I just feel like being thankful that you weren't killed and we're both here safe and sound, with an even chance that we'll get back home all right." And so, paddling, drifting, sometimes silent for a long while, sometimes talking, the time passed.

The land faded upon the horizon and was lost.
Icebergs lay about them.

Once they were startled by the thunderous roar of a monster berg in the distance as it toppled and turned upon its side, and later they felt its swell.

Not far away a whale spouted.
Finally the sun set, and the wind died, and for a little while the heavens and icebergs and sea were marvelously and gloriously painted with crimson and purple and orange.
Then came the long gray twilight of the North, and at last the stars, and night, and darkness, with the icebergs, white, spectral, and coldly majestic, rising in silhouette against the distant sky, and the throbbing, restless sea, somber and black, around them..