"Sure," said Billy, after a glance to the bridge, "he'll hit that pan till he smashes it, if it takes till Tibb's Eve!"
"Tibb's Eve?"
"Sure, b'y. Does you not know what that is? 'Tis till the end o' the world."
The ship was again to be launched against the pan. The second mate took the blasting crew to the ice in the quarter boat; and he lost no time about it, as the captain made sure. Up aloft went other hands to cut away the broken spar and loose the canvas. Work was carried on under the spur of the captain's harshened voice; for the captain was in a passion to prove the quality of his ship.
The ice picks were plied as fast as arms could swing them. Soon the mines were laid and fired. And when the dust of ice had fallen, and the noise of the explosion had gone rumbling into the distance, three gaping holes marked the pan at regular intervals from edge to edge.
"She's all tight below, sir," was the carpenter's report.
"Now, Mr. Ackell," said the captain, grimly, "in ten minutes we'll be free o' the ice, or——"
They made all sail. After a quiet word or two of command, forth the ship shot, heeling to the breeze, wind now allied with steam. Her course was laid straight for the jagged bruise in the pan. There was no stopping her now. The ice was cracked and shivered into a thousand pieces. The ship forged on, grinding the cakes to fragments, heaping them up, riding them down. She quivered when she struck, and strained and creaked as she crushed her way forward, but she crept on, invincible, adding inch to inch, foot to foot, until she swept out into the unclogged water.
Then she shook the ice from her screw, and ran grandly into the swelling sea.
"Hurrah!" the stout hearts roared.