l aware. Many a time have I seen
a ship's crew strain and heave on warps and cables for hours together,
and only gain a yard by all their efforts; but many a time, also, have I
seen a single yard of headway save a ship from destruction."

"True," rejoined Captain Ellice; "I have seen a little of it myself.
There is no spot on earth, I think, equal to the Polar Regions for
bringing out into bold relief two great and _apparently_ antagonistic
truth's--namely, man's urgent need of all his powers to accomplish the
work of his own deliverance, and man's utter helplessness and entire
dependence on the sovereign will of God."

"When shall we sink the canisters, sir?" asked Bolton, coming up and
touching his hat.

"In an hour, Mr. Bolton; the tide will be full then, and we shall try
what effect a blast will have."

"My opeenion is," remarked Saunders, who passed at the moment with two
large bags of gunpowder under his arms, "that it'll have no effect at
a'. It'll just loosen the ice roond the ship."

The captain smiled as he said, "_That_ is all the effect I hope for, Mr.
Saunders. Should the outward ice give way soon, we shall then be in a
better position to avail ourselves of it."

As Saunders predicted, the effect of powder and saws was merely to
loosen and rend the ice-tables in which the _Dolphin_ was imbedded; but
deliverance was coming sooner than any of those on board expected. That
night a storm arose, which, for intensity of violence, equalled, if it
did not surpass, the severest gales they had yet experienced. It set the
great bergs of the Polar Seas in motion, and these moving mountains of
ice slowly and majestically began their voyage to southern climes,
crashing through the floes, overturning the hummocks, and ripping up the
ice-tables with quiet but irresistible momentum. For two days the war of
ice continued to rage, and sometimes the contending forces, in the shape
of huge tongues and corners of bergs, were forced into the Bay of Mercy,
and threatened swift destruction to the little craft, which was a mere
atom that might have been crushed and sunk and scarcely missed in such a
wild scene.

At one time a table of ice was forced out of the water and reared up,
like a sloping wall of glass, close to the stern of the _Dolphin_, where
all the crew were assembled with ice-poles ready to do their utmost; but
their feeble efforts could have availed them nothing had the
slowly-moving mass continued its onward p