The Sea Lions; Or, The Lost Sealers

by James Fenimore Cooper

Great encouragement it certainly was to these mariners, so far from home, and in their imminently perilous condition, to know that a countryman and a friend was so near them, to afford shelter and protection. The American sailor is not a cheering animal, like his English relative, but he quite as clearly understands what ought to be received with congratulation, as those who are apt to make more noise. The Vineyard men, in particular, were habitually quiet and thoughtful, there being but one seaman in the craft who did not husband his lay, and look forward to meet the wants of a future day. This is the result of education, men usually becoming quiet as they gain ideas, and feel that the tongue has been given to us in order to communicate them to our fellows. Still, the joy at receiving this unlooked-for assistance was great among the Vineyard men, and each party went to work with activity and zeal.

The task of Roswell Gardiner was in-board, while that of Daggett and his men continued to be on the ice. The latter resumed the labour of cutting and sawing the field, and of getting up fenders, or skids, to protect the inner side of their vessel from the effects of a 'nip.' As for Gardiner, he set about his self-assumed duty with great readiness and intelligence. His business was to strengthen the craft, by getting supports up in her hold. This was done without much difficulty, all the upper part of the hold being clear and easily come at. Spars were cut to the proper length, plank were placed in the broadest part of the vessel, opposite to each other, and the spars were wedged in carefully, extending from side to side, so as to form a great additional support to the regular construction of the schooner. In little more than an hour, Roswell had his task accomplished, while Daggett did not see that he could achieve much more himself. They met on the ice to consult, and to survey the condition of things around them.

The outer field had been steadily encroaching upon the inner, breaking the edges of both, until the points of junction were to be traced by a long line of fragments forced upward, and piled high in the air. Open spaces, however, still existed, owing to irregularities in the outlines of the two floes; and Daggett hoped that the little bay into which he had got his schooner might not be entirely closed, ere a shift of wind, or a change in the tides, might carry away the causes of the tremendous pressure that menaced his security. It is not easy for those who are accustomed to look at natural objects in their more familiar aspects, fully to appreciate the vast momentum of the weight that was now drifting slowly down upon the schooner. The only ray of hope was to be found in the deficiency in one of the two great requisites of such a force. Momentum being weight, multiplied into velocity, there were some glimpses visible, of a nature to produce a slight degree of expectation that the last might yet be resisted. The movement was slow, but it was absolutely grand, by its steadiness and power. Any one who has ever stood on a lake or river shore, and beheld the undeviating force with which a small cake of ice crumbles and advances before a breeze, or in a current, may form some idea of the majesty of the movement of a field of leagues in diameter, and which was borne upon by a gale of the ocean, as well as by currents, and by the weight of drifting ice-bergs from without. It is true that the impetus came principally from a great distance, and could scarcely be detected or observed by those around the schooner; still, these last were fully aware of the whole character of the danger, which each minute appeared to render more and more imminent and imposing. The two fields were obviously closing still, and that with a resistless power that boded destruction to the unfortunate vessel. The open water near her was already narrowed to a space that half an hour might suffice to close entirely.

"Have you set that nearest island by compass, Daggett?" asked Roswell Gardiner, as soon as he had taken a good look around him. "To me it seems that it bears more to the eastward than it did an hour since. If this should be true, our inner field here must have a very considerable westerly set."

"In which case we may still hope to drift clear," returned Daggett, springing on board the schooner, and running aft to the binnacle, Roswell keeping close at his side. "By George! it is as you say; the bearings of that island are altered at least two points!"

"In which case our drift has exceeded a league--Ha! what noise is that? Can it be an eruption of the volcano?"

Daggett, at first, was inclined to believe it was a sound produced by some of the internal convulsions of the earth, which within, as if in mockery of the chill scene that prevailed without, was a raging volcano, the fierce heats of which found vent at the natural chimneys produced by its own efforts. This opinion, however, did not last long, and he gave expression to his new thoughts in his answer.

"'Tis the ice," he said. "I do believe the pressure has caused the fields to part on the rocks of that island. If so, our leeward floe may float away, as fast as the weather field approaches."

"Hardly," said Roswell, gazing intently towards the nearest island; "hardly; for the most weatherly of the two will necessarily get the force of the wind and the impetus of those bergs first, and make the fastest drift. It may lessen the violence of the nip, but I do not think it will avert it altogether."

This opinion of Gardiner's fully described all that subsequently occurred. The outer floe continued its inroads on the inner, breaking up the margins of both, until the channel was so nearly closed as to bring the field from which the danger was most apprehended in absolute contact with the side of the schooner. When the margin of the outer floe first touched the bilge of the schooner, it was at the precise spot where the vessel had just been fortified within. Fenders had also been provided without, and there was just a quarter of a minute, during which the two captains hoped that these united means of defence might enable the craft to withstand the pressure. This delusion lasted but a moment, however, the cracking of timbers letting it be plainly seen that the force was too great to be resisted. For another quarter of a minute, the two masters held their breath, expecting to see the deck rise beneath their feet, as the ice rose along the points of contact between the floes. Such, in all probability, would have been the result, had not the pressure brought about another change, that was quite as much within the influence of the laws of mechanical forces, though not so much expected. Owing to the wedge-like form of the vessel's bottom, as well as to the circumstance that the ice of the outer floe had a similar shape, projecting beneath the schooner's keel, the craft was lifted bodily, with an upward jerk, as if she were suddenly released from some imprisoning power. Released she was, indeed, and that most opportunely, for another half-minute would have seen her ribs broken in, and the schooner a mangled wreck. As she now rose, Roswell gave vent to his delight in a loud cry, and all hands felt that the occurrence might possibly save them. The surge upward was fearful, and several of the men were thrown off their feet; but it effectually released the schooner from the nip, laying her gradually up in the sort of dock that her people had been so many hours preparing for her reception. There she lay, inclining a little, partly on her bilge, or sewed, as seamen term it, when a vessel gets a list from touching the ground and being left by the tide, neither quite upright, nor absolutely on her beam-ends.