Vain hope! Hours later, the shot-riven _Pelican_, having failed to catch the _Dering_, came tacking back in the driving snowstorm and anchored alongside the prize. Iberville demanded pilotage into the river, but stout Smithsend, who had flung his charts and directions overboard, refused point-blank. Iberville now managed to sling a mortar aboard the prize, with a few marines, bidding Crawford get into the river if he could; for by this time there was no doubt whatever as to the issue. It was _sauve qui peut_! The storm had settled into a howling tempest out of the northeast, which precluded any hope of beating off the land, and with night the sea was rising in huge billows sweeping down the full length of the bay. Hawser after hawser parted. In vain Crawford and Smithsend tried to keep the rudderless ship where she was. From the wounded men came low shrieks of utter despair as the frigate went staggering blindly down the wind, ice forming over everything, snow hiding the foamy seas from sight, nothing to be seen in the gloom but the faces of unburied dead men peering horribly through shrouds of ice. In vain did they try to steer with booms or oars. It was a night of horror, with naught to be done save to work the pumps and hope for the best, as the weight of ice dragged her more heavily down by the nose and she drifted aimlessly and without direction. A little after midnight, Crawford crawled down to where Moses Deakin lay, and after unlocking the man’s irons gave him the keys. “If any of your men be alive, set them loose. I can’t leave you here to drown like rats. Come up above, get some food, and lend a hand with the pumps.” Then Crawford was back on deck again, where Smithsend was trying to fashion a jury rudder from the smashed spars aloft. Toward morning the ship struck heavily, but wrenched free, passed over the shoal, and drove on. With daylight the storm was whirling down worse than ever, huge waves bursting over the whole ship, water gaining on the pumps, every man reeling with weariness and utter exhaustion. During a lull in the tempest, Crawford peered off to starboard and saw a dim shape rolling sternfirst before the wind, and knew that the _Pelican_ was plunging to her doom. The brazen voice of Moses Deakin thundered at his ear. “She’s driving on the middle shoal--she’ll strike, and the land six mile away! We’re well outside. Pray to your star now, Crawford! We’ll go ashore twenty mile farther down the coast.” Both ships were indeed lost, since the shores were miles distant and guarded by long shallows, all the small boats were shot away, and with every moment the weight of new ice was bearing the bows deeper into the water. So they drove on, and any thought of enmity betwixt French and English was forgotten, death being close upon all alike. Fur-pirates and company servants and French marines huddled together or worked at the pumps in dismal despair.