“Well, boys,” Kenneth said, cheerfully enough, “let’s play our last card. Let’s turn to and throw over the ballast.”
It was hard work lugging the heavy sash weights that made up the ballast from below and throwing them over the side. There was at least half a ton to be discarded, and by the time the last of it was overboard the boys thought that there must have been tons.
Guess, then, how their hearts leaped with joy when at last, after three weary days, the “Gazelle” floated over the bar and into deeper water. But it was a short-lived triumph, for they speedily found that there was another bar across the channel—the low water almost bared it, and they realized that they were trapped in a little basin a half-mile from shore, with absolutely no protection from the ice, which was running heavier and heavier.
To anchor and wait, trusting to Providence, was all that they could do. So two anchors were dropped, and the boys faced the situation. The weather continued piercing cold. The oil gave out altogether, and then the crew had to live on cold things and exist as best they could in the cold cabin.
[Illustration: “SAW THE GREAT CAKES OF ICE GO RACING BY.”]
The strain was even harder to bear than the cold and hunger. Great chunks of ice came sailing down on them continually, and the boys wondered each time if the “Gazelle” would be able to stand another such hard knock.
The bar beyond caught the majority of the larger chunks, and soon an ice gorge was formed that hourly grew bigger until the “Gazelle’s” stern was not twenty yards from it. Each new cake added to the heap, and formed new teeth, which were ever moving in the rushing current—teeth which would grind up any living thing in a very few moments.
The second night after the “Gazelle” got afloat the boys were in the cabin, and all but Kenneth had fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion—the recurring bumps of drifting cakes of ice not disturbing them in the least. But Ransom could not sleep. He could not forget the horrible danger which they were in, nor could he shut his ears to the sound of crunching ice just behind the yacht.
Of a sudden there came a jar with a new quality in it. Ransom rushed up the companionway, grabbing his woollen cap as he ran, then forward over the icy deck. He found the ragged, frayed end of the anchor cable hanging overboard. The constant rubbing of the ice had weakened it, and the extra heavy floe had completely sundered it. There was but one anchor now to depend on; if that should fail them, it would mean instant destruction to the yacht and certain death for her crew.