It set the
great bergs of the Polar Seas in motion, and these moving mountains of
ice slowly and majestically began their voyage to southern climes,
crashing through the floes, overturning the hummocks, and ripping up the
ice-tables with quiet but irresistible momentum. For two days the war of
ice continued to rage, and sometimes the contending forces, in the shape
of huge tongues and corners of bergs, were forced into the Bay of Mercy,
and threatened swift destruction to the little craft, which was a mere
atom that might have been crushed and sunk and scarcely missed in such a
wild scene.
At one time a table of ice was forced out of the water and reared up,
like a sloping wall of glass, close to the stern of the _Dolphin_, where
all the crew were assembled with ice-poles ready to do their utmost; but
their feeble efforts could have availed them nothing had the
slowly-moving mass continued its onward progress.
"Lower away the quarter-boat," cried the captain, as the sheet of ice
six feet thick came grinding down towards the starboard quarter.
Buzzby, Grim, and several others sprang to obey, but before they could
let go the fall-tackles, the mass of ice rose suddenly high above the
deck, over which it projected several feet, and caught the boat. In
another moment the timbers yielded, the thwarts sprang out or were
broken across, and slowly, yet forcibly, as a strong hand might crush an
egg-shell, the boat was squeezed flat against the ship's side.
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