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 sitting up all night in this fashion."

"Shut up yer tatie-trap and open yer weather-eye," muttered Buzzby, who
had charge of the gang; "there'll be time enough to speak after we're
off."

Gradually, as the tide rose, the ice and the ship moved, and it became
evident that the latter was almost afloat, though the former seemed to
be only partly raised from the ground. The men were at their several
posts ready for instant action, and gazing in anxious expectation at the
captain, who stood, watch in hand, ready to give the word.

"Now, then, fire!" he said in a low voice.

In a moment the ice round the ship was rent, and upheaved, as if some
leviathan of the deep were rising from beneath it, and the vessel swung
slowly round. A loud cheer burst from the men.

"Now, lads, heave with a will!" roared the captain.

Round went the capstan, the windlass clanked, and the ship forged slowly
ahead, as the warps and hawsers became rigid. At that moment a heavy
block of ice, which had been overbalanced by the motion of the vessel,
fell with a crash on the rudder, splitting off a large portion of it,
and drawing the iron bolts that held it completely out of the
stern-post.

"Never mind; heave away--for your lives!" cried the captain. "Jump on
board, all of you!"

The few men who had until now remained on the ice scrambled up the side.
There was a sheet of ice right ahead which the ship could not clear, but
which she was pushing out to sea in advance of her. Suddenly this took
the ground and remained motionless.

"Out there with ice-chisels! Sink a hole like lightning! Prepare a
canister, Mr. Bolton--quick!" shouted the captain in desperation, as he
sprang over the side and assisted to cut into the unwieldy obstruction.
The charge was soon fixed and fired, but it only split the block in two
and left it motionless as before. A few minutes after the ship again
grounded; the ice settled round her; the spring tide was lost, and they
were not delivered.

Those who know the bitterness of repeated disappointment and of hope
deferred, may judge of the feelings with which the crew of the _Dolphin_
now regarded their position. Little, indeed, was said, but the grave
looks of most of the men, and the absence of the usual laugh, and jest,
and disposition to skylark, which, on almost all other occa