by
these calves when they anchor too near to the bergs. Had this calf
struck the _Hope_ a fair blow she must certainly have gone down with all
on board.

They were not yet freed from their troubles, however. In half an hour
the wind shifted a few points, but the stream of the loose ice did not
change. The brig was, therefore, blown right in among the rushing
masses. The three cables that held her were snapped as if they had been
pieces of packthread, and she was whirled out into the pack, where she
drove helplessly, exposed to the fury of the howling storm and the
dangers of the grinding ice. Captain Harvey now felt that he could do
nothing to save his vessel. He believed that if God did not mercifully
put forth His hand to deliver them by a miracle, he and his companions
would certainly perish. In this the captain was wrong. Nothing is
impossible to the Almighty. He can always accomplish his purposes
without the aid of a miracle.

There did, indeed, seem no way of escape; for the driving masses of ice
were grinding each other to powder in nearly every direction, and the
brig only escaped instant destruction by being wedged between two pieces
that held together from some unknown cause. Presently they were carried
down toward a large berg that seemed to be aground, for the loose ice
was passing it swiftly. This was not the case, however. An
undercurrent, far down in the depths of the sea, was acting on this
berg, and preventing it from travelling with the ice that floated with
the stream at the surface. In its passing, the mass of ice that held
them struck one of the projecting tongues beneath the surface, and was
split in two. The brig was at once set free. As they passed they might
almost have leaped upon the berg. Captain Harvey saw and seized his
opportunity.

"Stand by to heave an anchor," he shouted.

Sam Baker, being the strongest man in the ship, sprang to one of the
small ice-anchors that lay on the deck with a line attached to it, and,
lifting it with both hands, stood ready.

The brig passed close to the end of the berg, where the lee-side formed
a long tail of sheltered water. She was almost thrust into this by the
piece of ice from which she had just escaped. She grazed the edge of
the berg as she drove past.

"Heave!" shouted the captain.

Sam Baker swung the anchor round his head as if it had been a feather,
and hurled it far upon the ice. For a few yards it rattled over the
sl