Helen  Marr  moved  timidly  toward  the  straining


272  THE  ICE 'PILOT

form  of  the  Ice  Pilot.     He  felt  her  presence  but  did
not  swerve.
She  whispered  into  his  muffled  ear:  "Carry  on!"
Stirling  nodded  and  swung  the  spokes  a  quarter
turn.  They  came  back  against  the  palm  of  his  hand,
and  he  peered  through  the  snow.  The  moon  had  a
double  ring,  and  it  awoke  a  verse  from  the  girl  who
stood  wrapped  in  her  furs :

"That  orbed  maiden,  with  white  fire  laden,

Whom  mortals  call  the  moon,
Glides  glimmering  o'er  my  fleece-lined  floor,
By  midnight  breezes  strewn."

Stirling  turned  his  head  slightly  and  smiled  with
the  snow  dripping  from  his  lips.  The  girl  glanced
ahead  and  shuddered  as  a  drifting  cloud  obscured
the  moon.  The  way  was  mantled  with  falling  ice
particles,  and  the  ship's  rigging  showed  up  ghostlike.
The  muffled  Russians  on  the  forepeak  moved  about
in  the  gloom  like  walruses  that  had  climbed  aboard.
The  Pole  Star  hurtled  on.  Stirling  sensed  the
true  direction  with  the  skill  of  a  master  pilot  and
dodged  looming  ice  floes  by  fathoms.  He  swung  the
ship  toward  the  magnetic  west  and  reached  for  the
high  land  which  towered  there,  then  sheered  from
this  into  the  channel  made  by  the  inky  waters.  The
Pole  Star  glided  eastward  along  the  meridian,  and
thrust  her  sharp  stem  through  a  lane  of  seething
waves  which  marked  the  open  reaches  of  Lancaster
Sound.
