Seeing her plight, I sent the 'Dudley Docker' back for
her and tied the 'James Caird' up to a piece of ice. The 'Dudley
Docker' had to tow the 'Stancomb Wills', and the delay cost us two
hours of valuable daylight. When I had the three boats together again
we continued down the lane, and soon saw a wider stretch of water to
the west; it appeared to offer us release from the grip of the pack.
At the head of an ice-tongue that nearly closed the gap through which
we might enter the open space was a wave-worn berg shaped like some
curious antediluvian monster, an icy Cerberus guarding the way. It had
head and eyes and rolled so heavily that it almost overturned. Its
sides dipped deep in the sea, and as it rose again the water seemed to
be streaming from its eyes, as though it were weeping at our escape
from the clutch of the floes. This may seem fanciful to the reader, but
the impression was real to us at the time. People living under
civilized conditions, surrounded by Nature's varied forms of life and
by all the familiar work of their own hands, may scarcely realize how
quickly the mind, influenced by the eyes, responds to the unusual and
weaves about it curious imaginings like the firelight fancies of our
childhood days. We had lived long amid the ice, and we half-
unconsciously strove to see resemblances to human faces and living
forms in the fantastic contours and massively uncouth shapes of berg
and floe.
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