st brilliant moon, and a sky
without a cloud, he could perceive the blink of ice in that direction, as
he fancied, for fully two leagues. What was unusual, perhaps, at that
early season of the year, these floes did not consist of a vast collection
of numberless cakes of ice; but the whole field, so far as could then be
ascertained, was firm and united. The nights were now so cold that ice
made fast wherever there was water; and it occurred to our young master
that, possibly, fragments that had once been separated and broken by the
waves, might have become re-united by the agency of the frost. Roswell
descended from the crow's-nest half chilled by a cutting wind, though it
blew from a warm quarter. Summoning his mates, he asked their advice.

"It seems to me, Captain Gar'ner," Hazard replied, "there's very little
choice. Here we are, so far as I can make it out, embayed, and we have
only to box about until day-light comes, when some chance may turn up to
help us. If so, we must turn it to account; if not, we must make up our
minds to winter here."

This was coolly and calmly said; though it was clear enough that Hazard
was quite in earnest.

"You forget there may be an open passage to the westward, Mr. Hazard,"
Roswell rejoined, "and that we may yet pass out to sea by it. Captain
Daggett is already out of sight in the western board, and we may do well
to stand on after him."

"Ay, ay, sir--I know all that, Captain Gar'ner, and it may be as you say,
but when I was aloft, half an hour since, if there wasn't the blink of ice
in that direction, quite round to the back of the island, there wasn't the
blink of ice nowhere hereabouts. I'm used to the sight of it, and can't
well be mistaken."

"There is always ice on that side of the land, Hazard, and you may have
seen the blink of the bergs which have hugged the cliffs in that quarter
all summer. Still, that is not proving we shall find no outlet. This craft
can go through a very small passage, and we must take care and find one in
proper time. Wintering here is out of the question. A _hundred_ reasons
tell us not to think of such a thing, besides the interests of our owners.
We are walking along this floe pretty fast, though I think the vessel is
too much by the head; don't it strike you so, Hazard?"

"Lord, sir, it's nothing but the ice that has made, and is making for'ard!
Before we got so near the field as to find a better lee, the little lipper
that came athwart our