"Blackbeard is no fool," replied Chingatok.

"Has he not come to search for new lands here, as you went to search for them there?" asked Toolooha, pointing alternately north and south.

"No—if I have understood him. Perhaps the brainless walrus translated his words wrongly."

"Is the thing he searches for something to eat?"

"Something to drink or wear?"

"No, I tell you. It is nothing! Yet he gives it a name. He calls it Nort Pole!"

Perhaps it is needless to remind the reader that Chingatok and his mother conversed in their native tongue, which we have rendered as literally as possible, and that the last two words were his broken English for "North Pole!"

"Nort Pole!" repeated Toolooha once or twice contemplatively. "Well, he may search for nothing if he will, but that he cannot find."

"Nay, mother," returned the giant with a soft smile, "if he will search for nothing he is sure to find it!"

Chingatok sighed, for his mother did not see the joke.

"Blackbeard," he continued with a grave, puzzled manner, "said that this world on which we stand floats in the air like a bird, and spins round!"

"Then Blackbeard is a liar," said Toolooha quietly, though without a thought of being rude. She merely meant what she said, and said what she meant, being a naturally candid woman.

"That may be so, mother, but I think not."

"How can the world float without wings?" demanded the old woman indignantly. "If it spinned should we not feel the spinning, and grow giddy?"

"And Blackbeard says," continued the giant, regardless of the questions propounded, "that it spins round upon this Nort Pole, which he says is not a real thing, but only nothing. I asked Blackbeard—How can a world spin upon nothing?"

"And what said he to that?" demanded Toolooha quickly.

"He only laughed. They all laughed when the brainless walrus put my question. There is one little boy—the son I think of Blackbeard—who laughed more than all the rest. He lay down on the ice to laugh, and rolled about as if he had the bowel-twist."

"That son of Blackbeard must be a fool more than his father," said Toolooha, casting a look of indignation at her innocent kettle.

"Perhaps; but he is not like his father," returned Chingatok meekly. "There are two other chiefs among the Kablunets who seem to me fine men. They are very young and wise. They have learned a little of our tongue from the Brainless One, and asked me some questions about the rocks, and the moss, and the flowers. They are tall and strong. One of them is very grave and seems to think much, like myself. He also spoke of this Nothing—this Nort Pole. They are all mad, I think, about that thing— that Nothing!"

The conversation was interrupted at this point by the sudden entrance of the giant's little sister with the news that the Kablunets were observed coming round the great cape, dragging a sledge.

"Is not the big oomiak with them?" asked her brother, rising quickly.

"No, we see no oomiak—no wings—no fire," answered Oblooria, "only six men dragging a sledge."

Chingatok went out immediately, and Oblooria was about to follow when her mother recalled her.

"Come here, little one. There is a bit of blubber for you to suck. Tell me, saw you any sign of madness in these white men when they were talking with your brother about this—this—Nort Pole."

"No, mother, no," answered Oblooria thoughtfully, "I saw not madness. They laughed much, it is true—but not more than Oolichuk laughs sometimes. Yes—I think again! There was one who seems mad—the small boy, whom brother thinks to be the son of Blackbeard—Benjay, they call him."

"Hah! I thought so," exclaimed Toolooha, evidently pleased at her penetration on this point. "Go, child, I cannot quit the lamp. Bring me news of what they say and do."

Oblooria obeyed with alacrity, bolting her strip of half-cooked blubber as she ran; her mother meanwhile gave her undivided attention to the duties of the lamp.

The white men and all the members of the Eskimo band were standing by the sledge engaged in earnest conversation when the little girl came forward. Captain Vane was speaking.

"Yes, Chingatok," he said, looking up at the tall savage, who stood erect in frame but with bent head and his hands clasped before him, like a modest chief, which in truth he was. "Yes, if you will guide me to your home in the northern lands, I will pay you well—for I have much iron and wood and such things as I think you wish for and value, and you shall also have my best thanks and gratitude. The latter may not indeed be worth much, but, nevertheless, you could not purchase it with all the wealth of the Polar regions."

Chingatok looked with penetrating gaze at Anders while he translated, and, considering the nature of the communication, the so-called Brainless One proved himself a better man than the giant gave him credit for.

"Does Blackbeard," asked Chingatok, after a few seconds' thought, "expect to find this Nothing—this Nort Pole, in my country?"

"Well, I cannot exactly say that I do," replied the Captain; "you see, I'm not quite sure, from what you tell me, where your country is. It may not reach to the Pole, but it is enough for me that it lies in that direction, and that you tell me there is much open water there. Men of my nation have been in these regions before now, and some of them have said that the Polar Sea is open, others that it is covered always with ice so thick that it never melts. Some have said it is a 'sea of ancient ice' so rough that no man can travel over it, and that it is not possible to reach the North Pole. I don't agree with that. I had been led to expect to fall in with this sea of ancient ice before I had got thus far, but it is not to be found. The sea indeed is partly blocked with ordinary ice, but there is nothing to be seen of this vast collection of mighty blocks, some of them thirty feet high—this wild chaos of ice which so effectually stopped some of those who went before me."

This speech put such brains as the Brainless One possessed to a severe test, and, after all, he failed to convey its full meaning to Chingatok, who, however, promptly replied to such portions as he understood.

"What Blackbeard calls the sea of old ice does exist," he said; "I have seen it. No man could travel on it, only the birds can cross it. But ice is not land. It changes place. It is here to-day; it is there to-morrow. Next day it is gone. We cannot tell where it goes to or when it will come back. The very old ice comes back again and again. It is slow to become like your Nort Pole—nothing. But it melts at last and more comes in its place—growing old slowly and vanishing slowly. It is full of wonder—like the stars; like the jumping flames; like the sun and moon, which we cannot understand."

Chingatok paused and looked upwards with a solemn expression. His mind had wandered into its favourite channels, and for the moment he forgot the main subject of conversation, while the white men regarded him with some surprise, his comrades with feelings of interest not unmingled with awe.

"But," he continued, "I know where the sea of ancient ice-blocks is just now. I came past it in my kayak, and can guide you to it by the same way."

"That is just what I want, Chingatok," said the Captain with a joyful look, "only aid me in this matter, and I will reward you well. I've already told you that my ship is wrecked, and that the crew, except those you see here, have left me; but I have saved all the cargo and buried it in a place of security with the exception of those things which I need for my expedition. One half of these things are on this sledge,—the other half on a sledge left behind and ready packed near the wreck. Now, I want you to send men to fetch that sledge here."

"That shall be done," said Chingatok. "Thanks, thanks, my good fellow," returned the Captain, "and we must set about it at once, for the summer is advancing, and you know as well as I do that the hot season is but a short one in these regions."

"A moment more shall not be lost," said the giant.

He turned to Oolichuk, who had been leaning on a short spear, and gazing open-mouthed, eyed, and eared, during the foregoing conversation, and said a few words to him and to the other Eskimos in a low tone.

Oolichuk merely nodded his head, said "Yah!" or something similarly significant, shouldered his spear and went off in the direction of the Cape of Newhope, followed by nearly all the men of the party.

"Stay, not quite so fast," cried Captain Vane.

"Stop!" shouted Chingatok.

Oolichuk and his men paused.

"One of us had better go with them," said the Captain, "to show the place where the sledge has been left."

"I will go, uncle, if you'll allow me," said Leo Vandervell.

"Oh! let me go too, father," pleaded Benjy, "I'm not a bit tired; do."

"You may both go. Take a rifle with you, Leo. There's no saying what you may meet on the way."

In half-an-hour the party under Oolichuk had reached the extremity of the cape, and Captain Vane observed that his volatile son mounted to the top of an ice-block to wave a farewell. He looked like a black speck, or a crow, in the far distance. Another moment, and the speck had disappeared among the hummocks of the ice-locked sea.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED AND FACED.

They had not quite doubled the Cape of Newhope, and were about to round the point which concealed the spot that had been named Wreck Bay, when they suddenly found themselves face to face with a Polar bear!

Bruin was evidently out for an evening stroll, for he seemed to have nothing particular to do.

Surprise lit up alike the countenances of the men and the visage of the bear. It was an unexpected meeting on both sides. The distance between them was not more than thirty feet. Leo was the only one of the party who carried a rifle. More than once during the voyage had Leo seen and shot a bear. The sight was not new to him, but never before had he come so suddenly, or so very close, upon this king of the Arctic Seas. He chanced at the time to be walking a few yards in advance of the party in company with Oolichuk and Benjy.

The three stopped, stared, and stood as if petrified.

For one moment, then they uttered a united and half involuntary roar.

Right royally did that bear accept the challenge. It rose, according to custom, on its hind legs, and immediately began that slow, but deadly war-dance with which the race is wont to preface an attack, while its upper lip curled in apparent derision, exposing its terrible fangs.

Leo recovered self-possession instantly. The rifle leaped to his shoulder, the centre of the bear's breast was covered, and the trigger pulled.

Only a snap resulted. Leo had forgotten to load! Benjy gasped with anxiety. Oolichuk, who had held himself back with a sparkling smile of expectation at the prospect of seeing the Kablunet use his thunder-weapon, looked surprised and disappointed, but went into action promptly with his spear, accompanied by Akeetolik. Leo's rifle, being a breech-loader, was quickly re-charged, but as the rest of the party stood leaning on their spears with the evident intention of merely watching the combat, the youth resolved to hold his hand, despite Benjy's earnest recommendation to put one ball between the bear's eyes, and the other into his stomach.

It was but a brief though decisive battle. Those Eskimos were well used to such warfare.

Running towards the animal with levelled spears, the two men separated on coming close, so that Bruin was forced to a state of indecision as to which enemy he would assail first. Akeetolik settled the point for him by giving him a prick on the right side, thus, as it were, drawing the enemy's fire on himself. The bear turned towards him with a fierce growl, and in so doing, exposed his left side to attack. Oolichuk was not slow to seize the opportunity. He leaped close up, and drove his spear deep into the animal's heart—killing it on the spot.

Next day the party returned to the Eskimo camp with the sledge-load of goods, and the bear on the top.

While steaks of the same were being prepared by Toolooha, Captain Vane and his new allies were busy discussing the details of the advance.

"I know that the difficulties will be great," he said, in reply to a remark from the interpreter, "but I mean to face and overcome them."

"Ah!" exclaimed Alf, who was rather fond of poetry:—

"To dare unknown dangers in a noble cause, Despite an adverse Nature and her tiresome Laws."

"Just so, Alf, my boy, stick at nothing; never give in; victory or death, that's my way of expressing the same sentiment. But there's one thing that I must impress once more upon you all—namely, that each man must reduce his kit to the very lowest point of size and weight. No extras allowed."

"What, not even a box of paper collars?" asked Benjy.

"Not one, my boy, but you may take a strait-waistcoat in your box if you choose, for you'll be sure to need it."

"Oh! father," returned the boy, remonstratively, "you are severe. However, I will take one, if you agree to leave your woollen comforter behind. You won't need that, you see, as long as I am with you."

"Of course," said Alf, "you will allow us to carry small libraries with us?"

"Certainly not, my lad, only one book each, and that must be a small one."

"The only book I possess is my Bible," said Leo, "and that won't take up much room, for it's an uncommonly small one."

"If I only had my Robinson Crusoe here," cried Benjy, "I'd take it, for there's enough of adventure in that book to carry a man over half the world."

"Ay," said Alf, "and enough of mind to carry him over the other half. For my part, if we must be content with one book each, I shall take Buzzby's poems."

"Oh! horrible!" cried Benjy, "why, he's no better than a maudlin', dawdlin', drawlin', caterwaulin'—"

"Come, Benjy, don't be insolent; he's second only to Tennyson. Just listen to this morceau by Buzzby. It is an Ode to Courage—

"'High! hot! hillarious compound of—'"

"Stop! stop! man, don't begin when we're in the middle of our plans," interrupted Benjy, "let us hear what book Butterface means to take."

"I not take no book, massa, only take my flute. Music is wot's de matter wid me. Dat is de ting what hab charms to soove de savage beast."

"I wouldn't advise you try to soothe a Polar bear with it," said Leo, "unless you have a rifle handy."

"Yes—and especially an unloaded one, which is very effective against Polar bears," put in the Captain, with a sly look. "Ah, Leo, I could hardly have believed it of you—and you the sportsman of our party, too; our chief huntsman. Oh, fie!"

"Come, uncle, don't be too hard on that little mistake," said Leo, with a slight blush, for he was really annoyed by the unsportsmanlike oversight hinted at; "but pray, may I ask," he added, turning sharply on the Captain, "what is inside of these three enormous boxes of yours which take up so much space on the sledges?"

"You may ask, Leo, but you may not expect an answer. That is my secret, and I mean to keep it as a sort of stimulus to your spirits when the hardships of the way begin to tell on you. Ask Chingatok, Anders," continued the Captain, turning to the interpreter, "if he thinks we have enough provisions collected for the journey. I wish to start immediately."

"We have enough," answered Chingatok, who had been sitting a silent, but deeply interested observer—so to speak—of the foregoing conversation.

"Tell him, then, to arrange with his party, and be prepared to set out by noon to-morrow."

That night, by the light of the midnight sun, the Eskimos sat round their kettles of bear-chops, and went into the pros and cons of the proposed expedition. Some were enthusiastically in favour of casting in their lot with the white men, others were decidedly against it, and a few were undecided. Among the latter was Akeetolik.

"These ignorant men," said that bold savage, "are foolish and useless. They cannot kill bears. The one named Lo, (thus was Leonard's name reduced to its lowest denomination), is big enough, and looks very fine, but when he sees bear he only stares, makes a little click with his thunder-weapon, and looks stupid."

"Blackbeard explained that," said Oolichuk; "Lo made some mistake."

"That may be so," retorted Akeetolik, "but if you and me had not been there, the bear would not make a mistake."

"I will not go with these Kablunets," said Eemerk with a frown, "they are only savages. They are not taught. No doubt they had a wonderful boat, but they have not been able to keep their boat. They cannot kill bears; perhaps they cannot kill seals or walruses, and they ask us to help them to travel—to show them the way! They can do nothing. They must be led like children. My advice is to kill them all, since they are so useless, and take their goods."

This speech was received with marks of decided approval by those of the party who were in the habit of siding with Eemerk, but the rest were silent. In a few moments Chingatok said, in a low, quiet, but impressive tone: "The Kablunets are not foolish or ignorant. They are wise—far beyond the wisdom of the Eskimos. It is Eemerk who is like a walrus without brains. He thinks that his little mind is outside of everything, and so he has not eyes to perceive that he is ignorant as well as foolish, and that other men are wise."

This was the severest rebuke that the good-natured Chingatok had yet administered to Eemerk, but the latter, foolish though he was, had wisdom enough not to resent it openly. He sat in moody silence, with his eyes fixed on the ground.

Of course Oolichuk was decidedly in favour of joining the white men, and so was Ivitchuk, who soon brought round his hesitating friend Akeetolik, and several of the others. Oblooria, being timid, would gladly have sided with Eemerk, but she hated the man, and, besides, would in any case have cast in her lot with her mother and brother, even if free to do otherwise.

The fair Tekkona, whose courage and faith were naturally strong, had only one idea, and that was to follow cheerfully wherever Chingatok led; but she was very modest, and gave no opinion. She merely remarked: "The Kablunets are handsome men, and seem good."

As for Toolooha, she had enough to do to attend to the serious duties of the lamp, and always left the settlement of less important matters to the men.

"You and yours are free to do what you please," said Chingatok to Eemerk, when the discussion drew to a close. "I go with the white men to-morrow."

"What says Oblooria?" whispered Oolichuk when the rest of the party were listening to Eemerk's reply.

"Oblooria goes with her brother and mother," answered that young lady, toying coquettishly with her sealskin tail.

Oolichuk's good-humoured visage beamed with satisfaction, and his flat nose curled up—as much as it was possible for such a feature to curl— with contempt, as he glanced at Eemerk and said—

"I have heard many tales from Anders—the white man's mouthpiece—since we met. He tells me the white men are very brave and fond of running into danger for nothing but fun. Those who do not like the fun of danger should join Eemerk. Those who are fond of fun and danger should come with our great chief Chingatok—huk! Let us divide."

Without more palaver the band divided, and it was found that only eight sided with Eemerk. All the rest cast in their lot with our giant, after which this Arctic House of Commons adjourned, and its members went to rest.

A few days after that, Captain Vane and his Eskimo allies, having left the camp with Eemerk and his friends far behind them, came suddenly one fine morning on a barrier which threatened effectually to arrest their further progress northward. This was nothing less than that tremendous sea of "ancient ice" which had baffled previous navigators and sledging parties.

"Chaos! absolute chaos!" exclaimed Alf Vandervell, who was first to recover from the shock of surprise, not to say consternation, with which the party beheld the scene on turning a high cape.

"It looks bad," said Captain Vane, gravely, "but things often look worse at a first glance than they really are."

"I hope it may be so in this case," said Leo, in a low tone.

"Good-bye to the North Pole!" said Benjy, with a look of despondency so deep that the rest of the party laughed in spite of themselves.

The truth was that poor Benjy had suffered much during the sledge journey which they had begun, for although he rode, like the rest of them, on one of the Eskimo sledges, the ice over which they had travelled along shore had been sufficiently rugged to necessitate constant getting off and on, as well as much scrambling over hummocks and broken ice. We have already said that Benjy was not very robust, though courageous and full of spirit, so that he was prone to leap from the deepest depths of despair to the highest heights of hope at a moment's notice—or vice versa. Not having become inured to ice-travel, he was naturally much cast down when the chaos above-mentioned met his gaze.

"Strange," said the Captain, after a long silent look at the barrier, "strange that we should find it here. The experience of former travellers placed it considerably to the south and west of this."

"But you know," said Leo, "Chingatok told us that the old ice drifts about just as the more recently formed does. Who knows but we may find the end of it not far off, and perhaps may reach open water beyond, where we can make skin canoes, and launch forth on a voyage of discovery."

"I vote that we climb the cliffs and try to see over the top of this horrid ice-jumble," said Benjy.

"Not a bad suggestion, lad. Let us do so. We will encamp here, Anders. Let all the people have a good feed, and tell Chingatok to follow us. You will come along with him."

A few hours later, and the Captain, Leo, Alf, Benjy, Chingatok, and the interpreter stood on the extreme summit of the promontory which they had named Cape Chaos, and from which they had a splendid bird's-eye view of the whole region.

It was indeed a tremendous and never-to-be-forgotten scene.

As far as the eye could reach, the ocean was covered with ice heaped together in some places in the wildest confusion, and so firmly wedged in appearance that it seemed as if it had lain there in a solid mass from the first day of creation. Elsewhere the ice was more level and less compact. In the midst of this rugged scene, hundreds of giant icebergs rose conspicuously above the rest, towering upwards in every shape and of all sizes, from which the bright sun was flashed back in rich variety of form, from the sharp gleam that trickled down an edge of ice to the refulgent blaze on a glassy face which almost rivalled the sun himself in brilliancy. These icebergs, extending as they did to the horizon, where they mingled with and were lost in the pearl-grey sky, gave an impression of vast illimitable perspective. Although no sign of an open sea was at first observed, there was no lack of water to enliven the scene, for here and there, and everywhere, were pools and ponds, and even lakes of goodly size, which had been formed on the surface by the melting ice. In these the picturesque masses were faithfully reflected, and over them vast flocks of gulls, eider-ducks, puffins, and other wild-fowl of the north, disported themselves in garrulous felicity.

On the edge of the rocky precipice, from which they had a bird's-eye view of the scene, our discoverers stood silent for some time, absorbed in contemplation, with feelings of mingled awe and wonder. Then exclamations of surprise and admiration broke forth.

"The wonderful works of God!" said the Captain, in a tone of profound reverence.

"Beautiful, beyond belief!" murmured Alf.

"But it seems an effectual check to our advance," said the practical Leo, who, however, was by no means insensible to the extreme beauty of the scene.

"Not effectual, lad; not effectual," returned the Captain, stretching out his hand and turning to the interpreter; "look, Anders, d'ye see nothing on the horizon away to the nor'ard? Isn't that a bit of water-sky over there?"

"Ya," replied the interpreter, gazing intently, "there be watter-sky over there. Ya. But not possobubble for go there. Ice too big an' brokkin up."

"Ask Chingatok what he thinks," returned the Captain.

Chingatok's opinion was that the water-sky indicated the open sea. He knew that sea well—had often paddled over it, and his own country lay in it.

"But how ever did he cross that ice?" asked the Captain; "what says he to that, Anders?"

"I did not cross it," answered the Eskimo, through Anders. "When I came here with my party the ice was not there; it was far off yonder."

He pointed to the eastward.

"Just so," returned the Captain, with a satisfied nod, "that confirms my opinion. You see, boys, that the coast here trends off to the East'ard in a very decided manner. Now, if that was only the shore of a bay, and the land again ran off to the nor'ard, it would not be possible for such a sea of ice to have come from that direction. I therefore conclude that we are standing on the most northern cape of Greenland; that Greenland itself is a huge island, unconnected with the Polar lands; that we are now on the shores of the great Polar basin, in which, somewhere not very far from the Pole itself, lies the home of our friend Chingatok—at least so I judge from what he has said. Moreover, I feel sure that the water-sky we see over there indicates the commencement of that 'open sea' which, I hold, in common with many learned men, lies around the North Pole, and which I am determined to float upon before many days go by."

"We'd better spread our wings then, father, and be off at once," said Benjy; "for it's quite certain that we'll never manage to scramble over that ice-jumble with sledges."

"Nevertheless, I will try, Benjy."

"But how, uncle?" asked Leo.

"Ay, how?" repeated Alf, "that is the question."

"Come, come, Alf, let Shakespeare alone," said the pert Benjy, "if you must quote, confine yourself to Buzzby."

"Nay, Benjy, be not so severe. It was but a slip. Besides, our leader has not forbidden our carrying a whole library in our heads, so long as we take only one book in our pockets. But, uncle, you have not yet told us how you intend to cross that amazing barrier which Benjy has appropriately styled an ice-jumble."

"How, boy?" returned the Captain, who had been gazing eagerly in all directions while they talked, "it is impossible for me to say how. All that I can speak of with certainty as to our future movements is, that the road by which we have come to the top of this cliff will lead us to the bottom again, where Toolooha is preparing for us an excellent supper of bear-steaks and tea. One step at a time, lads, is my motto; when that is taken we shall see clearly how and where to take the next."

A sound sleep was the step which the whole party took after that which led to the bear-steaks. Then Captain Vane arose, ordered the dogs to be harnessed to the sledges, and, laying his course due north, steered straight out upon the sea of ancient ice.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

DIFFICULTIES AND DANGERS INCREASE, AND THE CAPTAIN EXPOUNDS HIS VIEWS.

The first part of the journey over the rugged ice was not so difficult as had been anticipated, because they found a number of openings—narrow lanes, as it were—winding between the masses, most of which were wide enough to permit of the passage of the sledges; and when they chanced to come on a gap that was too narrow, they easily widened it with their hatchets and ice-chisels.

There was, however, some danger connected with this process, for some of the mighty blocks of ice amongst which they moved were piled in such positions that it only required a few choppings at their base to bring them down in ruins on their heads. One instance of this kind sufficed to warn them effectually.

Captain Vane's dog-sledge was leading the way at the time. Leo drove it, for by that time the Eskimos had taught him how to use the short-handled whip with the lash full fifteen feet long, and Leo was an apt pupil in every athletic and manly exercise. Beside him sat the Captain, Alf, Benjy, and Butterface—the black visage of the latter absolutely shining with delight at the novelty of the situation. Behind came the sledge of Chingatok, which, besides being laden with bear-rugs, sealskins, junks of meat, and a host of indescribable Eskimo implements, carried himself and the precious persons of Toolooha and Tekkona. Next came the sledge of the laughter-loving Oolichuk, with the timid Oblooria and another woman. Then followed the sledges of Ivitchuk and Akeetolik, laden with the rest of the Eskimo women and goods, and last of all came Captain Vane's two English-made sledges, heavily-laden with the goods and provisions of the explorers. These latter sledges, although made in England, had been constructed on the principle of the native sledge, namely, with the parts fastened by means of walrus-sinew lashings instead of nails, which last would have snapped like glass in the winter frosts of the Polar regions, besides being incapable of standing the twistings and shocks of ice-travel.

All the dogs being fresh, and the floor of the lanes not too rough, the strangely-assorted party trotted merrily along, causing the echoes among the great ice-blocks, spires, and obelisks, to ring to the music of their chatting, and the cracks of their powerful whips. Suddenly, a shout at the front, and an abrupt pull up, brought the whole column to a halt. The Captain's dogs had broken into a gallop. On turning suddenly round a spur of a glacier about as big as Saint Paul's Cathedral, they went swish into a shallow pond which had been formed on the ice. It was not deep, but there was sufficient water in it to send a deluge of spray over the travellers.

A burst of laughter greeted the incident as they sprang off the sledge, and waded to the dry ice a few yards ahead.

"No damage done," exclaimed the Captain, as he assisted the dogs to haul the sledge out of the water.

"No damage!" repeated Benjy, with a rueful look, "why, I'm soaked from top to toe!"

"Yes, you've got the worst of it," said Leo, with a laugh; "that comes of being forward, Benjy. You would insist on sitting in front."

"Well, it is some comfort," retorted Benjy, squeezing the water from his garments, "that Alf is as wet as myself, for that gives us an opportunity of sympathising with each other. Eh, Alf? Does Buzzby offer no consolatory remarks for such an occasion as this?"

"O yes," replied Alf; "in his beautiful poem on Melancholy, sixth canto, Buzzby says:—

"'When trouble, like a curtain spread, Obscures the clouded brain, And worries on the weary head Descend like soaking rain— Lift up th'umbrella of the heart, Stride manfully along; Defy depression's dreary dart, And shout in gleeful song.'"

"Come, Alf, clap on to this tow-rope, an' stop your nonsense," said Captain Vane, who was not in a poetical frame of mind just then.

"Dat is mos' boosiful potry!" exclaimed Butterface, with an immense display of eyes and teeth, as he lent a willing hand to haul out the sledge. "Mos' boosiful. But he's rader a strong rem'dy, massa, don' you tink? Not bery easy to git up a gleefoo' shout when one's down in de mout' bery bad, eh!"

Alf's reply was checked by the necessity for remounting the sledge and resuming the journey. Those in rear avoided the pond by going round it.

"The weather's warm, anyhow, and that's a comfort," remarked Benjy, as he settled down in his wet garments. "We can't freeze in summer, you know, and—"

He stopped abruptly, for it became apparent just then that the opening close ahead of them was too narrow for the sledge to pass. It was narrowed by a buttress, or projection, of the cathedral-berg, which jutted up close to a vast obelisk of ice about forty feet high, if not higher.

"Nothing for it, boys, but to cut through," said the Captain, jumping out, and seizing an axe, as the sledge was jammed between the masses. The dogs lay down to rest and pant while the men were at work.

"It's cut an' come again in dem regins," muttered the negro steward, also seizing an axe, and attacking the base of the obelisk.

A sudden cry of alarm from the whole party caused him to desist and look up. He echoed the cry and sprang back swiftly, for the huge mass of ice having been just on the balance, one slash at its base had destroyed the equilibrium, and it was leaning slowly over with a deep grinding sound. A moment later the motion was swift, and it fell with a terrible crash, bursting into a thousand fragments, scattering lumps and glittering morsels far and wide, and causing the whole ice-field to tremble. The concussion overturned several other masses, which had been in the same nicely-balanced condition, some near at hand, others out of sight, though within earshot, and, for a moment, the travellers felt as if the surrounding pack were disrupting everywhere and falling into utter ruin, but in a few seconds the sounds ceased, and again all was quiet.

Fortunately, the obelisk which had been overturned fell towards the north—away from the party; but although it thus narrowly missed crushing them all in one icy tomb, it blocked up their path so completely that the remainder of that day had to be spent in cutting a passage through it.

Need we say that, after this, they were careful how they used their axes and ice-chisels?

Soon after the occurrence of this incident, the labyrinths among the ice became more broken, tortuous, and bewildering. At last they ceased altogether, and the travellers were compelled to take an almost straight course right over everything, for blocks, masses, and drifts on a gigantic scale were heaved up in such dire confusion, that nothing having the faintest resemblance to a track or passage could be found.

"It's hard work, this," remarked the Captain to Leo one evening, seating himself on a mass of ice which he had just chopped from an obstruction, and wiping the perspiration from his brow.

"Hard, indeed," said Leo, sitting down beside him, "I fear it begins to tell upon poor Benjy. You should really order him to rest more than he does, uncle."

A grim smile of satisfaction played for a minute on the Captain's rugged face, as he glanced at his son, who, a short distance ahead, was hacking at the ice with a pick-axe, in company with Alf and Butterface and the Eskimo men.

"It'll do him good, lad," replied the Captain. "Hard work is just what my Benjy needs. He's not very stout, to be sure, but there is nothing wrong with his constitution, and he's got plenty of spirit."

This was indeed true. Benjy had too much spirit for his somewhat slender frame, but his father, being a herculean man, did not quite perceive that what was good for himself might be too much for his son. Captain Vane was, however, the reverse of a harsh man. He pondered what Leo had said, and soon afterwards went up to his son.

"Benjy, my lad."

"Yes, father," said the boy, dropping the head of his pick-axe on the ice, resting his hands on the haft, and looking up with a flushed countenance.

"You should rest a bit now and then, Benjy. You'll knock yourself up if you don't."

"Rest a bit, father! Why, I've just had a rest, and I'm not tired—that is, not very. Ain't it fun, father? And the ice cuts up so easily, and flies about so splendidly—see here."

With flashing eyes our little hero raised his pick and drove it into the ice at which he had been working, with all his force, so that a great rent was made, and a mass the size of a dressing-table sprang from the side of a berg, and, falling down, burst into a shower of sparkling gems. But this was not all. To Benjy's intense delight, a mass of many tons in weight was loosened by the fall of the smaller lump, and rolled down with a thunderous roar, causing Butterface, who was too near it, to jump out of the way with an amount of agility that threw the whole party into fits of laughter.

"What d'ye think o' that, father?"

"I think it's somewhat dangerous," answered the Captain, recovering his gravity and re-shouldering his axe. "However, as long as you enjoy the work, it can't hurt you, so go ahead, my boy; it'll be a long time before you cut away too much o' the Polar ice!"

Reaching a slightly open space beyond this point, the dogs were harnessed, and the party advanced for a mile or so, when they came to another obstruction worse than that which they had previously passed.

"There's a deal of ice-rubbish in these regions," remarked Benjy, eyeing the wildly heaped masses with a grave face, and heaving a deep sigh.

"Yes, Massa Benjy, bery too much altogidder," said Butterface, echoing the sigh.

"Come, we won't cut through this," cried Captain Vane in a cheery voice; "we'll try to go over it. There is a considerable drift of old snow that seems to offer a sort of track. What says Chingatok?"

The easy-going Eskimo said that it would be as well to go over it as through it, perhaps better!

So, over it they went, but they soon began to wish they had tried any other plan, for the snow-track quickly came to an end, and then the difficulty of passing even the empty sledges from one ice mass to another was very great, while the process of carrying forward the goods on the shoulders of the men was exceedingly laborious. The poor dogs, too, were constantly falling between masses, and dragging each other down, so that they gave more trouble at last than they were worth.

In all these trying circumstances, the Eskimo women were almost as useful as the men. Indeed they would have been quite as useful if they had been as strong, and they bore the fatigues and trials of the journey with the placid good humour, and apparent, if not real, humility of their race.

At last, one afternoon, our discoverers came suddenly to the edge of this great barrier of ancient ice, and beheld, from an elevated plateau to which they had climbed, a scene which was calculated to rouse in their breasts feelings at once of admiration and despair, for there, stretching away below them for several miles, lay a sea of comparatively level ice, and beyond it a chain of stupendous glaciers, which presented an apparently impassable barrier—a huge continuous wall of ice that seemed to rise into the very sky.

This chain bore all the evidences of being very old ice—compared to which that of the so-called "ancient sea" was absolutely juvenile. On the ice-plain, which was apparently illimitable to the right and left, were hundreds of pools of water in which the icebergs, the golden clouds, the sun, and the blue sky were reflected, and on the surface of which myriads of Arctic wild-fowl were sporting about, making the air vocal with their plaintive cries, and ruffling the glassy surfaces of the lakes with their dipping wings. The heads of seals were also observed here and there.

"These will stop us at last," said Alf, pointing to the bergs with a profound sigh.

"No, they won't," remarked the Captain quietly. "Nothing will stop us!"

"That's true, anyhow, uncle," returned Alf; "for if it be, as Chingatok thinks, that we are in search of nothing, of course when we find nothing, nothing will stop us!"

"Why, Alf," said Leo, "I wonder that you, who are usually in an enthusiastic and poetical frame of mind, should be depressed by distant difficulties, instead of admiring such a splendid sight of birds and beasts enjoying themselves in what I may style an Arctic heaven. You should take example by Benjy."

That youth did indeed afford a bright example of rapt enthusiasm just then, for, standing a little apart by himself, he gazed at the scene with flushed face, open mouth, and glittering eyes, in speechless delight.

"Ask Chingatok if he ever saw this range before," said the Captain to Anders, on recovering from his first feeling of surprise.

No, Chingatok had never seen it, except, indeed, the tops of the bergs— at sea, in the far distance—but he had often heard of it from some of his countrymen, who, like himself, were fond of exploring. But that sea of ice was not there, he said, when he had passed on his journey southward. It had drifted there, since that time, from the great sea.

"Ah! the great sea that he speaks of is just what we must find and cross over," muttered the Captain to himself.

"But how are we to cross over it, uncle?" asked Leo.

The Captain replied with one of his quiet glances. His followers had long become accustomed to this silent method of declining to reply, and forbore to press the subject.

"Come now, boys, get ready to descend to the plain. We'll have to do it with caution."

There was, indeed, ground for caution. We have said that they had climbed to an elevated plateau on one of the small bergs which formed the outside margin of the rugged ice. The side of this berg was a steep slope of hard snow, so steep that they thought it unwise to attempt the descent by what in Switzerland is termed glissading.

"We'll have to zig-zag down, I think," continued the Captain, settling himself on his sledge; but the Captain's dogs thought otherwise. Under a sudden impulse of reckless free-will, the whole team, giving vent to a howl of mingled glee and fear, dashed down the slope at full gallop. Of course they were overtaken in a few seconds by the sledge, which not only ran into them, but sent them sprawling on their backs right and left. Then it met a slight obstruction, and itself upset, sending Captain Vane and his companions, with its other contents, into the midst of the struggling dogs. With momentarily increasing speed this avalanche of mixed dead and living matter went sliding, hurtling, swinging, shouting, struggling, and yelling to the bottom. Fortunately, there was no obstruction there, else had destruction been inevitable. The slope merged gradually into the level plain, over which the avalanche swept for a considerable distance before the momentum of their flight was expended.

When at length they stopped, and disentangled themselves from the knot into which the traces had tied them, it was found that no one was materially hurt. Looking up at the height down which they had come, they beheld the Eskimos standing at the top with outstretched arms in the attitude of men who glare in speechless horror. But these did not stand thus long. Descending by a more circuitous route, they soon rejoined the Captain's party, and then, as the night was far advanced, they encamped on the edge of the ice-plain, on a part that was bathed in the beams of the ever-circling sun.

That night at supper Captain Vane was unusually thoughtful and silent.

"You're not losing heart, are you, uncle?" asked Leo, during a pause.

"No, lad, certainly not," replied the Captain, dreamily.

"You've not been bumped very badly in the tumble, father, have you?" asked Benjy with an anxious look.

"Bumped? no; what makes you think so?"

"Because you're gazing at Toolooha's lamp as if you saw a ghost in it."

"Well, perhaps I do see a ghost there," returned the Captain with an effort to rouse his attention to things going on around him. "I see the ghost of things to come. I am looking through Toolooha's lamp into futurity."

"And what does futurity look like?" asked Alf. "Bright or dark?"

"Black—black as me," muttered Butterface, as he approached and laid fresh viands before the party.

It ought to be told that Butterface had suffered rather severely in the recent glissade on the snow-slope, which will account for the gloomy view he took of the future at that time.

"Listen," said the Captain, with a look of sudden earnestness; "as it is highly probable that a day or two more will decide the question of our success or failure, I think it right to reveal to you more fully my thoughts, my plans, and the prospects that lie before us. You all know very well that there is much difference of opinion about the condition of the sea around the North Pole. Some think it must be cumbered with eternal ice, others that it is comparatively free from ice, and that it enjoys a somewhat milder climate than those parts of the Arctic regions with which we have hitherto been doing battle. I hold entirely with the latter view—with those who believe in an open Polar basin. I won't weary you with the grounds of my belief in detail, but here are a few of my reasons—

"It is an admitted fact that there is constant circulation of the water in the ocean. That wise and painstaking philosopher, Maury, of the US navy, has proved to my mind that this grand circulation of the sea-water round the world is the cause of all the oceanic streams, hot and cold, with which we have been so long acquainted.

"This circulation is a necessity as well as a fact. At the Equator the water is extremely warm and salt, besides lime-laden, in consequence of excessive evaporation. At the Poles it is extremely cold and fresh. Mixing is therefore a necessity. The hot salt-waters of the Equator flow to the Poles to get freshened and cooled. Those of the Poles flow to the Equator to get salted, limed, and warmed. They do this continuously in two grand currents, north and south, all round the world. But the land comes in as a disturbing element; it diverts the water into streams variously modified in force and direction, and the streams also change places variously, sometimes the hot currents travelling north as under-currents with the cold currents above, sometimes the reverse. One branch of the current comes from the Equator round the Cape of Good Hope, turns up the west coast of Africa, and is deflected into the Gulf of Mexico, round which it sweeps, and then shoots across the Atlantic to England and Norway. It is known as our Gulf Stream.

"Now, the equatorial warm and salt current enters Baffin's Bay as a submarine current, while the cold and comparatively fresh waters of the Polar regions descend as a surface-current, bearing the great ice-fields of the Arctic seas to the southward. One thing that goes far to prove this, is the fact that the enormous icebergs thrown off from the northern glaciers have been frequently seen by navigators travelling northward, right against the current flowing south. These huge ice-mountains, floating as they do with seven or eight parts of their bulk beneath the surface, are carried thus forcibly up stream by the under-current until their bases are worn off by the warm waters below, thus allowing the upper current to gain the mastery, and hurry them south again to their final dissolution in the Atlantic.

"Now, lads," continued the Captain, with the air of a man who propounds a self-evident proposition; "is it not clear that if the warm waters of the south flow into the Polar basin as an under current, they must come up somewhere, to take the place of the cold waters that are for ever flowing away from the Pole to the Equator? Can anything be clearer than that—except the nose on Benjy's face? Well then, that being so, the waters round the Pole must be comparatively warm waters, and also, comparatively, free from ice, so that if we could only manage to cross this ice-barrier and get into them, we might sail right away to the North Pole."

"But, father," said Benjy, "since you have taken the liberty to trifle with my nose, I feel entitled to remark that we can't sail in waters, either hot or cold, without a ship."

"That's true, boy," rejoined the Captain. "However," he added, with a half-humorous curl of his black moustache, "you know I'm not given to stick at trifles. Time will show. Meanwhile I am strongly of opinion that this is the last ice-barrier we shall meet with on our way to the Pole."

"Is there not some tradition of a mild climate in the furthest north among the Eskimos?" asked Alf.

"Of course there is. It has long been known that the Greenland Eskimos have a tradition of an island in an iceless sea, lying away in the far north, where there are many musk-oxen, and, from what I have been told by our friend Chingatok, I am disposed to think that he and his kindred inhabit this island, or group of islands, in the Polar basin—not far, perhaps, from the Pole itself. He says there are musk-oxen there. But there is another creature, and a much bigger one than any Eskimo, bigger even than Chingatok, who bears his testimony to an open Polar sea, namely, the Greenland whale. It has been ascertained that the 'right' whale does not, and cannot, enter the tropical regions of the Ocean. They are to him as a sea of fire, a wall of adamant, so that it is impossible for him to swim south, double Cape Horn, and proceed to the North Pacific; yet the very same kind of whale found in Baffin's Bay is found at Behring Straits. Now, the question is, how did he get there?"

"Was born there, no doubt," answered Benjy, "and had no occasion to make such a long voyage!"

"Ah! my boy, but we have the strongest evidence that he was not born there, for you must know that some whalers have a habit of marking their harpoons with date and name of ship; and as we have been told by that good and true man Dr Scoresby, there have been several instances where whales have been captured near Behring Straits with harpoons in them bearing the stamp of ships that were known to cruise on the Baffin's Bay side of America. Moreover, in one or two instances a very short time had elapsed between the date of harpooning on the Atlantic and capturing on the Pacific side. These facts prove, at all events, a 'North-west Passage' for whales, and, as whales cannot travel far under ice without breathing, they also tend to prove an open Polar sea.

"Another argument in favour of this basin is the migration of birds to the northward at certain seasons. Birds do not migrate to frozen regions, and such migrations northward have been observed by those who, like ourselves, have reached the highest latitudes.

"Captain Nares of the Alert, in May 1876, when only a little to the southward of this, saw ptarmigan flying in pairs to the north-west, seeking for better feeding-grounds. Ducks and geese also passed northward early in June, indicating plainly the existence of suitable feeding-grounds in the undiscovered and mysterious North.

"We have now passed beyond the point reached by Captain Nares. My last observation placed us in parallel 84 degrees 40 minutes, the highest that has yet been reached by civilised man."

"The highest, uncle?" interrupted Leo. "Yes—the highest. Scoresby reached 81 degrees 50 minutes in 1806, Parry 82 degrees 45 minutes in 1827—with sledges. That unfortunate and heroic American, Captain Hall, ran his vessel, the Polaris, in the shortest space of time on record, up to latitude 82 degrees 16 minutes. Captain Nares reached a higher latitude than had previously been attained by ships, and Captain Markham, of Captain Nares' expedition, travelled over this very 'sea of ancient ice' with sledges to latitude 83 degrees 20.4 minutes—about 400 miles from the Pole, and the highest yet reached, as I have said. So, you see, we have beaten them all! Moreover, I strongly incline to the belief that the open Polar Sea lies just beyond that range of huge icebergs which we see before us."

The Captain rose as he spoke, and pointed to the gigantic chain, behind one of which the sun was just about to dip, causing its jagged peaks to glow as with intense fire.

"But how are we ever to pass that barrier, uncle?" asked Alf, who was by nature the least sanguine of the party in regard to overcoming difficulties of a geographical nature, although by far the most enthusiastic in the effort to acquire knowledge.

"You shall see, to-morrow," answered the Captain; "at present we must turn in and rest. See, the Eskimos have already set us the example."



CHAPTER NINE.

THE CAPTAIN MAKES A STUPENDOUS EFFORT. DISAPPOINTMENTS AND DISCOVERIES.

Next morning the ice-plain was crossed at a swinging gallop. Indeed, the dogs were so fresh and frisky after a good rest and a hearty meal that they ran away more than once, and it became a matter of extreme difficulty to check them. At last the great chain was reached, and the party came to an abrupt halt at the base of one of the largest of the bergs. Captain Vane gazed up at it as Napoleon the First may be supposed to have gazed at the Alps he had resolved to scale and cross.

The resemblance to alpine scenery was not confined to mere form—such as towering peaks and mighty precipices—for there were lakelets and ponds here and there up among the crystal heights, from which rivulets trickled, streams brawled, and cataracts thundered.

It was evident, however, that the old giant that frowned on them was verging towards dissolution, for he was honey-combed in all directions.

"Impossible to scale that," said Alf, with a solemn look.

Even Leo's sanguine temperament was dashed for a moment. "We dare not attempt to cut through it," he said, "for masses are falling about here and there in a very dangerous fashion."

As he spoke, a tall spire was seen to slip from its position, topple over, and go crashing down into a dark blue gulf of ice below it.

"No chance of success now," said Benjamin Vane, gloomily.

"None wotsomediver," muttered Butterface, his broad black visage absolutely elongated by sympathetic despair. For, you must know, as far as his own feelings were concerned, sympathy alone influenced him. Personally, he was supremely indifferent about reaching the North Pole. In fact he did not believe in it at all, and made no scruple of saying so, when asked, but he seldom volunteered his opinion, being an extremely modest and polite man.

During these desponding remarks Captain Vane did not seem to be much depressed.

"Anders," he said, turning abruptly to the interpreter, "ask Chingatok what he thinks. Can we pass this barrier, and, if not, what would he advise us to do?"

It was observed that the other Eskimos drew near with anxious looks to hear the opinion of their chief.

Toolooha and Tekkona, however, seemed quite devoid of anxiety. They evidently had perfect confidence in the giant, and poor little Oblooria glanced up in the face of her friend as if to gather consolation from her looks.

Chingatok, after a short pause, said:—

"The ice-mountains cannot be passed. The white men have not wings; they cannot fly. They must return to land, and travel for many days to the open water near the far-off land—there."

He pointed direct to the northward.

Captain Vane made no reply. He merely turned and gave orders that the lashings of one of the large sledges which conveyed the baggage should be cast loose. Selecting a box from this, he opened it, and took therefrom a small instrument made partly of brass, partly of glass, and partly of wood.

"You have often wondered, Benjy," he said, "what I meant to do with this electrical machine. You shall soon see. Help me to arrange it, boy, and do you, Leo, uncoil part of this copper wire. Here, Alf, carry this little box to the foot of the berg, and lay it in front of yon blue cavern."

"Which? That one close to the waterfall or—"

"No, the big cavern, just under the most solid part of the berg—the one that seems to grow bluer and bluer until it becomes quite black in its heart. And have a care, Alf. The box you carry is dangerous. Don't let it fall. Lay it down gently, and come back at once. Anders," he added, turning round, "let all the people go back with dogs and sledges for a quarter of a mile."

There was something so peremptory and abrupt in their leader's manner that no one thought of asking him a question, though all were filled with surprise and curiosity as to what he meant to do.

"Come here, Leo," he said, after his orders had been obeyed. "Hold this coil, and pay it out as I walk to the berg with the end in my hand."

The coil was one of extremely fine copper wire. Leo let it run as the Captain walked off. A minute or two later he was seen to enter the dark blue cavern and disappear.

"My dear dad is reckless," exclaimed Benjy, in some anxiety, "what if the roof o' that cave should fall in. There are bits of ice dropping about everywhere. What can he be going to do?"

As he spoke, the Captain issued from the cave, and walked smartly towards them.

"Now then, it's all right," he said, "give me the coil, Leo, and come back, all of you. Fetch the machine, Alf."

In a few minutes the whole party had retired a considerable distance from the huge berg, the Captain uncoiling the wire as he went.

"Surely you're not going to try to blow it up piecemeal?" said Leo.

"No, lad, I'm not going to do that, or anything so slow," returned the Captain, stopping and arranging the instrument.

"But if the box contains gunpowder," persisted Leo, "there's not enough to—"

"It contains dynamite," said the Captain, affixing the coil to the machine, and giving it a sharp turn.

If a volcano had suddenly opened fire under the iceberg the effect could not have been more tremendous. Thunder itself is not more deep than was the crash which reverberated among the ice-cliffs. Smoke burst in a huge volume from the heart of the berg. Masses, fragments, domes, and pinnacles were hurled into the air, and fell back to mingle with the blue precipices that tumbled, slid, or plunged in horrible confusion. Only a portion, indeed, of the mighty mass had been actually disrupted, but the shock to the surrounding ice was so shattering that the entire berg subsided.

"Stu-pendous!" exclaimed Alf, with a look of awe-stricken wonder.

Benjy, after venting his feelings in a shriek of joyful surprise, seemed to be struck dumb. Anders and Butterface stood still,—speechless. As for the Eskimos, they turned with one hideous yell, and fled from the spot like maniacs—excepting Chingatok, who, although startled, stood his ground in an attitude expressive of superlative surprise.

"So,—it has not disappointed me," remarked the Captain, when the hideous din had ceased, "dynamite is indeed a powerful agent when properly applied: immeasurably more effective than powder."

"But it seems to me," said Leo, beginning to recover himself, "that although you have brought the berg down you have not rendered it much more passable."

"That's true, lad," answered the Captain with a somewhat rueful expression. "It does seem a lumpy sort of heap after all; but there may be found some practicable bits when we examine it more closely. Come, we'll go see."

On closer inspection it was found that the ruined berg still presented an absolutely insurmountable obstacle to the explorers, who, being finally compelled to admit that even dynamite had failed, left the place in search of a natural opening.

Travelling along the chain for a considerable time, in the hope of succeeding, they came at last to a succession of comparatively level floes, which conducted them to the extreme northern end of the chain, and there they found that the floes continued onwards in an unbroken plain to what appeared to be the open sea.

"That is a water-sky, for certain," exclaimed Captain Vane, eagerly, on the evening when this discovery was made. "The open ocean cannot now be far off."

"There's a very dark cloud there, father," said Benjy, who, as we have before said, possessed the keenest sight of the party.

"A cloud, boy! where? Um—Yes, I see something—"

"It is land," said Chingatok, in a low voice.

"Land!" exclaimed the Captain, "are you sure?"

"Yes, I know it well. I passed it on my journey here. We left our canoes and oomiaks there, and took to sledges because the floes were unbroken. But these ice-mountains were not here at that time. They have come down since we passed from the great sea."

"There!" said the Captain, turning to Leo with a look of triumph, "he still speaks of the great sea! If these bergs came from it, we must have reached it, lad."

"But the land puzzles me," said Leo. "Can it be part of Greenland?"

"Scarcely, for Greenland lies far to the east'ard, and the latest discoveries made on the north of that land show that the coast turns still more decidedly east—tending to the conclusion that Greenland is an island. This land, therefore, must be entirely new land—an island— a continent perhaps."

"But it may be a cape, father," interposed Benjy. "You know that capes have a queer way of sticking out suddenly from land, just as men's noses stick out from their faces."

"True, Benjy, true, but your simile is not perfect, for men's noses don't always stick out from their faces—witness the nose of Butterface, which, you know, is well aft of his lips and chin. However, this may be Greenland's nose—who knows? We shall go and find out ere long. Come, use your whip, Leo. Ho! Chingatok, tell your hairy kinsmen to clap on all sail and make for the land."

"Hold on, uncle!" cried Alf, "I think I see a splendid specimen of—"

The crack of Leo's whip, and the yelping of the team, drowned the rest of the sentence, and Alf was whirled away from his splendid specimen, (whatever it was), for ever!

"It is a piece of great good fortune," said the Captain, as they swept along over the hard and level snow, "that the Eskimos have left their boats on this land, for now I shall have two strings to my bow."

"What is the other string?" asked Leo, as he administered a flip to the flank of a lazy dog.

"Ah, that remains to be seen, lad," replied the Captain.

"Why, what a tyrant you are, uncle!" exclaimed Alf, who had recovered from his disappointment about the splendid specimen. "You won't tell us anything, almost. Who ever before heard of the men of an expedition to the North Pole being kept in ignorance of the means by which they were to get there?"

The Captain's reply was only a twinkle of the eye.

"Father wants to fill you with bliss, Alf," said Benjy, "according to your own notions of that sort of thing."

"What do you mean, Ben?"

"Why, have we not all heard you often quote the words:—'Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.'"

"Hear, hear! That's it, Benjy," said the Captain, with a nod and a short laugh, while his son assumed the satisfied gravity of look appropriate to one who has made a hit; "I won't decrease his bliss by removing his ignorance yet awhile."

"Hain't Buzzby got nuffin' to say on that 'ere pint?" whispered Butterface to Benjy, who sat just in front of him.

"Ah! to be sure. I say, Alf," said the boy with an earnest look, "hasn't your favourite author got something to say about the bliss of ignorance? I'm almost sure I heard you muttering something in your dreams on that subject the other day."

"Of course he has. He has a long poem on that subject. Here is a bit of it."

Alf, whose memory was good, immediately recited the following:

"How sweet is ignorance! How soothing to the mind, To search for treasures in the brain, and nothing find! Consider. When the memory is richly stored, How apt the victim of redundant knowledge to be bored! When Nothing fills the chambers of the heart and brain, Then negative enjoyment comes with pleasures in her train! Descending on the clods of sense like summer rain.

"Knowledge, 'tis said, gives power, and so it often does; Knowledge makes sorrow, too, around our pillows buzz. In debt I am, with little cash; I know it—and am sad. Of course, if I were ignorant of this—how glad! A loving friend, whom once I knew in glowing health, Has broken down, and also, somehow, lost his wealth. How sad the knowledge makes me! Better far In ignorance to live, than hear of things that jar, And think of things that are not,—not of things that are.

"'If ignorance is bliss,' the poet saith—why 'if?' Why doubt a fact so clearly proven, stubborn, stiff? The heavy griefs and burdens of the world around, The hideous tyranny by which mankind is ground, The earthquake, tempest, rush of war, and wail of woe, Are all as though they were not—if I do not know! Wrapped in my robe of ignorance, what can I miss? Am I not saved from all—and more than all—of this? Do I not revel in a regal realm of bliss?"

"Bravo! Buzzby," cried the Captain, "but, I say, Alf, don't it seem to smack rather too much of selfishness?"

"Of course it does, uncle. I do not think Buzzby always sound in principle, and, like many poets, he is sometimes confused in his logic."

"You're right, Benjy, the land is clear enough now," remarked the Captain, whose interest in Buzzby was not profound, and whose feelings towards logic bordered on the contemptuous, as is often the case with half-educated men, and, strange to say, sometimes with highly-educated men, as well as with the totally ignorant—so true is it that extremes meet!

In the course of a couple of hours the sledges drew near to the island, which proved to be a large but comparatively low one, rising not more than a hundred feet in any part. It was barren and ragged, with patches of reindeer moss growing in some parts, and dwarf willows in others. Myriads of sea-birds made it their home, and these received the invaders with clamorous cries, as if they knew that white men were a dangerous novelty, and objected to the innovation.

Despite their remonstrances, the party landed, and the Eskimos hurried over the rocks to that part of the island where they had left their kayaks and women's boats in charge of a party of natives who were resident on the island at the time they passed, and from whom they had borrowed the dogs and sledges with which they had travelled south.

Meanwhile the white men took to rambling; Leo to shoot wild-fowl for supper, Alf to search for "specimens," and Benjy to scramble among the rocks in search of anything that might "turn up." Butterface assisted the latter in his explorations. While the rest were thus engaged, the Captain extemporised a flag-staff out of two spears lashed together with a small block at the top for the purpose of running up a flag, and formally taking possession of the island when they should re-assemble. This done, he wrote a brief outline of his recent doings, which he inserted in a ginger-beer bottle brought for that very purpose. Then he assisted Anders in making the encampment and preparing supper.

The two were yet in the midst of the latter operation when a shout was heard in the distance. Looking in the direction whence it came they saw Chingatok striding over the rocks towards them with unusual haste. He was followed by the other Eskimos, who came forward gesticulating violently.

"My countrymen have left the island," said Chingatok when he came up.

"And taken the kayaks with them?" asked Captain Vane anxiously.

"Every one," replied the giant.

This was depressing news to the Captain, who had counted much on making use of the Eskimo canoes in the event of his own appliances failing.

"Where have they gone, think you?" he asked.

"Tell Blackbeard," replied Chingatok, turning to Anders, "that no one knows. Since they went away the lanes of open water have closed, and the ice is solid everywhere."

"But where the kayak and the oomiak cannot float the sledge may go," said the Captain.

"That is true; tell the pale chief he is wise, yet he knows not all things. Let him think. When he comes to the great open sea what will he do without canoes?"

"Huk!" exclaimed Oolichuk, with that look and tone which intimated his belief that the pale chief had received a "clincher."

The chattering of the other Eskimos ceased for a moment or two as they awaited eagerly the Captain's answer, but the Captain disappointed them. He merely said, "Well, we shall see. I may not know all things, Chingatok, nevertheless I know a deal more than you can guess at. Come now, let's have supper, Anders; we can't wait for the wanderers."

As he spoke, three of the wanderers came into camp, namely Leo, Benjy, and Butterface.

"What's come of Alf?" asked the Captain.

Neither Leo nor Benjy had seen him since they parted, a quarter of an hour after starting, and both had expected to find him in camp, but Butterface had seen him.

"Sawd him runnin'," said the sable steward, "runnin' like a mad kangaroo arter a smallish brute like a mouse. Nebber sawd nuffin' like Massa Alf for runnin'."

"Well, we can't wait for him," said the Captain, "I want to take possession of the island before supper. What shall we call it?"

"Disappointment Isle," said Leo, "seeing that the Eskimos have failed us."

"No—I won't be ungrateful," returned the Captain, "considering the successes already achieved."

"Call it Content Isle, then," suggested Benjy.

"But I am not content with partial success. Come, Butterface, haven't you got a suggestion to make."

The negro shook his woolly head. "No," he said, "I's 'orrible stoopid. Nebber could get nuffin' to come out o' my brain—sep w'en it's knocked out by accident. You's hard to please, massa. S'pose you mix de two,— dis'pintment an' content,—an' call 'im Half-an'-half Island."

"Home is in sight now," said Chingatok, who had taken no interest in the above discussion, as it was carried on in English. "A few days more and we should be there if we only had our kayaks."

"There's the name," exclaimed the Captain eagerly when this was translated, "'Home-in-sight,' that will do."

Rising quickly, he bent a Union Jack to the halyards of his primitive flag-staff, ran it up, and in the name of Queen Victoria took possession of Home-in-sight Island. After having given three hearty British cheers, in which the Eskimos tried to join, with but partial success, they buried the ginger-beer bottle under a heap of stones, a wooden cross was fixed on the top of the cairn, and then the party sat down to supper, while the Captain made a careful note of the latitude and longitude, which he had previously ascertained. This latest addition to Her Majesty's dominions was put down by him in latitude 85 degrees 32 minutes, or about 288 geographical miles from the North Pole.



CHAPTER TEN.

A SKETCHER IN IMMINENT DANGER. DIFFICULTIES INCREASE, AND ARE OVERCOME AS USUAL.

The first night on Home-in-sight Island was not so undisturbed as might have been expected. The noisy gulls did indeed go to sleep at their proper bed-time, which, by the way, they must have ascertained by instinct, for the sun could be no certain guide, seeing that he shone all night as well as all day, and it would be too much to expect that gulls had sufficient powers of observation to note the great luminary's exact relation to the horizon. Polar bears, like the Eskimo, had forsaken the spot. All nature, indeed, animate and inanimate, favoured the idea of repose when the explorers lay down to sleep on a mossy couch that was quite as soft as a feather bed, and much more springy.

The cause of disturbance was the prolonged absence of Alf Vandervell. That enthusiastic naturalist's failure to appear at supper was nothing uncommon. His non-appearance when they lay down did indeed cause some surprise, but little or no anxiety, and they all dropped into a sound sleep which lasted till considerably beyond midnight. Then the Captain awoke with a feeling of uneasiness, started up on one elbow, yawned, and gazed dreamily around. The sun, which had just kissed his hand to the disappointed horizon and begun to re-ascend the sky, blinded the Captain with his beams, but did not prevent him from observing that Alf's place was still vacant.

"Very odd," he muttered, "Alf didn't use to—to—w'at's 'is name in— this—way—"

The Captain's head dropped, his elbow relaxed, and he returned to the land of Nod for another half-hour.

Again he awoke with a start, and sat upright.

"This'll never do," he exclaimed, with a fierce yawn, "something must be wrong. Ho! Benjy!"

"Umph!" replied the boy, who, though personally light, was a heavy sleeper.

"Rouse up, Ben, Alf's not come back. Where did you leave him?"

"Don' know, Burrerface saw 'im las'—." Benjy dropped off with a sigh, but was re-aroused by a rough shake from his father, who lay close to him.

"Come, Ben, stir up Butterface! We must go look for Alf."

Butterface lay on the other side of Benjy, who, only half alive to what he was doing, raised his hand and let it fall heavily on the negro's nose, by way of stirring him up.

"Hallo! massa Benjamin! You's dreamin' drefful strong dis mornin'."

"Yer up, ol' ebony!" groaned the boy.

In a few minutes the whole camp was roused; sleep was quickly banished by anxiety about the missing one; guns and rifles were loaded, and a regular search-expedition was hastily organised. They started off in groups in different directions, leaving the Eskimo women in charge of the camp.

The Captain headed one party, Chingatok another, and Leo with Benjy a third, while a few of the natives went off independently, in couples or alone.

"I was sure Alf would get into trouble," said Benjy, as he trotted beside Leo, who strode over the ground in anxious haste. "That way he has of getting so absorbed in things that he forgets where he is, won't make him a good explorer."

"Not so sure of that, Ben," returned Leo; "he can discover things that men who are less absorbed, like you, might fail to note. Let us go round this hillock on separate sides. We might pass him if we went together. Keep your eyes open as you go. He may have stumbled over one of those low precipices and broken a leg. Keep your ears cocked also, and give a shout now and then."

We have said that the island was a low one, nevertheless it was extremely rugged, with little ridges and hollows everywhere, like miniature hills and valleys. Through one of these latter Benjy hurried, glancing from side to side as he went, like a red Indian on the war-path—which character, indeed, he thought of, and tried to imitate.

The little vale did not, however, as Leo had imagined, lead round the hillock. It diverged gradually to the right, and ascended towards the higher parts of the island. The path was so obstructed by rocks and boulders which had evidently been at one time under the pressure of ice, that the boy could not see far in any direction, except by mounting one of these. He had not gone far when, on turning the corner of a cliff which opened up another gorge to view, he beheld a sight which caused him to open mouth and eyes to their widest.

For there, seated on an eminence, with his back to a low precipice, not more than three or four hundred yards off, sat the missing explorer, with book on knees and pencil in hand—sketching; and there, seated on the top of the precipice, looking over the edge at the artist, skulked a huge Polar bear, taking as it were, a surreptitious lesson in drawing! The bear, probably supposing Alf to be a wandering seal, had dogged him to that position just as Benjy Vane discovered him, and then, finding the precipice too high for a leap perhaps, or doubting the character of his intended victim, he had paused in uncertainty on the edge.

The boy's first impulse was to utter a shout of warning, for he had no gun wherewith to shoot the brute, but fear lest that might precipitate an attack restrained him. Benjy, however, was quick-witted. He saw that the leap was probably too much even for a Polar bear, and that the nature of the ground would necessitate a detour before it could get at the artist. These and other thoughts passed through his brain like the lightning flash, and he was on the point of turning to run back and give the alarm to Leo, when a rattling of stones occurred behind him—just beyond the point of rocks round which he had turned. In the tension of his excited nerves he felt as if he had suddenly become red hot. Could this be another bear? If so, what was he to do, whither to fly? A moment more would settle the question, for the rattle of stones continued as the steps advanced. The boy felt the hair rising on his head. Round came the unknown monster in the form of—a man!

"Ah, Benjy, I—"

But the appearance of Benjy's countenance caused Leo to stop abruptly, both in walk and talk. He had found out his mistake about sending the boy round the hillock, and, turning back, had followed him.

"Ah! look there," said Benjy, pointing at the tableau vivant on the hill-top.

Leo's ready rifle leaped from his shoulder to his left palm, and a grim smile played on his lips, for long service in a volunteer corps had made him a good judge of distance as well as a sure and deadly shot.

"Stand back, Benjy, behind this boulder," he whispered. "I'll lean on it to make more certain."

He was deliberately arranging the rifle while speaking, but never for one instant took his eye off the bear, which still stood motionless, with one paw raised, as if petrified with amazement at what it saw. As for Alf, he went on intently with his work, lifting and lowering his eyes continuously, putting in bold dashes here, or tender touches there; holding out the book occasionally at arm's length to regard his work, with head first on one side, then on the other, and, in short, going through all those graceful and familiar little evolutions of artistic procedure which arouse one's home feelings so powerfully everywhere— even in the Arctic regions! Little did the artist know who was his uninvited pupil on that sunny summer night!

With one knee resting on a rock, and his rifle on the boulder, Leo took a steady, somewhat lengthened aim, and fired. The result was stupendous! Not only did the shot reverberate with crashing echoes among surrounding cliffs and boulders, but a dying howl from the bear burst over the island, like the thunder of a heavy gun, and went booming over the frozen sea. No wonder that the horrified Alf leapt nearly his own height into the air and scattered his drawing-materials right and left like chaff. He threw up his arms, and wheeled frantically round just in time to receive the murdered bear into his very bosom! They rolled down a small slope together, and then, falling apart, lay prone and apparently dead upon the ground.

You may be sure that Leo soon had his brother's head on his knee, and was calling to him in an agony of fear, quite regardless of the fact that the bear lay at his elbow, giving a few terrific kicks as its huge life oozed out through a bullet-hole in its heart, while Benjy, half weeping with sympathy, half laughing with glee, ran to a neighbouring pool to fetch water in his cap.

A little of the refreshing liquid dashed on his face and poured down his throat soon restored Alf, who had only been stunned by the fall.

"What induced you to keep on sketching all night?" asked Leo, after the first explanations were over.

"All night?" repeated Alf in surprise, "have I been away all night? What time is it?"

"Three o'clock in the morning at the very least," said Leo. "The sun is pretty high, as you might have seen if you had looked at it."

"But he never looked at it," said Benjy, whose eyes were not yet quite dry, "he never looks at anything, or thinks of anything, when he goes sketching."

"Surely you must allow that at least I look at and think of my work," said Alf, rising from the ground and sitting down on the rock from which he had been so rudely roused; "but you are half right, Benjy. The sun was at my back, you see, hid from me by the cliff over which the bear tumbled, and I had no thoughts for time, or eyes for nature, except the portion I was busy with—by the way, where is it?"

"What, your sketch?"

"Ay, and the colours. I wouldn't lose these for a sight of the Pole itself. Look for them, Ben, my boy, I still feel somewhat giddy."

In a few minutes the sketch and drawing-materials were collected, undamaged, and the three returned to camp, Alf leaning on Leo's arm. On the way thither they met the Captain's party, and afterwards the band led by Chingatok. The latter was mightily amused by the adventure, and continued for a considerable time afterwards to upheave his huge shoulders with suppressed laughter.

When the whole party was re-assembled the hour was so late, and they had all been so thoroughly excited, that no one felt inclined to sleep again. It was resolved, therefore, at once to commence the operations of a new day. Butterface was set to prepare coffee, and the Eskimos began breakfast with strips of raw blubber, while steaks of Leo's bear were being cooked.

Meanwhile Chingatok expressed a wish to see the drawing which had so nearly cost the artist his life.

Alf was delighted to exhibit and explain it.

For some time the giant gazed at it in silence. Then he rested his forehead in his huge hand as if in meditation.

It was truly a clever sketch of a surpassingly lovely scene. In the foreground was part of the island with its pearl-grey rocks, red-brown earth, and green mosses, in the midst of which lay a calm pool, like the island's eye looking up to heaven and reflecting the bright indescribable blue of the midnight sky. Further on was a mass of cold grey rocks. Beyond lay the northern ice-pack, which extended in chaotic confusion away to the distant horizon, but the chaos was somewhat relieved by the presence of lakelets which shone here and there over its surface like shields of glittering azure and burnished gold.

"Ask him what he thinks of it," said Leo to Anders, a little surprised at Chingatok's prolonged silence.

"I cannot speak," answered the giant, "my mind is bursting and my heart is full. With my finger I have drawn faces on the snow. I have seen men put wonderful things on flat rocks with a piece of stone, but this!—this is my country made little. It looks as if I could walk in it, yet it is flat!"

"The giant is rather complimentary," laughed Benjy, when this was translated; "to my eye your sketch is little better than a daub."

"It is a daub that causes me much anxiety," said the Captain, who now looked at the drawing for the first time. "D'you mean to tell me, Alf, that you've been true to nature when you sketched that pack?"

"As true as I could make it, uncle."

"I'll answer for its truth," said Leo, "and so will Benjy, for we both saw the view from the top of the island, though we paid little heed to it, being too much occupied with Alf and the bear at the time. The pack is even more rugged than he has drawn it, and it extends quite unbroken to the horizon."

The Captain's usually hopeful expression forsook him for a little as he commented on his bad fortune.

"The season advances, you see," he said, "and it's never very long at the best. I had hoped we were done with this troublesome 'sea of ancient ice,' but it seems to turn up everywhere, and from past experience we know that the crossing of it is slow work, as well as hard. However, we mustn't lose heart. 'Nebber say die,' as Butterface is fond of remarking."

"Yis, Massa, nebber say die, but allers say 'lib, to de top ob your bent.' Dems my 'pinions w'en dey's wanted. Also 'go a-hid.' Dat's a grand sent'ment—was borned 'mong de Yankees, an' I stoled it w'en I left ole Virginny."

"What says Chingatok?" asked the Captain of the Eskimo, who was still seated with the sketch on his knees in profound meditation.

"Blackbeard has trouble before him," answered the uncompromising giant, without removing his eyes from the paper. "There," he said, pointing to the pack, "you have three days' hard work. After that three days' easy and swift work. After that no more go on. Must come back."

"He speaks in riddles, Anders. What does he mean by the three days of hard work coming to an end?"

"I mean," said Chingatok, "that the ice was loose when I came to this island. It is now closed. The white men must toil, toil, toil—very slow over the ice for three days, then they will come to smooth ice, where the dogs may run for three days. Then they will come to another island, like this one, on the far-off side of which there is no ice— nothing but sea, sea, sea. Our kayaks are gone," continued the giant, sadly, "we must come back and travel many days before we find things to make new ones."

While he was speaking, Captain Vane's face brightened up.

"Are you sure of what you say, Chingatok?"

"Chingatok is sure," replied the Eskimo quietly.

"Then we'll conquer our difficulties after all. Come, boys, let's waste no more time in idle talk, but harness the dogs, and be off at once."

Of course the party had to travel round the island, for there was neither ice nor snow on it. When the other side was reached the real difficulties of the journey were fully realised. During the whole of that day and the next they were almost continuously engaged in dragging the sledges over masses of ice, some of which rose to thirty feet above the general level. If the reader will try to imagine a very small ant or beetle dragging its property over a newly macadamised road, he will have a faint conception of the nature of the work. To some extent the dogs were a hindrance rather than a help, especially when passing over broken fragments, for they were always tumbling into holes and cracks, out of which they had to be dragged, and were much given to venting their ill-humour on each other, sometimes going in for a free fight, in the course of which they tied their traces into indescribable knots, and drove their Eskimo masters furious. On such occasions the whips—both lash and handle—were applied with unsparing vigour until the creatures were cowed.

Danger, also, as well as toil, was encountered during the journey. On the evening of the second day the sledge driven by Oolichuk diverged a little from the line of march towards what seemed an easier passage over the hummocks. They had just gained the top of an ice-block, which, unknown to the driver, overhung its base. When the dogs reached the edge of the mass, it suddenly gave way. Down went the team with a united howl of despair. Their weight jerked the sledge forward, another mass of the ice gave way, and over went the whole affair. In the fall the lashings broke, and Oolichuk, with several of his kindred, including poor little Oblooria, went down in a shower of skins, packages, bags, and Eskimo cooking utensils.

Fortunately, they dropped on a slope of ice which broke their fall, and, as it were, shunted them all safely, though violently, to the lower level of the pack.

Beyond a few scratches and bruises, no evil resulted from this accident to these hardy natives of the north.

That night they all encamped, as on the previous night, in the midst of the pack, spreading their skins and furs on the flattest ice they could find, and keeping as far from overhanging lumps as possible.

"What does Blackbeard mean by coming here?" asked Chingatok of Anders, as they lay side by side, gazing up at the blue sky awaiting sleep. "We cannot swim over the sea, and we have no boats."

"I don't know," answered the interpreter. "Our chief is a wonderful man. He does things that seem to be all wrong, but they turn out mostly to be all right."

"Does he ever speak of a Great Spirit?" asked the giant in a solemn tone.

"Not to me," replied the other, "but I hear him sometimes speaking to his little boy about his God."

"Then he must know his God," returned Chingatok. "Has he seen him— spoken to him?"

Anders was a good deal surprised as well as puzzled by the questions put by his new friend. His extremely commonplace mind had never been exercised by such ideas. "I never asked him about that," he said, "and he never told me. Perhaps he will tell you if you ask him."

The interpreter turned on his side with a sigh and went to sleep. The giant lay on his back gazing long and steadily with a wistful look at the unbroken vault of sky, whose vast profundity seemed to thrust him mercilessly back. As he gazed, a little cloud, light as a puff of eider-down, and golden as the sun from which its lustre came, floated into the range of his vision. He smiled, for the thought that light may suddenly arise when all around seems blank gave his inquiring spirit rest, and he soon joined the slumbering band who lay upon the ice around him.

According to Chingatok's prophecy, on the third day the fagged and weary discoverers surmounted their first difficulty, and came upon comparatively smooth ice, the surface of which resembled hard-trodden snow, and was sufficiently free from obstructing lumps to admit of rapid sledge travelling. It was late when they reached it, but as they could now all sit on the sledges and leave the hard work to the dogs, the leader resolved to continue the advance without resting.

"It's time enough to stop when we're stopped," he remarked to Leo, while making preparations to start. "We will sleep at the first obstruction we meet with, if it's a sufficiently troublesome one. See that the things are well lashed on all the sledges, Alf. Remember that I hold you responsible for lost articles."

"And what am I responsible for, father?" asked Benjy with a pert look.

"For keeping out of mischief, Ben. That's the most I can expect of you."

"You are only a sort of negative blessing to us, you see, Benjy," said Alf, as he stooped to tighten a rope. "It's not so much what you do, as what you don't do, that rejoices us."

"I'm glad of that," retorted the boy, arranging himself comfortably on his father's sledge, "because I won't do anything at all for some hours to come, which ought to fill you all with perfect felicity. Awake me, Leo, if we chance to upset."

"Now then, all ready?" cried the Captain. "Off you go, then—clap on all sail!"

Crack went the mighty whips, howl went the dogs, and the sledges were soon skimming over the sea at the rate of ten miles an hour. Of course they did not keep that pace up very long. It became necessary to rest at times, also, to give the dogs a little food. When this latter process had been completed, the teams became so lively that they tried to runaway.

"Let them run," said the Captain to Leo.

"And help them on," added Benjy.

Leo took the advice of both, applied the lash, and increased the speed so much that the sledge swung from side to side on the smooth places, sometimes catching on a lump of ice, and all but throwing out its occupants. The Eskimos entered into the spirit of their leaders. They also plied their lashes, and, being more dexterous than Leo, soon converted the journey into a race, in which Chingatok—his giant arm flourishing an appropriately huge whip—was rapidly coming to the front when a tremendous shout in the rear caused them to pull up. Looking back, Alf's sledge was seen inverted and mixed, as it were, with the team, while Alf himself and his Eskimo friends were sprawling around on the ice. No damage was done to life or limb, but a sledge-runner had been partially broken, and could not be mended,—so said Oolichuk—in less than an hour.

"This, then," said the Captain, "is our first obstruction, so here we will make our beds for the night."



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

ANOTHER ISLAND DISCOVERED—THE ENGLISHMEN AND ESKIMOS ALIKE ARE ASTONISHED IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE.

As Chingatok had predicted, on the sixth day from Home-in-sight Island the party came to another island, where the great pack abruptly terminated. It was not large, probably ten or twelve miles in length, from the Eskimo account, but the ends of it could not be seen from the spot where they landed. At that point it was only two miles wide, and on the opposite side its shores were laved by an open sea, which was quite free from ice, with the exception of a few scattered floes and bergs—a sea whose waves fell in slow regular cadence on a pebbly beach, and whose horizon was an unbroken line barely distinguishable from the sky.

Close to it a few black rocks showed above the water, around which great numbers of gulls, puffins, and other sea-birds disported themselves in clamorous joy; sometimes flying to the shore as if to have a look at the newcomers, and then sheering off with a scream—it might be a laugh—to tell their comrades what they had seen.

"Here, then, at last, is the open Polar Sea," said Captain Vane, after the first long silent gaze of joy and admiration. "I have no doubt of it whatever. And now we shall proceed, I hope without interruption, to the Pole!"

"Of course you do not intend that we should swim there, do you, uncle?" said Leo.

"Of course not, my boy. In those big cases, which have cost us so much labour to bring here, I have three large and stout india-rubber boats—"

"Ha! I guessed as much," exclaimed Alf.

"No doubt," returned the Captain, "but you did not guess all."

"I hope not," said Leo, "for to say truth I don't much relish the idea of rowing over an unknown sea an unknown distance at the rate of three or four miles an hour. I hope you have a patent steam-engine that will drive us along somewhat faster."