nd large portions
of the sides fell, with a succession of crashes like the roaring of
artillery, just above the spot where the ship had lain not quarter of an
hour before, and the vessel, for some time after, rocked violently to
and fro, in the surges that the plunge of the falling masses raised.

CHAPTER SIX.

THE GALE--ANCHORED TO A BERG WHICH PROVES TO BE A TREACHEROUS ONE--
DANGERS OF THE "PACK"--BESET IN THE ICE--MIVINS SHOWS AN ENQUIRING
MIND--WALRUS--GALE FRESHENS--CHAINS AND CABLES--HOLDING ON FOR LIFE--AN
UNEXPECTED DISCOVERY--A "NIP" AND ITS TERRIBLE CONSEQUENCES--YOKED TO AN
ICEBERG.

The narrow escape related in the last chapter was but the prelude to a
night of troubles. Fortunately, as we have before mentioned, _night_
did not now add darkness to their difficulties. Soon after passing the
bergs, a stiff breeze sprang up off shore, between which and the
_Dolphin_ there was a thick belt of loose ice, or sludge, while outside,
the pack was in motion, and presented a terrible scene of crashing and
grinding masses under the influence of the breeze, which soon freshened
to a gale.

"Keep her away two points," said Captain Guy to the man at the wheel;
"we'll make fast to yonder berg, Mr Bolton; if this gale carries us
into the pack, we shall be swept far out of our course, if, indeed, we
escape being nipped and sent to the bottom."

Being nipped is one of the numberless dangers to which Arctic navigators
are exposed. Should a vessel get between two moving fields or floes of
ice, there is a chance, especially in stormy weather, of the ice being
forced together and squeezing in the sides of the ship; this is called
nipping.

"Ah!" remarked Buzzby, as he stood with folded arms by the capstan,
"many and many a good ship has been sent to the bottom by that same.
I've see'd a brig, with my own two eyes, squeezed together a'most flat
by two big floes of ice, and after doin' it they jist separated agin an'
let her go plump down to the bottom. Before she was nipped, the crew
saved themselves by jumpin' on to the ice, and they wos picked up by our
ship that wos in company."

"There's no dependin' on the ice, by no means," remarked Amos Parr, "for
I've see'd the self-same sort of thing that ye mention happen to a small
schooner in Davis Straits, only, instead o' crushin' it flat, the ice
lifted it right high and dry out o' the water, and then let it down
again, without more ado, as sound as iver."

"Get o