“I, too, have seen thee on thy surging path
    When the night-tempest met thee; thou didst dash
  Thy white arms high in heaven, as if in wrath,
    Threatening the angry sky; thy waves did lash
    The labouring vessel, and with deadening crash
  Rush madly forth to scourge its groaning sides;
    Onward thy billows came, to meet and clash
    In a wild warfare, till the lifted tides
  Mingled their yesty tops, where the dark storm-cloud rides.”

  Percival.

The first movement of the mariner, when his vessel has been brought in collision with any hard substance, is to sound the pumps.  This very necessary duty was in the act of performance by Daggett, in person, even while the boats of Roswell Gardiner were towing his strained and roughly treated craft into the open water.  The result of this examination was waited for by all on board, including Roswell, with the deepest anxiety.  The last held the lantern by which the height of the water in the well was to be ascertained; the light of the moon scarce sufficing for such a purpose.  Daggett stood on the top of the pump himself, while Gardiner and Macy were at its side.  At length the sounding-rod came up, and its lower end was held out, in order to ascertain how high up it was wet.

“Well, what do you make of it, Gar’ner?” Daggett demanded, a little impatiently.  “Water there must be; for no craft that floats could have stood such a squeeze, and not have her sides open.”

“There must be near three feet of water in your hold,” answered Roswell, shaking his head.  “If this goes on, Captain Daggett, it will be hard work to keep your schooner afloat!”

“Afloat she shall be, while a pump-break can work.  Here, rig this larboard pump at once, and get it in motion.”

“It is possible that your seams opened under the nip, and have closed again, as soon as the schooner got free.  In such a case, ten minutes at the pump will let us know it.”

Although there is no duty to which seamen are so averse as pumping—­none, perhaps, that is actually so exhausting and laborious—­it often happens that they have recourse to it with eagerness, as the only available means of saving their lives.  Such was now the case, the harsh but familiar strokes of the pump-break being audible amid the more solemn and grand sounds of the grating of ice-bergs, the rushing of floes, and the occasional scuffling and howling of the winds.  The last appeared to have changed in their direction, however; a circumstance that was soon noted, there being much less of biting cold in the blasts than had been felt in the earlier hours of the night.

“I do believe that the wind has got round here to the north-east,” said Roswell, as he paced the quarter-deck with Daggett, still holding in his hand the well wiped and dried sounding-rod, in readiness for another trial.  “That last puff was right in our teeth!”

“Not in our teeth, Gar’ner; no, not in my teeth,” answered Daggett, “whatever it maybe in your’n.  I shall try to get back to the island, where I shall endeavour to beach the schooner, and get a look at her leaks.  This is the most I can hope for.  It would never do to think of carrying a craft, after such a nip, as far as Rio, pumping every foot of the way!”