On the fourth day of my lonely voyage I was oppressed by a deep
sense of the danger of my situation. I realized that I had missed
the Shetlands; that I could now do no more than abandon myself to
the will of the wind, and trust to falling in with some vessel that
might be making for the Faroe Islands or for Iceland. If I had had
a companion to take watch about with me I might have got along
fairly well; but with my hard work of trimming the sails, and
battling with the fitful winds, I could not do without sleep, and
during my hours of sleep the schooner always fell off her course,
and I could make no reckoning.
Day followed day, and my situation underwent no visible change,
excepting only that the temperature became ever colder and colder,
that the snow fell more constantly, and that the mist hemmed me in
more closely. Sometimes at midday the mist would lift and I saw
around me the great wide stretch of desolate sea, with an ice floe
floating here and there. On one such occasion I fancied I saw land
on the windward bow, a white mountainous peak rose high in air,
and, not knowing where I might be, I took it to be one of the
joekulls of Iceland. But, alas! it proved to be but an immense
iceberg.
In my solitude I naturally thought much of my home, now so far
away, and of my dear mother and sister, and their prayers for my
safety.
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