‘The gun was discharged, and the iron skipped along the ice, now throwing a shower of ice in the air, now gliding along smoothly, but all the while with the speed of light, until it dashed plump into the stranger’s side, scattering the splinters as it had done the ice before. All eyes now strained upon the skip, but not a sign of life was evinced on board of her. No answer was returned either to our shot or the signals. One or two of the officers thought they could make out the figure of a man, or rather that part of him which might be seen above the waist of the ship. But he was motionless, and made no signal, if indeed he was a man at all. ‘Well, we turned in, and it was determined by the captain to send an expedition over the ice the next day to the _deaf and dumb_ ship. It was perilous work, and there was no great anxiety expressed among the men to undertake it, because, do you see, the ice was liable to separate and change its position every minute, and there was every chance that we might be separated from the ship, and perhaps forever. However, the captain detached about twenty men, among whom he placed me, and sent us off under the third Luff to see what we could make out of the stranger. It took us nearly three hours to go the distance to the ship, for we had a good many large cracks or openings in the ice to go round, but at length we got near to the ship, when the Luff still seeing no signs of life, began to suspect that there was some piece of treachery about to be played upon us, and therefore halted the men, and dividing them into two parts, resolved to board the stranger on both the larboard and starboard side at the same time. ‘We boarded her,’ continued Brace, pausing for a moment to roll his quid to the opposite cheek, as he changed his position. ‘Well, well,’ said several anxious voices at once, ‘what then?’ ‘Well, as I was saying, we boarded her starboard and larboard, and what do you think was the first thing that met our eyes? I’ll tell you. You see the waist was so deep that we could not see the deck until we got on board, and the quarter being raised but a little above the deck, that was hidden too. Well, as we jumped upon deck, there sat the helmsman at the wheel, stark and stiff, his eyes fixed on vacancy, but his hands still clasping the tiller. Down in the waist there sat a couple of seamen upon a coil of rope, hard as marble, and forward, just by the step of the foremast, crouched a dog as stiff as death. We went up to them, and handled them, but they were like blocks of marble, _frozen to death._