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 and
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."