"He went below, and in about half an hour reported that one of the plates in our starboard bow had been cracked by the ice. The break was below the water-line, but I succeeded in stopping it up by melting some tar, which I fortunately had aboard, and pouring it into the crack. Our engine was stopped altogether now, because the ice was so thick that it was dangerous to push the vessel ahead. There was a good deal of sea underrunning the ice, and it required the greatest skill and watchfulness to prevent disaster. To avoid injury altogether was quite impossible. At four bells in the morning watch on July 23d, while we were still in the ice-field, there was a jar and a crash. I sprang from my bunk, in which I had been lying dressed, and jumped on deck.
"'What in the world has happened now?' I cried.
"'Carried away our rudder, sir,' called the second mate, who was leaning over the taffrail.
"The pale-faced boy came up to me, and looking into my face with his great solemn eyes, said,
"'What shall we do now?'
"'Rig another,' I answered as bravely as I could.
"I'm not going to describe to you the rigging of a jury-rudder, because it's one of the commonest feats of sea-engineering; but I will tell you that it cost us a day's hard work, and required the use of some spare stuff which I would have been very glad to put into the furnaces, for the coal supply was becoming smaller and smaller, and we were seven hundred miles from the nearest port. Well, we were twelve long, heart-breaking days in the ice. Fortunately it rained heavily during two of those days, and by using everything we had on board, including the boats, to catch the rain, I succeeded in fairly replenishing the supply of water in our tanks. We were fortunate in having an unusually large supply of food, and this alone saved us from falling into the straits of hunger. We had plenty of everything except beef and pork. These articles were exhausted, and we had to depend upon canned food, bread, crackers, tea, and coffee. But we had enough of those to last us three months, so that I did not deem it necessary to shorten the allowances. On August 2d we got clear of the ice, and began to make progress at the rate of four knots an hour under sail and a little steam, but three points off our course. In all this time we had sighted nothing save one distant sail; but on August 3d, to our intense joy, a steamer rose over the horizon ahead of us. I set signals of distress, and they were seen. The steamer proved to be the Argonaut, from Halifax for Liverpool, and her Captain agreed to tow us into Halifax. It was a long, long way, and we knew it would be a slow task, but the thought of it lightened every heart. My men jumped eagerly to the task of passing the great hawser, and at four o'clock in the afternoon it was stretched, and the Argonaut began to drag us westward at six knots an hour. Our ship's company gathered in the bow and gave a cheer, and the boy smiled and said,
"'At last we shall get home to mamma.'
"I turned in after that and slept the sleep of exhaustion. The Argonaut towed us gallantly for 250 miles; and then, on the night of August 5th, we ran into another gale from the nor'west. It was not as bad as those we had previously encountered, but it checked our advance, and before morning had raised a heavy sea. At eight o'clock the tow-line parted with a report like that of a gun. To think of stretching it again in such a sea was hopeless, but the Argonaut lay by us all day. Several times in the course of the following night we saw her lights, but before morning the wind shifted to the southeast, a fog came up, and we never saw the Argonaut again. Sadly we set sail on the Bristow, and began to move slowly through the still troubled waters. But at nine o'clock the fog cleared off, the wind hauled to the eastward, and the sea became moderate. I was now able to set every stitch of canvas on the vessel with a fair wind, and I laid my course for St. John's, Newfoundland. We forged ahead at four knots an hour, and hope revived in every breast. But before night the wind fell light, and our progress became nothing better than a drift of two knots hourly. Still we were going ahead, and we did not despair. Calm weather and light winds continued till August 10th, and then the wind came in ahead. We were now about two hundred miles from Cape Race. Two schooners passed us in the course of the day, and I signalled to them our condition, asking them to report us, and they promised to do so. I now determined to use the last fuel I could find aboard the ship. Our coal had been exhausted, and I did not dare to strip the spars from the masts lest I should still need them to make sail. All the bulkheads in the ship were iron, but I had every available bit of wood-work cut away, including the doors, and so made enough steam to start the engine again. We went ahead very slowly all that day, but the following morning, when 38 miles southeast of Cape Race, we came to a stand-still. Our fuel was all gone, and the boilers were cold.
"'What shall we do now?' asked the pale-faced boy.