To Have Blotted Such
A Bugbear Out Of The Map Of Europe, If Its Existence
Really Was A Myth, Would At All Events Have Rendered Our
Cruise Not Altogether Fruitless.
But, since leaving
Spitzbergen, we had never once seen the sun, and to
attempt to make so dangerous a
Coast in a gale of wind
and a thick mist, with no more certain knowledge of the
ship's position than our dead reckoning afforded, was
out of the question, so about one o'clock in the morning,
the weather giving no signs of improvement, the course
I had shaped in the direction of the island was altered,
and we stood away again to the southward. This manoeuvre
was not unobserved by Wilson, but he mistook its meaning.
Having, I suppose, overheard us talking at dinner about
the Malstrom, he now concluded the supreme hour had
arrived. He did not exactly comprehend the terms we used,
but had gathered that the spot was one fraught with
danger. Concluding from the change made in the vessel's
course that we were proceeding towards the dreadful
locality, he gave himself up to despair, and lay tossing
in his hammock in sleepless anxiety. At last the load of
his forebodings was greater than he could bear, he gets
up, steals into the Doctor's cabin, wakes him up, and
standing over him - as the messenger of ill tidings once
stood over Priam - whispers, "SIR!" "What is it?" says
Fitz, thinking, perhaps, some one was ill. "Do you know
where we are going?" "Why, to Throndhjem," answered Fitz.
"We were going to Throndhjem," rejoins Wilson, "but we
ain't now - the vessel's course was altered two hours ago.
Oh, Sir!
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