No sooner was the vessel thus docked, than all apprehension of receiving further injury from the outer floe ceased.  It might force the schooner altogether on the inner field, driving the vessel before it, as an avalanche of mud in the Alps is known to force cottages and hamlets in its front; but it could no longer ‘nip’ it.  It did not appear probable to the two masters, however, that the vessel would be forced from its present berth, the rending and cracking of the ice sensibly diminishing, as the two floes came closer and closer together.  Nor was this all:  it was soon very obvious that the inner field was drifting, with an increased motion, into the bay, while the larger, or outer floe, seemed to hang, from some cause or other.  Of the fact there was soon no doubt, the fissure beginning to open, as slowly and steadily as it had closed, but noiselessly, and without any rending of the ice.

“We shall get you clear, Daggett! we shall get you clear!” cried Roswell, with hearty good-will, forgetting, in that moment of generous effort, all feelings of competition and rivalry.  “I know what you are after, my good fellow—­have understood it from the first.  Yonder high land is the spot you seek; and along the north shore of that island are elephants, lions, dogs, bears, and other animals, to fill up all the craft that ever came out of the Vineyard!”

“This is hearty, Gar’ner,” returned the other, giving his brother master a most cordial shake of the hand, “and it’s just what I like.  Sealing is a sociable business, and a craft should never come alone into these high latitudes.  Accidents will happen to the most prudent man living, as you see by what has just befallen me; for, to own the truth, we’ve had a narrow chance of it!”

The reader will remember that all which Daggett now said, was uttered by a man who saw his vessel lying on the ice, with a list that rendered it somewhat difficult to move about on her deck, and still in circumstances that would have caused half the navigators of this world to despair.  Such was not the fact with Daggett, however.  Seven thousand miles from home, alone, in an unknown sea, and uncertain of ever finding the place he sought, this man had picked his way among mountains and fields of ice, with perhaps less hesitation and reluctance than a dandy would encounter the perils of a crossing, when the streets were a little moistened by rain.  Even then, with his vessel literally shelfed on the ice, certain that she had been violently nipped, he was congratulating himself on reaching a sealing ground, from which he could never return without encountering all the same dangers over again.  As for Roswell, he laughed a little at the other’s opinion of the sealing business, for he was morally certain the Vineyard-man would have kept the secret, had it been in his possession alone.

“Well, well, we’ll forget the past,” he said, “all but what we’ve done to help one another.  You stood by me off Hatteras, and I’ve been of some service to you here.  You know how it is in our calling, Daggett; first come, first served.  I got here first, and have had the cream of the business for this season; though I do not by any means wish to be understood as saying that you are too late.”