The Sea Lions; Or, The Lost Sealers

by James Fenimore Cooper

"I dare say it may be a pretty good one, Stephen," answered Roswell, "and we'll bear it in mind. As for stoves we are well enough off, for there is one in the house, and a good large one it is; then, there is a stove in each cabin, and there are the two cambooses. If we had fuel for them all, I should feel no concern on the score of warmth."

"There's the wrack, sir. By cutting her up at once, we should get wood enough, in my judgment, to see it out."

Roswell made no reply; but he looked intently at the boat-steerer for half a minute. The idea was new to him; and the more he thought on the subject, the greater was the confidence it gave him in the result. Daggett, he well knew, would not consent to the mutilation of his schooner, wreck as it was, so long as the most remote hope existed of getting her again into the water. The tenacity with which this man clung to property was like that which is imputed to the life of the cat; and it was idle to expect any concessions from him on a subject like that. Nevertheless, necessity is a hard master; and if the question were narrowed down to one of burning the materials of a vessel that was in the water, and in good condition, and of burning those of one that was out of the water, with holes cut through her bottom in several places, and otherwise so situated as to render repairs extremely difficult, if not impossible, even Duggett would be compelled to submit to circumstances.

It was accordingly suggested to the people of the Vineyard Lion that they could do no better than to begin at once to remove everything they could come at, and which could be transported from the wreck to the house. As there was little to do on board the vessel afloat, her crew cheerfully offered to assist in this labour. The days were shortening sensibly and fast, and no time was to be lost, the distance being so great as to make two trips a day a matter of great labour. No sooner was the plan adopted, therefore, than steps were taken to set about its execution.

It is unnecessary for us to dwell minutely on everything that occurred during the succeeding week or ten days. The wind shifted to south-west the very day that the Sea Lion got back into her little harbour; and this seemed to put a sudden check on the pressure of the vast floe. Nevertheless, there was no counter-movement, the ice remaining in the Great Bay seemingly as firmly fastened as if it had originally been made there. Notwithstanding this shift of the wind to a cold point of the compass, the thermometer rose, and it thawed freely about the middle of the day, in all places to which the rays of the sun had access. This enabled the men to work with more comfort than they could have done in the excessively severe weather; as it was found that respiration became difficult when it was so very cold.

Access was now obtained to the wreck by cutting a regular passage to the main hatch through the ice. The schooner stood nearly upright, sustained by fragments of the floe; and there were extensive caverns all around her, produced by the random manner in which the cakes had come up out of their proper element like so many living things. Among these caverns one might have wandered for miles without once coming out into the open air, though they were cold and cheerless, and had little to attract the adventurer after the novelty was abated. In rising from the water, the schooner had been roughly treated; but once sustained by the ice, her transit had been easy and tolerably safe. Several large cakes lay on or over her, sustained more by other cakes that rested on the rocks than by the timbers of the vessel herself. These cakes formed a sort of roof, and as they did not drip, they served to make a shelter against the wind; for, at the point where the wreck lay the south-west gales came howling round the base of the mountain, piercing the marrow itself in the bones. At the hut it was very different. There the heights made a lee that extended all over the cape, and for some distance to the westward; while the whole power the sun possessed in that high latitude was cast, very obliquely it is true, but clearly, and without any other drawback than its position in the ecliptic, fairly on the terrace, the hut above, and the rocks around it. On the natural terrace, indeed, it was still pleasant to walk and work, and even to sit for a few hours in the middle of the day; for winter was not yet come in earnest in that frozen world.

One of Roswell's first objects was to transport most of the eatables from the wreck; for he foresaw the need there would be for everything of the sort. Neither vessel had laid in a stock of provisions for a longer period than about twelve months, of which nearly half were now gone. This allowance applied to salted meats and bread, which are usually regarded as the base of a ship's stores. There were several barrels of flour, a few potatoes, a large quantity of onions, a few barrels of corn-meal, or 'injin,' as it is usually termed in American parlance, an entire barrel of pickled cucumbers, another about half full of cabbage preserved in the same way, and an entire barrel of molasses. In addition, there was a cask of whiskey, a little wine and brandy to be used medicinally, sugar, brown, whitey-brown and browny-white, and a pretty fair allowance of tea and coffee; the former being a Hyson-skin, and the latter San Domingo of no very high quality. Most of these articles were transported from the wreck to the house, in the course of the few days that succeeded, though Daggett insisted on a certain portion of the supplies being left in his stranded craft. Not until this was done would Roswell listen to any proposal of Daggett's to transfer the skins. Twice during these few days, indeed, did the Vineyard master come to a pause in his proceedings, as the weather grew milder, and gleams of a hope of being able yet to get away that season crossed his mind. On the last of these occasions of misgiving, Roswell was compelled to lead his brother master up on the plain of the island, to an elevation of some three hundred feet above the level of the ocean, and more than half that distance higher than the house, and point out to him a panorama of field-ice that the eye could not command. Until that vast plain opened, or became riven by the joint action of the agitated ocean and the warmth of a sun from which the rays did not glance away from the frozen surface, like light obliquely received, and as obliquely reflected from a mirror, it was useless to think of releasing even the uninjured vessel; much less that which lay riven and crushed on the rocks.

"Were every cake of this ice melted into water, Daggett," Roswell continued, "it would not float off your schooner. The best supplied ship-yard in America could hardly furnish the materials for ways to launch her; and I never knew of a vessel's being dropped into the water some twenty feet nearly perpendicular."

"I don't know that," answered Daggett, stoutly. "See what they're doing now-a-days, and think nothing of it. I have seen a whole row of brick houses turned round by the use of jack-screws; and one building actually taken down a hill much higher than the distance you name. Commodore Rodgers has just hauled a heavy frigate out of the water, and means to put her back again, when he has done with her. What has been done once can be done twice. I do not like giving up 'till I'm forced to it."

"That is plain enough, Captain Daggett," returned Roswell, smiling. "That you are game, no one can deny; but it will all come to nothing. Neither Commodore Rodgers nor Commodore anybody else could put your craft into the water again without something to do it with."