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Updated: June 8, 2025
A sharp breeze sprang up abeam, and M. Radisson ordered a blanket sail hoisted on the steersman's fishing-pole. But if you think that he permitted idle paddles because a wind would do the work, you know not the ways of the great explorer. He bade us ply the faster, till the canoe sped between earth and sky like an arrow shot on the level. The shore-line became a blur.
My father and I sat on the steersman's bench aft, not heeding the showers of spray that reached us now and then even there, and we watched the tide rising over the sand banks, and longed for home and warm fireside, instead of this cold, gray sky and the restless waves; though I, at least, was half sorry that the short voyage was over, dreaming of the next and whither we might turn our ship's bows again before the summer ended.
Bohannan angrily pushed the spokes over again the other way. "I stick!" he growled. "I've said the last word of this sort you'll ever hear me utter. Full speed ahead to Paradise or Hell!" They said no more. The launch split her way swiftly toward the north. By the vague, ghostly shimmer of light upon the waters, a tense smile appeared on the steersman's lips.
At last, half envying him the task of passing a good deal of the night on deck, I took a look round. The saloon-lights were out, and there was no one there; the sailing-lights were up in their places, and the faint glow rose from about the binnacle, just faintly showing the steersman's face.
So eager and terrified was she, that but for the old steersman's peremptory steadiness, her own life and theirs would have been in much peril, but she was safely seated at last, gasping out, "The Red Cloud, Captain Karen. They've been gone these ten minutes."
The paddle rose and dipped with a faint swish, swish, and the steersman's twist of it was taken up by the man's strong wrist so it did not click against the gunwale; the bow of the craft divided the waters with a murmuring so faint as to seem but the echo of a silence. Neither spoke.
That decided her. Coke, if he were not killed, would surely be driven out. She sprang to her feet, and literally ran down the steep ladder to the saloon deck. Through the open door of the officers' mess she witnessed another bizarre act an act quite as extraordinary in its way as Coke's jump over the steersman's body.
The sea was strewn with blocks and bergs, all hurrying onwards in the strong currents, as if in haste to escape the pursuing demon of frost that should re-fetter them; and their multitude kept the steersman's arms spinning till the man would fall half-fainting over the spoke-handles. "Now, one morning early in September, a dense bright fog dropped suddenly upon the waters.
So everything went quietly until after we had our midday meal. We were all amidships on the wide deck, except my father and Arngeir, who sat side by side on the steersman's bench on the high poop. There was no spray coming on board, for we were running, and the ship was very steady.
When he was about midship and was preparing to reach for her chain, the steersman's bell rang a signal to the engineer, her wheel began to revolve and she slipped by him out of danger, of which those on board were unconscious. Paul was terribly discomfited at the result of that attempt which was so near being successful.
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