When we pray earnestly for anything we should never forget to add the words of Him Who spake as never man spake, and say, “Thy will be done.” No prayer is complete without that beautiful line; and yet, though easy to say it, it is—oh! so hard sometimes to pray it. But then we poor mortals do not know what is best for us.
In the present instance our heroes’ prayers were not heard, and days and weeks flew by; then the sky cleared, and they saw the sun once more, but only to find themselves so surrounded by ice on all quarters that escape was impossible. Besides, the season was now far gone, autumn was wearing through, the sun was far south, and the nights getting long and cold and dreary.
Frost now set in, and snow began to fall.
They were safe from all dangers for six months to come, at the least.
“Never mind,” said Blunt cheerily to Leonard, “we have provisions enough to last us for a year at the very least. So we must do the best to make ourselves comfortable.”
“That we will,” replied Leonard, “though I fear our friends at home will think we are lost.”
“That is the only drawback—my dear wife and child, and your parents, boys. Well, we are in the hands of Providence. God is here in these solitudes, and just as easily found as if we were in the cathedral of old St. Giles’.”
It was indeed a dreary winter they passed in the midst of that frozen sea. No sun, no light save moon or stars and the lovely aurora. Silence deep as the grave, except—which was rare—when a storm came howling over the pack, raising the snow in whirlwinds, and often hurling off the peaked and jagged tops of the weird-looking icebergs.
But the sun appeared at last, and in due time. With a noise and confusion that is indescribable the ice broke up, and the Fairy Queen began to move slowly—oh, so slowly!—through the ice on her way southwards, with danger on every quarter, danger ahead, and danger astern. She sailed for many, many miles without a rudder; for lest it should get smashed it had been unshipped, the men steering ahead by means of boat and hawser, and the ship often being so close to an iceberg that the tips of the yard arms touched, and when the berg moved over with a wave it threw the vessel upwards from the bottom. On these occasions poles were used to edge her off.