her fate. Now the water begins to ooze through the cracks in
the engine-room floor, and break in gentle ripples about the feet of the
firemen. If it rises much higher it will flood the fire-boxes, and then
all will be over, for there is not one boat left on the ship--all were
landed on the now invisible floe. But just as all hope was lost there came
a faint hissing of steam, the pumps began slowly moving, and then settled
down into their monotonous "chug-chug," the sweetest sound, that day,
those desperate mariners had ever heard. They were saved by the narrowest
of chances.

[Illustration: ADRIFT ON AN ICE-FLOE]

We must pass hastily to the sequel of this seemingly irreparable disaster.
The "Polaris" was beached, winter quarters established, and those who had
clung to the ship spent the winter building boats, in which, the following
spring, they made their way southward until picked up by a whaler. Those
on the floe drifted at the mercy of the wind and tide 195 days, making
over 1300 miles to the southward. As the more temperate latitudes were
reached, and the warmer days of spring came on, the floe began going to
pieces, and they were continually confronted with the probability of
being forced to their boat for safety--one boat, built to hold eight, and
now the sole reliance of nineteen people. It is hard to picture through
the imagination the awful strain that day and night rested upon the minds
of these hapless castaways. Never could they drop off to sleep except in
dread that during the night the ice on which they slept, might split, even
under their very pallets, and they be awakened by the deathly plunge into
the icy water. Day and night they were startled and affrighted by the
thunderous rumblings and cracking of the breaking floe--a sound that an
experienced Arctic explorer says is the most terrifying ever heard by man,
having in it something of the hoarse rumble of heavy artillery, the sharp
and murderous crackle of machine guns, and a kind of titanic grinding, for
which there is no counterpart in the world of tumult. Living thus in
constant dread of death, the little company drifted on, seemingly
miraculously preserved. Their floe was at last reduced from a great sheet
of ice, perhaps a mile or more square, to a scant ten yards by
seventy-five, and this rapidly breaking up. In two days four whalers
passed near enough for them to see, yet failed to see them, but finally
their frantic signals attracted attenti