o fall unsupported, began to go to pieces. The whistling wind
accelerated its destruction, driving the floes far apart, heaping them up
against the hull of the ship until the grinding and the prodigious
pressure opened her seams and the water rushed in. The cry that the ship
was sinking rung along the decks, and all hands turned with desperate
energy to throwing out on the ice-floe to windward, sledges, provisions,
arms, records--everything that could be saved against the sinking of the
ship, which all thought was at hand. Nineteen of the ship's company were
landed on the floe to carry the material away from its edge to a place of
comparative safety. The peril seemed so imminent that the men in their
panic performed prodigious feats of strength--lifting and handling alone
huge boxes, which at ordinary times, would stagger two men. A driving,
whirling snowstorm added to the gloom, confusion, and terror of the scene,
shutting out almost completely those on the ice from the view of those
still on the ship. In the midst of the work the cry was raised that the
floes were parting, and with incredible rapidity the ice broke away from
the ship on every side, so that communication between those on deck and
those on the floe was instantly cut off by a broad interval of black and
tossing water, while the dark and snow-laden air cut off vision on every
side. The cries of those on the ice mingled with those from the fast
vanishing ship, for each party thought itself in the more desperate case.
The ice was fast going to pieces, and boats were plying in the lanes of
water thus opened, picking up those clinging to smaller cakes of ice and
transporting them to the main floe. On the ship the captain's call had
summoned all hands to muster, and they gazed on each other in dumb despair
as they saw how few of the ship's company remained. All were sent to the
pumps, for the water in the hold was rising with ominous rapidity. The cry
rang out that the steam-pumps must be started if the ship was to be saved,
but long months had passed since any fire had blazed under those boilers,
and to get up steam was a work of hours. With tar-soaked oakum and with
dripping whale blubber the engineer strove to get the fires roaring, the
while the men on deck toiled with desperate energy at the hand-pumps. But
the water gained on them. The ship sunk lower and lower in the black
ocean, until a glance over the side could tell all too plainly that she
was going to