The sleet froze to the rotting sails,
to the ice-logged hull, to the wan yardarms frost-white like ghosts.
At every lurch of the sea slush slithered down from the rigging on the
shivering seamen. The roar of the breakers told of a shallow sea, yet
mist veiled the sky, and they were above waters whose shallows drop to
sudden abysmal depths of three thousand fathoms. Sheets of smoking
vapor rose from the sea, sheets of flame-tinged smoke from the
crevasses of land volcanoes which the fogs hid. Out of the sea came
the hoarse, strident cry of the sea-lion, and the walrus, and the hairy
seal. It was as if the poor Russians had sailed into some under-world.
The decks were slippery as glass, the vessel shrouded in ice. Over all
settled that unspeakable dread of impending disaster, which is a
symptom of scurvy, and saps the fight that makes a man fit to survive.
Waxel, alone, held the vessel up to the wind. Where were they? Why
did this coasting along unknown northern islands not lead to Kamchatka?
The councils were no longer the orderly conferences of savants over
cut-and-dried maps.
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