The Argosy, Volume XLIV — page 135: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

IN FROZEN FETTERS. And had Feltnar been where he could have seen what was going on out- side, doubtless his anxiety would have been much greater. While he had been examining the interior of the ancient vessel, a gale had come out of the south which was materially changing the face of the great ice-field. Eirik had seen the threatening dan- ger before he reached the dyre with his load of walrus flesh. But it did not deter him from setting back at once with the heavier dog sledge. The ice near the shore was much broken, and there was a trembling all through the field when he reached the fiord. From that moment the danger in- creased every minute. The ice broke away from the shore -where it had grounded. The hummocks and bergs fastened in it acted like sails, and the wind pushed mightily to drive the deift out of the fierd and across the ocean. The sea rose, too, and the edges of the floe began to crumble. There were terrible reports and awful commotions in the midst of the ice. By and by it began to break up into separate fields. That part immediately surrounding the black iceberg in the heart of which the Viking ship had slept so long sailed off by itself. Great cliffs fell from the face of the berg and floated away in the heavy seas. The crash of falling towers and the wrecking of the high plateaus were con- tinuous. These changes were attended with the shifting of the berg’s equilibrium. The wide ravme which had been opened in the mountain’s side, thus betraying its secret hoard, began to slope down- ward more and more. The first avalanche which had plunged into it, again hiding the vessel, now slid forward and was discharged into the water. The high cliffs which had frozen solidly over the old ship ages before had crumbled and filled the ravine with loose ice. The berg pitched more and more sharply, and a steady stream of ice-cakes skated down the incline and went bobbing away upon the dancing waves. Faster and faster the débris was poured into the sea down this natural 131 channel between the walls of black ice. And as fast as the loose ice disappeared, more fell from the cliffs, while that about the old ship cracked and strained, and broke up into great blocks which moved onward, too, with the smaller chaff. The part of the iccberg under water was, as Feltnar had supposed, scraping along the floor of the sea. It had got into shallow water, and the gale blew it harder and harder against the im- movable rock. The berg was slowly disintegrating. All night the change went on, while the fierce wind shrieked about the stagger- ing minarcts and spires of ice. It was dawn when the greatest crash of all came. The berg seemed on the point of turning over completely, and with a roar like that of a field of ar- tillery, the crush of ice-cakes in the ravine was shot forth into the sea like erain from a chute. The berg shook again with the re- sounding explosions which told of some ‘other huge part broken from the parent formation, and then, following the débris out of the mouth of the ravine, slid slowly the ancient Viking ship and the ice which had tmmediately sur- rounded it. Feltnar knew he was going. For the last ten minutes he had believed him- self fairly shaking hands with Death. The ship was due to plunge bow first into the sea after sliding down these natural ways, and there she would sink under the weight of ice which bore upon her. tt was a strange launching. It was like the burying of a man at sea. Telt- nar had seen that solemn ceremony per- formed once, and he thought to himself that now he, in this strange old coffin of a ship, was to sink slowly into the depths. Suddenly, asx the vessel lurched for- ward, a cataract of ice was shifted from the deck, and at once daylight streamed into the cabin. It was morn- ing—he could see the sun! He was glad of that. It did not seem so hard to die bv day as by night. The resonant explosions about him drowned all other sounds. He could not even hear the sough of the sea. COLLUUG OY AOOLK COL