to see what might yet be saved from the wreck; but all the rest
of the men started for the cape, towards which the Oyster Pond craft was
now directly setting. The distance was less than a league; and, as yet,
there was not much show on the rocks. By taking an upper shelf, it was
possible to make pretty good progress; and such was the manner of
Roswell's present march.

It was an extraordinary sight to see the coast along which our party was
hastening, just at that moment. As the cakes of ice were broken from the
field, they were driven upward by the vast pressure from without, and the
whole line of the shore seemed as if alive with creatures that were
issuing from the ocean to clamber on the rocks. Roswell had often seen
that very coast peopled with seals, as it now appeared to be in activity
with fragments of ice, that were writhing, and turning, and rising, one
upon another, as if possessed of the vital principle.

In half an hour Roswell and his party reached the house. The schooner was
then less than half a mile from the spot, still setting in, along with the
outer field, but not nipped. So far from being in danger of such a
calamity, the little basin in which she lay had expanded, instead of
closing; and it would have been possible to handle a quick-working craft
in it, under her canvass. An exit, however, was quite out of the question;
there being no sign of any passage to or from that icy dock. There the
craft still lay, anchored to the weather-floe, while the portion of her
crew which remained on board was as anxiously watching the coast as those
who were on the coast watched her. At first, Roswell gave his schooner up;
but on closer examination found reason to hope that she might pass the
rocks, and enter the inner, rather than the Great, Bay.

Chapter XXIII.

"To prayer;--for the glorious sun is gone,
And the gathering darkness of night comes on;
Like a curtain from God's kind hand it flows,
To shade the couch where his children repose.
Then kneel, while the watching stars are bright,
And give your last thoughts to the guardian of night."

Ware.

Desolate, indeed, and nearly devoid of hope, had the situation of our
sealers now become. It was mid-day, and it was freezing everywhere in the
shade. A bright genial sun was shedding its glorious rays on the icy
panorama; but it was so obliquely as to be of hardly any use in
dispelling the frosts. Far as the eye could see, even from t