Desolate as it was, it was their only hope now, for the leak was increasing and it was evident that the boat could not be kept afloat long.  As they drew nearer they saw with dismay that the side which faced them was a solid wall of ice sixty feet high without a flaw or crevice in its whole extent.  The berg was a large one, fifty paces at least each way, and there was a hope that the other side might be more favourable.  Baling hard, they paddled round the corner, but only to find themselves faced by another gloomy ice-crag.  Again they went round, and again they found that the berg increased rather than diminished in height.  There remained only one other side, and they knew as they rowed round to it that their lives hung upon the result, for the boat was almost settling down beneath them.  They shot out from the shadow into the full moonlight and looked upon a sight which none of them would forget until their dying day.

The cliff which faced them was as precipitous as any of the others, and it glimmered and sparkled all over where the silver light fell upon the thousand facets of ice.  Right in the centre, however, on a level with the water’s edge, there was what appeared to be a huge hollowed-out cave which marked the spot where the Golden Rod had, in shattering herself, dislodged a huge boulder, and so amid her own ruin prepared a refuge for those who had trusted themselves to her.  This cavern was of the richest emerald green, light and clear at the edges, but toning away into the deepest purples and blues at the back.  But it was not the beauty of this grotto, nor was it the assurance of rescue which brought a cry of joy and of wonder from every lip, but it was that, seated upon an ice boulder and placidly smoking a long corn-cob pipe, there was perched in front of them no less a person than Captain Ephraim Savage of Boston.  For a moment the castaways could almost have believed that it was his wraith, were wraiths ever seen in so homely an attitude, but the tones of his voice very soon showed that it was indeed he, and in no very Christian temper either.

“Friend Tomlinson,” said he, “when I tell you to row for an iceberg I mean you to row right away there, d’ye see, and not to go philandering about over the ocean.  It’s not your fault that I’m not froze, and so I would have been if I hadn’t some dry tobacco and my tinder-box to keep myself warm.”

Without stopping to answer his commander’s reproaches, the mate headed for the ledge, which had been cut into a slope by the bows of the brigantine, so that the boat was run up easily on to the ice.  Captain Savage seized his dry clothes and vanished into the back of the cave, to return presently warmer in body, and more contented in mind.  The long-boat had been turned upside down for a seat, the gratings and thwarts taken out and covered with wraps to make a couch for the lady, and the head knocked out of the keg of biscuits.

“We were frightened for you, Ephraim,” said Amos Green.  “I had a heavy heart this night when I thought that I should never see you more.”