us sight to behold, I must
confess--but are we ever to get out again?"

"It is much better to be here, Gar'ner," returned the other, "than to be
among the floes. I'm always afraid of my starn and my rudder when among
the field-ice; whereas there is no danger hereabouts that cannot be seen
before a vessel is on it. Give me my eyes, and I feel that I have a
chance."

"There is some truth in that; but I wish these channels were a good deal
wider than they are. A man may _feel_ a berg as well as see it. Were two
of these fellows to take it into their heads to close upon us, our little
craft would be crushed like nuts in the crackers!"

"We must keep a good look-out for that. Here seems to be a long bit of
open passage ahead of us, and it leads as near north as we can wish to
run. If we can only get to the other end of it, I shall feel as if half
our passage back to Ameriky was made."

The citizen of the United States calls his country "America" _par
excellence_, never using the addition of 'North, as is practised by most
European people. Daggett meant 'home,' therefore, by his 'Ameriky,' in
which he saw no other than the east end of Long Island, Gardiner's Island,
and Martha's Vineyard. Roswell understood him, of course; so no breath was
lost.

"In my judgment," returned Gardiner, "we shall not get clear of this ice
for a thousand miles. Not that I expect to be in a wilderness of it, as we
are to-night; but after such a summer, you may rely on it, Daggett, that
the ice will get as far north as 45 deg., if not a few degrees further."

"It is possible: I have seen it in 42 deg. myself; and in 40 deg. to the nor'ard
of the equator. If it get as far as 50 deg., however, in this part of the
world, it will do pretty well. That will be play to what we have just
here--In the name of Divine Providence, what is that, Gar'ner!"

Not a voice was heard in either vessel; scarcely a breath was drawn! A
heavy, groaning sound had been instantly succeeded by such a plunge into
the water, as might be imagined to succeed the fall of a fragment from
another planet. Then all the bergs near by began to rock as if agitated by
an earthquake. This part of the picture was both grand and frightful. Many
of those masses rose above the sea more than two hundred feet
perpendicularly, and showed wall-like surfaces of half a league in length.
At the point where the schooners happened to be just at that moment, the
ice-islands were not so large, but