Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-04-03
IC 30 N D .
By W. CLARK RUSSELL,

Author of "7he 1vrecls of the Grosusmor'"
 "JucL's Coatrtship," My Watch Be-
 lotc ..1he Lady Maud Etc. where they must hang from a piece of spar across the aperts.re
 He nodded.
 sHave you any slow matches aboard?"
 "Plenty among the gunner's stores" he re- piled.
 s.There are but you and me-" said Il; .'these operations will take time. We must mind not to be blown up by one barrel while we are suspending another. We shall have to lower the barrels with their matches on fire, and they must be timed to burn all hour"
 ssAy, certainly-at least an hour," he. ex- claimed. 'sTwo hours would be better"
 ssWell, that must depend upon the num- OCT of parcels of matches we meet with. There will be good many mines to spring, and one must not explode before another. 'Tis the united force of the several blasts which we must reckon on. The contents of at least four more barrels of powder we must distribute among the other chinks and splits in such parcels as they will be able to receive"
 And thenT'
 "And then," said l, i've must await tho explosion, and trust to the mercy of heaven to help us."
 He made hideous face, as if this was {. sort of talk to nauseate him, and said: Do you propose that we should remain on board, or watch the effects from distances'
 "Why, remain on board, of course," I an- swered. Suppose the mines liberated tho ice on which the schooner lies and it foated away, what should we, watching at q dis tance, do?'
 s'True," cried he, stbut it is cursed perilous. The explosion might blow the ship up."
 'tNo, it will not do that. We shall be bad engineers if we bring such a thing about. The danger will be-providing the schooner is released-in her capsizing, as have before pointed out"
 Enough" cried he, charging his panni- kin for the thlrd time. "We must chance her capsizing."
 eff I had crew at my back" said I, s'I would carry an anchor and cable to the shoul- der of the cliff at the end of the slope to hold the ship if she swan. would also put quantity of provisions on the ice along with materials for making us shelter and the whole of the stock of coal, so that we could go on life here if the schooner cap sizedn
 'Then," said he, ''you would remain ashore during the explosions'
 ''Most certainly But as all these prepara- tions would mean a degree of labor imprac- ticable by us two men, am for the bold ven- ture-prepare and fire the mines, return to the ship, and leave the rest to Providence"
 He made another ugly face, and indulged himself in piece of profanity that was in- expressibly disgusting and mean in the mouth of a man who was used to cross himself when alarmed and swear by the saints. But per- haps he knew, even better than I, how little he had to expect from Providence He filled his pipe, exclaiming that when he had smoked it out we should fall to work
 Now that had settled plan, was eager to put it into rractice-hot and wild, indeed, with the impatience and hope of the cast away animated with the dream of recovering his liberty and preserving his life; and was the more anxious to set about the business at once, on account of the weather being fair and still; for if it came on to blow a stormy wind again we should be forced, as before, under matches. But I had to wait for the Frenchman to empty his pipe. He was so a sensualist that I believe nothing short of terror could have forced him to shorten the period of a pleasure by second of time. He went on putting so deliberately, with such leisurely enjoyment of the flavor of the smoke, that l expected to see him fall asleep; and, my patience becoming exhausted, 1 jumped up, but by this time his bowl held oothing but black ashes.
 ''Now," cried he, 'sto work"
 And he rose with prodigious yawn and seized the lantern Our first business was to hunt among the boatswain's stores in the run for tackles to hoist the powder barrels up with. There was good collection, as might have been expected in pirate, whose com merce lay in singing goods from other ships holds into her own; but the ropes were frozen as hard as iron, to remedy which we carried an armful to the cook house, and left the tackles to lie and soften. We also con- veyed to the cook house quantity of ratline stuf-a thin rope, used for the making of steps in the shroud ladders; this being line that would exactly serve to suspend the smaller parcels of powder in the splits Be- fore touching the powder barrels we put lighted candle into the bulls eye lamp over the door, and removed the lantern to safe distance. Tassard was perfectly we'll ac- quainted with the contents of this store room, and on my asking for the matches put his hand on one of several bags of them. They varied in length, some being six inches and some making a big coil. There was nothing for it but to sample and test them, and this I told Tassard could be done that evening. The main hatch was just forward of the gunroom bulkhead; we seized hand spike each and went to work to pry the cover open It was desperate tough labor-as bad as trying to open an oyster with soft blade. The Frenchman broke out into many strange old-fashioned oaths in his own tongue, imag- ming the hatch to be frozen; but though I don't doubt the frost had something to do with it, it's obstinacy was mainly owing to time, that had soldered it, so to speak, with the stubbornness that eight and forty years will communicate to fixture which ice has cherished and kept sounl.
 We got the hatch open at last-be pleased to know that am speaking of the hatch in the lower deck, for there was another imme- diately over it on the upper or main deck and returning to the powder room, rolled the barrels forward ready for singing and hoist ing away when we should have rigged a tackle aloft. We had not done much, but what we had done had eaten far into the afternoon.
 s'I am tired and hungry and thirsty" said the Frenchman. "Let us knock off We have made good progress. No use opening the main deck hatch tonight; the vessel is cold enough when dramatically corked"
 ''Very we'll" said I, bringing my watch to the lantern and observing the time to be