Scarcely was Daggett within the channel, when an enormous mass fell from the summit of one of the bergs, literally closing the passage in his wake, while it compelled Gardiner to put his helm down, and to tack ship, standing off from the tottering berg.  The scene that followed was frightful!  The cries on board the leading craft denoted her peril, but it was not possible for Roswell to penetrate to her with his vessel.  All he could do was to heave-to his own schooner, lower a boat, and pull back towards the point of danger.  This he did at once, manfully, but with an anxious mind and throbbing heart.  He actually urged his boat into the chasm beneath an arch in the fallen fragment, and made his way to the very side of Daggett’s vessel.  The last was nipped again, and that badly, but was not absolutely lost.  The falling fragment from the berg alone prevented her and all in her from being ground into powder.  This block, of enormous size, kept the two bergs asunder; and now that they could not absolutely come together, they began slowly to turn in the current, gradually opening and separating, at the very point where they had so lately seemed attracted to a closer union.  In an hour the way was clear, and the boats towed the schooner stern foremost into the broader passage.

Chapter XX.

  “A voice upon the prairies,
    A cry of woman’s woe,
  That mingleth with the autumn blast
    All fitfully and low.”

  Mrs. Sigourney.

The accident to the Sea Lion of the Vineyard occurred very near the close of the month of March, which, in the southern hemisphere, corresponds to our month of September.  This was somewhat late for a vessel to remain in so high a latitude, though it was not absolutely dangerous to be found there several weeks longer.  We have given a glance at Mary Pratt and her uncle, about this time; but it has now become expedient to carry the reader forward for a considerable period, and take another look at our heroine and her miserly uncle, some seven months later.  In that interval a great change had come over the deacon and his niece; and hope had nearly deserted all those who had friends on board the Sea Lion of Oyster Pond, as the following explanation will show was reasonable, and to be expected.

When Captain Gardiner sailed, it was understood that his absence would not extend beyond a single season.  All who had friends and connections on board his schooner, had been assured of this; and great was the anxiety, and deep the disappointment, when the first of our own summer months failed to bring back the adventurers.  As week succeeded week, and the vessel did not return, the concern increased, until hope began to be lost in apprehension.  Deacon Pratt groaned in spirit over his loss, finding little consolation in the gains secured by means of the oil sent home, as is apt to be the case with the avaricious, when their hearts