sion of gratitude to God for their deliverance as ever issued from
human lips. Their escape, though it could easily be accounted for,
might indeed well be called miraculous, for at the moment when their
last hope was extinguished--apparently their last chance gone--two huge
overhanging projections on the summits of the bergs had come into
contact with such violence that both the projecting masses of ice had
become detached and had gone thundering down into the water, fortunately
at some few yards' distance astern of the whaler, and the shock of
collision had been so great as to compel the momentary recoil of the
bergs, with the fortunate result already described.

Directly it was seen that the barque had indeed escaped, the _Flying
Fish's_ engines were slowed down to their lowest speed, and the whaler,
relieved of the enormous tugging strain upon her, once more floated on
her normal water-lines. The two craft were now in comparatively open
water, the channel being between two and three miles wide, and still
widening ahead of them, with a few small bergs in their vicinity, it is
true, but with no ice at hand likely to cause them immediate peril. The
barque was towed to windward of all these, and then the baronet stopped
the _Flying Fish_ altogether, and hailed the skipper of the whaler to
know whither he was bound. Upon this the worthy man lowered one of his
boats and pulled alongside his strange consort to return thanks in
person for his recent rescue.

He was a very fine specimen of a seaman, not very tall, but bluff and
hearty-looking in his manifold wraps surmounted by a dreadnought pilot
jacket, sealskin cap, and water boots reaching to his thighs; and it was
amusing to see his look of surprise as he came up the _Flying Fish's_
side-ladder and stepped in upon her roomy deck unencumbered by anything
but the pilot-house. The four companions of course stepped out on deck
in a body to meet him, and after they had all heartily shaken hands with
him and deprecatingly received his thanks for the important service
rendered in the rescue of his ship from the ice, he was invited to
accompany them below to cement the newly-made acquaintance over a glass
of grog. And if the worthy seaman was surprised at the exterior of the
strange craft he was now visiting, how much greater was his astonishment
when he entered her magnificent saloons, revelled in their grateful
warmth, and looked round bewildered upon the rich carpets, t