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From: Debruhl <lea...@op...> - 2010-01-13 17:51:37
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S, and ammunition were all deposited in the boat, as well as her mast, sail, and paddles, while her painter, attached to her sharp-pronged grapnel, lay coiled on her half-deck forward. All that afternoon the wind and sea arose, until, amid the drenching rain, they could hear around them the clamor of the terrified seals, the continual crash of breaking ice, and the sough of the heavy sea, whose spray drove over them in constantly increasing showers. At last an occasional wave came into the lower part of the little hollow, and all thought that the end was near. "We must take to the boat," said Regnar. But La Salle pointed to the ghostly crests of the surrounding seas; and bowing his head upon his breast, Orloff signified to his friend that he acknowledged the hopelessness of that resource. Just then a darker blackness seemed to gather to windward, as a shriller blast whistled by them; and as all awaited the increased fury of the elements which were to end the unequal struggle, the wind seemed to abate, and the waves sullenly retired from the surface of the floe. The rain still swept fiercely upon the drenched wanderers, and on their lee they could still note the crash of ice-islands, amid the sweep of the angry waves. But above them, huge, unbending, and majestic, towered a lofty pile, shrouded in darkness, |