gunwale of the boat,
drawing it down, the men stepped close to the shrouds, and the captain
darted a sharp glance from the bridge at the top of the floe, which was
to be their asylum.

Then, roaring loudly, the ice-laden wave struck the poop with a
tremendous crash, lifted the vessel, and bore her onward on the breast
of the furious cataract, onward and onward along the narrow passage,
which seemed to open out before the rushing water. The yards scraped
here and scraped there along the cliff-sides; the ice pounded them, and
gave forth a peculiar, hollow, echoing roar, but, swiftly almost as an
arrow, they were borne along, with the steam whistle shrieking as if the
unfortunate boat were in agony.

A minute.

It seemed to all an hour of horror too terrible to be borne, and then
the captain, with both hands to his mouth, roared:

"Engineer! below! stop that escape of steam!"

The man darted to the engine-room hatch, and disappeared, just as the
walls behind them closed in with a deafening crash as of a thousand
thunder peals, the water rushed by them as if shot from some gigantic
pipe, and the _Hvalross_ was borne forward at a speed such as she had
never half achieved before. Then, as the walls behind continued to
close, the vessel glided into open water, which grew clearer and clearer
right ahead, where it was running like some mighty mill-race a mile wide
northward, between the ice and the great promontory, which jutted out
from the land.

"Steve!" said the doctor, with his lips to his young companion's ear;
"and they say the days of miracles are past!"

Without another word he went below into the cabin, and Steve felt his
hand grasped from above. He looked up to see that it was Johannes
leaning down from the boat.

"We are saved, my dear lad," he said in a voice deep with emotion; and
as if he, too, could participate in the general feeling of thankfulness,
Skene burst into a joyful fit of barking and leaped right down upon the
deck.

The sun shone more brightly than ever, the snow crystals glistened like
diamonds, and the cliffs and mountains towering up on their right above
the blue fiord were glorious to behold; but everything to Steve Young
looked misty, and he could only see Captain Marsham as through a veil
when that gentleman followed the example of Johannes and reached down
from the bridge to grasp the boy's hand.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

AFTER STORM--CALM.

There was plenty of floating i