“Ay, ay,” muttered the mate, as he went below to give the necessary directions, “you don’t need to conclude your speech, Captain. If we don’t get out to-morrow, we’re locked up for one winter at least if not more.”
“Ay, and ye’ll no get oot to-morrow,” remarked Saunders with a shake of his head as he looked up from the log-book in which he was making an entry. “We’re hard and fast, so we’ll just have to make the best o’t.”
Saunders was right as the efforts of the next day proved. The ice lay around the vessel in solid masses, as we have said, and with each of the last three tides these masses had been slightly moved. Saws and ice chisels, therefore, had been in constant operation, and the men worked with the utmost energy, night and day, taking it by turns, and having double allowance of hot coffee served out to them. We may mention here that the Dolphin carried no spirits, except what was needed for medicinal purposes, and for fuel to several small cooking-lamps that had been recently invented. It had now been proved by many voyagers of experience that in cold countries, as well as hot, men work harder, and endure the extremity of hardship better, without strong drink than with it, and the Dolphin’s crew were engaged on the distinct understanding that coffee, and tea, and chocolate were to be substituted for rum, and that spirits were never to be given to anyone on board, except in cases of extreme necessity.
But, to return—although the men worked as only those can who toil for liberation from long imprisonment, no impression worth mentioning could be made on the ice. At length the attempt to rend it by means of gunpowder was made.
A jar containing about thirty pounds of powder was sunk in a hole in an immense block of ice which lay close against the stern of the ship. Mivins, being light of foot, was set to fire the train. He did so, and ran—ran so fast that he missed his footing in leaping over a chasm, and had well-nigh fallen into the water below. There was a whiz and a loud report, and the enormous mass of ice heaved upwards in the centre, and fell back in huge fragments. So far the result was satisfactory, and the men were immediately set to sink several charges in various directions around the vessel, to be in readiness for the highest tide, which was soon expected. Warps and hawsers were also got out and fixed to the seaward masses, ready to heave on them at a moment’s notice; the ship was lightened as much as possible, by lifting her stores upon the ice, and the whole crew—captain, mates, and all—worked and heaved like horses, until the perspiration streamed from their faces, while Mizzle kept supplying them with a constant deluge of hot coffee. Fred and the young surgeon, too, worked like the rest, with their coats off, handkerchiefs bound round their heads, and shirt-sleeves tucked up to their shoulders.
At last the tide rose—inch by inch, and slowly, as if it grudged to give them even a chance of escape.
Mivins grew impatient and unbelieving under it. “I don’t think it’ll rise another hinch,” he remarked to O’Riley, who stood near him.
“Niver fear, boy. The capting knows a sight better than you do, and he says it’ll rise a fut yit.”
“Does he?” asked Grim, who was also beginning to despond.
“Ov coorse he does. Sure he towld me in a confidential way, just before he wint to turn in last night—if it wasn’t yisturday forenoon, for it’s meself as niver knows an hour o’ the day since the sun became dissipated, and tuck to sittin’ up all night in this fashion.”