There were only a few masses of low ice floating about in various directions.

The wind was steady, but light, and seemed as if it would speedily fall altogether.

Gradually the _blink_ on the horizon (as the light haze always distinguishable above ice, or snow-covered land, is called) resolved itself into a long white line of ice, which seemed to grow larger as the ship neared it, and in about two hours more they were fairly in the midst of the pack, which was fortunately loose enough to admit of the vessel being navigated through the channels of open water.

Soon after, the sun broke out in cloudless splendour, and the wind fell entirely, leaving the ocean in a dead calm.
"Let's go to the fore-top, Tom," said Fred, seizing his friend by the arm and hastening to the shrouds.
In a few seconds they were seated alone on the little platform at the top of the fore-mast, just where it is connected with the fore-top-mast, and from this elevated position they gazed in silent delight upon the fairy-like scene.
Those who have never stood at the mast-head of a ship at sea in a dead calm cannot comprehend the feeling of intense solitude that fills the mind in such a position.

There is nothing analogous to it on land.