ather rendered any attempt to
secure one at that time impossible. A dark sinister scowl overhung the
blink under the cloud-bank to the southward, and the dovkies which had
enlivened their progress hitherto forsook the channel, as if they
distrusted the weather. Captain Guy made every possible preparation to
meet the coming storm, by warping down under the shelter of a ledge of
rock, to which he made fast with two good hawsers, while everything was
made snug on board.

"We are going to catch it, I fear," said Fred, glancing at the black
clouds that hurried across the sky to the northward, while he walked the
deck with his friend, Tom Singleton.

"I suspect so," replied Tom, "and it does not raise my spirits to see
Saunders shaking his huge visage so portentously. Do you know, I have a
great belief in that fellow. He seems to know everything and to have
gone through every sort of experience, and I notice that most of his
prognostications come to pass."

"So they do, Tom," said Fred; "but I wish he would put a better face on
things till they _do_ come to pass. His looks are enough to frighten
one."

"I think we shall require another line out, Mr. Saunders," remarked the
captain, as the gale freshened, and the two hawsers were drawn straight
and rigid like bars of iron; "send ashore and make a whale-line fast
immediately."

The second mate obeyed with a grunt that seemed to insinuate that _he_
would have had one out long ago. In a few minutes it was fast; and not a
moment too soon, for immediately after it blew a perfect hurricane.
Heavier and heavier it came, and the ice began to drift more wildly than
ever. The captain had just given orders to make fast another line, when
the sharp, twanging snap of a cord was heard. The six-inch hawser had
parted, and they were swinging by the two others, with the gale roaring
like a lion through the spars and rigging. Half a minute more and
"twang, twang!" came another report, and the whale-line was gone. Only
one rope now held them to the land, and prevented them being swept into
the turmoil of ice, and wind, and water, from which the rocky ledge
protected them. The hawser was a good one--a new ten-inch rope. It sang
like the deep tones of an organ, loud above the rattle of the rigging
and the shrouds; but that was its death-song. It gave way with the noise
of a cannon, and in the smoke that followed its recoil they were dragged
out by the wild ice, and driven hither and thither