"Keep her so!" he added, as he saw the bows of the schooner point for the narrow passage.
Jack lit another blue light, and thumped on the deck to wake those below.
In half a minute Captain Sumner and the mate were beside them.
"The bergs are closing in on us," said the captain quietly.

"Go to your helm, Bok; it will be safer." The bergs were more than a mile long, and the vessel, under easy sail, was not making more than six knots an hour.
"Here, gentlemen, take the halyards, and rouse up the topgallant sails.
I won't trust the crew on deck till the last minute." With the assistance of the man Bob had relieved at the wheel, they soon had the topgallant sails, which had been furled, chock-a-block.
"It will be a narrow squeak," muttered the captain, as he glanced at the icebergs, whose tops seemed quite close, though the bases were yet some distance from the schooner.
"Is there any hope ?" whispered a soft voice in our hero's ear.
"I trust so, Miss Viola," he answered.

"See! yonder is the end of the ice mountain on the starboard bow." "But how close they are!" "They look closer than they are in reality," he replied.
All the time he was wondering if their end had really come.
Suppose the wind were to fail! Fortunately for them, however, caught between the two bergs, it rather increased in force than diminished.
The icy tops seemed now ready to topple down on the deck.
The waves, running up the sides of the bergs, lifted the vessel on their swell as they rebounded.
Fifty yards on either side towered the glittering mountains.
Thirty yards, twenty yards! and the salt spray of the billows, which dashed on the icy cliffs, fell on deck.
Viola's hand was clasped in Bob's, and our hero felt some relief in facing death with her and his mother.
"Call your comrades," cried Captain Sumner to the sailor.

"Give them a chance for life.

Come, Mrs.Cromwell, Viola, Bob, Jack--all of you.
Prepare to jump for the ice, when we strike! It's our only hope!".