Chapter 23 - Page 2

of the remaining vessel was now
all-important! and it was not to be concealed that she was in imminent
jeopardy. The course taken by the floe was directly towards the most
rugged part of Cape Hazard; and the rate of the movement such as to
threaten a very speedy termination of the matter. There was one
circumstance, however, and only that one, which offered a single chance of
escape. The opening around the schooner still existed in part, about half
of it having been lost in the collision with the outermost point of the
rocks. It was this species of vacuum that, by removing all resistance at
that particular spot, indeed, which had given the field its most dangerous
cant, turning the movement of the vessel towards the rocks. The chance,
therefore, existed in the possibility--and it was little more than a bare
possibility--of moving the schooner in that small area of open water, and
of taking her far enough south to clear the most southern extremity of the
wall of stone that protected the cove. As yet, this open water did not
extend far enough to admit of the schooner's being taken to the point in
question; but it was slowly tending in that direction, and did not the
basin close altogether ere that desirable object was achieved, the vessel
might yet be saved. In order, however, to do this, it would be necessary
to cut a sort of dock or slip in the ice of the cove, into which the craft
might shoot, as a place of refuge. Once within the cove, fairly behind the
point of the rocks, there would be perfect safety; if suffered to drift to
the southward of that shelter, this schooner would probably be lost like
her consort, and very much in the same manner.

Gardiner now sent a gang of hands to the desired point, armed with saws;
and the slip was commenced. The ice in the cove was still only two or
three inches thick, and the work went bravely on. Instead of satisfying
himself with cutting a passage merely behind the point of rock, Hazard
opened one quite up into the cove, to the precise place where the schooner
had been so long at anchor. Just as the sun was setting, the crisis
arrived. So heavy had been the movement towards the rocks, that Roswell
saw he could delay no longer. Were he to continue where he was, a
projection on the cape would prevent his passage to the entrance of the
cove; he would be shut in, and he might be certain that the Sea Lion would
be crushed if the floe pressed home upon the shore. The ice-anchors were
cut out accordingly, the jib was hoisted, and the schooner wore short
round on her heel. The space between the floe and the projection in the
rocks just named, did not now exceed a hundred feet; and it was lessening
fast. Much more room existed on each side of this particular excrescence
in the