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Updated: June 23, 2025
Well, to cut this part of the story short, Sweers and I dropped into the lazarette, and after spending an hour or two in examining what we met with, we discovered enough provisions, along with some casks of rum and bottled beer, to last a ship's company of twenty men a whole six months. This was Sweers' reckoning.
Before the dawn broke we had run the ice out of sight. Sweers and I managed, as I have no doubt, to arrive at the theory of the liberation of the ship by comparing our sensations and experiences. There can be no question that the berg had split in twain almost amidships. This was the cause of the tremendous noise of thunder which I heard.
Sweers was silent until we had gained the cabin and lighted the lamp. He then looked at me with an ashen face, and groaned. "This gale's going to blow the schooner away," said he. "We're lost men, David. I'd give my right eye to be aboard the Lightning. D'ye understand the trick of these blooming icebergs? They wash away underneath, grow topheavy, and then over goes the show.
Yet he spoke English with as good an accent as ever one could hear in the mouth of an Englishman; and, indeed, I pay Salamon Sweers no compliment by saying this, for he employed his h's correctly, and the grammar of his sentences was fairly good, albeit salt: and how many Englishmen are there who correctly employ the letter h, and whose grammar is fairly good, salt or no salt?
Our main and imminent danger lay in the sudden dissolution of the ice, or in the capsizal of the berg. It was our unhappy fortune that, numerous as were the cranes overhanging the whaler's side, we should not have found a boat left in one of them. Our only chance lay in a raft; but both Sweers and I, as sailors, shrank from the thought of such a means of escape.
We then sounded the well, and, finding no water, went to work to loose the foresail and foretopsail, which canvas we made shift to set with the aid of the capstan. I then lighted the binnacle lamp whilst Sweers held the wheel; and having sounded the well afresh, to make sure of the hull, we headed away to the eastwards, the wind being about W.S.W.
Under Mount Inspection, a hill 105 feet high, and the most remarkable feature hereabouts, on the South-East extreme of Sweers Island, a party of twelve natives was observed as we passed. They gazed silently at us, making no demonstration of joy, fear, anger, or surprise.
It was somewhere about the end of a fortnight, as I have said. My bed was a cabin locker, on which I had placed a mattress and a bear-skin. Both Sweers and I turned in of a night, unless it was clear weather; though if I awoke I'd sometimes steal on deck to take a peep, for nothing could come of our keeping a look-out if it was blowing hard, and if it was black and thick.
"She's a barque," I heard Mr. Sweers say. "I see that," said the captain. "She's got a pretty strong list," continued the mate, talking with the glass at his eye; "her topgallantmasts are struck, but her topmasts are standing."
"We must have a light anyhow," said Sweers, "and if this President be a whaler, there should be no lack of oil aboard." After groping awhile in some shelves stocked with black-handled knives and forks, tin dishes, pannikins, and the like, I put my hand upon a stump of candle-end.
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