“And I?” asked De Catinat eagerly.  Adele and her father had been wrapped in mantles and placed for shelter in the lee of the round house.

“Tell him he can take his spell at the pumps,” said the Captain to Amos.  “And you, Amos, you are a handy man with a tool.  Get into yonder long-boat with a lantern and see if you cannot patch her up.”

For half an hour Amos Green hammered and trimmed and caulked, while the sharp measured clanking of the pumps sounded above the dash of the seas.  Slowly, very slowly, the bows of the brigantine were settling down, and her stern cocking up.

“You’ve not much time, Amos, lad,” said the captain quietly.

“She’ll float now, though she’s not quite water-tight.”

“Very good.  Lower away!  Keep up the pump in there!  Mr. Tomlinson, see that provisions and water are ready, as much as she will hold.  Come with me, Hiram Jefferson.”

The seaman and the captain swung themselves down into the tossing boat, the latter with a lantern strapped to his waist.  Together they made their way until they were under her mangled bows.  The captain shook his head when he saw the extent of the damage.

“Cut away the foresail and pass it over,” said he.

Tomlinson and Amos Green cut away the lashings with their knives and lowered the corner of the sail.  Captain Ephraim and the seaman seized it, and dragged it across the mouth of the huge gaping leak.  As he stooped to do it, however, the ship heaved up upon a swell, and the captain saw in the yellow light of his lantern sinuous black cracks which radiated away backwards from the central hole.

“How much in the well?” he asked.

“Five and a half feet.”

“Then the ship is lost.  I could put my finger between her planks as far as I can see back.  Keep the pumps going there!  Have you the food and water, Mr. Tomlinson?”

“Here, sir.”

“Lower them over the bows.  This boat cannot live more than an hour or two.  Can you see anything of the berg?”

“The fog is lifting on the starboard quarter,” cried one of the men.  “Yes, there is the berg, quarter of a mile to leeward!”

The mist had thinned away suddenly, and the moon glimmered through once more upon the great lonely sea and the stricken ship.  There, like a huge sail, was the monster piece of ice upon which they had shattered themselves, rocking slowly to and fro with the wash of the waves.

“You must make for her,” said Captain Ephraim.  “There is no other chance.  Lower the gal over the bows!  Well, then, her father first, if she likes it better.  Tell them to sit still, Amos, and that the Lord will bear us up if we keep clear of foolishness.  So!  You’re a brave lass for all your niminy-piminy lingo.  Now the keg and the barrel, and all the wraps and cloaks you can find.  Now the other man, the Frenchman.  Ay, ay, passengers first, and you have got to come.  Now, Amos!  Now the seamen, and you last, friend Tomlinson.”