“Hold on, for your lives, and stand to the helm, lads!” shouted Franklin. “Ay, ay, sir,” was the steady response from many a heroic heart. A billow came thundering against the stern of the brig; would the brig be engulfed, or would she drive before it? Happily, she forged ahead, though shaking like a spent race-horse, and with every timber straining and creaking. Now, thrown broadside on, her side was remorselessly battered by the floe pieces; then, tossed by the sea over ice-block after ice-block, she seemed like a plaything in the grasp of an irresistible power. For some hours this severe trial of strength and fortitude endured; then the storm subsided as rapidly as it had arisen, and their gratitude for their own escape was mingled with joy at the safety of the _Dorothea_, which they could see in the distance, still afloat, and with her crew in safety. On Captain Parry’s second expedition, in 1822, his ships, the _Hecla_ and the _Fury_, were placed in a position of scarcely less danger. Thus we read of the _Hecla_, which at the time had been made fast by means of cables to the land-ice, that a very heavy and extensive floe caught her on her broadside, and, being backed by another large body of ice, gradually lifted her stern as if by the action of a wedge. The weight every moment increasing, her crew were obliged to veer on the hawsers, whose friction was so great as nearly to cut through the bitt-heads, and ultimately set them on fire, so that it became requisite to pour upon them buckets of water. At length the pressure proved irresistible; the cables snapped; but as the sea was too full of ice to allow the ship to drive, the only way in which she could yield to the enormous burden brought to bear upon her was by leaning over the land-ice, while her stern at the same time was lifted clean out of the water for fully five feet. Had another floe backed the one which lifted her, the ship must inevitably have rolled broadside over, or been rent in twain. But the pressure which had been so dangerous eventually proved its safety; for, owing to its increasing weight, the floe on which she was carried burst upwards, unable to resist its force. The _Hecla_ then righted, and a small channel opening up amid the driving ice, she was soon got into comparatively smooth water.