sohigh, and the candle in the lantern was four or five. He skated twohundred yards nearer, and then tried. At this distance, with his eyesas close to the ice as he could get them, he could not see the lightitself, but there was a glow diffused in the air where he knew it was.
This explained why the light disappeared. There was a faint andinvisible mist above the ice--the iceblink--which at a long distanceconcealed the lantern. If he lifted his head about eighteen inches hecould see the light so that the stratum of mist, or iceblink, appearedto be about eighteen inches in thickness. When he skated anotherhundred yards closer he could just see the light with his face on theice as he had done the skates by day. So that after sunset it wasevident this mist formed in the air just above the ice. Mark tried thesame experiment with the same result, and they then skated slowlyhomewards, for as it was not moonlight they might get a fall by comingagainst a piece of twig half-sunk in and frozen firmly.
Suddenly there was a sound like the boom of a cannon, and a crack shotacross the broad water from shore to shore. The "who-hoo-whoop" of thenoise echoed back from the wood on the hill, and then they heard itagain in the coombes and valleys, rolling along. As the ice was four orfive inches thick it parted with a hollow roar: the crack sometimesforked, and a second running report followed the first. Sometimes thecrack seemed to happen simultaneously all across the water.Occasionally they could hear it coming, and with a distinct interval oftime before it reached them.
Up through these cracks or splits a little water oozed, and freezing onthe surface formed barriers of rough ice from shore to shore, whichjarred the skates as they passed over. These splits in no degreeimpaired the strength of the ice. Later on as they retired they openedthe window and heard the boom again, weird and strange in the silence ofthe night.
One day a rabbit was started from a bunch of frozen rushes by the shore,and they chased it on the ice, overtaking it with ease. They could haveknocked it down with their hockey sticks, but forebore to do so. Fromthese rush-bunches they now and then flushed dab-chicks or lesser grebeswhich, when there is open water, cannot be got to fly.
Till now the air had been still, but presently the wind blew from thesouth almost a gale, this was straight down the water, so keeping theirskates together and spreading out their coats for sails they drovebefore the wind at a tremendous pace, flying past the trees andaccumulating such velocity that their ankles ached from the vibration ofthe skates. Nor could they stop by any other means than describing awide circle, and so gradually facing the wind. Bevis began to make anice-raft to slide on runners and go before the wind with a sail like theice-yachts on the American lakes.
But by the time the frame was put together, and the blacksmith hadfinished the runners, a thaw set in. It is just the same with sleighs,directly the sleigh is got to work, the snow goes and leaves theheaviest and muddiest road of the year. The ice-yachts of America mustgive splendid sport; it is said that they sometimes glide at the rate ofa mile a minute, actually outstripping the speed of the wind whichdrives them. This has been rather a puzzle why it should be so.
May it not be the same as it was with Bevis and Mark when they spreadtheir coats like sails and flew before the gale with such speed that itneeded some nerve to stand upright--till the vibration of the skatescaused a peculiar numblike feeling in the ankles? They either did orseemed to go faster than the wind, and was not this the accumulation ofvelocity? As a bullet dropped from a window falls so many feet thefirst second, and a great many more the next second, increasing itspace, so as they were thrust forwards by the wind their bodiesaccumulated the impetus and shot beyond it. Possibly it is the samewith the swift ice-yacht. The thaw was a great disappointment.
The immense waves of ocean rise before the wind, and so the wind rushingover the ice no longer firm and rigid quickly broke up the surface, andthere was a tremendous grinding and splintering, and chafing of thefragments. For the first few days these were carried down the New Sea,but presently the wind changed. The black north swooped on the earthand swept across the waters. Fields, trees, woods, hills, the veryhouses looked dark and hard, the water grey, the sky cold and dusky.The broken ice drifted before it and was all swept up to the other endof the New Sea and jammed between and about the islands. They could nowget at the Pinta, and resolved to have a sail. "An arctic expedition!"
"Antarctic--it is south!"
"All right."
"Let us go to New Formosa."
"So we will. But the ice is jammed there."
"Cut through it."
"Make an ice-bow."
"Be quick."
Up in the workshop they quickly nailed two short boards together like aV. This was lashed to the stem of the Pinta to protect her when theycrashed into the ice. They took a reef in the mainsail, for though thewind does not seem to travel any swifter, yet in winter it somehow feelsmore hard and compact and has a greater power on what it pressesagainst. Just before they cast loose, Frances appeared on the bankabove, she had called at the house, and hearing what they were about,hastened up to join the expedition. So soon as she had got acomfortable seat, well wrapped up in sealskin and muff, they pushed off,and the Pinta began to run before the wind. It was very strong, muchstronger than it had seemed ashore, pushing against the sail as if itwere a solid thing. The waves followed, and the grey cold water lappedat the stern.
Beyond the battle-field as they entered the broadest and most open partthe black north roared and rushed at them, as if the pressure of the skydescending forced a furious blast between it and the surface. Angry andrepellent waves hissed as their crests blew off in cold foam and spray,stinging their cheeks. Ahead the red sun was sinking over New Formosa,they raced towards the disc, the sail straining as if it would split.As the boat drew near they saw the ice jammed in the channel between thetwo islands.
It was thin and all in fragments; some under water, some piled by thewaves above the rest, some almost perpendicular, like a sheet of glassstanding upright and reflecting the red sunset. Against the cliff thewaves breaking threw fragments of ice smashed into pieces; ice and sprayrushed up the steep sand and slid down again. But it was between theislands that the waves wreaked their fury. The edge of the ice was torninto jagged bits which dashed against each other, their white saw-likepoints now appearing, now forced under by a larger block.
Farther in the ice heaved as the waves rolled under: its surface wasformed of plates placed like a row of books fallen aside. As the iceheaved these plates slid on each other, while others underneath strivingto rise to the surface struck and cracked them. Down came the blacknorth as a man might bring a sledge-hammer on the anvil, the waveshissed, and turned darker, a white sea-gull (which had come inland) roseto a higher level with easy strokes of its wings.
Splinter--splanter! Crash! grind, roar; a noise like thousands ofgnashing teeth.
"O!" said Frances, dropping her muff, and putting her hands to her ears."It is Dante!"
Bevis had his hand on the tiller; Mark his on the halyard of themainsail; neither spoke, it looked doubtful. The next instant the Pintastruck the ice midway between the islands, and the impetus with whichshe came drove her six or seven feet clear into the splinteringfragments. They were jerked forwards, and in an instant the followingwave broke over the stern, and then another, flooding the bottom of theboat. Mark had the mainsail down, for it would have torn the mast out.
With a splintering, grinding, crashing, roaring, a horrible andinexpressible noise of chaos--an orderless, rhythmless noise of chaos--the mass gave way and swept slowly through the channel. The impact ofthe boat acted like a battering-ram and started the jam. Fortunate itwas for them that it did so, or the boat might have been swamped by thefollowing waves. Bevis got out a scull, so did Mark, and theirexertions kept her straight; had she turned broadside it would have beenawkward even as it was. They swept through the channel, the ice at itsedges barking willow branches and planing the shore, large plates wereforced up high and dry.
"
Hurrah!" shouted Mark.
"Hurrah!"
At the noise of their shouting thousands of starlings rose from theosiers on Serendib with a loud rush of wings, blackening the air like acloud. They were soon through the channel, the ice spread in the openwater, and they worked the boat under shelter of New Formosa, andlanded.
"You are wet," said Bevis as he helped Frances out.
"But it's jolly!" said Frances, laughing. "Only think what a fright_he_ would have been in if he had known!"
Having made the boat safe--there was a lot of water in her--they walkedalong the old path, now covered with dead leaves damp from the thaw, tothe stockade. The place was strewn with small branches whirled from thetrees by the gales, and in the hut and further corner of the cave wereheaps of brown oak leaves which had drifted in. Nothing else hadchanged; so well had they built it that the roof had neither broken downnor been