Fast in the Ice | Page 8

second supply of tea. In his left hand he carried a tray of biscuit.
The captain sat at the head of the table, Dicey at the foot, and the doctor
at the side.
Suddenly a tremendous shock was felt! The captain's cup of tea leaped
away from him and flooded the centre of the table. The doctor's cup
was empty; he seized the table with both hands and remained steady;
but Dicey's cup happened to be at his lips at the moment, and was quite
full. The effect on him was unfortunate. He was thrown violently on his
back, and the tea poured over his face and drenched his hair as he lay
sprawling on the floor. The steward saved himself by dropping the
bread-tray and grasping the handle of the cabin door. So violent was the
shock that the ship's bell was set a-ringing.
"Beg pardon, gentlemen," cried the first mate, looking down the
skylight. "I forgot to warn you. The ice is getting rather thick around us,
and I had to charge a lump of it."
"It's all very well to beg pardon," said the captain, "but that won't mend
my crockery!"

"Or dry my head," growled Mr Dicey; "it's as bad as if I'd been dipped
overboard, it is."
Before Mr Dicey's grumbling remarks were finished all three of them
had reached the deck. The wind had freshened considerably, and the
brig was rushing in a somewhat alarming manner among the floes. It
required the most careful attention to prevent her striking heavily.
"If it goes on like this, we shall have to reduce sail," observed the
captain. "See, there is a neck of ice ahead that will stop us."
This seemed to be probable, for the lane of water along which they
were steering was, just ahead of them, stopped by a neck of ice that
connected two floe-pieces. The water beyond was pretty free from ice,
but this neck or mass seemed so thick that it became a question whether
they should venture to charge it or shorten sail.
"Stand by the fore- and main-topsail braces!" shouted the captain.
"Aye, aye, sir!"
"Now, Mr Mansell," said he, with a smile, "we have come to our first
real difficulty. What do you advise; shall we back the topsails, or try
what our little Hope is made of, and charge the enemy?"
"Charge!" answered the mate.
"Just so," said the captain, hastening to the bow to direct the steersman.
"Port your helm."
"Steady."
The brig was now about fifty yards from the neck of ice, tearing
through the water like a race-horse. In another moment she was up to it
and struck it fair in the middle. The stout little vessel quivered to her
keel under the shock, but she did not recoil. She split the mass into
fragments, and, bearing down all before her, sailed like a conqueror
into the clear water beyond.

"Well done the Hope!" said the captain, as he walked aft, while a cheer
burst from the men.
"I think she ought to be called the Good Hope ever after this," said Tom
Gregory. "If she cuts her way through everything as easily as she has
cut through that neck of ice, we shall reach the North Pole itself before
winter."
"If we reach the North Pole at all," observed Mr Dicey, "I'll climb up to
the top of it and stand on my head, I will!"
The second mate evidently had no expectation of reaching that
mysterious pole, which men have so long and so often tried to find, in
vain.
"Heavy ice ahead, sir," shouted Mr Mansell, who was at the masthead
with a telescope.
"Where away?"
"On the weather bow, sir, the pack seems open enough to push through,
but the large bergs are numerous."
The Hope was now indeed getting into the heart of those icy regions
where ships are in constant danger from the floating masses that come
down with the ocean-currents from the far north. In sailing along she
was often obliged to run with great violence against lumps so large that
they caused her whole frame to tremble, stout though it was. "Shall we
smash the lump, or will it stave in our bows?" was a question that
frequently ran in the captain's mind. Sometimes ice closed round her
and squeezed the sides so that her beams cracked. At other times, when
a large field was holding her fast, the smaller pieces would grind and
rasp against her as they went past, until the crew fancied the whole of
the outer sheathing of planks had been scraped off. Often she had to
press close to ice-bergs of great size, and more than once a lump as
large as a good-sized house fell off the ice-fields and plunged into