Page:Narrative of the extraordinary adventures of four Russian sailors (2).pdf/7

 poor people must have felt, when on reaching the place of their landing, they saw nothing but an open sea, free from the ice, which but a day before, had covered the ocean. A violent storm, which had arisen during the night, had certainly been the cause of this disastrous event.

But they could not tell whether the ice which had before hemmed in the vessel, agitated by the violence of the waves, had been driven against her, and shattered her to pieces ; or whether she had been carried by the current into the main, a circumstance which frequently happens in those seas. Whatever accident had befallen the ship, they saw her now more ; and as no tidings were ever afterwards received of her, it is most probably that she sunk and that all on board of her perished.

This melancholy event depriving the unhappy wretches of all hope of ever being able to quit the island they returned to the hut from whenc they had come, full of horror and despair. Their first attention was employed, as may be easily be imagined, in