The bottom was sliced off as one would slice a cucumber with a knife, so that the iron blubber tanks in the hold dropped out of her.

The ship became nothing but the sides and ends of a box.

She remained some twenty-four hours, gripped between the floes, and then went down.
On the 22d of August, the fifth day, our lucky stars must have been working overtime; for we made a phenomenal run--more than a hundred miles, right up the middle of Kennedy Channel, uninterrupted by ice or fog! At midnight the sun burst gloriously through the clouds, just over Cape Lieber.

It seemed a happy omen.
Could such good fortune continue?
Though my hopes were high, the experience of former journeys reminded me that the brightest coin has always a reverse side.

In a day we had run the whole length of Kennedy Channel, and immediately before us there was only scattered ice.