nce of tea and
coffee; the former being a Hyson-skin, and the latter San Domingo of no
very high quality. Most of these articles were transported from the wreck
to the house, in the course of the few days that succeeded, though Daggett
insisted on a certain portion of the supplies being left in his stranded
craft. Not until this was done would Roswell listen to any proposal of
Daggett's to transfer the skins. Twice during these few days, indeed, did
the Vineyard master come to a pause in his proceedings, as the weather
grew milder, and gleams of a hope of being able yet to get away that
season crossed his mind. On the last of these occasions of misgiving,
Roswell was compelled to lead his brother master up on the plain of the
island, to an elevation of some three hundred feet above the level of the
ocean, and more than half that distance higher than the house, and point
out to him a panorama of field-ice that the eye could not command. Until
that vast plain opened, or became riven by the joint action of the
agitated ocean and the warmth of a sun from which the rays did not glance
away from the frozen surface, like light obliquely received, and as
obliquely reflected from a mirror, it was useless to think of releasing
even the uninjured vessel; much less that which lay riven and crushed on
the rocks.

"Were every cake of this ice melted into water, Daggett," Roswell
continued, "it would not float off your schooner. The best supplied
ship-yard in America could hardly furnish the materials for ways to launch
her; and I never knew of a vessel's being dropped into the water some
twenty feet nearly perpendicular."

"I don't know that," answered Daggett, stoutly. "See what they're doing
now-a-days, and think nothing of it. I have seen a whole row of brick
houses turned round by the use of jack-screws; and one building actually
taken down a hill much higher than the distance you name. Commodore
Rodgers has just hauled a heavy frigate out of the water, and means to put
her back again, when he has done with her. What has been done once can be
done twice. I do not like giving up 'till I'm forced to it."

"That is plain enough, Captain Daggett," returned Roswell, smiling. "That
you are game, no one can deny; but it will all come to nothing. Neither
Commodore Rodgers nor Commodore anybody else could put your craft into the
water again without something to do it with."

"You think it would be asking too much to take your schooner,