The Sea Lions; Or, The Lost Sealers

by James Fenimore Cooper

As Roswell gazed on this scene, serious doubts darkened his mind as to his escaping from this frozen chain until the return of another summer. It is true that a south wind might possibly produce a change, and carry away the blockading mass; but every moment rendered this so much the less probable. Winter, or what would be deemed winter in most regions, was already setting in; and should the ice really become stationary in and around the group, all hope of its moving must vanish for the next eight months.

Daggett reached the house about an hour before sunset. He had succeeded in cutting a passage through the ice as far as the cabin-door of his unfortunate schooner, when there was no difficulty in descending into the interior parts of the vessel. The whole party came in staggering under heavy loads. Pretty much as a matter of course, each man brought his own effects. Clothes, tobacco, rum, small-stores, bedding, quadrants, and similar property, was that first attended to. At that moment, little was thought of the skins and oil. The cargo was neglected, while the minor articles had been eagerly sought.

Roswell was on board his own schooner, now again in dangerous proximity to the cape. She was steadily setting in, when Daggett rejoined him. The crew of the lost vessel remained in the house, where they lighted a fire and deposited their goods, returning to the wreck for another load, taking the double sets of wheels along with them. When the two masters met, they conferred together earnestly, receiving into their councils such of the officers as were on board The security of the remaining vessel was now all-important! and it was not to be concealed that she was in imminent jeopardy. The course taken by the floe was directly towards the most rugged part of Cape Hazard; and the rate of the movement such as to threaten a very speedy termination of the matter. There was one circumstance, however, and only that one, which offered a single chance of escape. The opening around the schooner still existed in part, about half of it having been lost in the collision with the outermost point of the rocks. It was this species of vacuum that, by removing all resistance at that particular spot, indeed, which had given the field its most dangerous cant, turning the movement of the vessel towards the rocks. The chance, therefore, existed in the possibility--and it was little more than a bare possibility--of moving the schooner in that small area of open water, and of taking her far enough south to clear the most southern extremity of the wall of stone that protected the cove. As yet, this open water did not extend far enough to admit of the schooner's being taken to the point in question; but it was slowly tending in that direction, and did not the basin close altogether ere that desirable object was achieved, the vessel might yet be saved. In order, however, to do this, it would be necessary to cut a sort of dock or slip in the ice of the cove, into which the craft might shoot, as a place of refuge. Once within the cove, fairly behind the point of the rocks, there would be perfect safety; if suffered to drift to the southward of that shelter, this schooner would probably be lost like her consort, and very much in the same manner.

Gardiner now sent a gang of hands to the desired point, armed with saws; and the slip was commenced. The ice in the cove was still only two or three inches thick, and the work went bravely on. Instead of satisfying himself with cutting a passage merely behind the point of rock, Hazard opened one quite up into the cove, to the precise place where the schooner had been so long at anchor. Just as the sun was setting, the crisis arrived. So heavy had been the movement towards the rocks, that Roswell saw he could delay no longer. Were he to continue where he was, a projection on the cape would prevent his passage to the entrance of the cove; he would be shut in, and he might be certain that the Sea Lion would be crushed if the floe pressed home upon the shore. The ice-anchors were cut out accordingly, the jib was hoisted, and the schooner wore short round on her heel. The space between the floe and the projection in the rocks just named, did not now exceed a hundred feet; and it was lessening fast. Much more room existed on each side of this particular excrescence in the rugged coast, the space north being still considerable, while that to the southward might be a hundred yards in width; the former of these areas being owing to the form of the basin, and the latter to the shape of the shore.

In the first of the basins named, the schooner wore short round on her heel, her foresail being set to help her. A breathless moment passed as she ran down towards the narrow strait. It was quickly reached, and that none too soon; the opening now not exceeding sixty feet. The yards of the vessel almost brushed the rocks in passing; but she went clear. As soon as in the lower basin, as one might call it, the jib and foresail were taken in, and the head of the mainsail was got on the craft. This helped her to luff up towards the slip, which she reached under sufficient head-way fairly to enter it. Lines were thrown to the people on the ice, who soon hauled the schooner up to the head of her frozen dock. Three cheers broke spontaneously out of the throats of the men, as they thus achieved the step which assured them of the safety of the vessel, so far as the ice was concerned! In this way do we estimate our advantages and disadvantages, by comparison. In the abstract, the situation of the sealers was still sufficiently painful; though compared with what it would have been with the other schooner wrecked, it was security itself.

By this time it was quite dark; and a day of excitement and fatigue required a night of rest. After supping, the men turned in; the Vineyarders mostly in the house, where they occupied their old bunks. When the moon rose, the party from the wreck arrived, with their carts well loaded, and themselves half frozen, notwithstanding their toil. In a short time, all were buried in sleep.

When Roswell Gardiner came on deck next morning, his first glance told him how little was the chance of his party's returning north that season. The strange floe had driven into the Great Bay, completely covering its surface, lining the shores far and near with broken and glittering cakes of ice; and, as it were, hermetically sealing the place against all egress. New ice, an inch or two thick, or even six or eight inches thick, might have been sawed through; and a passage cut even for a league, should it be necessary. Such things were sometimes done, and great as would have been the toil, our sealers would have attempted it, in preference to running the risk of passing a winter in that region. But almost desperate as would have been even that source of refuge, the party was completely cut off from its possession. To think of sawing through ice as thick as that of the floe, for any material distance, would be like a project to tunnel the Alps.

Melancholy was the meeting between Roswell and Daggett that morning. The former was too manly and generous to indulge in reproaches, else might he well have told the last that all this was owing to him. There is a singular propensity in us all to throw the burthen of our own blunders on the shoulders of other folk. Roswell had a little of this weakness, overlooking the fact that he was his own master; and as he had come to the group by himself, he ought to have left it in the same manner, as soon as his own particular task was accomplished. But Roswell did not see this quite as distinctly as he saw the fact that Daggett's detentions and indirect appeals to his better feelings had involved him in all these difficulties. Still, while thus he felt, he made no complaint.

All hope of getting north that season now depended on the field-ice's drifting away from the Great Bay before it got fairly frozen in. So jammed and crammed with it did every part of the bay appear to be, however, that little could be expected from that source of relief. This Daggett admitted in the conversation he held with Roswell, as soon as the latter joined him on the rocky terrace beneath the house.

"The wisest thing we can do, then," replied our hero, "will be to make as early preparations as possible to meet the winter. If we are to remain here, a day gained now will be worth a week a month hence. If we should happily escape, the labour thus expended will not kill us."