Roswell was on board his own schooner, now again in dangerous proximity to the cape. She was steadily setting in, when Daggett rejoined him. The crew of the lost vessel remained in the house, where they lighted a fire and deposited their goods, returning to the wreck for another load, taking the double sets of wheels along with them. When the two masters met, they conferred together earnestly, receiving into their councils such of the officers as were on board The security of the remaining vessel was now all-important! and it was not to be concealed that she was in imminent jeopardy. The course taken by the floe was directly towards the most rugged part of Cape Hazard; and the rate of the movement such as to threaten a very speedy termination of the matter. There was one circumstance, however, and only that one, which offered a single chance of escape. The opening around the schooner still existed in part, about half of it having been lost in the collision with the outermost point of the rocks. It was this species of vacuum that, by removing all resistance at that particular spot, indeed, which had given the field its most dangerous cant, turning the movement of the vessel towards the rocks. The chance, therefore, existed in the possibility--and it was little more than a bare possibility--of moving the schooner in that small area of open water, and of taking her far enough south to clear the most southern extremity of the wall of stone that protected the cove. As yet, this open water did not extend far enough to admit of the schooner's being taken to the point in question; but it was slowly tending in that direction, and did not the basin close altogether ere that desirable object was achieved, the vessel might yet be saved. In order, however, to do this, it would be necessary to cut a sort of dock or slip in the ice of the cove, into which the craft might shoot, as a place of refuge. Once within the cove, fairly behind the point of the rocks, there would be perfect safety; if suffered to drift to the southward of that shelter, this schooner would probably be lost like her consort, and very much in the same manner.