selache headed for the ice. It had somewhat changed its formation when they approached it, for big masses had become detached from it and were moving out into the open water, while the opening had become perceptibly narrower.
They took off the topsails, and proceeded cautiously, with two men with logger's pikepoles forward, and another in the eyes of the foremast rigging. They struck nothing, fortunately, and when night came the Selache lay rolling in a heavy, portentous calm.
His heart throbbed fast as he realised that behind it lay the inlet into which Dampier had arranged to bring the Selache. He glanced at Lewson, who said nothing, and they plodded forward faster than before. The misty sun was high in the heavens when at length they reached the foot of the steep rise, and Wyllard gasped heavily as they crept up the ascent.
What was as much to the purpose, they had been promised a tempting bonus if the Selache came home successful. While Wyllard pondered upon these things he went to sleep, and slept soundly, as he did the next night, though Dampier expected to raise the beach some time next morning.
The Selache, for the most part, steered herself, lifting buoyantly while the froth came sluicing aft from her tilted bows, falling off a little with a vicious leeward roll when a comber bigger than usual smote her to weather, and coming up again streaming to meet the next.
He obviated that difficulty by dividing his orders among all of them, and buying as little as possible. Dampier proved an adept at the difficult business, and eventually the schooner Selache, painted a pale green, crept out from the Narrows, at dusk one evening, under all plain sail, with her big main-boom making at least a fathom beyond her taffrail.
They gazed at the Selache with grim faces as they pulled away, and Wyllard, who loosed his oar a moment to wave his fur cap when Dampier stood upon her rail, was glad when a fresher rush of the bitter breeze forced him to fix his attention on his task. The boat was heavily loaded, and the tops of the gray seas splashed unpleasantly close about her gunwale.
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