“That will cause a great delay, Captain Daggett,” said Roswell, doubtingly.  “We are now well in among the first great body of the ice; it may be as easy to work our way to the northward of it, as to get back into clear water to the southward.”

“I dare say it would; but, back I go.  I do not ask you to accompany us, Gar’ner; by no means.  A’ter the handsome manner in which you’ve waited for us so long, I couldn’t think of such a thing!  If the wind has r’ally got round to nothe-east, and I begin to think it has, I shall get the schooner into the cove in four-and-twenty hours; and there’s as pretty a spot to beach her, just under the shelf where we kept our spare casks, as a body can wish.  In a fortnight we’ll have her leaks all stopped, and be jogging along in your wake.  You’ll tell the folks on Oyster Pond that we’re a-coming, and they’ll be sure to send the news across to the Vineyard.”

This was touching Roswell on a point of honour, and Daggett knew it very well.  Generous and determined, the young man was much more easily influenced by a silent and indirect appeal to his liberal qualities, than he could possibly have been by any other consideration.  The idea of deserting a companion in distress, in a sea like that in which he was, caused him to shrink from what, under other circumstances, he would regard as an imperative duty.  The deacon, and still more, Mary, called him north; but the necessities of the Vineyarders would seem to chain him to their fate.

“Let us see what the pump tells us now,” cried Roswell impatiently.  “Perhaps the report may make matters better than we have dared to hope for.  If the pump gains on the leak, all may yet be well.”

“It’s encouraging and hearty to hear you say this; but no one who was in that nip, as a body might say, can ever expect the schooner to make a run of two thousand miles without repairs.  To my eye, Gar’ner, these bergs are separating, leaving us a clearer passage back to the open water.”

“I do believe you are right; but it seems a sad loss of time, and a great risk, to go through these mountains again,” returned Roswell.  “The wind has shifted; and the nearest bergs, from some cause or other, are slowly opening; but recollect what a mass of floe-ice there is outside.  Let us sound again.”

The process was renewed this time much easier than before, the boxes being already removed.  The result was soon known.

“Well, what news, Gar’ner?” demanded Daggett, leaning down, in a vain endeavour to perceive the almost imperceptible marks that distinguished the wet part of the rod from that which was dry.  “Do we gain on the leak, or does the leak gain on us?  God send it may be the first!”

“God has so sent it, sir,” answered Stimson, reverently; for he was holding the lantern, having remained on board the damaged vessel by the order of his officer.  “It is He alone, Captain Daggett, who could do this much to seamen in distress.”