h the
naked eye. There was no change of any kind, only that there was a
sensible diminution in the blowing of the wind and a corresponding
decrease in the height of the seas. The ice stretched in a considerable
bed on either hand the ship and ahead of her; the water frothed freely
over it, and there was a great jangling and flashing of broken pieces,
but the hull was no longer heavily hit by them.

I got into the main chains to view the body of the vessel, and noticed
with satisfaction that the constant pouring of the sea had thinned down
the frozen snow to the depth of at least a foot. This encouraged me to
hope that the restless tides would sap to her keel at least, and put her
into a posture to be easily launched by the blow of a surge upon her
bows--that is if fortune continued to keep her head on. But by this
time, my transports having moderated, I was grown fully sensible of the
extreme peril of our position. Should the sea rise and the ice bring her
broadside to it, it was inevitable, it seemed to me, that she must go to
pieces. Or if the ice on which she floated, fouled some other berg it
might cost us all our spars. Then again occurred the dismal question,
Suppose she should launch herself, would she float? For eight-and-forty
years she had been high and dry; never a caulker's hammer had rung upon
her in all that time. Tassard had spoken of her as a stout ship, and so
she was, I did not doubt; but the old rogue talked as if she had been
stranded six months only! I had no other hope than that the intense
cold had treated her timbers as it had treated the bodies of her people,
an expectation not unreasonable when I considered the state of her
stores and the manifest substantiality of her inward fabric.

I regained the deck and stepped over to the pumps. There were two of
them, but built up in snow. My business was to save my life if I could,
and the schooner too, for the sake of the great treasure in her. Nothing
must disconcert me I said to myself--I must spare no labour, but act a
hearty sailor's part and ask for God's countenance. So I trotted below,
and selecting some weapons from the arms-room, such as a tomahawk, a
spade-headed spear, a pike and a chopper, I returned to the pumps and
fell upon them with a will. The ice flew about me, but I continued to
smite, the exercise making me hot and renewing my spirits, and in an
hour--but it took me an hour--I had chopped, hacked, and beaten one of
the pumps pretty