water beyond.

"Well done the _Hope_!" said the captain, as he walked aft, while a
cheer burst from the men.

"I think she ought to be called the _Good Hope_ ever after this," said
Tom Gregory. "If she cuts her way through everything as easily as she
has cut through that neck of ice, we shall reach the North Pole itself
before winter."

"If we reach the North Pole _at all_," observed Mr Dicey, "I'll climb
up to the top of it and stand on my head, I will!"

The second mate evidently had no expectation of reaching that mysterious
pole, which men have so long and so often tried to find, in vain.

"Heavy ice ahead, sir," shouted Mr Mansell, who was at the masthead
with a telescope.

"Where away?"

"On the weather bow, sir, the pack seems open enough to push through,
but the large bergs are numerous."

The _Hope_ was now indeed getting into the heart of those icy regions
where ships are in constant danger from the floating masses that come
down with the ocean-currents from the far north. In sailing along she
was often obliged to run with great violence against lumps so large that
they caused her whole frame to tremble, stout though it was. "Shall we
smash the lump, or will it stave in our bows?" was a question that
frequently ran in the captain's mind. Sometimes ice closed round her
and squeezed the sides so that her beams cracked. At other times, when
a large field was holding her fast, the smaller pieces would grind and
rasp against her as they went past, until the crew fancied the whole of
the outer sheathing of planks had been scraped off. Often she had to
press close to ice-bergs of great size, and more than once a lump as
large as a good-sized house fell off the ice-fields and plunged into the
sea close to her side, causing her to rock violently on the waves that
were raised by it.

Indeed the bergs are dangerous neighbours, not only from this cause, but
also on account of their turning upside down at times, and even falling
to pieces, so that Captain Harvey always kept well out of their way when
he could; but this was not always possible. The little brig had a
narrow escape one day from the falling of a berg.

It was a short time after that day on which they had the game of
football. They passed in safety through the floes and bergs that had
been seen that evening, and got into open water beyond, where they made
made good progress before falling in with ice; but at last they came to
a part of Baff