"No, no," he answered. "'Tis a Spaniard's trick to fling down to a
broadside. Body of St. Joseph, what a furious explosion!" and so saying
he crawled into the companion and squatted beside me. "What has it done
for us?"

"I don't know yet," said I; "but I believe the schooner is uninjured.
_That_ was a powerful shock!" I cried, as a half-dozen of bags blew up
together in the crevices deep down.

The thunder and tumult of the rending ice accompanied by the heavy
explosions of the gunpowder so dulled the hearing that it was difficult
to speak. That the mines had accomplished our end was not yet to be
known; but there could not be the least doubt that they had not only
occasioned tremendous ruptures low down in the ice, but that the
volcanic influence was extending far beyond its first effects by making
one split produce another, one weak part give way and create other
weaknesses, and so on, all round about us and under our keel, as was
clearly to be gathered by the shivering and spasms of the schooner, and
by the growls, roars, blasts, and huddle of terrifying sounds which
arose from the frozen floor.

It was twenty minutes after the hour at which the mines had been framed
to explode when the last parcel burst; but we waited another quarter of
an hour to make sure that it _was_ the last, during all which time the
growling and roaring noises deep down continued, as if there was a
battle of a thousand lions raging in the vaults and hollows underneath.
The smoke had been settled away by the wind, and the prospect was clear.
We ran below to see to the fire and receive five minutes of heat into
our chilled bodies, and then returned to view the scene.

I looked first over the starboard side and saw the great split that had
happened in the night torn in places into immense yawns and gulfs by the
fall of vast masses of rock out of its sides; but what most delighted me
was the hollow sound of washing water. I lifted my hand and listened.

"'Tis the swell of the sea flowing into the opening!" I exclaimed.

"That means," said Tassard, "that this side of the block is dislocated
from the main."

"Yes," cried I. "And if the powder ahead of the bows has done its work,
the heave of the ocean will do the rest."

We made our way on to the forecastle over a deep bed of splinters of
ice, lying like wood-shavings upon the deck, and I took notice as I
walked that every glorious crystal pendant that had before adorned the
yards, ri