And thus we parted, never to meet again in mutual mood like this!

Yet, had the free agency of which some men boast been ours, we had scarcely chosen to face the awful change—­to look into each other’s eyes through gathering death-doom!

CHAPTER III.

Before my dreaming eyes was the terror of a hungry, crunching tooth, fixed in the vessel’s side, that of the iceberg, lying black in the moonlight like a great coal crystal, grimly awaiting our approach, but the reality, as well as the figment, had disappeared when I emerged at sunrise from the suffocating cabin, to the atmosphere of the cool and quiet quarter-deck, which had just undergone its matutinal.

Armed with an orange and a biscuit for physical refreshment, I depended on sea and sky for my mental entertainment; and in my hand I bore a slender scroll, destined as a propitiatory offering to our offended helmsman.

I was glad to find again at the wheel our pilot of yesterday.

“Your iceberg has disappeared, Mr. Garth,” I said, as I extended to him the sketch I had made of his noble physique the day before, “and here is a picture for your wife, which she will see was not drawn for fun.  Women are sharper than men about such matters.  There, I bestow it not without regret.”  He received my offering with a smile, and nod of his great curly head, opened it, gazed long and seriously upon it, and, with the single word “Good,” rolled it up again, and consigned it to some bosom pocket in his flannel shirt, into which it seemed to glide as a telescope into its case, revealing, as he did so, glimpses of a hairy breast, and vigorous chest, more admirable for strength than beauty, certainly.

“I will keep it there,” he said, “young miss,” pressing it closely against his side with his colossal hand, “until I get safe home to the Jarseys, and to Sall, or go to Davy’s locker, one or other, but which it will be, young gal—­young miss, I should be saying—­is not for me to know.”

“Nor for any one,” I rejoined, solemnly; “all rests with God.”

“With God and our engineer,” he resumed, tersely; “them sails is of little account, now the mainmast is struck away; them floppen petticoats, wat the wind loves to play in and out, layin’ along like a lazy lubber that it is, and leaving its work for others to do.  It was a noble mast, though, while it stood—­and you could smell the turpentine blood in its heart to the very last.  It was as limber as a sapling, and never growed brittle, like some wood, with age and dryness.  No storm could splinter it, and it would fling itself over into the high waves sometimes, rayther than snap and lash them like a whip.  But there it lies, burned with the fire of heaven’s wrath, at last, and leaving its fires of hell behind, in the heart of the Kosciusko.”

“You have changed your mind on the subject of engines, Mr. Garth, I am glad to see.  Truly, ours seems to be doing giant’s work; now we are flying, to be sure.”