she felt very small then , a tiny thing against the crashing storm-gusts , and in the bellow of the blast she could hear still more distant sounds , for doubtless that breeze had swept up from the ocean and soared a vast distance so it brought with it the calls of waders picking for shrimps at the mouths of mighty rivers , the creaks of ships shifting at their moorings , the toll of buoys rocking their solitary bells , the breathing of immense whales on the surface of the choppy brine , and towers of ice splitting off the polar caps to crumble into the sea .