‘Well, one day it came on to blow big guns, and such a cracking and snapping among the frozen rigging you never listened to; and the water seemed to be in a perfect rage beneath the ice, as if it did not relish very well living under hatches. Well, this lasted through one whole night and day, during which time I thought, we should have chafed all to pieces; but the captain said that we sat so snugly in the ice, that it was all that saved us, while I could not but wish that we might have a little more room, if only to float free of the ice and its cursed chafin. ‘Well, the next night we were knocked about till daylight, when we found that the ice had broken up, and that we were going before the gale at a tremendous rate, and mostly free of ice. On, on, we went, until at last we approached another field, we could not avoid it, so we sought the safest place where we might lay the ship to ride out the storm, which was now in full blast. ‘Well, we got in and anchored to the solid ice and in the course of a few hours the heft of the storm began to go down, and the sea grew more quiet, and we were like to have a chance to get some rest for the first time for more than forty-eight hours, when one of the look-outs from aloft hailed the deck: ‘“Ship ho!” ‘You may well suppose such a hail thrilled to our very hearts, for we had not seen a sail save those of our own ship for more than two months; and the cry from aloft was echoed by every man in the ship, and those just ready to turn in hurried on deck to get a sight at the stranger, many but half dressed in their eagerness. ‘Where away?’ demanded the officer of the deck. ‘Just off the larboard quarter, sir,’ said the look-out. ‘All eyes were tinned to the point, and sure enough, there lay about three miles to leeward of us, a ship apparently fastened in the ice, and unable to make the least headway. No sails in sight, and her masts looked more like the branches of a tree than good honest standing rigging. ‘Our captain set his signals to working as soon as he could, to try to gain some intelligence from the stranger, but no notice was taken of the signals, and at length the captain fired a gun or two in order to wake them up, but there was no answering signal from the stranger, and at length, the captain, getting out of all patience, ordered a gun to be shotted and fired into her, if indeed we could reach her where she lay.