"Have you set that nearest island by compass, Daggett?" asked Roswell
Gardiner, as soon as he had taken a good look around him. "To me it seems
that it bears more to the eastward than it did an hour since. If this
should be true, our inner field here must have a very considerable
westerly set."

"In which case we may still hope to drift clear," returned Daggett,
springing on board the schooner, and running aft to the binnacle, Roswell
keeping close at his side. "By George! it is as you say; the bearings of
that island are altered at least two points!"

"In which case our drift has exceeded a league--Ha! what noise is that?
Can it be an eruption of the volcano?"

Daggett, at first, was inclined to believe it was a sound produced by some
of the internal convulsions of the earth, which within, as if in mockery
of the chill scene that prevailed without, was a raging volcano, the
fierce heats of which found vent at the natural chimneys produced by its
own efforts. This opinion, however, did not last long, and he gave
expression to his new thoughts in his answer.

"'Tis the ice," he said. "I do believe the pressure has caused the fields
to part on the rocks of that island. If so, our leeward floe may float
away, as fast as the weather field approaches."

"Hardly," said Roswell, gazing intently towards the nearest island;
"hardly; for the most weatherly of the two will necessarily get the force
of the wind and the impetus of those bergs first, and make the fastest
drift. It may lessen the violence of the nip, but I do not think it will
avert it altogether."

This opinion of Gardiner's fully described all that subsequently occurred.
The outer floe continued its inroads on the inner, breaking up the margins
of both, until the channel was so nearly closed as to bring the field from
which the danger was most apprehended in absolute contact with the side of
the schooner. When the margin of the outer floe first touched the bilge of
the schooner, it was at the precise spot where the vessel had just been
fortified within. Fenders had also been provided without, and there was
just a quarter of a minute, during which the two captains hoped that these
united means of defence might enable the craft to withstand the pressure.
This delusion lasted but a moment, however, the cracking of timbers
letting it be plainly seen that the force was too great to be resisted.
For another quarter of a minute, the two masters held their breath,
exp