“What do you mean, you young rascal?” cried Mivins with a frown.

“Mean!” said Davie, “why, I mean that if you touch me I’ll resign office; and if I do that, you’ll have to go out, for every one knows you can’t get on without me.”

“I say, Mivins,” cried Tom Green, the carpenter’s mate, “if you were asked to say, ’Hold on hard to this handspike here, my hearties,’ how would ye go about it?”

“He’d ’it you a pretty ’ard crack hover the ’ead with it, ’e would,” remarked one of the men, throwing a ball of yarn at Davie, who stood listening to the conversation with a broad grin.

In stepping back to avoid the blow, the lad trod on Dumps’s paw, and instantly there came from the throat of that excellent dog a roar of anguish that caused Poker to leap, as the cook expressed it, nearly out of his own skin.  Dogs are by nature extremely sympathetic and remarkably inquisitive; and no sooner was Dumps’s yell heard than it was vigorously responded to by every dog in the ship, as the whole pack rushed each from his respective sleeping-place and looked round in amazement.

“Hallo! what’s wrong there for’ard?” inquired Saunders, who had been pacing the quarter-deck with slow giant strides, arguing mentally with himself in default of a better adversary.

“Only trod on Dumps’s paw, sir,” said Mivins, as he hurried aft; “the men are sky-larking.”

“Sky-larking, are you?” said Saunders, going forward.  “Weel, lads, you’ve had a lot o’ hard work of late, ye may go’ and take a run on the ice.”

Instantly the men, like boys set free from school, sprang up, tumbled over the side, and were scampering over the ice like madmen.

“Pitch over the ball—­the football!” they cried.  In a second the ball was tossed over the ship’s side, and a vigorous game was begun.

For two days past the Dolphin had been sailing with difficulty through large fields of ice, sometimes driving against narrow necks and tongues that interrupted her passage from one lead or canal to another; at other times boring with difficulty through compact masses of sludge; or occasionally, when unable to advance farther, making fast to a large berg or a field.  They were compelled to proceed north, however, in consequence of the pack having become fixed towards, the south, and thus rendering retreat impossible in that direction until the ice should be again set in motion.  Captain Guy, however, saw, by the steady advance of the larger bergs, that the current of the ocean in that place flowed southward, and trusted that in a short time the ice which had been forced into the strait by the late gales would be released, and open up a passage.  Meanwhile he pushed along the coast, examining every bay and inlet in the hope of discovering some trace of the Pole Star or her crew.

On the day about which we are writing, the ship was beset by large fields, the snow-white surfaces of which extended north and south to the horizon, while on the east the cliffs rose in dark, frowning precipices from the midst of the glaciers that encumber them all the year round.