_would_ have happened if the ice had slid down his neck?
Thoroughly comforted by this gleeful hypothesis, Miss Deane seized a
favorable opportunity to dart across to the starboard side and see if
Captain Ross's "heavy bank of cloud in the north-west" had put in an
appearance.

Ha! there it was, black, ominous, gigantic, rolling up over the horizon
like some monstrous football. Around it the sky deepened into purple,
fringed with a wide belt of brick red. She had never seen such a
beginning of a gale. From what she had read in books she imagined that
only in great deserts were clouds of dust generated. There could not be
dust in the dense pall now rushing with giant strides across the
trembling sea. Then what was it? Why was it so dark and menacing? And
where was desert of stone and sand to compare with this awful expanse
of water? What a small dot was this great ship on the visible surface!
But the ocean itself extended away beyond there, reaching out to the
infinite. The dot became a mere speck, undistinguishable beneath a
celestial microscope such as the gods might condescend to use.

Iris shivered and aroused herself with a startled laugh.

A nice book in a sheltered corner, and perhaps forty winks until
tea-time--surely a much more sensible proceeding than to stand there,
idly conjuring up phantoms of affright.

The lively fanfare of the dinner trumpet failed to fill the saloon. By
this time the _Sirdar_ was fighting resolutely against a stiff
gale. But the stress of actual combat was better than the eerie
sensation of impending danger during the earlier hours. The strong,
hearty pulsations of the engines, the regular thrashing of the screw,