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.

Gardiner now sent a gang of hands to the desired point, armed with saws; and the slip was commenced.  The ice in the cove was still only two or three inches thick, and the work went bravely on.  Instead of satisfying himself with cutting a passage merely behind the point of rock, Hazard opened one quite up into the cove, to the precise place where the schooner had been so long at anchor.  Just as the sun was setting, the crisis arrived.  So heavy had been the movement towards the rocks, that Roswell saw he could delay no longer.  Were he to continue where he was, a projection on the cape would prevent his passage to the entrance of the cove; he would be shut in, and he might be certain that the Sea Lion would be crushed if the floe pressed home upon the shore.  The ice-anchors were cut out accordingly, the jib was hoisted, and the schooner wore short round on her heel.  The space between the floe and the projection in the rocks just named, did not now exceed a hundred feet; and it was lessening fast.  Much more room existed on each side of this particular excrescence in the rugged coast, the space north being still considerable, while that to the southward might be a hundred yards in width; the former of these areas being owing to the form of the basin, and the latter to the shape of the shore.