Читать книгу Idylls of the Sea, and Other Marine Sketches онлайн

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Seven short days and long ghastly nights we lay there waiting a chance to escape. Christmas came and went, bringing with it bitter thoughts of home, but no word was spoken on the subject. The skipper’s little son lay feverishly tossing in the delirium of measles, his father’s face an impenetrable mask, but whether of stoicism or stolidity I could not tell. At last the wind softened, changed its direction, and breaking up the gloomy pall of cloud, allowed a few pale gleams of sun to peep through, welcome as sight to the blind. Scrambling ashore, we cut down a widespreading young spruce-tree, and after a struggle of two hours succeeded in getting it on board with all its matted branches intact. Then, tearing out the anchor in a fury of energy and desire to be gone, we stood to the southward with our strange deck-load. A few short hours, and what a change! As if under the breath of some kindly angel, the ice and snow melted from around us, the pleasant thrill of expanding life returned. It was no new miracle, only the sweet influence of that mild but mighty ocean river, the Gulf Stream, into whose beneficent bosom we had crept like a strayed and perishing child. How we revelled in the genial warmth. With what delight we bathed our stiffened limbs in those tepid waters, feeling life and comfort surge back to us as if from their very source.