Round went the capstan, the windlass clanked, and the ship forged slowly ahead, as the warps and hawsers became rigid.  At that moment a heavy block of ice, which had been overbalanced by the motion of the vessel, fell with a crash on the rudder, splitting off a large portion of it, and drawing the iron bolts that held it completely out of the stern-post.

“Never mind; heave away—­for your lives!” cried the captain.  “Jump on board, all of you!”

The few men who had until now remained on the ice scrambled up the side.  There was a sheet of ice right ahead which the ship could not clear, but which she was pushing out to sea in advance of her.  Suddenly this took the ground and remained motionless.

“Out there with ice-chisels!  Sink a hole like lightning!  Prepare a canister, Mr. Bolton—­quick!” shouted the captain in desperation, as he sprang over the side and assisted to cut into the unwieldy obstruction.  The charge was soon fixed and fired, but it only split the block in two and left it motionless as before.  A few minutes after the ship again grounded; the ice settled round her; the spring tide was lost, and they were not delivered.

Those who know the bitterness of repeated disappointment and of hope deferred, may judge of the feelings with which the crew of the Dolphin now regarded their position.  Little, indeed, was said, but the grave looks of most of the men, and the absence of the usual laugh, and jest, and disposition to skylark, which, on almost all other occasions characterized them, showed too plainly how heavily the prospect of a winter in the Arctic Regions weighed upon their spirits.  They continued their exertions to free the ship, however, for several days after the high tide, and did not finally give in until all reasonable hope of moving her was utterly annihilated.  Before this, however, a reaction began to take place; the prospects of the coming winter were discussed; and some of the more sanguine looked even beyond the winter, and began to consider how they would contrive to get the ship out of her position into deep water again.

Fred Ellice, too, thought of his father, and this abrupt check to the search, and his spirits sank again as his hopes decayed.  But poor Fred, like the others, at last discovered that it was of no use to repine, and that it was best to face his sorrows and difficulties “like a man!”

Alas! poor human nature; how difficult do we find it to face sorrows and difficulties cheerfully, even when we do conscientiously try!  Well would it be for all of us could we submit to such, not only because they are inevitable, but because they are the will of God—­of him who has asserted in his own Word that “he afflicteth not the children of men willingly.”