Under the Great Bear | Page 9

attraction of its great bulk could be overcome, his little raft must
speedily be drawn to it and dashed helplessly against its icy cliffs. This
thought filled him with a momentary despair, for there seemed no
possibility of avoiding the impending fate. Then his eyes fell on a pair
of oars lashed, together with their metal rowlocks, to the sides of his
raft. In another minute he had shipped these and was pulling with all
his might away from that ill-omened neighbourhood.
The progress of his clumsy craft was painfully slow; but it did move,
and at the end the dreaded ice monster was beyond both sight and
hearing. The exercise of rowing had warmed Cabot as well as
temporarily diverted his mind from a contemplation of the terrible
scenes through which he had so recently passed. Now, however, as he
rested on his oars, a full sense of his wretched plight came back to him,
and he grew sick at heart as he realised how forlorn was his situation.
He wondered if he could survive the night that was rapidly closing in
on him, and, if he did, whether the morrow would find him any better
off. He had no idea of the direction in which wind and current were
drifting him, whether further out to sea or towards the land. He was
again shivering with cold, he was hungry and thirsty, and so filled with
terror at the black waters leaping towards him from all sides that he
finally flung himself face downward on the wet platform to escape
from seeing them.
When he next lifted his head he found himself in utter darkness,
through which he fancied he could still hear the sound of waters
dashing against frigid cliffs, and with an access of terror he once more
sprang to his oars. Now he rowed with the wind, keeping it as directly

astern as possible; nor did he pause in his efforts until compelled by
exhaustion. Then he again lay down, and this time dropped into a fitful
doze.
Waking a little later with chattering teeth, he resumed his oars for the
sake of warming exercise, and again rowed as long as he was able. So,
with alternating periods of weary work and unrefreshing rest, the slow
dragging hours of that interminable night were spent. Finally, after he
had given up all hope of ever again seeing a gleam of sunshine, a faint
gray began to permeate the fog that still held him in its wet embrace,
and Cabot knew that he had lived to see the beginnings of another day.
To make sure that the almost imperceptible light really marked the
dawn, he shut his eyes and resolutely kept them closed until he had
counted five hundred. Then he opened them, and almost screamed with
the joy of being able to trace the outlines of his raft. Again and again he
did this until at length the black night shadows had been fairly
vanquished and only those of the fog remained.
With the assurance that day had fairly come, and that the dreaded
iceberg was at least not close at hand, Cabot again sought forgetfulness
of his misery in sleep. When he awoke some hours later, aching in
every bone, and painfully hungry, he was also filled with a delicious
sense of warmth; for the sun, already near its meridian, was shining as
brightly as though no such things as fog or darkness had ever existed.
On standing up and looking about him, the young castaway was
relieved to note that the iceberg from which he had suffered so much
was no longer in sight. At the same time he was grievously
disappointed that he could discover no sail nor other token that any
human being save himself was abroad on all that lonely sea.
He experienced a momentary exhilaration when, on turning to the west,
he discovered a dark far-reaching line that he believed to be land; but
his spirits fell as he measured the distance separating him from it, and
realised how slight a chance he had of ever gaining the coast. To be
sure, the light breeze then blowing was in that direction, but it might
change at any moment; and even with it to aid his rowing he doubted if

his clumsy craft could make more than a mile an hour. Thus darkness
would again overtake him ere he had covered more than half the
required distance, though he should row steadily during the remainder
of the day. He knew that his growing weakness would demand intervals
of rest with ever-increasing frequency until utter exhaustion should put
an end to his efforts; and then what would become of him? Still there
was nothing else to be done; and, with a dogged determination to die