Chapter 21 - Page 2

Roswell, as he paced the quarter-deck with Daggett, still holding in his
hand the well wiped and dried sounding-rod, in readiness for another
trial. "That last puff was right in our teeth!"

"Not in our teeth, Gar'ner; no, not in _my_ teeth," answered Daggett,
"whatever it maybe in _your'n_. I shall try to get back to the island,
where I shall endeavour to beach the schooner, and get a look at her
leaks. This is the _most_ I can hope for. It would never do to think of
carrying a craft, after such a nip, as far as Rio, pumping every foot of
the way!"

"That will cause a great delay, Captain Daggett," said Roswell,
doubtingly. "We are now well in among the first great body of the ice; it
may be as easy to work our way to the northward of it, as to get back into
clear water to the southward."

"I dare say it would; but, back I go. I do not ask you to accompany us,
Gar'ner; by no means. A'ter the handsome manner in which you've waited for
us so long, I couldn't think of such a thing! If the wind has r'ally got
round to nothe-east, and I begin to think it has, I shall get the schooner
into the cove in four-and-twenty hours; and there's as pretty a spot to
beach her, just under the shelf where we kept our spare casks, as a body
can wish. In a fortnight we'll have her leaks all stopped, and be jogging
along in your wake. You'll tell the folks on Oyster Pond that we're
a-coming, and they'll be sure to send the news across to the Vineyard."

This was touching Roswell on a point of honour, and Daggett knew it very
well. Generous and determined, the young man was much more easily
influenced by a silent and indirect appeal to his liberal qualities, than
he could possibly have been by any other consideration. The idea of
deserting a companion in distress, in a sea like that in which he was,
caused him to shrink from what, under other circumstances, he would regard
as an imperative duty. The deacon, and still more, Mary, called him north;
but the necessities of the Vineyarders would seem to chain him to their
fate.

"Let us see what the pump tells us now," cried Roswell impatiently.
"Perhaps the report may make matters better than we have dared to hope
for. If the pump gains on the leak, all may yet be well."

"It's encouraging and hearty to hear you say this; but no one who was _in_
that nip, as a body might say, can ever expect the schooner to make a run
of two thousand miles without repairs. To my eye, Gar'ner, these bergs are
separating, leaving us a clearer passage back to the open water."

"I do believe you are right; but it seems a sad loss of time, and a great
risk, to go through these mountains