obeyed as cheerfully as they could every order of his, and submitted their suffering bodies and souls to his guidance. Their trust in him was as steadfast as their simple faith in God.

Easter day, which fell on 1st April 1632, found the ship's company still alive, though terribly reduced in vigour. Five of the men, of whom the carpenter was one, could do nothing which demanded activity outside the hut. The boatswain and many more were very infirm. Of all the rest there were but five who could eat their ordinary allowance of victuals. The sick men were not failing from lack of food but were starving from lack of vitamins. The pinnace was in an indifferent forwardness," and the carpenter, upon whose trained skill its construction depended, grew worse and worse. The cold continued intense. It was a melancholy Easter celebration, and upon any commander of less than James's indomitable spirit black despair must have fallen. The prospect of completing a pinnace and seeking their friends and homes once more-a faint prospect which had tinted with colour the dark months of winter-was passing with the sick and dying carpenter.

It was at this moment, when to summon his perishing officers and men from deadly melancholy by setting them upon work which offered some hope of ultimate rescue, was of even greater urgency than in the

success.

For

and had

autumn-it was at this moment that James, the "practitioner of the Mathematicks," revealed his supreme qualities as a leader. He resolved to set his feeble dying men to the tremendous task of digging out and salving their foundered ship! One cannot suppose that he had himself any hope of To him as a mathematician the chances of the ship being seaworthy after she had been dug out must have seemed infinitesimal. months the ice within without the frail hulk squeezed and rent her timbers. While she was desperately being scuttled, James reckoned that the ship's bottom lifted and beat upon the ground more than a hundred times. James must have anticipated that his Mary had sailed her last voyage, and laid her shattered bones ashore for the last time. Yet he determined to set his men to work upon her, "notwithstanding it was more labour and though we declined weaker still and weaker." He saw that he must give his people something to occupy their minds, to tear them out of themselves, so that while they were digging out the ship they "might have the time to thinke of some other course." And in this matter Captain James showed that he was a psychologist as well as a mathematician.

First, as a practical man he cast about and took stock of the available tools. He had carefully stored away against emergencies an axe and a hat

chet, but tools for digging had not come within his prevision. Now when he wanted them he found that he had nothing except four broken shovels and two iron bars; the rest had been sunk with the ship. With these implements he got busy clearing the ice and snow from the inside of the ship, and piling it about her as some "Barricadoe" when the frozen sea around began to break up.

The moment was well chosen, for the weather began to improve and the sun to give some cheerful warmth. As soon as the wretched men saw solid results emerging from their labours they brisked up wonderfully. Luck, which had deserted them, returned with both hands full-as it always does when it has tried its uttermost and found all efforts vain to conquer souls which are unconquerable. They found an anchor which had been lost beside the ship, and, most vital of all, they found the rudder which had been torn off and cast away. That rudder came back to them as though from the direct hand of God. Without it they could never have sailed their ship, and they had no possible means of replacing it. And then, a little thing may be, they disinterred a cask of beer, "which did rejoyce us all, especially the sicke men, notwithstanding that it did taste a little of bulge water." One may doubt if the men, thirsting for beer after five months of deprivation, had James's delicate palate

The first thing to do after the ice had been bundled out of the ship was to board over the holes drilled in her bottom when she was sunk in the autumn. The pumps were then tested, first being thawed by continual streams of hot water. It was perceived that as the ice broke and the water rose around the ship under a northerly wind there was no corresponding rise within. This did so encourage them that "they fell very lustily to digging." By the morning of the 27th of April one of the pumps had been cleared, and the test made upon which all their lives depended. The pump drew, and the water cast forth did appreciably lower the level within. This proved that the leaks which still remained could be controlled by the ship's pumps, and that she might still be made to float. With the end of the month came rain and the definite break-up of the winter. The May Eve in this most human story was celebrated as by men delivered from the imminent prospect of death far from those whom they loved. They made a good fire in the hut, and chose Ladies and did ceremoniously weare their names in our Caps, endeavouring to revive ourselves by any means."

66

short staddles. The carpenter had contrived her with a round stern to save labour, and, says James, "indeed, she was a well-proportioned vessel." Her burthen was twelve or fourteen tons. When we remember that one sick craftsman, with no better tools than a damaged axe and two or three hatchets, had built her out of rough timber, cut from island trees during a Labrador winter, she lives though never employed, and always will live for so long as men rate at their worth the products of the indomitable spirit of man. Inspired by the example of his captain, the patient enduring James, this humble carpenter had kept his vow to labour upon her "to the uttermost," and his uttermost was his death. It is of no small significance that three hundred years after this nameless carpenter struck his last blow upon that unfinished pinnace one should be writing of her, and that others should be reading and cherishing every bit of timber and every bolt which went to the fashioning of her.

The last serious casualty late in May was the collapse of the boatswain, though not before he, as enduring as his chief and his colleague the carpenter, had seen to the sails and rigging and gear of the salved ship Mary, now afloat and riding at her rescued anchor. It was about this time that the vetches thrust forth their welcome green spikes, and the

their convalescence. With the warm weather also came fish, and a relief from the salt provisions which James himself and his master alone of all the company could still eat with any appetite. The power of mind over body is shown very notably in the case of Captain James. Upon him fell the whole responsibility for keeping his company alive in body and soul, of inspiring their efforts, and cheering them in their distresses. He foresaw everything, and provided to his utmost capacity for everything. And all through he had no time to be ill. He was as physically unconquerable as he was mentally and spiritually unconquerable. He saved the lives of his men because he lived only for them and that they might be saved. Had he been a lesser man there would be no story of the Mary and her pinnace, nothing but a heap of ice-worn bones on a desolate island, and the scattered timbers of a broken ship.