Break the ice, did you say? I should smile. You may get steam machinery to smash bay-ice, or splinter pancake, but not your solid, heavy pieces. Oh no! So men who have inventions of this sort should sell them to farmers at home to break up their mill dams in winter.
Then came a battle ’twixt men and ice. Men with their cunning, ice with its force of movement, slow but sure.
Both ships got closer together, the Sea Elephant leading, all hands that could be spared from both ships, over the side in front of the foremost.
Armed with great poles, they moved the bergs on every side.
It was bitterly cold work, and the pieces moved but slowly.
Under all the pressure of steam she could produce without risk, aided by the men over the side, the Sea Elephant forged her way slowly, fathom by fathom, indeed, but after a time that to our heroes seemed interminable, her jib-boom hung over the black water.[D]
Then came the scramble to get inboard, and though their fingers were about as hard as boards, and some had frozen faces, in less than ten minutes all hands were once more on their respective decks.
Sail was once more set, fires were banked—save the coals they must—and away they went, right merrily, to the east again, the wind well on the starboard beam.
Although the men had raised a cheer when the ships were quite out of that ugly pack, there was no fear in any breast.
“Would there have been much danger if we had been beset in there, uncle?” Charlie ventured to ask the captain, at supper.