“Call all hands, Mr. Bolton,” cried the captain in a sharp voice.  “Get out the ice-poles, and lower away the boats.”

“Hallo! what’s wrong?” said Fred, starting up.

“Getting too near the bergs, I suspect,” remarked Tom.  “I say, Fred, before we go on deck, will you promise to do what I ask you?”

“Well—­yes, I will.”

“Will you promise, then, all through your life, especially if you ever come to be rich or influential, to think of and for old men and women who are poor?”

“I will,” answered Fred; “but I don’t know that I’ll ever be rich, or influential, or able to help them much.”

“Of course you don’t.  But when a thought about them strikes you, will you always think it out, and, if possible, act it out, as God shall enable you?”

“Yes, Tom, I promise to do that as well as I can.”

“That’s right; thank you, my boy,” said the young surgeon, as they descended the shrouds and leaped on deck.

Here they found the captain walking up and down rapidly, with an anxious expression of face.  After taking a turn or two he stopped short, and gazed out astern.

“Set the stun’-sails, Mr. Bolton.  The breeze will be up in a little, I think.  Let the men pull with a will.”

The order was given, and soon the ship was under a cloud of canvas, advancing slowly as the boats towed her between two large icebergs, which had been gradually drawing near to each other the whole afternoon.

“Is there any danger, Buzzby?” inquired Fred, as the sturdy sailor stood looking at the larger berg, with an ice-pole in his hands.

“Danger? ay, that there is, lad, more nor’s agreeable, d’ye see.  Here we are without a breath o’ wind to get us on, right between two bergs as could crack us like a walnut.  We can’t get to starboard of ’em for the current, nor to larboard of ’em for the pack, as ye see, so we must go between them, neck or nothing.”

The danger was indeed imminent.  The two bergs were within a hundred yards of each other, and the smaller of the two, being more easily moved by the current probably, was setting down on the larger at a rate that bade fair to decide the fate of the Dolphin in a few minutes.  The men rowed lustily, but their utmost exertions could move the ship but slowly.  Aid was coming, however, direct from the hand of Him who is a refuge in the time of danger.  A breeze was creeping over the calm sea right astern, and it was to meet this that the studding-sails had been set a-low and aloft, so that the wide-spreading canvas, projecting far to the right and left, had, to an inexperienced eye, the appearance of being out of all proportion to the little hull by which it was supported.

With breathless anxiety those on board stood watching the two bergs and the approaching breeze.