CHAPTER NINE 



The Ship Imprisoned 



THE Pilgrim's cargo of blubber was now almost complete 

 and many a whaling master would at this point have 

 contented himself with his catch and sailed for home, 

 stopping on the way perhaps to hunt seal and fill the 

 remaining space with pelts; but thrift and thoroughness 

 were the watchwords of this Quaker captain and he was 

 determined that those twenty-odd empty casks that lay in 

 the hold should be filled with blubber before his ship 

 sailed out of the ice. So he pointed her nose eastward 

 and brought her closer than she had yet been to the Green- 

 land shore. Between the bergs and the floes she sailed 

 in bright sparkling sunshine with every man on deck and 

 aloft looking out for the spouts of whale. 



Captain Slocum had not long to wait for the words he 

 wanted to hear. 



The sharp-eyed Joseph Mather, perched on the cross- 

 trees, bellowed the call to action this time. 



'Town ho! She blows, she blows!' 



'Where away?' hailed the captain. 



'Two points on the starboard bow, sir. About a mile 

 and a half away, but the other side of the ice.' 



'Keep thine eyes glued to them, Mather, and I will find 

 a passage through,' called the captain. 



He took the ship into the first channel that led through 



