But for the flare, that continued to blaze brightly from the schooner’s deck, they would have given over the struggle a dozen times. Hank could lend them no assistance, but lay, numbed and stupid, in the bottom of the boat, a dead-weight.
At last, when after a harder struggle than usual, on account of their exhaustion, they had again dragged the dory out on the ice, Breeze threw himself down in it exclaiming, “I’m about done for, Wolfe; and I’m afraid we’ve got to give it up.”
“I feel the same way myself,” said Wolfe, “I can’t pull another pound.”
The frigid breath of the ice-fields, penetrating their soaked garments, chilled them to the marrow, and they shook as with the ague. A short time longer of such exposure would have finished the story of these dorymates, and one more tale of death would have been added to the long list that saddens the history of the Banks fisheries. But their situation was not yet utterly hopeless. One brave spirit of that little group was not yet wholly prepared to yield itself beaten by the terrors that surrounded them.
After remaining a few minutes motionless and silent, Breeze shook off the numbness that was stealing over him, and endeavored to arouse his companions. Wolfe responded readily to his efforts, but it was a difficult matter to rouse Hank Hoffer. When at last he seemed able to understand them, Breeze said,
“We mustn’t give up yet, fellows. The schooner isn’t so very far off, and though we can’t drag the dory any farther, perhaps if we give a shout all together they may hear it on board and do something for us. The wind is blowing that way.”
Breeze remembered his experience in the seine-boat, off the capes of Delaware, and how the combined voices of its crew had saved them on that occasion.
The others were willing to try, and as Breeze gave the word they raised a cry so wild and shrill that they themselves were startled by it. Again and again they shouted until their voices were spent; but no sound came to them in reply. Still they sat shivering in the chill wind, and feeling the awful numbness again creeping over them, but with their eyes fixed upon the schooner’s light, that seemed so near and yet so immeasurably far from them.
All at once Wolfe started up, exclaiming, “There’s another light! see it, Breeze? A little one, between us and the flare. They’re coming for us! They’re coming for us!”
It was a faint wavering light, like that of a lantern, and often, as they watched, it disappeared, but always to appear again. Now it seemed to be going away from them, and again finding their voices, they raised once more the cry for help.