The Sea Lions eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 610 pages of information about The Sea Lions.

The Sea Lions eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 610 pages of information about The Sea Lions.

As he was thus flying towards his object, our young mariner formed a theory in his own mind, touching the drift of the ice in the adjacent seas.  It was simply this.  He had sounded in entering the great bay, and had ascertained that comparatively shallow water existed between the south-eastern extremity of Sealer’s Land and the nearest island opposite.  It was deep enough to admit the largest vessel that ever floated, and a great deal more than this; but it was not deep enough to permit an ice-berg to pass.  The tides, too, ran in races among the islands, which prevented the accumulation of ice at the southern entrance, while the outer currents seemed to set everything past the group to allow of the floating mountains to collect to the eastward, where they appeared to be thronged.  It was on the western verge of this wilderness of ice-bergs and ice fields that the strange sail had been seen working her way towards the group, which must be plainly in view from her decks, as her distance from the nearest of the islands certainly did not exceed two leagues.

It required more than two hours for the whale-boat of Roswell to cross the bay, and reach the margin of that vast field of ice, which was prevented from drifting into the open space only by encountering the stable rocks of the first of the group.  Every eye was now turned in quest of an opening, by means of which it might be possible to get further to the eastward.  One, at length, was discovered, and into it Gardiner dashed, ordering his boat’s crew to stretch themselves out at their oars, though every man with him thought they were plunging into possible destruction.  On the boat went, however, now sheering to starboard, now to port, to avoid projecting spurs of ice, until she had ploughed her way through a fearfully narrow, and a deviating passage, that sometimes barely permitted them to go through, until a spot was reached where the two fields which formed this strait actually came in close crushing contact with each other.  Roswell took a look before and behind him, saw that his boat was safe owing to the formation of the two outlines of the respective fields, when he sprang upon the ice itself, bidding the boat-steerer to wait for him.  A shout broke out of the lips of the young captain the instant he was erect on the ice.  There lay the schooner, the Martha’s Vineyard craft, within half a mile of him, in plain sight, and in as plain jeopardy.  She was jammed, with every prospect, as Roswell thought, of being crushed, ere she could get free from the danger.

Chapter XVI.

  “A sculler’s notch in the stern he made,
  An oar he shaped of the bottle blade;
  Then sprung to his seat with a lightsome leap
  And launched afar on the calm, blue deep.”

  The Culprit Fay.

Roswell was hardly on the ice before a sound of a most portentous sort reached his ear.  He knew at once that the field had been rent in twain by outward pressure, and that some new change was to occur that might release or might destroy the schooner.  He was on the point of springing forward in order to join Daggett, when a call from the boat arrested his steps.

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The Sea Lions from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.