deftly
manipulating, shot cleverly up along the weather side of the barque.

"Look out for our line, lads!" hailed Mildmay to the crew of the vessel,
who were gaping in open-mouthed astonishment at the extraordinary
apparition which had thus abruptly put in an appearance alongside them.

"Ay, ay, sir; heave!" answered one smart fellow, who, notwithstanding
his surprise, still seemed to have his wits about him. Mildmay hove the
line with all a seaman's skill, and a couple of bights settled down
round the neck and shoulders of the expectant tar.

"Haul in, and throw the eye of the hawser over your windlass bitts,"
ordered Mildmay; "we will soon have you clear of your present pickle."

"Thank you, sir," hailed the skipper; "haul in smart there, for'ard, and
take a turn _anywhere_; those bergs are driving down upon us mighty
fast."

With a joyous "hurrah" at the timely arrival of such unexpected
assistance, the men roused the hawser on board, threw the eye over the
bitts, passed two or three turns of the slack round the barrel of the
windlass, and adjusted the rope in a "fair-lead" with lightning
rapidity. Mildmay, who was intently watching their movements, waved his
hand as a signal to the baronet the instant he saw that the hawser was
properly fast on board the barque, and the _Flying Fish_ immediately
began to glide ahead. The baronet was evidently bent on retrieving his
character and making up for his past carelessness, for he handled his
strangely-shaped vessel with most consummate skill, bringing the strain
upon the hawser very gradually, and, when he had done so, coaxing the
barque's head round until her nose and that of the _Flying Fish_ pointed
straight toward the rapidly narrowing passage between the bergs. Then,
indeed, the thin but tough hawser straightened out taut as a bow-string
between the two vessels as the baronet sent his engines powerfully
ahead; the barque's windlass bitts creaked and groaned with the
tremendous strain to which they were suddenly subjected; a foaming surge
gathered and hissed under her bows, and as her harassed crew, active as
wild-cats, skipped about the decks busily letting go and clewing up,
away went the two craft toward the closing gap.

It was like steering into the jaws of death. The two bergs were by this
time within a bare cable's-length of the _Flying Fish's_ conical stem;
and as they swept irresistibly onward, their pinnacled summits towering
five hundred feet into