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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Voyages and Adventures of Captain
+Hatteras, by Jules Verne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras
+
+Author: Jules Verne
+
+Illustrator: Édouard Riou
+
+Release Date: July 15, 2009 [EBook #29413]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VOYAGES OF CAPTAIN HATTERAS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ron Swanson (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
+Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CAPTAIN HATTERAS.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+JULES VERNE.
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: "The brig was tossed about like a child's toy."--Page
+134.]
+
+
+
+
+THE VOYAGES AND ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HATTERAS.
+
+TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF JULES VERNE.
+
+
+
+
+_WITH TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS BY RIOU_.
+
+
+
+
+BOSTON: JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,
+LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.
+1876.
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1874.
+BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.
+
+
+
+
+UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & CO., CAMBRIDGE.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+PART I.
+THE ENGLISH AT THE NORTH POLE.
+
+CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
+     I. THE FORWARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    3
+
+    II. AN UNEXPECTED LETTER  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   12
+
+   III. DR. CLAWBONNY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   14
+
+    IV. THE DOG-CAPTAIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   22
+
+     V. AT SEA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   29
+
+    VI. THE GREAT POLAR CURRENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   38
+
+   VII. THE ENTRANCE OF DAVIS STRAIT  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   45
+
+  VIII. THE TALK OF THE CREW  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   53
+
+    IX. ANOTHER LETTER  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   63
+
+     X. DANGEROUS SAILING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   69
+
+    XI. THE DEVIL'S THUMB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   78
+
+   XII. CAPTAIN HATTERAS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   86
+
+  XIII. THE CAPTAIN'S PLANS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   95
+
+   XIV. THE EXPEDITIONS IN SEARCH OF FRANKLIN . . . . . . . . . .  102
+
+    XV. THE FORWARD DRIVEN SOUTHWARD  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  109
+
+   XVI. THE MAGNETIC POLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  116
+
+  XVII. THE FATE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  124
+
+ XVIII. THE WAY NORTHWARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  129
+
+   XIX. A WHALE IN SIGHT  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  134
+
+    XX. BEECHEY ISLAND  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  139
+
+   XXI. THE DEATH OF BELLOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  147
+
+  XXII. THE FIRST SIGNS OF MUTINY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  155
+
+ XXIII. ATTACKED BY THE ICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  161
+
+  XXIV. PREPARATIONS FOR WINTERING  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  169
+
+   XXV. ONE OF JAMES ROSS'S FOXES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  176
+
+  XXVI. THE LAST PIECE OF COAL  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  185
+
+ XXVII. THE GREAT COLD AT CHRISTMAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  191
+
+XXVIII. PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  198
+
+  XXIX. ACROSS THE ICE-FIELDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  202
+
+   XXX. THE CAIRN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  211
+
+  XXXI. THE DEATH OF SIMPSON  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  218
+
+ XXXII. THE RETURN TO THE FORWARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  224
+
+
+PART II.
+THE DESERT OF ICE.
+
+     I. THE DOCTOR'S INVENTORY  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  235
+
+    II. ALTAMONT'S FIRST WORDS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  242
+
+   III. SEVENTEEN DAYS OF LAND JOURNEY  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  251
+
+    IV. THE LAST CHARGE OF POWDER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  258
+
+     V. THE SEAL AND THE BEAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  267
+
+    VI. THE PORPOISE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  275
+
+   VII. A DISCUSSION ABOUT CHARTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  284
+
+  VIII. EXCURSION TO THE NORTH OF VICTORIA BAY  . . . . . . . . .  291
+
+    IX. COLD AND HEAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  299
+
+     X. THE PLEASURES OF WINTER-QUARTERS  . . . . . . . . . . . .  307
+
+    XI. DISQUIETING TRACES  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  315
+
+   XII. THE ICE PRISON  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  324
+
+  XIII. THE MINE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  332
+
+   XIV. THE POLAR SPRING  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  341
+
+    XV. THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  348
+
+   XVI. NORTHERN ARCADIA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  357
+
+  XVII. ALTAMONT'S REVENGE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  366
+
+ XVIII. THE LAST PREPARATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  372
+
+   XIX. THE JOURNEY NORTHWARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  377
+
+    XX. FOOTPRINTS ON THE SNOW  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  386
+
+   XXI. THE OPEN SEA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  394
+
+  XXII. THE APPROACH TO THE POLE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  401
+
+ XXIII. THE ENGLISH FLAG  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  408
+
+  XXIV. POLAR COSMOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  413
+
+   XXV. MOUNT HATTERAS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  420
+
+  XXVI. RETURN TO THE SOUTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  429
+
+ XXVII. CONCLUSION  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  437
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+                                                                  PAGE
+"JOHNSON KNEW ALL THE SAILORS IN LIVERPOOL, AND IMMEDIATELY SET
+   ABOUT ENGAGING A CREW" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   16
+
+"EVERYTHING WAS ENVELOPED IN ONE OF THE ORDINARY FOGS OF THAT
+   REGION"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   18
+
+"THIS SPACE OF SIX FEET SQUARE CONTAINED INCALCULABLE WEALTH" . .   23
+
+"THE NEWS SPEAD IMMEDIATELY THROUGHOUT THE CITY, AND A GREAT
+   CONCOURSE OF SPECTATORS THRONGED THE PIERS"  . . . . . . . . .   27
+
+"TOWARDS EVENING THE BRIG DOUBLED THE CALF OF MAN"  . . . . . . .   29
+
+"WOULD ONE NOT SAY IT WAS A FOREIGN CITY, AN EASTERN CITY, WITH
+   MINARETS AND MOSQUES IN THE MOONLIGHT" . . . . . . . . . . . .   50
+
+"FORTUNATELY THE OPENING OF THESE HUTS WAS TOO SMALL, AND THE
+   ENTHUSIASTIC DOCTOR COULD NOT GET THROUGH" . . . . . . . . . .   71
+
+"A STRANGE ANIMAL WAS BOUNDING ALONG WITHIN A CABLE'S LENGTH FROM
+   THE SHIP"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   85
+
+"JOHN HATTERAS" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   95
+
+"HE CAUGHT A LARGE NUMBER OF WHITE FOXES; HE HAD PUT ON THEIR
+   NECKS COPPER COLLARS"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  106
+
+"ALL THESE POOR FELLOWS HAD DIED OF MISERY, SUFFERING, AND
+   STARVATION"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  128
+
+"THE BRIG WAS TOSSED ABOUT LIKE A CHILD'S TOY" (_Frontispiece_) .  134
+
+"THE WHALE SWAM AWAY FROM THE BRIG AND HASTENED TOWARDS THE
+   MOVING ICEBERGS" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  138
+
+"THE FORWARD IN WELLINGTON CHANNEL" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  148
+
+HATTERAS MADE USE OF A DEVICE WHICH WHALERS EMPLOY  . . . . . . .  153
+
+"A CRASH WAS HEARD, AND AS IT CAME AGAINST THE STARBOARD-QUARTER,
+   PART OF THE RAIL HAD GIVEN WAY"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  167
+
+"THE MOON SHONE WITH INCOMPARABLE PURITY, GLISTENING ON THE LEAST
+   ROUGHNESS IN THE ICE"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  180
+
+"ALMOST EVERY NIGHT THE DOCTOR COULD OBSERVE THE MAGNIFICENT
+   AURORAS" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  187
+
+"HE WAS ARMED, AND HE KEPT CONSTANT GUARD, WITHOUT MINDING THE
+   COLD, THE SNOW, OR THE ICE"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  195
+
+"THE LITTLE BAND MADE THEIR WAY TOWARDS THE SOUTHEAST"  . . . . .  202
+
+"THE DOCTOR HAD ENERGY ENOUGH TO ASCEND AN ICE-MOUNTAIN WHILE THE
+   SNOW-HUT WAS BUILDING" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  206
+
+"'FIRE!' SHOUTED THE CAPTAIN, DISCHARGING HIS PIECE"  . . . . . .  211
+
+"THEY COULD ONLY THINK OF THEIR PERILOUS POSITION"  . . . . . . .  218
+
+"SUDDENLY, WITH A LAST EFFORT, HE HALF ROSE"  . . . . . . . . . .  223
+
+"THEN A TERRIBLE EXPLOSION WAS HEARD" . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  230
+
+"THE LARGE PIECES OF THE ENGINE LAY HERE AND THERE, TWISTED OUT
+   OF SHAPE"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  241
+
+"THEY HARNESSED THE TIRED DOGS" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  242
+
+JOHNSON'S STORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  243
+
+"'YES!' SAID THE AMERICAN"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  250
+
+"THE DOCTOR WAS FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO FIND A SEAL"  . . . . . . . .  258
+
+"AT THE END OF TWO HOURS THEY FELL, EXHAUSTED"  . . . . . . . . .  263
+
+"HE PLUNGED HIS KNIFE INTO THE BEAST'S THROAT"  . . . . . . . . .  269
+
+"THESE CASTAWAYS LOOKED AT THEMSELVES AS COLONISTS WHO HAD
+   REACHED THEIR DESTINATION" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  277
+
+THE FORT WAS COMPLETED  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  283
+
+"I AM NOT AWARE THAT IT BEARS ANY NAME ON THE MOST RECENT MAPS" .  288
+
+"THE DOCTOR REACHED THE SUMMIT WITH SOME LITTLE DIFFICULTY" . . .  291
+
+"THEY ADVANCED IN FULL ILLUMINATION, AND THEIR SHARPLY CUT
+   SHADOWS RAN OUT BEHIND THEM OVER THE SNOW" . . . . . . . . . .  299
+
+"HE DID HIS BEST TO INSTRUCT AND INTEREST HIS COMPANIONS" . . . .  308
+
+"HATTERAS COULD ONLY KEEP HIS DISTANCE FROM THE ANIMALS BY
+   THROWING AWAY HIS CAP, HATCHET, AND EVEN HIS GUN"  . . . . . .  326
+
+"THE BEARS HEAPED THE ICE IN SUCH A WAY AS TO RENDER FLIGHT
+   IMPOSSIBLE"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  330
+
+"AN ENORMOUS BLACK BODY APPEARED IN THE GLOOM OF THE ROOM.
+   ALTAMONT RAISED HIS HAND TO STRIKE IT" . . . . . . . . . . . .  333
+
+"A LOUD EXPLOSION FOLLOWED" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  340
+
+"THE CARPENTER SET TO WORK AT ONCE" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  349
+
+"A HARD STRUGGLE WITH THE ICEBERGS" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  354
+
+"MACCLURE SAW A MAN RUNNING AND GESTICULATING"  . . . . . . . . .  355
+
+"THE DOCTOR, JOHNSON, AND BELL INTERVENED. IT WAS TIME; THE TWO
+   ENEMIES WERE GAZING AT ONE ANOTHER"  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  356
+
+"THEY WERE A CURIOUS AND TOUCHING SIGHT, FLYING ABOUT WITHOUT
+   FEAR, RESTING ON CLAWBONNY'S SHOULDERS," ETC.  . . . . . . . .  364
+
+"GAVE HIM A TERRIBLE BLOW WITH A HATCHET ON THE HEAD" . . . . . .  369
+
+"WELL, I'VE BROUGHT BACK TWO BROTHERS"  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  371
+
+"THE SEAL STRUGGLED FOR A FEW SECONDS, AND WAS THEN SUFFOCATED ON
+   THE BREAST OF HIS ADVERSARY" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  374
+
+"THEY LEFT AT SIX O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING" . . . . . . . . . . . .  377
+
+"ON THE 29TH BELL SHOT A FOX, AND ALTAMONT A MEDIUM-SIZED
+   MUSK-OX" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  383
+
+"THE MASSES OF ICE TOOK THE FORMS OF HUMMOCKS AND ICEBERGS" . . .  384
+
+"ON ALL SIDES RESOUNDED THE CRACKING OF THE ICE AMID THE ROAR OF
+   THE AVALANCHES"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  384
+
+"'WE OUGHT,' ANSWERED BELL, 'TO LIGHT TORCHES, AS IS DONE AT
+   LONDON AND LIVERPOOL'" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  386
+
+THE HUT WAS PITCHED IN A RAVINE FOR SHELTER . . . . . . . . . . .  390
+
+"THEY CLIMBED A HILL WHICH COMMANDED A WIDE VIEW" . . . . . . . .  392
+
+"THREE HOURS LATER THEY REACHED THE COAST. 'THE SEA! THE SEA!'
+   THEY ALL SHOUTED"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  392
+
+"THE LAUNCH WAS ROCKING GENTLY IN HER LITTLE HARBOR"  . . . . . .  393
+
+"AQUATIC BIRDS OF ALL SORTS WERE THERE" . . . . . . . . . . . . .  397
+
+"THEN THE EYE GLANCING DOWN INTO THE TRANSPARENT WATER, THE SIGHT
+   WAS EQUALLY STRANGE" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  398
+
+"'IT'S A VOLCANO!' HE CRIED"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  401
+
+"THE LAUNCH TOSSED HELPLESSLY ABOUT"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  404
+
+"THE FOG, WITHOUT LIFTING, WAS VERY BRIGHT" . . . . . . . . . . .  405
+
+"THIS DRIFTING FLOE WAS COVERED WITH WHITE BEARS, CROWDED
+   TOGETHER"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  406
+
+"HER SAIL FLEW AWAY LIKE A HUGE WHITE BIRD; A WHIRLPOOL, A NEW
+   MAELSTROM, FORMED AMONG THE WAVES" . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  407
+
+"THE MOUNTAIN WAS IN FULL ERUPTION" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  409
+
+"THEY NOTICED A LITTLE FIORD" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  410
+
+"ALTAMONT SOON FOUND A GROTTO IN THE ROCKS" . . . . . . . . . . .  412
+
+"THEY WERE ALL READY TO LISTEN TO THE DOCTOR" . . . . . . . . . .  413
+
+"THEY SAW THE CAPTAIN STANDING ON A ROCK" . . . . . . . . . . . .  421
+
+"HATTERAS APPEARED TO WAKE FROM HIS REVERY" . . . . . . . . . . .  421
+
+"THE DOCTOR PUT UP A CAIRN" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  429
+
+"DEAD--FROZEN"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  435
+
+"BUT HATTERAS DID NOT LOOK BACK. HE HAD MADE USE OF HIS STAFF AS
+   A POLE ON WHICH TO FASTEN THE ENGLISH FLAG"  . . . . . . . . .  437
+
+"TWO HOURS LATER, AFTER UNHEARD-OF EFFORTS, THE LAST MEN OF THE
+   FORWARD WERE TAKEN ABOARD THE DANISH WHALER HANS CHRISTIAN"  .  438
+
+"A STEAMBOAT CARRIED THEM TO KIEL"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  438
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+THE ENGLISH AT THE NORTH POLE.
+
+
+[Illustration: AVENTURES DU CAPITAINE HATTERAS]
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+THE FORWARD.
+
+
+"To-morrow, at the turn of the tide, the brig _Forward_, K. Z.,
+captain, Richard Shandon, mate, will clear from New Prince's Docks;
+destination unknown."
+
+This announcement appeared in the _Liverpool Herald_ of April 5, 1860.
+
+The sailing of a brig is not a matter of great importance for the
+chief commercial city of England. Who would take notice of it in so
+great a throng of ships of all sizes and of every country, that
+dry-docks covering two leagues scarcely contain them?
+
+Nevertheless, from early morning on the 6th of April, a large crowd
+collected on the quays of the New Prince's Docks; all the sailors of
+the place seemed to have assembled there. The workingmen of the
+neighboring wharves had abandoned their tasks, tradesmen had left
+their gloomy shops, and the merchants their empty warehouses. The
+many-colored omnibuses which pass outside of the docks were
+discharging, every minute, their load of sight-seers; the whole city
+seemed to care for nothing except watching the departure of the
+_Forward_.
+
+The _Forward_ was a vessel of one hundred and seventy tons, rigged as
+a brig, and carrying a screw and a steam-engine of one hundred and
+twenty horse-power. One would have very easily confounded it with the
+other brigs in the harbor. But if it presented no especial difference
+to the eye of the public, yet those who were familiar with ships
+noticed certain peculiarities which could not escape a sailor's keen
+glance.
+
+Thus, on the _Nautilus_, which was lying at anchor near her, a group
+of sailors were trying to make out the probable destination of the
+_Forward_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"What do you say to her masts?" said one; "steamers don't usually
+carry so much sail."
+
+"It must be," answered a red-faced quartermaster, "that she relies
+more on her sails than on her engine; and if her topsails are of that
+size, it's probably because the lower sails are to be laid back. So
+I'm sure the _Forward_ is going either to the Arctic or Antarctic
+Ocean, where the icebergs stop the wind more than suits a solid ship."
+
+"You must be right, Mr. Cornhill," said a third sailor. "Do you notice
+how straight her stem is?"
+
+"Besides," said Mr. Cornhill, "she carries a steel ram forward, as
+sharp as a razor; if the _Forward_, going at full speed, should run
+into a three-decker, she would cut her in two."
+
+"That's true," answered a Mersey pilot, "for that brig can easily run
+fourteen knots under steam. She was a sight to see on her trial trip.
+On my word, she's a swift boat."
+
+"And she goes well, too, under sail," continued the quartermaster;
+"close to the wind, and she's easily steered. Now that ship is going
+to the polar seas, or my name is not Cornhill. And then, see there! Do
+you notice that large helm-port over the head of her rudder?"
+
+"That's so," said some of the sailors; "but what does that prove?"
+
+"That proves, my men," replied the quartermaster with a scornful
+smile, "that you can neither see nor think; it proves that they wanted
+to leave the head of the rudder free, so that it might be unshipped
+and shipped again easily. Don't you know that's what they have to do
+very often in the ice?"
+
+"You are right," answered the sailors of the _Nautilus_.
+
+"And besides," said one, "the lading of the brig goes to prove what
+Mr. Cornhill has said. I heard it from Clifton, who has shipped on
+her. The _Forward_ carries provisions for five or six years, and coal
+in proportion. Coal and provisions are all she carries, and a quantity
+of woollen and sealskin clothing."
+
+"Well," said Mr. Cornhill, "there's no doubt about it. But, my friend,
+since you know Clifton, hasn't he told you where she's bound?"
+
+"He couldn't tell me, for he didn't know; the whole crew was shipped
+in that way. Where is he going? He won't know till he gets there."
+
+"Nor yet if they are going to Davy Jones's locker," said one scoffer,
+"as it seems to me they are."
+
+"But then, their pay," continued the friend of Clifton
+enthusiastically,--"their pay! it's five times what a sailor usually
+gets. If it had not been for that, Richard Shandon would not have got
+a man. A strangely shaped boat, going no one knows where, and as if it
+never intended coming back! As for me, I should not have cared to ship
+in her."
+
+"Whether you would or not," answered Mr. Cornhill, "you could never
+have shipped in the _Forward_."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because you would not have answered the conditions. I heard that
+married men were not taken. Now you belong to that class. So you need
+not say what you would or would not do, since it's all breath thrown
+away."
+
+The sailor who was thus snubbed burst out laughing, as did his
+companions, showing in this way that Mr. Cornhill's remarks were true.
+
+"There's nothing but boldness about the ship," continued Cornhill,
+well pleased with himself. "The _Forward_,--forward to what? Without
+saying that nobody knows who her captain is."
+
+"O, yes, they do!" said a young sailor, evidently a green-hand.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"What! They do know?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"My young friend," said Cornhill, "do you think Shandon is the captain
+of the _Forward_?"
+
+"Why--" answered the boy.
+
+"Shandon is only the mate, nothing else; he's a good and brave sailor,
+an old whaler, a good fellow, able to take command, but he's not the
+captain; he's no more captain than you or I. And who, under God, is
+going to have charge of the ship, he does not know in the least. At
+the proper time the captain will come aboard, I don't know how, and I
+don't know where; for Richard Shandon didn't tell me, nor has he leave
+to tell me in what direction he was first to sail."
+
+"Still, Mr. Cornhill," said the young sailor, "I can tell you that
+there's some one on board, some one who was spoken of in the letter in
+which Mr. Shandon was offered the place of mate."
+
+"What!" answered Cornhill, "do you mean to tell me that the _Forward_
+has a captain on board?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Cornhill."
+
+"You tell me that?"
+
+"Certainly, for I heard it from Johnson, the boatswain."
+
+"Boatswain Johnson?"
+
+"Yes, he told me himself."
+
+"Johnson told you?"
+
+"Not only did he tell me, but he showed him to me."
+
+"He showed him to you!" answered Cornhill in amazement.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"He showed him to me."
+
+"And you saw him?"
+
+"I saw him with my own eyes."
+
+"And who is it?"
+
+"It's a dog."
+
+"A dog?"
+
+"A four-footed dog?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The surprise of the sailors of the _Nautilus_ was great. Under any
+other circumstances they would have burst out laughing. A dog captain
+of a one hundred and seventy ton brig! It was certainly amusing
+enough. But the _Forward_ was such an extraordinary ship, that one
+thought twice before laughing, and before contradicting it. Besides,
+Quartermaster Cornhill showed no signs of laughing.
+
+"And Johnson showed you that new sort of captain, a dog?" he said to
+the young sailor. "And you saw him?"
+
+"As plainly as I see you, with all respect."
+
+"Well, what do you think of that?" asked the sailors, turning to
+Cornhill.
+
+"I don't think anything," he answered curtly, "except that the
+_Forward_ is a ship of the Devil, or of fools fit for Bedlam."
+
+Without saying more, the sailors continued to gaze at the _Forward_,
+which was now almost ready to depart; and there was no one of them who
+presumed to say that Johnson, the boatswain, had been making fun of
+the young sailor.
+
+This story of the dog had already spread through the city, and in the
+crowd of sight-seers there were many looking for the captain-dog, who
+were inclined to believe that he was some supernatural animal.
+
+Besides, for many months the _Forward_ had been attracting the public
+attention; the singularity of its build, the mystery which enshrouded
+it, the incognito maintained by the captain, the manner in which
+Richard Shandon received the proposition of superintending its outfit,
+the careful selection of the crew, its unknown destination, scarcely
+conjectured by any,--all combined to give this brig a reputation of
+something more than strangeness.
+
+For a thoughtful, dreamy mind, for a philosopher, there is hardly
+anything more touching than the departure of a ship; the imagination
+is ready to follow her in her struggles with the waves, her contests
+with the winds, in her perilous course, which does not always end in
+port; and if only there is something unusual about her, the ship
+appears like something fantastic, even to the least imaginative minds.
+
+So it was with the _Forward_. And if most of the spectators were
+unable to make the ingenious remarks of Quartermaster Cornhill, the
+rumors which had been prevailing for three months were enough to keep
+all the tongues of Liverpool busy.
+
+The brig had been built at Birkenhead, a suburb of the city on the
+left bank of the Mersey, and connected with it by numerous
+ferry-boats.
+
+The builders, Scott & Co., as skilful as any in England, had received
+from Richard Shandon careful plans and drawings, in which the tonnage,
+dimensions, and model of the brig were given with the utmost
+exactness. They bore proof of the work of an experienced sailor. Since
+Shandon had ample means at his command, the work began, and, in
+accordance with the orders of the unknown owner, proceeded rapidly.
+
+Every care was taken to have the brig made exceedingly strong; it was
+evidently intended to withstand enormous pressure, for its ribs of
+teak, an East Indian wood remarkable for its solidity, were further
+strengthened by thick iron braces. The sailors used to ask why the
+hull of a ship, which was intended to be so strong, was not made of
+iron like other steamers. But they were told that the mysterious
+designer had his own reasons for having it built in that way.
+
+Gradually the shape of the brig on the stocks could be clearly made
+out, and the strength and beauty of her model were clear to the eye of
+all competent judges. As the sailors of the _Nautilus_ had said, her
+stem formed a right angle with the keel, and she carried, not a ram,
+but a steel cutter from the foundry of R. Hawthorn, of Newcastle. This
+metallic prow, glistening in the sun, gave a singular appearance to
+the brig, although there was nothing warlike about it. However, a
+sixteen-pound gun was placed on her forecastle; its carriage was so
+arranged that it could be pointed in any direction. The same thing can
+be said of the cannon as of her bows, neither were positively warlike.
+
+On the 5th of February, 1860, this strange vessel was successfully
+launched in the sight of an immense number of spectators.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But if the brig was not a man-of-war, nor a merchant-vessel, nor a
+pleasure-yacht, for no one takes a pleasure trip with provisions for
+six years in the hold, what could she be?
+
+A ship intended for the search of the _Erebus_ and the _Terror_, and
+of Sir John Franklin? No; for in 1859, the previous year, Captain
+MacClintock had returned from the Arctic Ocean, with convincing proof
+of the loss of that ill-fated expedition.
+
+Did the _Forward_ want to try again the famous Northwest Passage? What
+for? Captain MacClure had discovered it in 1853, and his lieutenant,
+Cresswell, had the honor of first skirting the American continent from
+Behring Strait to Davis Strait.
+
+It was nevertheless absolutely certain to all competent observers that
+the _Forward_ was preparing for a voyage to icy regions. Was it going
+to push towards the South Pole, farther than the whaler Wedell,
+farther than Captain James Ross? But what was the use, and with what
+intention?
+
+It is easy to see that, although the field for conjecture was very
+limited, the imagination could easily lose itself.
+
+The day after the launching of the brig her machinery arrived from the
+foundry of R. Hawthorn at Newcastle.
+
+The engine, of one hundred and twenty horse-power, with oscillating
+cylinders, took up but little space; its force was large for a vessel
+of one hundred and seventy tons, which carried a great deal of sail,
+and was, besides, remarkably swift. Of her speed the trial trips left
+no doubt, and even the boatswain, Johnson, had seen fit to express his
+opinion to the friend of Clifton in these terms,--
+
+"When the _Forward_ is under both steam and sail, she gets the most
+speed from her sails."
+
+Clifton's friend had not understood this proposition, but he
+considered anything possible in a ship commanded by a dog.
+
+After the engines had been placed on board, the stowage of provisions
+began; and that was no light task, for she carried enough for six
+years. They consisted of salted and dried meats, smoked fish, biscuit,
+and flour; mountains of coffee and tea were deposited in the
+store-room. Richard Shandon superintended the arrangement of this
+precious cargo with the air of a man who perfectly understood his
+business; everything was put in its place, labelled, and numbered with
+perfect precision; at the same time there was stowed away a large
+quantity of pemmican, an Indian preparation, which contains a great
+deal of nutriment in a small compass.
+
+This sort of supply left no doubt as to the length of the cruise; but
+an experienced observer would have known at once that the _Forward_
+was to sail in polar waters, from the barrels of lime-juice, of lime
+lozenges, of bundles of mustard, sorrel, and of cochlearia,--in a
+word, from the abundance of powerful antiscorbutics, which are so
+necessary in journeys in the regions of the far north and south.
+Shandon had doubtless received word to take particular care about this
+part of the cargo, for he gave to it especial attention, as well as to
+the ship's medicine-chest.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+If the armament of the vessel was small enough to calm the timid
+souls, on the other hand, the magazine was filled with enough powder
+to inspire some uneasiness. The single gun on the forecastle could not
+pretend to require so large a supply. This excited curiosity. There
+were, besides, enormous saws and strong machinery, such as levers,
+masses of lead, hand-saws, huge axes, etc., without counting a
+respectable number of blasting-cylinders, which might have blown up
+the Liverpool custom-house. All this was strange, if not alarming, not
+to mention the rockets, signals, lights, and lanterns of every sort.
+
+Then, too, the numerous spectators on the quays of the New Prince's
+Docks gazed with admiration at a long mahogany whale-boat, a tin canoe
+covered with gutta-percha, and a number of halkett-boats, which are a
+sort of india-rubber cloaks, which can be inflated and thereby turned
+into canoes. Every one felt more and more puzzled, and even excited,
+for with the turn of the tide the _Forward_ was to set sail for its
+unknown destination.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+AN UNEXPECTED LETTER.
+
+
+This is a copy of the letter received by Richard Shandon eight months
+previously:--
+
+
+ABERDEEN, August 2, 1859.
+
+MR. RICHARD SHANDON, _Liverpool_.
+
+SIR,--This letter is to advise you of a remittance of £16,000,
+deposited with Messrs. Marcuart & Co., bankers, at Liverpool. Enclosed
+you will find a series of drafts, signed by me, which will enable you
+to draw upon Messrs. Marcuart & Co. to the amount mentioned above.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+You do not know me. No matter; I know you, and that is enough. I offer
+you the position of mate on board of the brig _Forward_, for a voyage
+which may be long and perilous.
+
+If you decline, well and good. If you accept, five hundred pounds will
+be assigned you as salary, and at the end of each year of the voyage
+your pay will be increased one tenth.
+
+The brig _Forward_ does not exist. You will be obliged to have it
+built so that it will be possible to set to sea in the beginning of
+April, 1860, at the latest. Enclosed is a drawing with estimates. You
+will follow them exactly. The ship will be built in the stocks of
+Scott & Co., who will arrange everything with you.
+
+I beg of you to be specially cautious in selecting the crew of the
+_Forward_; it will consist of a captain (myself), a mate (you), a
+second mate, a boatswain, two engineers, an ice-master, eight sailors,
+two stokers, in all eighteen men, including Dr. Clawbonny of this
+city, who will join you at the proper time.
+
+Those who are shipped on board of the _Forward_ must be Englishmen,
+independent, with no family ties, single and temperate; for the use of
+spirits, and even of beer, will be strictly forbidden on shipboard:
+the men must be ready to undertake and endure everything.
+
+In your selection you will prefer those of a sanguine temperament, and
+so inclined to maintain a higher degree of animal heat.
+
+You will offer the crew five times their usual pay, to be increased
+one tenth at the end of each year. At the end of the voyage each one
+shall receive five hundred pounds, and you yourself two thousand. The
+requisite sum shall be deposited with the above-named Messrs. Marcuart
+& Co.
+
+The voyage will be long and difficult, but one sure to bring renown.
+You need not hesitate, then, Mr. Shandon.
+
+Send your answer to the initials K. Z., at Gottenburg, Sweden, _poste
+restante_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+P. S. On the 15th of February next you will receive a large Danish
+dog, with hanging lips, of a dark tawny color, with black stripes
+running crosswise. You will find place for him on board, and you will
+feed him on barley bread mixed with a broth of lard. You will
+acknowledge the receipt of this dog by a letter to the same initials
+at Leghorn, Italy.
+
+The captain of the _Forward_ will appear and make himself known at the
+proper time. As you are about setting sail you will receive new
+instructions.
+
+K. Z.,
+_Captain of the Forward_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+DR. CLAWBONNY.
+
+
+Richard Shandon was a good sailor; for a long time he had commanded
+whalers in the Arctic seas, with a well-deserved reputation throughout
+all Lancaster. Such a letter was well calculated to astonish him; he
+was astonished, it is true, but with the calmness of a man who is
+accustomed to surprises.
+
+He suited all the required conditions; no wife, child, nor relatives.
+He was as independent as man could be. There being no one whose
+opinion he needed to consult, he betook himself to Messrs. Marcuart &
+Co.
+
+"If the money is there," he said to himself, "the rest is all right."
+
+At the banking-house he was received with the respect due to a man who
+has sixteen thousand pounds deposited to his credit; having made that
+point sure, Shandon asked for a sheet of white paper, and in his large
+sailor's handwriting he sent his acceptance of the plan to the address
+given above.
+
+That very day he made the necessary arrangements with the builders at
+Birkenhead, and within twenty-four hours the keel of the _Forward_ was
+laid on the stocks.
+
+Richard Shandon was a man about forty years old, strong, energetic,
+and fearless, three qualities most necessary for a sailor, for they
+give him confidence, vigor, and coolness. He was known to be severe
+and very hard to please; hence he was more feared than loved by his
+men. But this reputation was not calculated to interfere with his
+selection of a crew, for he was known to be skilful in avoiding
+trouble.
+
+Shandon feared that the mysterious nature of the expedition might
+stand in his way.
+
+"In that case," he said, "it's best not to say anything about it;
+there will always be plenty of men who will want to know the why and
+the wherefore of the whole matter, and, since I don't know anything
+about it myself, I should find it hard to answer them. This K. Z. is
+certainly an odd stick; but, after all, he knows me, he depends on me,
+and that is enough. As for his ship, it will be a good one, and if
+it's not going to the Arctic Ocean, my name is not Richard Shandon.
+But I shall keep that fact for myself and my officers."
+
+Thereupon Shandon began to choose his crew, bearing in mind the
+captain's wishes about the independence and health of the men.
+
+He knew a very capital fellow, and a good sailor, James Wall by name.
+Wall might have been about thirty years old, and had already made some
+voyages in the northern seas. Shandon offered him the place of second
+mate, and Wall accepted it at once; all he cared for was to be at sea.
+Shandon confided all the details of the affair to him and to a certain
+Johnson, whom he took as boatswain.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"All right," answered James Wall, "that's as good as anything. Even if
+it's to seek the Northwest Passage, some have come back from that."
+
+"Not all," said Johnson, "but that's no reason that we should not try
+it."
+
+"Besides, if our guesses are right," said Shandon, "it must be said
+that we start with a fair chance of success. The _Forward_ will be a
+stanch ship and she will carry good engines. She can go a great
+distance. We want a crew of only eighteen men."
+
+"Eighteen men," answered Johnson; "that's the number the American,
+Kane, took with him on his famous voyage towards the North Pole."
+
+"It's strange," said Wall, "that a private person should try to make
+his way from Davis Strait to Behring Strait. The expeditions in search
+of Sir John Franklin have already cost England more than seven hundred
+and sixty thousand pounds, without producing any practical good. Who
+in the world wants to throw away his money for such a purpose?"
+
+"In the first place, James," answered Shandon, "we are in the dark
+about it all. I don't know whether we are going to the northern or the
+southern seas. Perhaps there's some new discovery to be tried. At any
+rate, some day or other a Dr. Clawbonny is to come aboard who will
+probably know more about it and will be able to tell us. We shall
+see."
+
+"Let us wait, then," said Johnson; "as for me, I'm going to look after
+some good men, and I'll answer now for their animal heat, as the
+captain calls it. You can depend on me."
+
+Johnson was an invaluable man; he was familiar with high latitudes. He
+had been quartermaster aboard of the _Phoenix_, which belonged to one
+of the expeditions sent out in 1853 in search of Franklin; he had been
+an eye-witness of the death of the French lieutenant Bellot, whom he
+had accompanied in his expedition across the ice. Johnson knew all the
+sailors in Liverpool, and immediately set about engaging a crew.
+
+[Illustration: "Johnson knew all the sailors in Liverpool, and
+immediately set about engaging a crew."]
+
+Shandon, Wall, and he succeeded in filling the number by the middle of
+December, but they met with considerable difficulty; many who were
+attracted by the high pay were alarmed by the danger, and more than
+one who had boldly enlisted came later to say that he had changed his
+mind on account of the dissuasion of his friends. They all tried to
+pierce the mystery, and pursued Shandon with their questions. He used
+to refer them to Johnson.
+
+"What can I say, my man?" the boatswain used to answer; "I don't know
+any more about it than you do. At any rate you will be in good
+company, with men who won't shirk their work; that's something! So
+don't be thinking about it all day: take it or leave it!" And the
+greater number took it.
+
+"You understand," added Johnson, sometimes, "my only trouble is in
+making my choice. High pay, such as no sailor ever had before, with
+the certainty of finding a round sum when we get back. That's very
+tempting."
+
+"The fact is," answered the sailors, "that it is hard to refuse. It
+will support a man all the rest of his life."
+
+"I won't hide from you," continued Johnson, "that the voyage will be
+long, difficult, and dangerous; that's all stated in our instructions;
+it's well to know beforehand what one undertakes to do; probably it's
+to try all that men can possibly do, and perhaps even more. So, if you
+haven't got a bold heart and a strong body, if you can't say you have
+more than twenty chances to one of staying there, if, in short, you
+are particular about leaving your body in one place more than another,
+here rather than there, get away from here and let some bolder man
+have your place!"
+
+"But, at least," said the confused sailor,--"at least, you know the
+captain?"
+
+"The captain is Richard Shandon, my friend, until we receive another."
+
+Now it must be said that was what the commander thought; he allowed
+himself to think that at the last moment he would receive definite
+instructions as to the object of the voyage, and that he would remain
+in command of the _Forward_. He was fond of spreading this opinion
+about, either in conversation with his officers or in superintending
+the building of the brig, of which the timbers were now rising in the
+Birkenhead ship-yard like the sides of a huge whale.
+
+Shandon and Johnson conformed strictly with the recommendation about
+the health of the crew; they all looked hardy and possessed enough
+animal heat to run the engines of the _Forward_; their elastic limbs,
+their clear and ruddy skin, showed that they were fit to encounter
+intense cold. They were bold, determined men, energetic and stoutly
+built; they were not all equally vigorous. Shandon had even hesitated
+about accepting some of them; for instance, the sailors Gripper and
+Garry, and the harpooner Simpson, who seemed to him too thin; but, on
+the other hand, they were well built, they were earnest about it, and
+they were shipped.
+
+All the crew were members of the same church; in their long voyage
+their prayers and the reading of the Bible would call them together
+and console them in the hours of depression; so that it was advisable
+that there should be no diversity on this score. Shandon knew from
+experience the usefulness of this practice and its good influence on
+the men, so valuable that it is never neglected on board of ships
+which winter in the polar seas.
+
+When all the crew had been engaged, Shandon and his two officers
+busied themselves with the provisions; they followed closely the
+captain's instructions, which were definite, precise, and detailed, in
+which the quality and quantity of the smallest articles were clearly
+set down. Thanks to the drafts placed at the commander's order, every
+article was paid for, cash down, with a discount of eight per cent,
+which Richard carefully placed to the credit of K. Z.
+
+Crew, provisions, and outfit were all ready in January, 1860; the
+_Forward_ was approaching completion. Shandon never let a day pass
+without visiting Birkenhead.
+
+On the morning of the 23d of January he was, as usual, on one of the
+double-ended ferry-boats which ply between the two shores of the
+Mersey; everything was enveloped in one of the ordinary fogs of that
+region, which compel the pilot to steer by compass, although the trip
+is one of but ten minutes.
+
+[Illustration: "Everything was enveloped in one of the ordinary fogs
+of that region."]
+
+However, the thickness of the fog could not prevent Shandon from
+noticing a short, rather stout man, with a refined, agreeable face and
+pleasant expression, who came towards him, seized both his hands, and
+pressed them with a warmth and familiarity which a Frenchman would
+have said was "very southern."
+
+But if this stranger was not from the South, he had escaped it
+narrowly; he spoke and gesticulated freely; his thoughts seemed
+determined to find expression, even if they had to burst out. His
+eyes, small like the eyes of witty men, his large and mobile mouth,
+were safety-valves which enabled him to rid himself of too strong a
+pressure on his feelings; he talked; and he talked so much and
+joyously, that, it must be said, Shandon could not make out what he
+was saying.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Still the mate of the _Forward_ was not slow in recognizing this short
+man whom he had never seen; it flashed into his mind, and the moment
+that the other stopped to take breath, Shandon uttered these words,--
+
+"Dr. Clawbonny?"
+
+"The same, in person, Commander! For nearly a quarter of an hour I
+have been looking after you, asking for you of every one and
+everywhere. Imagine my impatience. Five minutes more and I should have
+lost my head! So this is you, officer Shandon? You really exist? You
+are not a myth? Your hand, your hand! Let me press it again in mine!
+Yes, that is indeed the hand of Richard Shandon. Now, if there is a
+commander Richard, there is a brig _Forward_ which he commands; and if
+he commands it, it will sail; and if it sails, it will take Dr.
+Clawbonny on board."
+
+"Well, yes, Doctor, I am Richard Shandon, there is a brig _Forward_,
+and it will sail."
+
+"There's logic," answered the doctor, taking a long breath,--"there's
+logic. So I am delighted, enchanted! For a long time I've been waiting
+for something of this sort to turn up, and I've been wanting to try a
+voyage of this sort. Now, with you--"
+
+"Excuse me--" said Shandon.
+
+"With you," continued Clawbonny, paying him no attention, "we are sure
+of going far without turning round."
+
+"But--" began Shandon.
+
+"For you have shown what stuff you are made of, and I know all you've
+done. Ah, you are a good sailor!"
+
+"If you please--"
+
+"No, I sha'n't let your courage and skill be doubted for a moment,
+even by yourself. The captain who chose you for mate is a man who knew
+what he was about; I can tell you that."
+
+"But that is not the question," said Shandon, impatiently.
+
+"What is it, then? Don't keep me anxious any longer."
+
+"But you won't let me say a word. Tell me, Doctor, if you please, how
+you came to join this expedition of the _Forward_?"
+
+"By a letter, a capital letter; here it is,--the letter of a brave
+captain, very short, but very full."
+
+With these words he handed Shandon a letter running as follows:--
+
+
+INVERNESS, January 22, 1860.
+
+_To_ DR. CLAWBONNY, _Liverpool_.
+
+If Dr. Clawbonny wishes to sail on the _Forward_ for a long voyage, he
+can present himself to the mate, Richard Shandon, who has been advised
+concerning him.
+
+K. Z.,
+_Captain of the Forward_.
+
+
+"The letter reached me this morning, and I'm now ready to go on board
+of the _Forward_."
+
+"But," continued Shandon, "I suppose you know whither we are bound."
+
+"Not the least idea in the world; but what difference does it make,
+provided I go somewhere? They say I'm a learned man; they are wrong; I
+don't know anything, and if I have published some books which have had
+a good sale, I was wrong; it was very kind of the public to buy them!
+I don't know anything, I tell you, except that I am very ignorant. Now
+I have a chance offered me to complete, or, rather, to make over my
+knowledge of medicine, surgery, history, geography, botany,
+mineralogy, conchology, geodesy, chemistry, physics, mechanics,
+hydrography; well, I accept it, and I assure you, I didn't have to be
+asked twice."
+
+"Then," said Shandon in a tone of disappointment, "you don't know
+where the _Forward_ is going."
+
+"O, but I do, commander; it's going where there is something to be
+learned, discovered; where one can instruct himself, make comparisons,
+see other customs, other countries, study the ways of other people; in
+a word, it's going where I have never been."
+
+"But more precisely?" cried Shandon.
+
+"More precisely," answered the doctor, "I have understood that it was
+bound for the Northern Ocean. Well, good for the North!"
+
+"At any rate," said Shandon, "you know the captain?"
+
+"Not at all! But he's a good fellow, you may depend on it."
+
+The mate and the doctor stepped ashore at Birkenhead; Shandon gave his
+companion all the information he had, and the mystery which lay about
+it all excited highly the doctor's imagination. The sight of the
+_Forward_ enchanted him. From that time he was always with Shandon,
+and he came every morning to inspect the hull of the _Forward_.
+
+In addition he was specially intrusted with the providing of the
+ship's medicine-chest.
+
+For Clawbonny was a physician, and a good one, although he had never
+practised much. At twenty-five he was an ordinary young doctor, at
+forty he was a learned man; being known throughout the whole city, he
+became a leading member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of
+Liverpool. His moderate fortune allowed him to give some advice which
+was no less valuable for being without charge; loved as a thoroughly
+kind-hearted man must be, he did no harm to any one else nor to
+himself; quick and garrulous, if you please, but with his heart in his
+hand, and his hand in that of all the world.
+
+When the news of his intended journey on board the _Forward_ became
+known in the city, all his friends endeavored to dissuade him, but
+they only made him cling more obstinately to his intention; and when
+the doctor had absolutely determined on anything, he was a skilful man
+who could make him change.
+
+From that day the rumors, conjectures, and apprehensions steadily
+increased; but that did not interfere with the launching of the
+_Forward_ on the 5th of February, 1860. Two months later she was ready
+for sea.
+
+On the 15th of March, as the captain's letter had said, a Danish dog
+was sent by rail from Edinburgh to Liverpool, to the address of
+Richard Shandon. He seemed morose, timid, and almost wicked; his
+expression was very strange. The name of the _Forward_ was engraved on
+his collar.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The commander gave him quarters on board, and sent a letter, with the
+news of his arrival, to Leghorn.
+
+Hence, with the exception of the captain, the crew of the _Forward_
+was complete. It was composed as follows:--
+
+1. K. Z., captain; 2. Richard Shandon, first mate, in command; 3.
+James Wall, second mate; 4. Dr. Clawbonny; 5. Johnson, boatswain; 6.
+Simpson, harpooner; 7. Bell, carpenter; 8. Brunton, first engineer; 9.
+Plover, second engineer; 10. Strong (negro), cook; 11. Foker,
+ice-master; 12. Wolston, gunner; 13. Bolton, sailor; 14. Garry,
+sailor; 15. Clifton, sailor; 16. Gripper, sailor; 17. Pen, sailor; 18.
+Warren, stoker.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+THE DOG-CAPTAIN.
+
+
+The 5th of April, the day of departure, came. The fact that the doctor
+had joined the expedition gave some comfort to those on board.
+Wherever he could go they could follow. Still, most of the sailors
+were very uneasy, and Shandon, fearing that their number might be
+diminished by desertion, was very anxious to get to sea. The land once
+out of sight, the men would soon be resigned.
+
+Dr. Clawbonny's cabin was situated on the poop, occupying the extreme
+after-part of the ship. The cabins of the captain and mate opened on
+the deck. That of the captain was kept tightly closed, after it had
+been provided with various instruments, furniture, clothing, books,
+and utensils, all of which had been set down in detail in a letter. As
+he had asked, the key was sent to the captain at Lübeck; so he alone
+had admission into the cabin.
+
+This fact annoyed Shandon, and diminished his chances of having chief
+command. As for his own cabin, he had arranged it suitably for the
+presumed voyage, for he knew very well what was necessary for a polar
+expedition.
+
+The second mate's cabin was on the lower deck, where the sailors were
+domiciled; the crew had very comfortable quarters; they would hardly
+have had such accommodations in any other ship. They were treated as
+if they were a valuable cargo; a huge stove stood in the middle of
+their sleeping-room.
+
+Dr. Clawbonny was very enthusiastic about it; he took possession of
+his cabin on the 6th of February, the day after the ship was launched.
+
+"The happiest animal in the world," he used to say, "would be a snail
+who could make himself just such a shell as he wanted; I shall try to
+be an intelligent snail."
+
+And, in fact, for a shell which he was not going to leave for some
+time, his cabin presented a very comfortable appearance; the doctor
+took a scientific or childlike pleasure in arranging his scientific
+paraphernalia. His books, his specimens, his cases, his instruments,
+his physical apparatus, his thermometers, barometers, field-glasses,
+compasses, sextants, charts, drawings, phials, powder, and
+medicine-bottles, all were classified in a way which would have done
+honor to the British Museum. This space of six feet square contained
+incalculable wealth; the doctor needed only to stretch out his hand
+without rising, to become at once a physician, a mathematician, an
+astronomer, a geographer, a botanist, or a conchologist.
+
+[Illustration: "This space of six feet square contained incalculable
+wealth."]
+
+To tell the truth, he was proud of his arrangements, and very
+contented in his floating sanctum, which three of his thinnest friends
+would have completely filled. They used to crowd there in great
+numbers, so that even so good-natured a man as the doctor was
+occasionally put out; and, like Socrates, he came at last to say,--
+
+"My house is small, but may Heaven grant that it never be filled with
+friends!"
+
+To complete our account of the _Forward_, it is only necessary to add
+that a kennel for the huge Danish dog was built just beneath the
+window of the closed cabin; but he preferred to keep himself between
+decks and in the hold; it seemed impossible to tame him; no one ever
+conquered his shyness; he could be heard, at night especially, howling
+dismally in the ship's hold.
+
+Was it because he missed his master? Had he an instinctive dread of
+the dangers of the voyage? Had he a presentiment of the coming perils?
+The sailors were sure that he had, and more than one said the same in
+jest, who in his heart regarded the dog as a sort of diabolic animal.
+
+Pen, a very brutal man, one day, while trying to kick him, slipped,
+and fell on the corner of the capstan in such a way that he cut his
+head badly. It is easy to see how the sailors put all the blame upon
+the dog.
+
+[Illustration: PEN.]
+
+Clifton, who was the most superstitious man in the crew, made, one
+day, the strange observation that the dog, when on the poop, would
+always walk on the windward side; and afterwards, when the brig was at
+sea and under sail, this singular animal would shift his position to
+the other side after every tack, so as to be windward, as the captain
+of the _Forward_ would have done.
+
+[Illustration: CLIFTON.]
+
+Dr. Clawbonny, who by his gentleness and caresses would have almost
+tamed the heart of a tiger, tried in vain to make friends with the
+dog; he met with no success.
+
+The dog, too, did not answer to any of the usual names of his kind. So
+the men used to call him "Captain," for he seemed perfectly familiar
+with all the ways on shipboard. He had evidently been to sea before.
+
+It is hence easy to understand the boatswain's answer to Clifton's
+friend, and how this idea found but few sceptics; more than one would
+repeat it jestingly, who was fully prepared to see the dog, some fine
+day, take human shape, and with a loud voice assume command.
+
+If Richard Shandon did not share such apprehensions, he was far from
+being undisturbed, and on the eve of departing, on the night of April
+5th, he was talking on this subject with the doctor, Wall, and
+Johnson, in the mess-room.
+
+These four persons were sipping their tenth grog, which was probably
+their last, too; for, in accordance with the letter from Aberdeen, all
+the crew, from the captain to the stoker, were teetotalers, never
+touching beer, wine, nor spirits, except in case of sickness, and by
+the advice of the doctor.
+
+For an hour past they had been talking about their departure. If the
+captain's instructions were to be completely carried out, Shandon
+would the next day receive a letter containing his last orders.
+
+"If that letter," said the mate, "doesn't tell me the captain's name,
+it must at least tell us whither we are bound. If not, in what
+direction shall we sail?"
+
+"Upon my word," answered the impatient doctor, "if I were in your
+place, Shandon, I should set sail even without getting a letter; one
+will come after us, you may be sure."
+
+"You have a great deal of faith, Doctor. But, if you please, to what
+part of the world would you sail?"
+
+"Towards the North Pole, of course; there can be no doubt about that."
+
+"No doubt indeed!" said Wall. "Why not towards the South Pole?"
+
+"The South Pole! Never!" cried the doctor. "Would the captain ever
+have thought of sending a brig across the whole Atlantic Ocean? Just
+think for a moment, my dear Wall."
+
+"The doctor has an answer for everything," was his only reply.
+
+"Granted it's northward," resumed Shandon. "But tell me, Doctor, is it
+to Spitzbergen, Greenland, or Labrador that we have to sail, or to
+Hudson's Bay? If all these routes come to the same end at last,--the
+impassable ice,--there is still a great number of them, and I should
+find it very hard to choose between them. Have any definite answer to
+that, Doctor?"
+
+"No," answered the doctor, annoyed that he had nothing to say; "but if
+you get no letter, what shall you do?"
+
+"I shall do nothing; I shall wait."
+
+"You won't set sail!" cried Clawbonny, twirling his glass in his
+despair.
+
+"No, certainly not."
+
+"That's the best course," said Johnson, mildly; while the doctor
+walked around the table, being unable to sit quiet any longer. "Yes,
+that's the best course; and still, too long a delay might have very
+disastrous consequences. In the first place, the season is a good one,
+and if it's north we are going, we ought to take advantage of the mild
+weather to get through Davis Straits; besides, the crew will get more
+and more impatient; the friends and companions of the men are urging
+them to leave the _Forward_, and they might succeed in playing us a
+very bad turn."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"And then, too," said James Wall, "if any panic should arise among the
+men, every one would desert us; and I don't know, Commander, how you
+could get together another crew."
+
+"But what is to be done?" cried Shandon.
+
+"What you said," answered the doctor: "wait; but wait till to-morrow
+before you despair. The captain's promises have all been fulfilled so
+far with such regularity that we may have the best hopes for the
+future; there's no reason to think that we shall not be told of our
+destination at the proper time. As for me, I don't doubt in the least
+that to-morrow we shall be sailing in the Irish Sea. So, my friends, I
+propose one last drink to a happy voyage; it begins in a mysterious
+way, but, with such sailors as you, there are a thousand chances of
+its ending well."
+
+And they all touched their glasses for the last time.
+
+"Now, Commander," resumed Johnson, "I have one piece of advice to give
+you, and that is, to make everything ready for sailing. Let the crew
+think you are certain of what you are about. To-morrow, whether a
+letter comes or not, set sail; don't start your fires; the wind
+promises to hold; nothing will be easier than to get off; take a pilot
+on board; at the ebb of the tide leave the docks; then anchor beyond
+Birkenhead Point; the crew will have no more communication with the
+land; and if this devilish letter does come at last, it can find us
+there as well as anywhere."
+
+"Well said, Johnson!" exclaimed the doctor, reaching out his hand to
+the old sailor.
+
+"That's what we shall do," answered Shandon.
+
+Each one then withdrew to his cabin, and took what sleep he could get
+till morning.
+
+The next day the first distribution of letters took place in the city,
+but there was none for Commander Richard Shandon.
+
+Nevertheless he made his preparations for departure; the news spread
+immediately throughout the city, and, as we have seen, a great
+concourse of spectators thronged the piers of the New Prince's Docks.
+
+[Illustration: "The news spread immediately throughout the city, and a
+great concourse of spectators thronged the piers."]
+
+A great many people came on board the brig,--some to bid a friend good
+by, or to urge him to leave the ship, or to gaze at this strange
+vessel; others to ascertain the object of the voyage; and there were
+many murmurs at the unusual silence of the commander.
+
+For that he had his reasons.
+
+Ten o'clock struck. Eleven. The tide was to turn at half past twelve.
+Shandon, from the upper deck, gazed with anxious eyes at the crowd,
+trying in vain to read on some one's face the secret of his fate. But
+in vain. The sailors of the _Forward_ obeyed his orders in silence,
+keeping their eyes fixed upon him, ever awaiting some information
+which he did not give.
+
+Johnson was finishing the preparations for setting sail. The day was
+overcast, and the sea, outside of the docks, rather high; a stiff
+southwest breeze was blowing, but they could easily leave the Mersey.
+
+At twelve o'clock still nothing. Dr. Clawbonny walked up and down
+uneasily, looking about, gesticulating, and "impatient for the sea,"
+as he said. In spite of all he could do, he felt excited. Shandon bit
+his lips till the blood came.
+
+At this moment Johnson came up to him and said,--
+
+"Commander, if we are going to take this tide, we must lose no time;
+it will be a good hour before we can get off from the docks."
+
+Shandon cast one last glance about him, and looked at his watch. It
+was after the time of the midday distribution of letters.
+
+"Cast off!" he said to his boatswain.
+
+"All ashore who are going!" cried the latter, ordering the spectators
+to leave the deck of the _Forward_.
+
+Thereupon the crowd, began to move toward the gangway and make its way
+on to the quay, while the crew began to cast off the last moorings.
+
+At once the inevitable confusion of the crowd, which was pushed about
+without much ceremony by the sailors, was increased by the barking of
+the dog. He suddenly sprang from the forecastle right through the mass
+of visitors, barking sullenly.
+
+All made way for him. He sprang on the poop-deck, and, incredible as
+it may seem, yet, as a thousand witnesses can testify, this
+dog-captain carried a letter in his mouth.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"A letter!" cried Shandon; "but is _he_ on board?"
+
+"_He_ was, without doubt, but he's not now," answered Johnson, showing
+the deck cleared of the crowd.
+
+"Here, Captain! Captain!" shouted the doctor, trying to take the
+letter from the dog, who kept springing away from him. He seemed to
+want to give the letter to Shandon himself.
+
+"Here, Captain!" he said.
+
+The dog went up to him; Shandon took the letter without difficulty,
+and then Captain barked sharply three times, amid the profound silence
+which prevailed on board the ship and along the quay.
+
+Shandon held the letter in his hand, without opening it.
+
+"Read it, read it!" cried the doctor. Shandon looked at it. The
+address, without date or place, ran simply,--"Commander Richard
+Shandon, on board the brig _Forward_."
+
+Shandon opened the letter and read:--
+
+
+You will sail towards Cape Farewell. You will reach it April 20. If
+the captain does not appear on board, you will pass through Davis
+Strait and go up Baffin's Bay as far as Melville Sound.
+
+K. Z.,
+_Captain of the Forward_.
+
+
+Shandon folded carefully this brief letter, put it in his pocket, and
+gave the order to cast off. His voice, which arose alone above the
+roaring of the wind, sounded very solemn.
+
+Soon the _Forward_ had left the docks, and under the care of a pilot,
+whose boat followed at a distance, put out into the stream. The crowd
+hastened to the outer quay by the Victoria Docks to get a last look at
+the strange vessel. The two topsails, the foresail, and staysail were
+soon set, and under this canvas the _Forward_, which well deserved its
+name, after rounding Birkenhead Point, sailed away into the Irish Sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+AT SEA.
+
+
+The wind, which was uncertain, although in general favorable, was
+blowing in genuine April squalls. The _Forward_ sailed rapidly, and
+its screw, as yet unused, did not delay its progress. Towards three
+o'clock they met the steamer which plies between Liverpool and the
+Isle of Man, and which carries the three legs of Sicily on its
+paddle-boxes. Her captain hailed them, and this was the last good-by
+to the crew of the _Forward_.
+
+At five o'clock the pilot resigned the charge of the ship to Richard
+Shandon, and sailed away in his boat, which soon disappeared from
+sight in the southwest.
+
+Towards evening the brig doubled the Calf of Man, at the southern
+extremity of the island of that name. During the night the sea was
+very high; the _Forward_ rode the waves very well, however, and
+leaving the Point of Ayr on the northwest, she ran towards the North
+Channel.
+
+[Illustration: "Towards evening the brig doubled the Calf of Man."]
+
+Johnson was right; once at sea the sailors readily adapted themselves
+instinctively to the situation. They saw the excellence of their
+vessel and forgot the strangeness of their situation. The ship's
+routine was soon regularly established.
+
+The doctor inhaled with pleasure the sea-air; he paced up and down the
+deck in spite of the fresh wind, and showed that for a student he had
+very good sea-legs.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"The sea is a fine thing," he said to Johnson, as he went upon the
+bridge after breakfast; "I am a little late in making its
+acquaintance, but I shall make up for my delay."
+
+"You are right, Dr. Clawbonny; I would give all the land in the world
+for a bit of ocean. People say that sailors soon get tired of their
+business; but I've been sailing for forty years, and I like it as well
+as I did the first day."
+
+"What a pleasure it is to feel a stanch ship under one's feet! and, if
+I'm not mistaken, the _Forward_ is a capital sea-boat."
+
+"You are right, Doctor," answered Shandon, who had joined the two
+speakers; "she's a good ship, and I must say that there was never a
+ship so well equipped for a voyage in the polar regions. That reminds
+me that, thirty years ago, Captain James Ross, going to seek the
+Northwest Passage--"
+
+"Commanded the _Victory_," said the doctor, quickly, "a brig of about
+the tonnage of this one, and also carrying machinery."
+
+"What! did you know that?"
+
+"Say for yourself," retorted the doctor. "Steamers were then new
+inventions, and the machinery of the _Victory_ was continually
+delaying him. Captain Ross, after in vain trying to patch up every
+piece, at last took it all out and left it at the first place he
+wintered at."
+
+"The deuce!" said Shandon. "You know all about it, I see."
+
+"More or less," answered the doctor. "In my reading I have come across
+the works of Parry, Ross, Franklin; the reports of MacClure, Kennedy,
+Kane, MacClintock; and some of it has stuck in my memory. I might add
+that MacClintock, on board of the _Fox_, a propeller like ours,
+succeeded in making his way more easily and more directly than all his
+successors."
+
+"That's perfectly true," answered Shandon; "that MacClintock is a good
+sailor; I have seen him at sea. You might also say that we shall be,
+like him, in Davis Strait in the month of April; and if we can get
+through the ice our voyage will be very much advanced."
+
+"Unless," said the doctor, "we should be as unlucky as the _Fox_ in
+1857, and should be caught the first year by the ice in the north of
+Baffin's Bay, and we should have to winter among the icebergs."
+
+"We must hope to be luckier, Mr. Shandon," said Johnson; "and if, with
+a ship like the _Forward_, we can't go where we please, the attempt
+must be given up forever."
+
+"Besides," continued the doctor, "if the captain is on board he will
+know better than we what is to be done, and so much the better because
+we are perfectly ignorant; for his singularly brief letter gives us no
+clew to the probable aim of the voyage."
+
+"It's a great deal," answered Shandon, with some warmth, "to know what
+route we have to take; and now for a good month, I fancy, we shall be
+able to get along without his supernatural intervention and orders.
+Besides, you know what I think about him."
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed the doctor; "I used to think as you did, that he was
+going to leave the command of the ship in your hands, and that he
+would never come on board; but--"
+
+"But what?" asked Shandon, with some ill-humor.
+
+"But since the arrival of the second letter, I have altered my views
+somewhat."
+
+"And why so, doctor?"
+
+"Because, although this letter does tell you in which direction to go,
+it still does not inform you of the final aim of the voyage; and we
+have yet to know whither we are to go. I ask you how can a third
+letter reach us now that we are on the open sea. The postal service on
+the shore of Greenland is very defective. You see, Shandon, I fancy
+that he is waiting for us at some Danish settlement up there,--at
+Holsteinborg or Upernavik. We shall find that he has been completing
+the supply of seal-skins, buying sledges and dogs,--in a word,
+providing all the equipment for a journey in the arctic seas. So I
+shall not be in the least surprised to see him coming out of his cabin
+some fine morning and taking command in the least supernatural way in
+the world."
+
+"Possibly," answered Shandon, dryly; "but meanwhile the wind's
+freshening, and there's no use risking our topsails in such weather."
+
+Shandon left the doctor, and ordered the topsails furled.
+
+"He still clings to that idea," said the doctor to the boatswain.
+
+"Yes," was the answer, "and it's a pity; for you may very well be
+right, Dr. Clawbonny."
+
+Towards the evening of Saturday the _Forward_ rounded the Mull of
+Galloway, on which the light could be seen in the northeast. During
+the night they left the Mull of Cantire to the north, and on the east
+Fair Head, on the Irish coast. Towards three o'clock in the morning,
+the brig, passing Rathlin Island on its starboard quarter, came out
+from the North Channel into the ocean.
+
+That was Sunday, April 8. The English, and especially sailors, are
+very observant of that day; hence the reading of the Bible, of which
+the doctor gladly took charge, occupied a good part of the morning.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The wind rose to a gale, and threatened to drive the ship back upon
+the Irish coast. The waves ran very high; the vessel rolled a great
+deal. If the doctor was not sea-sick, it was because he was determined
+not to be, for nothing would have been easier. At midday Malin Head
+disappeared from their view in the south; it was the last sight these
+bold sailors were to have of Europe, and more than one gazed at it for
+a long time who was doubtless fated never to set eyes on it again.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+By observation the latitude then was 55° 57', and the longitude,
+according to the chronometer, 7° 40'.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Meridian of Greenwich.]
+
+The gale abated towards nine o'clock of the evening; the _Forward_, a
+good sailer, kept on its route to the northwest. That day gave them
+all a good opportunity to judge of her sea-going qualities; as good
+judges had already said at Liverpool, she was well adapted for
+carrying sail.
+
+During the following days, the _Forward_ made very good progress; the
+wind veered to the south, and the sea ran high. The brig set every
+sail. A few petrels and puffins flew about the poop-deck; the doctor
+succeeded in shooting one of the latter, which fortunately fell on
+board.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Simpson, the harpooner, seized it and carried it to the doctor.
+
+"It's an ugly bird, Dr. Clawbonny," he said.
+
+"But then it will make a good meal, my friend."
+
+"What, are you going to eat it?"
+
+"And you shall have a taste of it," said the doctor, laughing.
+
+"Never!" answered Simpson; "it's strong and oily, like all sea-birds."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"True," said the doctor; "but I have a way of dressing such game, and
+if you recognize it to be a sea-bird, I'll promise never to kill
+another in all my life."
+
+"So you are a cook, too, Dr. Clawbonny?" asked Johnson.
+
+"A learned man ought to know a little of everything."
+
+"Then take care, Simpson," said the boatswain; "the doctor is a clever
+man, and he'll make us take this puffin for a delicious grouse."
+
+In fact, the doctor was in the right about this bird; he removed
+skilfully the fat which lies beneath the whole surface of the skin,
+principally on its thighs, and with it disappeared all the rancid,
+fishy odor with which this bird can be justly charged. Thus prepared,
+the bird was called delicious, even by Simpson.
+
+During the recent storm, Richard Shandon had made up his mind about
+the qualities of his crew; he had tested his men one by one, as every
+officer should do who wishes to be prepared for future dangers; he
+knew on whom he could rely.
+
+James Wall, who was warmly attached to Richard, was intelligent and
+efficient, but he had very little originality; as second officer he
+was exactly in his place.
+
+Johnson, who was accustomed to the dangers of the sea, and an old
+sailor in arctic regions, lacked neither coolness nor courage.
+
+Simpson, the harpooner, and Bell, the carpenter, were steady men,
+obedient and well disciplined. The ice-master, Foker, an experienced
+sailor, who had sailed in northern waters, promised to be of the
+greatest service.
+
+Of the other men, Garry and Bolton seemed to be the best; Bolton was a
+jolly fellow, always laughing and joking; Garry, a man about
+thirty-five years old, had an energetic, but rather pale and sad face.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The three sailors, Clifton, Gripper, and Pen, seemed to be the least
+enthusiastic and determined; they were inclined to grumbling. Gripper
+had even wished to break his engagement when the time came for
+sailing, and only a feeling of shame prevented him. If things went
+well, if they encountered no excessive dangers, and their toil was not
+too severe, these three men could be counted on; but they were hard to
+please with their food, for they were inclined to gluttony. In spite
+of their having been forewarned, they were by no means pleased with
+being teetotalers, and at their meals they used to miss their brandy
+or gin; but they made up for it with the tea and coffee which were
+distributed with a lavish hand.
+
+As for the two engineers, Brunton and Plover, and the stoker, Warren,
+they had been so far well satisfied with having nothing to do.
+
+Shandon knew therefore what to expect from each man.
+
+On the 14th of April, the _Forward_ crossed the Gulf Stream, which,
+after following the eastern coast of America as far as Newfoundland,
+turns to the northeast and moves towards the shore of Norway. They
+were then in latitude 51° 37', and longitude 22° 37', two hundred
+miles from the end of Greenland. The weather grew colder; the
+thermometer fell to 32°, the freezing-point.
+
+The doctor, without yet putting on his arctic winter dress, was
+wearing a suit of sea-clothes, like all the officers and sailors; he
+was an amusing sight in his high boots, in which he could not bend his
+legs, his huge tarpaulin hat, his trousers and coat of the same
+material; in heavy rain, or when the brig was shipping seas, the
+doctor used to look like a sort of sea-monster, a comparison which
+always flattered him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+For two days the sea was very rough; the wind veered to the northwest,
+and delayed the _Forward_. From the 14th to the 16th of April there
+was still a high sea running; but on Monday there fell a heavy shower
+which almost immediately had the effect of calming the sea. Shandon
+called the doctor's attention to it.
+
+"Well," said the doctor, "that confirms the curious observations of
+the whaler Scoresby, who was a member of the Royal Society of
+Edinburgh, of which I have the honor to be a corresponding member. You
+see that while the rain is falling the waves are hardly to be noticed,
+even when the wind is strong. On the other hand, in dry weather the
+sea would be rougher even with a gentler wind."
+
+"But what is the explanation of it, Doctor?"
+
+"It's very simple; there is no explanation."
+
+At that moment the ice-master, who was on watch in the topmast
+cross-trees, cried out that there was a floating mass on the starboard
+quarter, about fifteen miles to windward.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"An iceberg in these latitudes!" cried the doctor.
+
+Shandon turned his glass in that direction, and corroborated the
+lookout's words.
+
+"That's strange," said the doctor.
+
+"Are you surprised?" asked the commander, laughing. "What! are we
+lucky enough to find anything that will surprise you?"
+
+"I am surprised without being surprised," answered the doctor,
+smiling, "since the brig _Ann Poole_, of Greenspond, was caught in the
+ice in the year 1813, in the forty-fourth degree of north latitude,
+and Dayement, her captain, saw hundreds of icebergs."
+
+"Good," said Shandon; "you can still teach us a great deal about
+them."
+
+"O, not so very much!" answered Clawbonny, modestly, "except that ice
+has been seen in very much lower latitudes."
+
+"That I know, my dear Doctor, for when I was a cabin-boy on the
+sloop-of-war, _Fly_--"
+
+"In 1818," continued the doctor, "at the end of March, or it might
+have been the beginning of April, you passed between two large fields
+of floating ice, in latitude forty-two."
+
+"That is too much!" exclaimed Shandon.
+
+"But it's true; so I have no need to be surprised, now that we are two
+degrees farther north, at our sighting an iceberg."
+
+"You are bottled full of information, Doctor," answered the commander;
+"one needs only draw the cork."
+
+"Very well, I shall be exhausted sooner than you think; and now,
+Shandon, if we can get a nearer view of this phenomenon, I should be
+the gladdest of doctors."
+
+"Exactly, Johnson," said Shandon, summoning the boatswain; "I think
+the wind is freshening."
+
+"Yes, Commander," answered Johnson, "we are making very little
+headway, and soon we shall feel the currents from Davis Strait."
+
+"You are right, Johnson, and if we mean to make Cape Farewell by the
+20th of April, we must go under steam, or we shall be cast on the
+coast of Labrador.--Mr. Wall, give the order to light the fires."
+
+The mate's orders were obeyed; an hour later the engines were in
+motion; the sails were furled; and the screw, turning through the
+waves, was driving the _Forward_ rapidly in the teeth of the northwest
+wind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+THE GREAT POLAR CURRENT.
+
+
+Soon more numerous flocks of birds, petrels, puffins, and others which
+inhabit those barren shores, gave token of their approach to
+Greenland. The _Forward_ was moving rapidly northward, leaving behind
+her a long line of dark smoke.
+
+Tuesday, the 17th of April, the ice-master caught the first sight of
+the _blink_[1] of the ice. It was visible at least twenty miles off to
+the north-northwest. In spite of some tolerably thick clouds it
+lighted up brilliantly all the air near the horizon. No one of those
+on board who had ever seen this phenomenon before could fail to
+recognize it, and they felt assured from its whiteness that this blink
+was due to a vast field of ice lying about thirty miles farther than
+they could see, and that it came from the reflection of its luminous
+rays.
+
+[Footnote 1: A peculiar and brilliant color of the air above a large
+expanse of ice.]
+
+Towards evening the wind shifted to the south, and became favorable;
+Shandon was able to carry sail, and as a measure of economy they
+extinguished the furnace fires. The _Forward_ under her topsails, jib,
+and foresail, sailed on towards Cape Farewell.
+
+At three o'clock on the 18th they made out an ice-stream, which, like
+a narrow but brilliant band, divided the lines of the water and sky.
+It was evidently descending rather from the coast of Greenland than
+from Davis Strait, for the ice tended to keep on the western side of
+Baffin's Bay. An hour later, and the _Forward_ was passing through the
+detached fragments of the ice-stream, and in the thickest part the
+pieces of ice, although closely welded together, were rising and
+falling with the waves.
+
+At daybreak the next morning the watch saw a sail; it was the
+_Valkyria_, a Danish corvette, sailing towards the _Forward_, bound to
+Newfoundland. The current from the strait became perceptible, and
+Shandon had to set more sail to overcome it.
+
+At that moment the commander, the doctor, James Wall, and Johnson were
+all together on the poop-deck, observing the force and direction of
+the current. The doctor asked if it were proved that this current was
+felt throughout Baffin's Bay.
+
+"There's no doubt of it," answered Shandon; "and sailing-vessels have
+hard work in making headway against it."
+
+"And it's so much the harder," added James Wall, "because it's met on
+the eastern coast of America, as well as on the western coast of
+Greenland."
+
+"Well," said the doctor, "that serves to confirm those who seek a
+Northwest Passage. The current moves at the rate of about five miles
+an hour, and it is hard to imagine that it rises at the bottom of a
+gulf."
+
+"That is very likely, Doctor," answered Shandon, "because, while this
+current flows from north to south, there is a contrary current in
+Behring Strait, which flows from south to north, and which must be the
+cause of this one."
+
+"Hence," said the doctor, "you must admit that America is completely
+separated from the polar regions, and that the water from the Pacific
+skirts its whole northern coast, until it reaches the Atlantic.
+Besides, the greater elevation of the water of the Pacific is another
+reason for its flowing towards the European seas."
+
+"But," said Shandon, "there must be some facts which support this
+theory; and if there are," he added with gentle irony, "our learned
+friend must be familiar with them."
+
+"Well," answered the latter, complacently, "if it interests you at all
+I can tell you that whales, wounded in Davis Strait, have been found
+afterwards on the coast of Tartary, still carrying a European harpoon
+in their side."
+
+"And unless they doubled Cape Horn, or the Cape of Good Hope,"
+answered Shandon, "they must have gone around the northern coast of
+America. There can be no doubt of that, Doctor."
+
+"And if you were not convinced, my dear Shandon," said the doctor,
+smiling, "I could produce still other evidence, such as the floating
+wood with which Davis Strait is filled, larch, aspen, and other
+southern kinds. Now we know that the Gulf Stream could not carry them
+into the strait; and if they come out from it they must have got in
+through Behring Strait."
+
+"I am perfectly convinced, Doctor, and I must say it would be hard to
+maintain the other side against you."
+
+"See there," said Johnson, "there's something that will throw light on
+this discussion. It's a large piece of wood floating on the water; if
+the commander will give us leave, we can put a rope about it, hoist it
+on board, and ask it the name of its country."
+
+"That's the way!" said the doctor; "after the rule we have the
+example."
+
+Shandon gave the necessary orders; the brig was turned towards the
+piece of wood, and soon the crew were hoisting it aboard, although not
+without considerable trouble.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was the trunk of a mahogany-tree, eaten to its centre by worms,
+which fact alone made it light enough to float.
+
+"This is a real triumph," exclaimed the doctor, enthusiastically,
+"for, since the Atlantic currents could not have brought it into Davis
+Strait, since it could not have reached the polar waters from the
+rivers of North America, as the tree grows under the equator, it is
+evident that it must have come direct from Behring Strait. And
+besides, see those sea-worms which have eaten it; they belong to warm
+latitudes."
+
+"It certainly gives the lie to those who deny the existence of a
+Northwest Passage."
+
+"It fairly kills them," answered the doctor. "See here, I'll give you
+the route of this mahogany-tree: it was carried to the Pacific Ocean
+by some river of the Isthmus of Panama or of Guatemala; thence the
+current carried it along the coast of America as far as Behring
+Strait, and so it was forced into the polar waters; it is neither so
+old nor so completely water-logged that we cannot set its departure at
+some recent date; it escaped all the obstacles of the many straits
+coming into Baffin's Bay, and being quickly seized by the arctic
+current it came through Davis Strait to be hoisted on board the
+_Forward_ for the great joy of Dr. Clawbonny, who asks the commander's
+permission to keep a piece as a memorial."
+
+"Of course," answered Shandon; "but let me tell you in my turn that
+you will not be the only possessor of such a waif. The Danish governor
+of the island of Disco--"
+
+"On the coast of Greenland," continued the doctor, "has a mahogany
+table, made from a tree found in the same way; I know it, my dear
+Shandon. Very well; I don't grudge him his table, for if there were
+room enough on board, I could easily make a sleeping-room out of
+this."
+
+On the night of Wednesday the wind blew with extreme violence;
+drift-wood was frequently seen; the approach to the coast became more
+dangerous at a time when icebergs are numerous; hence the commander
+ordered sail to be shortened, and the _Forward_ went on under merely
+her foresail and forestay-sail.
+
+The thermometer fell below the freezing-point. Shandon distributed
+among the crew suitable clothing, woollen trousers and jackets,
+flannel shirts, and thick woollen stockings, such as are worn by
+Norwegian peasants. Every man received in addition a pair of
+water-proof boots.
+
+As for Captain, he seemed contented with his fur; he appeared
+indifferent to the changes of temperature, as if he were thoroughly
+accustomed to such a life; and besides, a Danish dog was unlikely to
+be very tender. The men seldom laid eyes on him, for he generally kept
+himself concealed in the darkest parts of the vessel.
+
+Towards evening, through a rift in the fog, the coast of Greenland
+could be seen in longitude 37° 2' 7". Through his glass the doctor was
+able to distinguish mountains separated by huge glaciers; but the fog
+soon cut out this view, like the curtain of a theatre falling at the
+most interesting part of a play.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+On the morning of the 20th of April, the _Forward_ found itself in
+sight of an iceberg one hundred and fifty feet high, aground in this
+place from time immemorial; the thaws have had no effect upon it, and
+leave its strange shape unaltered. Snow saw it; in 1829 James Ross
+took an exact drawing of it; and in 1851 the French lieutenant,
+Bellot, on board of the _Prince Albert_, observed it. Naturally the
+doctor wanted to preserve a memorial of the famous mountain, and he
+made a very successful sketch of it.
+
+It is not strange that such masses should run aground, and in
+consequence become immovably fixed to the spot; as for every foot
+above the surface of the water they have nearly two beneath, which
+would give to this one a total height of about four hundred feet.
+
+At last with a temperature at noon as low as 12°, under a snowy, misty
+sky, they sighted Cape Farewell. The _Forward_ arrived at the
+appointed day; the unknown captain, if he cared to assume his place in
+such gloomy weather, would have no need to complain.
+
+"Then," said the doctor to himself, "there is this famous cape, with
+its appropriate name! Many have passed it, as we do, who were destined
+never to see it again! Is it an eternal farewell to one's friends in
+Europe? You have all passed it, Frobisher, Knight, Barlow, Vaughan,
+Scroggs, Barentz, Hudson, Blosseville, Franklin, Crozier, Bellot,
+destined never to return home; and for you this cape was well named
+Cape Farewell!"
+
+It was towards the year 970 that voyagers, setting out from Iceland,
+discovered Greenland. Sebastian Cabot, in 1498, went as high as
+latitude 56°; Gaspard and Michel Cotréal, from 1500 to 1502, reached
+latitude 60°; and in 1576 Martin Frobisher reached the inlet which
+bears his name.
+
+To John Davis belongs the honor of having discovered the strait, in
+1585; and two years later in a third voyage this hardy sailor, this
+great whaler, reached the sixty-third parallel, twenty-seven degrees
+from the Pole.
+
+Barentz in 1596, Weymouth in 1602, James Hall in 1605 and 1607,
+Hudson, whose name was given to the large bay which runs so far back
+into the continent of America, James Poole in 1611, went more or less
+far into the straits, seeking the Northwest Passage, the discovery of
+which would have greatly shortened the route between the two worlds.
+
+Baffin, in 1616, found in the bay of that name Lancaster Sound; he was
+followed in 1619 by James Monk, and in 1719 by Knight, Barlow,
+Vaughan, and Scroggs, who were never heard of again.
+
+In 1776, Lieutenant Pickersgill, sent to meet Captain Cook, who tried
+to make his way through Behring Strait, reached latitude 68°; the next
+year, Young, on the same errand, went as far as Woman's Island.
+
+Then came James Ross, who in 1818 sailed all around the shores of
+Baffin's Bay, and corrected the errors on the charts of his
+predecessors.
+
+Finally, in 1819 and 1820, the famous Parry made his way into
+Lancaster Sound. In spite of numberless difficulties he reached
+Melville Island, and won the prize of five thousand pounds offered by
+act of Parliament to the English sailors who should cross the meridian
+at a latitude higher than the seventy-seventh parallel.
+
+In 1826, Beechey touched at Chamisso Island; James Ross wintered, from
+1829 to 1833, in Prince Regent's Inlet, and, among other important
+services, discovered the magnetic pole.
+
+During this time Franklin, by a land-journey, defined the northern
+coast of America, from Mackenzie River to Turnagain Point; Captain
+Back followed the same route from 1823 to 1835; and these explorations
+were completed in 1839 by Dease, Simpson, and Dr. Rae.
+
+At last, Sir John Franklin, anxious to discover the Northwest Passage,
+left England in 1845, with the _Erebus_ and the _Terror_; he entered
+Baffin's Bay, and since his leaving Disco Island there has been no
+news of his expedition.
+
+His disappearance started numerous search-expeditions, which have
+effected the discovery of the passage, and given the world definite
+information about the rugged coasts of the polar lands. The boldest
+sailors of England, France, and the United States hastened to these
+terrible latitudes; and, thanks to their exertions, the tortuous,
+complicated map of these regions has at last been placed in the
+archives of the Royal Geographical Society of London.
+
+The strange history of these lands crowded on the imagination of the
+doctor, as he stood leaning on the rail, and gazing on the long track
+of the brig. The names of those bold sailors thronged into his memory,
+and it seemed to him that beneath the frozen arches of the ice he
+could see the pale ghosts of those who never returned.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+THE ENTRANCE OF DAVIS STRAIT.
+
+
+During that day the _Forward_ made easy progress through the loose
+ice; the breeze was in a good quarter, but the temperature was very
+low; the wind coming across the ice-fields was thoroughly chilled.
+
+At night the strictest care was necessary; the icebergs crowded
+together in this narrow passage; often they could be counted by the
+hundred on the horizon; they had been loosened from the lofty coasts
+by the incessant beating of the waves and the warmth of the spring
+month, and they were floating down to melt away in the depths of the
+ocean. Often, too, they came across large masses of floating wood,
+which they were obliged to avoid, so that the crow's-nest was placed
+in position on the top of the foremast; it consisted of a sort of tub,
+in which the ice-master, partly sheltered from the wind, scanned the
+sea, giving notice of the ice in sight, and even, if necessary,
+directing the ship's course.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The nights were short; since the 31st of January the sun had
+reappeared in refraction, and was every day rising higher and higher
+above the horizon. But it was hid by the snow, which, if it did not
+produce utter darkness, rendered navigation difficult.
+
+April 21st, Cape Desolation appeared through the mist; hard work was
+wearying the crew; since the brig had entered the ice, the sailors had
+had no rest; it was now necessary to have recourse to steam to force a
+way through the accumulated masses.
+
+The doctor and Johnson were talking together on the after-deck, while
+Shandon was snatching a few hours of sleep in his cabin. Clawbonny was
+very fond of talking with the old sailor, whose numerous voyages had
+given him a valuable education. The two had made great friends of one
+another.
+
+"You see, Dr. Clawbonny," said Johnson, "this country is not like any
+other; its name is Greenland, but there are very few weeks of the year
+in which it deserves this name."
+
+"But, Johnson," answered the doctor, "who can say whether in the tenth
+century this name did not suit it? More than one change of this sort
+has taken place on the globe, and I should astonish you much more by
+saying that, according to Icelandic chroniclers, two hundred villages
+flourished on this continent eight or nine hundred years ago."
+
+"You astonish me so much, Dr. Clawbonny, that I can't believe you; for
+it's a sterile country."
+
+"Well, sterile as it is, it supports a good many inhabitants, and
+among them are some civilized Europeans."
+
+"Without doubt; at Disco and at Upernavik we shall find men who are
+willing to live in such a climate; but I always supposed they stayed
+there from necessity, and not because they liked it."
+
+"I think you are right; still, men get accustomed to everything, and
+these Greenlanders appear to me better off than the workingmen of our
+large cities; they may be unfortunate, but they are not miserable. I
+say unfortunate, but that is not exactly what I mean; in fact, if they
+are not quite as comfortable as those who live in temperate regions,
+they, nevertheless, are accustomed to the severity of the climate, and
+find in it an enjoyment which we should never imagine."
+
+"We have to think so, Dr. Clawbonny, because Heaven is just; but I
+have often visited these coasts, and I am always saddened at the sight
+of its gloomy loneliness; the capes, promontories, and bays ought to
+have more attractive names, for Cape Farewell and Cape Desolation are
+not of a sort to cheer sailors."
+
+"I have often made the same remark," answered the doctor; "but these
+names have a geographical value which is not to be forgotten; they
+describe the adventures of those who gave them; along with the names
+of Davis, Baffin, Hudson, Ross, Parry, Franklin, Bellot, if I find
+Cape Desolation, I also find soon Mercy Bay; Cape Providence makes up
+for Port Anxiety, Repulse Bay brings me to Cape Eden, and after
+leaving Point Turnagain I rest in Refuge Bay; in that way I have under
+my eyes the whole succession of dangers, checks, obstacles, successes,
+despairs, and victories connected with the great names of my country;
+and, like a series of antique medals, this nomenclature gives me the
+whole history of these seas."
+
+"Well reasoned, Doctor; and may we find more bays of Success in our
+journey than capes of Despair!"
+
+"I hope so, Johnson; but, tell me, have the crew got over their
+fears?"
+
+"Somewhat, sir; and yet, to tell the truth, since we entered these
+straits, they have begun to be very uneasy about the unknown captain;
+more than one expected to see him appear at the end of Greenland; and
+so far no news of him. Between ourselves, Doctor, don't you think that
+is a little strange!"
+
+"Yes, Johnson, I do."
+
+"Do you believe the captain exists?"
+
+"Without any doubt."
+
+"But what reason can he have had for acting in this way?"
+
+"To speak frankly, Johnson, I imagine that he wants to get the crew so
+far away that it will be impossible for them to turn back. Now, if he
+had appeared on board when we set sail, and every one had known where
+we were going, he might have been embarrassed."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Why, if he wants to try any superhuman enterprise, if he wants to go
+where so many have failed, do you think he would have succeeded in
+shipping a crew? But, once on the way, it is easy to go so far that to
+go farther becomes an absolute necessity."
+
+"Possibly, Doctor; I have known more than one bold explorer, whose
+name alone would have frightened every one, and who would have found
+no one to accompany him on his perilous expeditions--"
+
+"Except me," said the doctor.
+
+"And me," continued Johnson. "I tell you our captain is probably one
+of those men. At any rate, we shall know sooner or later; I suppose
+that at Upernavik or Melville Bay he will come quietly on board, and
+let us know whither he intends to take the ship."
+
+"Very likely, Johnson; but the difficulty will be to get to Melville
+Bay; see how thick the ice is about us! The _Forward_ can hardly make
+her way through it. See there, that huge expanse!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"We whalers call that an ice-field, that is to say, an unbroken
+surface of ice, the limits of which cannot be seen."
+
+"And what do you call this broken field of long pieces more or less
+closely connected?"
+
+"That is a pack; if it's round we call it a patch, and a stream if it
+is long."
+
+"And that floating ice?"
+
+"That is drift-ice; if a little higher it would be icebergs; they are
+very dangerous to ships, and they have to be carefully avoided. See,
+down there on the ice-field, that protuberance caused by the pressure
+of the ice; we call that a hummock; if the base were under water, we
+should call it a cake; we have to give names to them all to
+distinguish them."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Ah, it is a strange sight," exclaimed the doctor, as he gazed at the
+wonders of the northern seas; "one's imagination is touched by all
+these different shapes!"
+
+"True," answered Johnson, "the ice takes sometimes such curious
+shapes; and we men never fail to explain them in our own way."
+
+"See there, Johnson; see that singular collection of blocks of ice!
+Would one not say it was a foreign city, an Eastern city, with
+minarets and mosques in the moonlight? Farther off is a long row of
+Gothic arches, which remind us of the chapel of Henry VII., or the
+Houses of Parliament."
+
+[Illustration: "Would one not say it was a foreign city, an Eastern
+city, with minarets and mosques in the moonlight?"]
+
+"Everything can be found there; but those cities or churches are very
+dangerous, and we must not go too near them. Some of those minarets
+are tottering, and the smallest of them would crush a ship like the
+_Forward_."
+
+"And yet men have dared to come into these seas under sail alone! How
+could a ship be trusted in such perils without the aid of steam?"
+
+"Still it has been done; when the wind is unfavorable, and I have
+known that happen more than once, it is usual to anchor to one of
+these blocks of ice; we should float more or less around with them,
+but we would wait for a fair wind; it is true that, travelling in that
+way, months would be sometimes wasted where we shall need only a few
+days."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"It seems to me," said the doctor, "that the temperature is falling."
+
+"That would be a pity," answered Johnson, "for there will have to be a
+thaw before these masses separate, and float away into the Atlantic;
+besides, they are more numerous in Davis Strait, because the two
+stretches of land approach one another between Cape Walsingham and
+Holsteinborg; but above latitude 67° we shall find in May and June
+more navigable seas."
+
+"Yes; but we must get through this first."
+
+"We must get through, Doctor; in June and July we should have found
+the passage free, as do the whalers; but our orders were strict; we
+had to be here in April. If I'm not very much mistaken, our captain is
+a sound fellow with an idea firm in his head; his only reason for
+leaving so early was to go far. Whoever survives will see."
+
+The doctor was right about the falling of the temperature; at noon the
+thermometer stood at 6°, and a breeze was blowing from the northwest,
+which, while it cleared the sky, aided the current in accumulating the
+floating ice in the path of the _Forward_. It did not all follow the
+same course; often some pieces, and very high ones, too, floated in
+the opposite direction under the influence of a submarine current.
+
+The difficulties of this navigation may be readily understood; the
+engineers had no repose; the engines were controlled from the bridge
+by means of levers, which started, stopped, and reversed them
+instantly, at the orders of the officer in command. Sometimes it was
+necessary to hasten forward to enter an opening in the ice, again to
+race with a mass of ice which threatened to block up their only
+egress, or some piece, suddenly upsetting, obliged the brig to back
+quickly, in order to escape destruction. This mass of ice, carried and
+accumulated by the great polar current, was hurried through the
+strait, and if the frost should unite it, it would present an
+impassable barrier to the _Forward_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In these latitudes numberless birds were to be found; petrels and
+contremaitres were flying here and there, with deafening cries; there
+were also many gulls, with their large heads, short necks, and small
+beaks, which were extending their long wings and braving the snow
+which the storm was whirling about. This profusion of winged beings
+enlivened the scene.
+
+Numerous pieces of wood were drifting along, clashing continually into
+one another; a few whales with large heads approached the ship; but
+they could not think of chasing them, although Simpson, the harpooner,
+earnestly desired it. Towards evening several seals were seen, which,
+with their noses just above the water, were swimming among the great
+pieces of ice.
+
+On the 22d the temperature was still falling; the _Forward_ carried a
+great deal of steam to reach an easier sailing-place; the wind blew
+steadily from the northwest; the sails were furled.
+
+During Sunday the sailors had little to do. After divine service,
+which was read by Shandon, the crew betook themselves to chasing wild
+birds, of which they caught a great many. These birds, prepared
+according to Dr. Clawbonny's method, were an agreeable addition to the
+messes of the officers and crew.
+
+At three o'clock in the afternoon, the _Forward_ sighted the Kin of
+Sael, which lay east one quarter northeast, and the Mount Sukkertop,
+southeast one quarter east half-east; the sea was very high; from time
+to time a dense fog descended suddenly from the gray sky.
+Notwithstanding, at noon they were able to take an observation. The
+ship was found to be in latitude 65° 20' and longitude 54° 22'. They
+would have to go two degrees farther north before they would find
+clearer sailing.
+
+During the three following days, the 24th, 25th, and 26th of April,
+they had uninterruptedly to fight with the ice; the management of the
+engines became very tedious; every minute steam was shut off or
+reversed, and escaped from the safety-valve.
+
+In the dense mist their approach to the icebergs could be known only
+by the dull roar of the avalanches; then the vessel would shift its
+course at once; then there was the danger of running into the masses
+of frozen fresh water, which were as clear as crystal and as hard as
+stone. Richard Shandon used to take aboard a quantity of this ice
+every day to supply the ship with fresh water.
+
+The doctor could not accustom himself to the optical illusions
+produced by refraction; indeed, an iceberg ten or twelve miles distant
+used to seem to him to be a small piece of ice close by; he tried to
+get used to this strange phenomenon, in order to be able by and by to
+overcome the mistakes of his eyesight.
+
+At last, both by towing the brig along the fields of ice and by
+pushing off threatening blocks with poles, the crew was thoroughly
+exhausted; and yet, on the 27th of April, the _Forward_ was still
+detained on the impassable Polar Circle.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+THE TALK OF THE CREW.
+
+
+Nevertheless, by taking advantages of such openings as there were, the
+_Forward_ succeeded in getting a few minutes farther north; but,
+instead of escaping the enemy, it would soon be necessary to attack
+it; ice-fields of many miles in extent were drawing together, and as
+these moving masses often represent a pressure of ten millions of
+tons, they were obliged to take every precaution against being crushed
+by them. Ice-saws were placed outside the vessel, where they could be
+used without delay.
+
+Some of the crew endured their hard toil without a murmur, but others
+complained or even refused to obey orders. While they were putting the
+saws in place, Garry, Bolton, Pen, and Gripper exchanged their diverse
+opinions as follows.
+
+"Deuce take it," said Bolton, cheerfully; "I don't know why it just
+occurs to me that in Water Street there's a comfortable tavern, where
+one might be very well off between a glass of gin and a bottle of
+porter. Can you see it from here, Gripper?"
+
+"To tell the truth," answered the sailor who had been addressed, and
+who generally pretended to be very sullen, "I must say I can't see it
+from here."
+
+"That's merely your way of talking, Gripper; it is evident that, in
+those snow towns which Dr. Clawbonny is always admiring, there's no
+tavern where a poor sailor can moisten his throat with a drink or two
+of brandy."
+
+"You may be sure of that, Bolton; and you might add that on board of
+this ship there's no way of getting properly refreshed. A strange
+idea, sending people into the northern seas, and giving them nothing
+to drink!"
+
+"Well," answered Garry, "have you forgotten, Gripper, what the doctor
+said? One must go without spirits if he expects to escape the scurvy,
+remain in good health, and sail far."
+
+"I don't care to sail far, Garry; and I think it's enough to have come
+as far as this, and to try to get through here where the Devil doesn't
+mean to let us through."
+
+"Well, we sha'n't get through," retorted Pen. "O, when I think I have
+already forgotten how gin tastes!"
+
+"But," said Bolton, "remember what the doctor said."
+
+"O," answered Pen, with his rough voice, "that's all very well to say!
+I fancy that they are economizing it under the pretext of saving our
+health."
+
+"Perhaps that devil Pen is right," said Gripper.
+
+"Come, come!" replied Bolton, "his nose is too red for that; and if a
+little abstinence should make it a trifle paler, Pen won't need to be
+pitied."
+
+"Don't trouble yourself about my nose," was the answer, for Pen was
+rather vexed. "My nose doesn't need your advice; it doesn't ask for
+it; you'd better mind your own business."
+
+"Come, don't be angry, Pen; I didn't think your nose was so tender. I
+should be as glad as any one else to have a glass of whiskey,
+especially on such a cold day; but if in the long run it does more
+harm than good, why, I'm very willing to get along without it."
+
+"You may get along without it," said Warren, the stoker, who had
+joined them, "but it's not everybody on board who gets along without
+it."
+
+"What do you mean, Warren?" asked Garry, looking at him intently.
+
+"I mean that for one purpose or another there is liquor aboard, and I
+fancy that aft they don't get on without it."
+
+"What do you know about it?" asked Garry.
+
+Warren could not answer; he spoke for the sake of speaking.
+
+"You see, Garry," continued Bolton, "that Warren knows nothing about
+it."
+
+"Well," said Pen, "we'll ask the commander for a ration of gin; we
+deserve it, and we'll see what he'll say."
+
+"I advise you not to," said Garry.
+
+"Why not?" cried Pen and Gripper.
+
+"Because the commander will refuse it. You knew what the conditions
+were when you shipped; you ought to think of that now."
+
+"Besides," said Bolton, who was not averse to taking Garry's side, for
+he liked him, "Richard Shandon is not master; he's under orders like
+the rest of us."
+
+"Whose orders?" asked Pen.
+
+"The captain's."
+
+"Ah, that ridiculous captain's!" cried Pen. "Don't you know there's no
+more captain than there is tavern on the ice? That's a mean way of
+refusing politely what we ask for."
+
+"But there is a captain," persisted Bolton; "and I'll wager two
+months' pay that we shall see him before long."
+
+"All right!" said Pen; "I should like to give him a piece of my mind."
+
+"Who's talking about the captain?" said a new speaker.
+
+It was Clifton, who was inclined to be superstitious and envious at
+the same time.
+
+"Is there any news about the captain?" he asked.
+
+"No," a single voice answered.
+
+"Well, I expect to find him settled in his cabin some fine morning,
+and without any one's knowing how or whence he came aboard."
+
+"Nonsense!" answered Bolton; "you imagine, Clifton, that he's an imp,
+a hobgoblin such as are seen in the Scotch Highlands."
+
+"Laugh if you want to, Bolton; that won't alter my opinion. Every day
+as I pass the cabin I peep in through the keyhole, and one of these
+days I'll tell you what he looks like, and how he's made."
+
+"O, the devil!" said Pen; "he'll look like everybody else. And if he
+wants to lead us where we don't want to go, we'll let him know what we
+think about it."
+
+"All right," said Bolton; "Pen doesn't know him, and wants to quarrel
+with him already."
+
+"Who doesn't know all about him?" asked Clifton, with the air of a man
+who has the whole story at his tongue's end; "I should like to know
+who doesn't."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Gripper.
+
+"I know very well what I mean."
+
+"But we don't."
+
+"Well, Pen has already had trouble with him."
+
+"With the captain?"
+
+"Yes, the dog-captain; for it's the same thing precisely."
+
+The sailors gazed at one another, incapable of replying.
+
+"Dog or man," muttered Pen, between his teeth, "I'll bet he'll get his
+account settled one of these days."
+
+"Why, Clifton," asked Bolton, seriously, "do you imagine, as Johnson
+said in joke, that that dog is the real captain?"
+
+"Certainly, I do," answered Clifton, with some warmth; "and if you had
+watched him as carefully as I have, you'd have noticed his strange
+ways."
+
+"What ways? Tell us."
+
+"Haven't you noticed the way he walks up and down the poop-deck as if
+he commanded the ship, keeping his eye on the sails as if he were on
+watch?"
+
+"That's so," said Gripper; "and one evening I found him with his paws
+on the wheel."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Impossible!" said Bolton.
+
+"And then," continued Clifton, "doesn't he run out at night on the
+ice-fields without caring for the bears or the cold?"
+
+"That's true," said Bolton.
+
+"Did you ever see him making up to the men like an honest dog, or
+hanging around the kitchen, and following the cook when he's carrying
+a savory dish to the officers? Haven't you all heard him at night,
+when he's run two or three miles away from the vessel, howling so that
+he makes your blood run cold, and that's not easy in weather like
+this? Did you ever seen him eat anything? He never takes a morsel from
+any one; he never touches the food that's given him, and, unless some
+one on board feeds him secretly, I can say he lives without eating.
+Now, if that's not strange, I'm no better than a beast myself."
+
+"Upon my word," answered Bell, the carpenter, who had heard all of
+Clifton's speech, "it may be so."
+
+But all the other sailors were silent.
+
+"Well, as for me," continued Clifton, "I can say that if you don't
+believe, there are wiser people on board who don't seem so sure."
+
+"Do you mean the mate?" asked Bolton.
+
+"Yes, the mate and the doctor."
+
+"Do you think they fancy the same thing?"
+
+"I have heard them talking about it, and they could make no more out
+of it than we can; they imagined a thousand things which did not
+satisfy them in the least."
+
+"Did they say the same things about the dog that you did, Clifton?"
+asked the carpenter.
+
+"If they were not talking about the dog," answered Clifton, who was
+fairly cornered, "they were talking about the captain; it's exactly
+the same thing, and they confessed it was all very strange."
+
+"Well, my friends," said Bell, "do you want to hear my opinion?"
+
+"What is it!" they all cried.
+
+"It is that there is not, and there will not be, any other captain
+than Richard Shandon."
+
+"And the letter?" said Clifton.
+
+"The letter was genuine," answered Bell; "it is perfectly true that
+some unknown person has equipped the _Forward_ for an expedition in
+the ice; but the ship once off, no one will come on board."
+
+"Well," asked Bolton, "where is the ship going to?"
+
+"I don't know; at the right time, Richard Shandon will get the rest of
+the instructions."
+
+"But from whom?"
+
+"From whom?"
+
+"Yes, in what way?" asked Bolton, who was becoming persistent.
+
+"Come, Bell, an answer," said the other sailors.
+
+"From whom? in what way? O, I'm sure I don't know!"
+
+"Well, from the dog!" cried Clifton. "He has already written once, and
+he can again. O, if I only knew half as much as he does, I might be
+First Lord of the Admiralty!"
+
+"So," added Bolton, in conclusion, "you persist in saying that dog is
+the captain?"
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+"Well," said Pen, gruffly, "if that beast doesn't want to die in a
+dog's skin, he'd better hurry and turn into a man; for, on my word,
+I'll finish him."
+
+"Why so?" asked Garry.
+
+"Because I want to," answered Pen, brutally; "and I don't care what
+any one says."
+
+"You have been talking long enough, men," shouted the boatswain,
+advancing at the moment when the conversation threatened to become
+dangerous; "to work, and have the saws put in quicker! We must get
+through the ice."
+
+"Good! on Friday too," answered Clifton, shrugging his shoulders. "You
+won't find it so easy to cross the Polar Circle."
+
+Whatever the reason may have been, the exertions of the crew on that
+day were nearly fruitless. The _Forward_, plunging, under a full head
+of steam, against the floes, could not separate them; they were
+obliged to lie at anchor that night.
+
+On Saturday, the temperature fell still lower under the influence of
+an east-wind; the sky cleared up, and they all had a wide view over
+the white expense, which shone brilliantly beneath the bright rays of
+the sun. At seven o'clock in the morning, the thermometer stood at 8°
+above zero.
+
+The doctor was tempted to remain quietly in his cabin, or read over
+the accounts of arctic journeys; but he asked himself, following his
+usual habit, what would be the most disagreeable thing he could do at
+that moment. He thought that to go on deck on such a cold day and help
+the men would not be attractive. So, faithful to his line of conduct,
+he left his well-warmed cabin, and went out to help tow the ship. He
+looked strange with his green glasses, which he wore to protect his
+eyes against the brilliancy of the sun, and after that he always took
+good care to wear snow-spectacles as a security against the
+inflammation of the eyes, which is so common in these latitudes.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+By evening the _Forward_ had got several miles farther north, thanks
+to the energy of the men and the intelligence of Shandon, who was
+quick at utilizing every favorable circumstance; at midnight they
+crossed the sixty-sixth parallel, and the lead announcing a depth of
+twenty-three fathoms, Shandon knew that he was in the neighborhood of
+the shoal on which her Majesty's ship _Victory_ grounded. Land lay
+thirty miles to the east.
+
+But then the mass of ice, which had hitherto been stationary,
+separated, and began to move; icebergs seemed to rise in all points of
+the horizon; the brig was caught in a number of whirlpools of
+irresistible force; controlling her became so hard, that Garry, the
+best steersman, took the helm; the masses began to close behind the
+brig, hence it was necessary to cut through the ice; both prudence and
+duty commanded them to go forward. The difficulties were enhanced by
+the impossibility of Shandon's fixing the direction of the brig among
+all the changing points, which were continually shifting and
+presenting no definite point to be aimed at.
+
+The crew were divided into two forces, and one stationed on the
+starboard, the other on the larboard side; every man was given a long
+iron-headed pole, with which to ward off threatening pieces of ice.
+Soon the _Forward_ entered such a narrow passage between two lofty
+pieces, that the ends of the yards touched its solid walls; gradually
+it penetrated farther into a winding valley filled with a whirlwind of
+snow, while the floating ice was crashing ominously all about.
+
+But soon it was evident that there was no outlet to this gorge; a huge
+block, caught in the channel, was floating swiftly down to the
+_Forward_; it seemed impossible to escape it, and equally impossible
+to return through an already closed path.
+
+Shandon and Johnson, standing on the forward deck, were viewing their
+position. Shandon with his right hand signalled to the man at the
+wheel what direction he was to take, and with his left hand he
+indicated to James Wall the orders for the engines.
+
+"What will be the end of this?" asked the doctor of Johnson.
+
+"What pleases God," answered the boatswain.
+
+The block of ice, eight hundred feet high, was hardly more than a
+cable's length from the _Forward_, and threatened to crush it.
+
+Pen broke out with a fearful oath.
+
+"Silence!" cried a voice which it was impossible to recognize in the
+roar of the hurricane.
+
+The mass appeared to be falling upon the brig, and there was an
+indefinable moment of terror; the men, dropping their poles, ran aft
+in spite of Shandon's orders.
+
+Suddenly, a terrible noise was heard; a real water-spout fell on the
+deck of the brig, which was lifted in the air by a huge wave. The crew
+uttered a cry of terror, while Garry, still firm at the wheel, kept
+the course of the _Forward_ steady, in spite of the fearful lurch.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And when they looked for the mountain of ice, it had disappeared; the
+passage was free, and beyond, a long channel, lit up by the sun,
+allowed the brig to continue her advance.
+
+"Well, Dr. Clawbonny," said Johnson, "can you explain that?"
+
+"It's very simple, my friend," answered the doctor. "It happens very
+often; when these floating masses get detached in a thaw, they float
+away in perfect equilibrium; but as they get towards the south, where
+the water is relatively warmer, their base, eaten away by running into
+other pieces, begins to melt, and be undermined; then comes a moment
+when the centre of gravity is displaced, and they turn upside down.
+Only, if this had happened two minutes later, it would have fallen on
+the brig and crushed us beneath it."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+ANOTHER LETTER.
+
+
+The Polar Circle was crossed at last; on the 30th of April, at midday,
+the _Forward_ passed by Holsteinborg; picturesque mountains arose in
+the east. The sea appeared almost free of ice, or, more exactly, the
+ice could be avoided. The wind was from the southeast, and the brig,
+under foresail, staysail, and topsails, sailed up Baffin's Bay.
+
+That day was exceptionally calm and the crew was able to get some
+rest; numerous birds were swimming and flying about the ship; among
+others, the doctor noticed some wild birds which were very like teal,
+with black neck, wings, and back, and a white breast; they were
+continually diving, and often remained more than forty seconds under
+water.
+
+This day would not have been marked by any new incident, if the
+following extraordinary fact had not taken place.
+
+At six o'clock in the morning, on returning to his cabin after his
+watch was over, Richard Shandon found on his table a letter, addressed
+as follows:--
+
+_To_ COMMANDER RICHARD SHANDON,
+On board the _Forward_,
+BAFFIN'S BAY.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Shandon could not believe his eyes; but before reading it, he summoned
+the doctor, James Wall, and the boatswain, and showed them the letter.
+
+"It's getting interesting," said Johnson.
+
+"It's delightful," thought the doctor.
+
+"Well," cried Shandon, "at last we shall know his secret."
+
+He tore open the envelope rapidly, and read the following:--
+
+
+COMMANDER: The captain of the _Forward_ is satisfied with the
+coolness, skill, and courage which the crew, officers, and you,
+yourself, have shown of late; he begs of you to express his thanks to
+the crew.
+
+Be good enough to sail due north towards Melville Bay, and thence try
+to penetrate into Smith's Sound.
+
+K. Z.,
+_Captain of the Forward_.
+
+Monday, April 30, OFF CAPE WALSINGHAM.
+
+
+"And is that all?" cried the doctor.
+
+"That's all," answered Shandon.
+
+The letter fell from his hands.
+
+"Well," said Wall, "this imaginary captain says nothing about coming
+on board. I don't believe he ever will."
+
+"But how did this letter get here?" asked Johnson.
+
+Shandon was silent.
+
+"Mr. Wall is right," answered the doctor, who had picked up the
+letter, and who was turning it over with hands as well as in his mind.
+"The captain won't come on board, and for an excellent reason."
+
+"What is it?" asked Shandon, quickly.
+
+"Because he's on board now," answered the doctor, simply.
+
+"Now!" exclaimed Shandon, "what do you mean?"
+
+"How else can you explain the arrival of this letter?"
+
+Johnson nodded approvingly.
+
+"Impossible!" said Shandon, warmly. "I know all the men in the crew;
+can he have smuggled himself into their number since we left? It's
+impossible, I tell you. For more than two years I've seen every one of
+them more than a hundred times in Liverpool; so your conjecture,
+Doctor, is untenable."
+
+"Well, what do you admit, Shandon?"
+
+"Everything, except that. I admit that the captain or some tool of
+his, for all I know, may have taken advantage of the darkness, the
+mist, or whatever you please, to slip on board; we are not far from
+shore; there are the kayaks of the Esquimaux which could get through
+the ice without our seeing them; so some one may have come on board
+the ship, left the letter,--the fog was thick enough to make this
+possible."
+
+"And to prevent them from seeing the brig," answered the doctor; "if
+we didn't see the intruder slip aboard the _Forward_, how could he see
+the _Forward_ in the fog?"
+
+"That's true," said Johnson.
+
+"So I return to my explanation," said the doctor; "what do you think
+of it, Shandon?"
+
+"Whatever you please," answered Shandon, hotly, "except that the man
+is on board."
+
+"Perhaps," added Wall, "there is some man in the crew who is acting
+under his instructions."
+
+"Perhaps," said the doctor.
+
+"But who can it be?" asked Shandon. "I've known all my men for a long
+time."
+
+"At any rate," resumed Johnson, "if this captain presents himself,
+whether as man or devil, we shall receive him; but there's something
+else to be drawn from this letter."
+
+"What is that?" asked Shandon.
+
+"It is that we must go not only into Melville Bay, but also into
+Smith's Sound."
+
+"You are right," said the doctor.
+
+"Smith's Sound," repeated Shandon, mechanically.
+
+"So it's very plain," continued Johnson, "that the _Forward_ is not
+intended to seek the Northwest Passage, since we leave to the left,
+the only way towards it, that is to say, Lancaster Sound. This would
+seem to promise a difficult journey in unknown seas."
+
+"Yes, Smith's Sound," replied Shandon; "that's the route Kane, the
+American, took in 1853, and it was full of dangers. For a long time he
+was given up for lost. Well, if we must go, we'll go. But how far? To
+the Pole?"
+
+"And why not?" cried the doctor.
+
+The mention of such a foolhardy attempt made the boatswain shrug his
+shoulders.
+
+"Well," said James Wall, "to come back to the captain, if he exists. I
+don't see that there are any places on the coast of Greenland except
+Disco and Upernavik, where he can be waiting for us; in a few days
+that question will be settled."
+
+"But," asked the doctor of Shandon, "are you not going to tell the
+crew about this letter?"
+
+"With the commander's permission," answered Johnson, "I should not do
+so."
+
+"And why not?" asked Shandon.
+
+"Because everything mysterious and extraordinary tends to discourage
+the men; they are already very much troubled, as it is, about the
+nature of the journey. Now, if any supernatural circumstances should
+become known, it might be harmful, and perhaps at a critical moment we
+should not be able to count on them. What do you think, Commander?"
+
+"And what do you think, Doctor?" asked Shandon.
+
+"Boatswain Johnson seems to me to reason well," answered the doctor.
+
+"And you, James?"
+
+"Having no better opinion, I agree with these gentlemen."
+
+Shandon reflected for a few minutes; he reread the letter attentively.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, "your opinion is certainly worthy of respect,
+but I cannot adopt it."
+
+"Why not, Shandon?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Because the instructions in this letter are formal; it tells me to
+give the captain's thanks to the crew; now, hitherto I have strictly
+obeyed his orders, in whatever way they have been given to me, and I
+cannot--"
+
+"Still--" interposed Johnson, who had a warrantable dread of the
+effect of such communications on the men's spirits.
+
+"My dear Johnson," said Shandon, "I understand your objection; your
+reasons are very good, but read that:--
+
+"He begs of you to express his thanks to the crew."
+
+"Do as he bids," replied Johnson, who was always a strict
+disciplinarian. "Shall I assemble the crew on deck?"
+
+"Yes," answered Shandon.
+
+The news of a message from the captain was immediately whispered
+throughout the ship. The sailors took their station without delay, and
+the commander read aloud the mysterious letter.
+
+It was received with dead silence; the crew separated under the
+influence of a thousand suppositions; Clifton had plenty of material
+for any superstitious vagaries; a great deal was ascribed by him to
+the dog-captain, and he never failed to salute him every time he met
+him.
+
+"Didn't I tell you," he used to say to the sailors, "that he knew how
+to write?"
+
+No one made any answer, and even Bell, the carpenter, would have found
+it hard to reply.
+
+Nevertheless, it was plain to every one, that if the captain was not
+on board, his shade or spirit was watching them; henceforth, the
+wisest kept their opinions to themselves.
+
+At midday of May 1st, their observation showed them that they were in
+latitude 68° and longitude 56° 32'. The temperature had risen, the
+thermometer standing at 25° above zero.
+
+The doctor amused himself with watching the gambols of a she-bear and
+two cubs on some pack-ice near the shore. Accompanied by Wall and
+Simpson, he tried to chase them in a canoe; but she was in a very
+peaceful mood, and ran away with her young, so that the doctor had to
+give up his attempt.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+During the night a favorable breeze carried them well to the north,
+and soon the lofty mountains of Disco were peering above the horizon;
+Godharn Bay, where the governor of the Danish settlements lived, was
+left on the right. Shandon did not consider it necessary to land, and
+he soon passed by the canoes of the Esquimaux, who had put out to meet
+him.
+
+The island of Disco is also called Whale Island; it is from here that,
+on the 12th of July, 1845, Sir John Franklin wrote to the Admiralty
+for the last time, and it was also here that Captain MacClintock
+stopped on his way back, bringing too sure proofs of the loss of that
+expedition.
+
+This coincidence was not unknown to the doctor; the place was one of
+sad memories, but soon the heights of Disco were lost to view.
+
+There were many icebergs on its shores, which no thaws ever melt away;
+this gives the island a singular appearance from the sea.
+
+The next day, at about three o'clock, Sanderson's Hope appeared in the
+northeast; land lay about fifteen miles to starboard; the mountains
+appeared of a dusky red hue. During the evening many fin-backs were
+seen playing in the ice, and occasionally blowing.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was in the night of May 3d, that the doctor for the first time saw
+the sun touch the horizon without setting; since January 31st its
+orbit had been getting longer every day, and now there was unbroken
+daylight.
+
+For those who were unaccustomed to it, this continuance of the day is
+a cause of perpetual surprise, and even of weariness; it is difficult
+to believe how necessary the darkness of the night is for the eyes;
+the doctor actually suffered from the continual brilliancy, which was
+increased by the reflection from the ice.
+
+May 5th the _Forward_ passed the sixty-second parallel. Two months
+later they would have met numerous whalers in these latitudes; but the
+straits were not yet free enough to allow easy ingress into Baffin's
+Bay.
+
+The next day, the brig, after passing Woman's Island, came in sight of
+Upernavik, the northernmost station of Denmark in these lands.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+DANGEROUS SAILING.
+
+
+Shandon, Dr. Clawbonny, Johnson, Foker, and Strong, the cook, got into
+one of the boats and made their way to shore.
+
+The Governor, his wife and five children, all Esquimaux, received
+their visitors kindly. The doctor, who was the philologist of the
+party, knew enough Danish to establish friendly relations; moreover,
+Foker, the interpreter of the party as well as ice-master, knew a
+dozen or two words of the language of the Greenlanders, and with that
+number of words one can express a great deal, if he is not too
+ambitious.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The Governor was born on the island of Disco, and he has never left
+the place; he did the honors of his capital, which consisted of three
+wooden houses, for himself and the Lutheran minister, of a school, and
+shops which were supplied by what was cast upon the shore from wrecked
+ships. The rest of the town consisted of snow huts, into which the
+Esquimaux crawl through a single opening.
+
+A great part of the population came out to meet the _Forward_, and
+more than one of them went as far as the middle of the bay in his
+kayak, fifteen feet long and two broad at the widest part.
+
+The doctor knew that the word Esquimaux meant "eater of raw fish"; but
+he knew too that this name is considered an insult in this country, so
+he forbore giving it to the inhabitants of Greenland.
+
+And yet, from the oily sealskin clothes and boots, from their squat,
+fat figures, which make it hard to distinguish the men from the women,
+it was easy to declare the nature of their food; besides, like all
+fish-eating people, they were somewhat troubled by leprosy, but their
+general health was not impaired by it.
+
+The Lutheran minister and his wife, with whom the doctor had promised
+himself an interesting talk, happened to be away on the shore of
+Proven, south of Upernavik; hence he was compelled to seek the company
+of the Governor. The chief magistrate did not appear to be very well
+informed: a little less, he would have been a fool; a little more, and
+he would have known how to read.
+
+In spite of that, the doctor questioned him about the commerce,
+habits, and manners of the Esquimaux; and he learned, by means of
+gestures, that the seals were worth about forty pounds when delivered
+at Copenhagen; a bear-skin brought forty Danish dollars, the skin of a
+blue fox four, and of a white fox two or three dollars.
+
+In order to make his knowledge complete, the doctor wanted to visit an
+Esquimaux hut; a man who seeks information is capable of enduring
+anything; fortunately the opening of these huts was too small, and the
+enthusiastic doctor could not get through. It was fortunate for him,
+for there is nothing more repulsive than the sight of that crowd of
+living and dead objects, of seal's bodies and Esquimaux-flesh, decayed
+fish and unclean clothing, which fill a Greenland hut; there is no
+window to renew that suffocating air; there is only a hole at the top
+of the cabin which lets the smoke out, but gives no relief to the
+stench.
+
+[Illustration: "Fortunately the opening of these huts was too small,
+and the enthusiastic doctor could not get through."]
+
+Foker gave all these details to the doctor, but he none the less
+bewailed his portliness. He wanted to judge for himself these
+emanations _sui generis_.
+
+"I am sure," said he, "that one could get used to it in time." _In
+time_ shows clearly the doctor's character.
+
+During these ethnographic studies on his part, Shandon was busying
+himself, according to his instructions, with procuring means of travel
+on the ice; he was obliged to pay four pounds for a sledge and six
+dogs, and the natives were reluctant to sell even at this price.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Shandon would have liked to engage Hans Christian, the skilful driver
+of the dogs, who accompanied Captain MacClintock, but Hans was then in
+Southern Greenland.
+
+Then came up the great question of the day; was there at Upernavik a
+European awaiting the arrival of the _Forward_? Did the Governor know
+of any stranger, probably an Englishman, who had come into these
+latitudes? How recently had they seen any whalers or other ships?
+
+To these questions the Governor answered that no stranger had landed
+on that part of the coast for more than ten months.
+
+Shandon asked the names of the whalers which had last arrived; he
+recognized none. He was in despair.
+
+"You must confess, Doctor, that it passes all comprehension," he said
+to his companion. "Nothing at Cape Farewell! nothing at Disco! nothing
+at Upernavik!"
+
+"Tell me in a few days from now, nothing at Melville Bay, my dear
+Shandon, and I will salute you as sole captain of the _Forward_."
+
+The boat returned to the brig towards evening, bringing back the
+visitors to the shore; Strong had bought several dozen eider-duck's
+eggs, which were twice as large as hen's eggs, and of a greenish
+color. It was not much, but it was very refreshing for a crew
+accustomed to little but salt meat.
+
+The next day the wind was fair, but yet Shandon did not set sail; he
+wanted to wait another day, and, to satisfy his conscience, to give
+time for any member of the human race to rejoin the _Forward_; he even
+fired off, every hour, the ship's gun, which re-echoed among the
+icebergs; but he only succeeded in frightening the flocks of
+molly-mokes[1] and rotches.[1] During the night many rockets were set
+off; but in vain. He had to give the order to set sail.
+
+[Footnote 1: Sea-birds common in these latitudes.]
+
+The 8th of May, at six o'clock in the morning, the _Forward_, under
+her topsails, foresail, and main-top-gallant-sail, soon lost sight of
+the station of Upernavik, and hideous long poles on which were hanging
+along the shore the seals' entrails and deers' stomachs.
+
+The wind was southeast, the thermometer stood at 32°. The sun pierced
+through the fog and the ice melted a little.
+
+The reflection, however, injured the sight of many of the crew.
+Wolston, the armorer, Gripper, Clifton, and Bell were attacked by
+snow-blindness, which is very common in the spring, and which totally
+blinds many of the Esquimaux. The doctor advised all, the unharmed as
+well as the suffering, to cover their faces with a green veil, and he
+was the first to follow his own recommendation.
+
+The dogs bought by Shandon at Upernavik were rather wild; but they
+soon got used to their new quarters, and Captain showed no dislike of
+his new companions; he seemed to know their ways. Clifton was not the
+last to remark that Captain seemed to be familiar with the dogs of
+Greenland. And they, always half starved on shore, only thought of
+making up for it when at sea.
+
+The 9th of May the _Forward_ passed within a few cable-lengths of the
+westernmost of the Baffin Islands. The doctor noticed many rocks
+between the islands and the mainland which were what are called
+crimson cliffs; they were covered with snow as red as carmine, which
+Dr. Kane says is of purely vegetable origin; Clawbonny wanted to
+examine this singular phenomenon, but the ice forbade their
+approaching them; although the temperature was rising, it was easy to
+see that the icebergs and ice-streams were accumulating toward the
+north of Baffin's Bay.
+
+After leaving Upernavik the land presented a different appearance, and
+huge glaciers were sharply defined against the gray horizon. On the
+10th the _Forward_ left on its right Kingston Bay, near the
+seventy-fourth degree of latitude; Lancaster Sound opened into the sea
+many hundred miles to the west.
+
+But then this vast expanse of water was hidden beneath enormous fields
+of ice, in which arose the hummocks, uniform as a homogeneous
+crystallization. Shandon had the furnace-fires lighted, and until the
+11th of May the _Forward_ advanced by a tortuous course, tracing with
+her smoke against the sky the path she was following through the
+water.
+
+But new obstacles soon presented themselves; the passages were closing
+in consequence of the incessant crowding of the floating masses; every
+moment threatened to close up the clear water before the _Forward_,
+and if she were nipped, it would be hard to get her out. Every one
+knew it and was thinking about it.
+
+Hence, on board of this ship without any definite aim, any known
+destination, which was blindly pushing on northward, some symptoms of
+hesitation began to appear; among these men accustomed to dangers,
+many, forgetting the advantages which were promised them, regretted
+having ventured so far. A certain demoralization became common, which
+was further increased by the fears of Clifton and the talk of two or
+three ringleaders, such as Pen, Gripper, Warren, and Wolston.
+
+Exhausting fatigue was added to the moral disquiet of the crew, for,
+on the 12th of May, the brig was caught fast; the steam was of no
+avail. A path had to be cut through the ice. It was no easy task to
+manage the saws in the floes which were six or seven feet thick; when
+two parallel grooves had divided the ice for a hundred feet, it was
+necessary to break the part that lay between with axes and bars; next
+they had to fasten anchors in a hole made by a huge auger; then the
+crew would turn the capstan and haul the ship along by the force of
+their arms; the greatest difficulty consisted in driving the detached
+pieces beneath the floes, so as to give space for the vessel, and they
+had to be pushed under by means of long iron-headed poles.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Moreover, this continued toil with saws, capstan, and poles, all of
+which was persistent, compulsory, and dangerous, amid the dense fog or
+snow, while the air was so cold, and their eyes so exposed, their
+doubt so great, did much to weaken the crew of the _Forward_ and to
+act on their imagination.
+
+When sailors have to deal with a man who is energetic, bold, and
+determined, who knows what he wants, whither he is going, what aim he
+has in view, confidence animates them all in spite of themselves; they
+are firmly united to their leader, strong with his force and calm with
+his calmness. But on board of the brig they were aware of the
+commander's uncertainty, they knew that he hesitated before the
+unknown aim and destination. In spite of the energy of his character,
+his uncertainty was clearly to be seen by his uncertain orders,
+incomplete manoeuvres, his sudden outbursts, and a thousand petty
+details which could not escape the sharp eyes of the crew.
+
+And then, Shandon was not the captain of the ship, the master under
+God, which was enough to encourage the discussion of his orders; and
+from discussion to disobedience is but a short step.
+
+The malcontents soon brought over to their number the first engineer,
+who, hitherto, had been a slave to his duty.
+
+The 16th of May, six days after the _Forward_ had reached the ice,
+Shandon had not made two miles to northward. They were threatened with
+being detained in the ice until the next season. Matters had a serious
+look.
+
+Towards eight o'clock of the evening, Shandon and the doctor,
+accompanied by Garry, went out to reconnoitre the vast plains; they
+took care not to go too far from the ship, for it was hard to find any
+fixed points in this white solitude, which was ever changing in
+appearance. Refraction kept producing strange effects, much to the
+doctor's astonishment; at one place, where he thought he had but an
+easy jump before him, he had to leap some five or six feet; or else
+the contrary happened, and in either case the result was a tumble,
+which if not dangerous was at any rate painful, for the ice was as
+hard and slippery as glass.
+
+Shandon and his two companions went out to seek a possible passage;
+three miles from the ship, they succeeded with some difficulty in
+ascending an iceberg about three hundred feet high. From that point
+nothing met their eyes but a confused mass, like the ruins of a vast
+city, with shattered monuments, overthrown towers, and prostrate
+palaces,--a real chaos. The sun was just peering above the jagged
+horizon, and sent forth long, oblique rays of light, but not of heat,
+as if something impassable for heat lay between it and this wild
+country.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The sea appeared perfectly covered as far as eye could reach.
+
+"How shall we get through?" asked the doctor.
+
+"I don't know," answered Shandon; "but we shall get through, if we
+have to blow our way through with powder. I certainly sha'n't stay in
+the ice till next spring."
+
+"But that happened to the _Fox_, and not far from here. Bah!" said the
+doctor; "we shall get through with a little philosophy. You will see
+that is worth all the machinery in the world."
+
+"I must say," answered Shandon, "this year does not begin very well."
+
+"True, Shandon, and I notice also that Baffin's Bay seems to be
+returning to the state it was in before 1817."
+
+"Don't you think, Doctor, it has always been as it is now?"
+
+"No, my dear Shandon, from time to time there have been great
+breakings of the ice which no one can explain; so, up to 1817 this sea
+was continually full, when an enormous sort of inundation took place,
+which cast the icebergs into the ocean, most of which reached the
+banks of Newfoundland. From that day Baffin's Bay was nearly free, and
+was visited by whalers."
+
+"So," asked Shandon, "from that time voyages to the North became
+easier?"
+
+"Incomparably; but for some years it has been noticed that the bay
+seems to be resuming its old ways and threatens to become closed,
+possibly for a long time, to sailors. An additional reason, by the
+way, for pushing on as far as possible. And yet it must be said, we
+look like people who are pushing on in unknown ways, with the doors
+forever closing behind us."
+
+"Would you advise me to go back?" asked Shandon, trying to read into
+the depths of the doctor's eyes.
+
+"I! I have never retreated yet, and, even if we should never get back,
+I say go on. Still, I want to make it clear that if we act
+imprudently, we do it with our eyes open."
+
+"And you, Garry, what do you think about it?" asked Shandon of the
+sailor.
+
+"I, Commander, should go straight on; I agree with Dr. Clawbonny; but
+do as you please; command, we shall obey."
+
+"They don't all talk as you do, Garry," resumed Shandon; "they are not
+all ready to obey. And if they refuse to obey my orders?"
+
+"I have given you my opinion, Commander," answered Garry, coldly,
+"because you asked for it; but you are not obliged to follow it."
+
+Shandon did not answer; he scanned the horizon closely, and then
+descended with his companions to the ice-fields.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+THE DEVIL'S THUMB.
+
+
+During the commander's absence the men had been variously busied in
+attempts to relieve the ship from the pressure of the ice. Pen,
+Clifton, Bolton, Gripper, and Simpson had this in charge; the fireman
+and the two engineers came to the aid of their comrades, for, as soon
+as the engines did not require their attention, they became sailors,
+and as such could be employed in all that was going on aboard the
+ship.
+
+But there was a great deal of discontent among them.
+
+"I declare I've had enough," said Pen; "and if we are not free in
+three days, I swear I sha'n't stir a finger to get the ship out."
+
+"Not stir a finger!" answered Plover; "you'd better use them in
+getting back. Do you think we want to stay here till next year?"
+
+"It certainly would be a hard winter," said Pen, "for we are exposed
+on all sides."
+
+"And who knows," said Brunton, "whether next spring the sea will be
+any freer than it is now?"
+
+"Never mind about next spring," answered Pen; "to-day is Thursday; if
+the way is not clear Sunday morning, we shall turn back to the south."
+
+"Good!" cried Clifton.
+
+"Don't you agree with me?" asked Pen.
+
+"We do," cried his companions.
+
+"That's so," said Warren; "for if we have to work in this way and haul
+the ship along with our own arms, I think it would be as well to haul
+her backwards."
+
+"We shall do that on Sunday," said Wolston.
+
+"Only give me the order," resumed Brunton, "and my fires shall be
+lighted."
+
+"Well," remarked Clifton, "we shall light them ourselves."
+
+"If any officer," said Pen, "is anxious to spend the winter here, he
+can; we can leave him here contentedly; he'll find it easy to build a
+hut like the Esquimaux."
+
+"Not at all, Pen," retorted Brunton, quickly; "we sha'n't abandon any
+one here; do you understand that, all of you? I think it won't be hard
+to persuade the commander; he seems to me to be very much discouraged,
+and if we propose it to him gently--"
+
+"But," interrupted Plover, "Richard Shandon is often very obstinate;
+we shall have to sound him cautiously."
+
+"When I think," said Bolton, with a sigh of longing, "that in a month
+we might be back in Liverpool! We can easily pass the line of ice at
+the south! Davis Strait will be open by the beginning of June, and
+then we shall have nothing but the free Atlantic before us."
+
+"Besides," said the cautious Clifton, "if we take the commander back
+with us, and act under his commands, we shall have earned our pay; but
+if we go back without him, it's not so sure."
+
+"True," said Plover; "Clifton talks sense. Let's try not to get into
+any trouble with the Admiralty, that's safer, and don't let us leave
+any one behind."
+
+"But if they refuse to come with us?" continued Pen, who wished to
+compel his companions to stand by him.
+
+They found it hard to answer the question thus squarely put them.
+
+"We shall see about that when the time comes," replied Bolton; "it
+will be enough to bring Richard Shandon over to our side, and I fancy
+that won't be hard."
+
+"There's one I shall leave here," exclaimed Pen with fierce oaths,
+"even if he should bite my arm off."
+
+"O, the dog!" said Plover.
+
+"Yes, that dog! I shall soon settle accounts with him."
+
+"So much the better," retorted Clifton, returning to his favorite
+theory; "he is the cause of all our troubles."
+
+"He has thrown an evil spell upon us," said Plover.
+
+"He led us into the ice," remarked Gripper.
+
+"He brought more ice in our way," said Wolston, "than was ever seen at
+this season."
+
+"He made my eyes sore," said Brunton.
+
+"He shut off the gin and brandy," cried Pen.
+
+"He's the cause of everything," they all exclaimed excitedly.
+
+"And then," added Clifton, "he's the captain."
+
+"Well, you unlucky Captain," cried Pen, whose unreasonable fury grew
+with the sound of his own words, "you wanted to come here, and here
+you shall stay!"
+
+"But how shall we get hold of him?" said Plover.
+
+"Well, now is a good time," answered Clifton. "The commander is away;
+the second mate is asleep in his cabin; the fog is so thick that
+Johnson can't see us--"
+
+"But the dog?" said Pen.
+
+"He's asleep in the coal," answered Clifton, "and if any one wants--"
+
+"I'll see to it," replied Pen, angrily.
+
+"Take care, Pen; his teeth would go through a bar of iron."
+
+"If he stirs, I'll rip him open," answered Pen, drawing his knife.
+
+And he ran down between decks, followed by Warren, who was anxious to
+help him.
+
+Soon they both returned, carrying the dog in their arms; his mouth and
+paws were securely tied; they had caught him asleep, and the poor dog
+could not escape them.
+
+"Hurrah for Pen!" cried Plover.
+
+"And what are you going to do with him now?" asked Clifton.
+
+"Drown him, and if he ever comes back--" answered Pen with a smile of
+satisfaction.
+
+Two hundred feet from the vessel there was a hole in the ice, a sort
+of circular crevasse, made by the seals with their teeth, and always
+dug out from the inside to the outside; it was there that the seals
+used to come to breathe on the surface of the ice; but they were
+compelled to take care to prevent the aperture from closing, for the
+shape of their jaws did not permit them to make the hole from the
+outside, and in any danger they would not be able to escape from their
+enemies.
+
+Pen and Warren hastened to this crevasse, and then, in spite of his
+obstinate struggles, the dog was pitilessly cast into the sea; a huge
+cake of ice they then rolled over the aperture, closing all means of
+escape for the poor dog, thus locked in a watery prison.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"A pleasant journey, Captain!" cried the brutal sailor.
+
+Soon they returned on board; Johnson had seen nothing of it all; the
+fog was growing thick about the ship, and the snow was beginning to
+fall with violence.
+
+An hour later, Richard Shandon, the doctor, and Garry regained the
+_Forward_.
+
+Shandon had observed in the northeast a passage, which he determined
+to try. He gave his orders to that effect; the crew obeyed with a
+certain activity; they wanted to convince Shandon of the impossibility
+of a farther advance, and besides, they had before them three days of
+obedience.
+
+During a part of the following night and day the sawing and towing
+went on busily; the _Forward_ made about two miles of progress. On the
+18th they were in sight of land, five or six cable-lengths from a
+strange peak, to which its singular shape had given the name of the
+Devil's Thumb.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+At this very place the _Prince Albert_, in 1851, the _Advance_, with
+Kane, in 1853, had been caught in the ice for many weeks.
+
+The odd shape of the Devil's Thumb, the barren and desolate
+surroundings, which consisted of huge icebergs often more than three
+hundred feet high, the cracking of the ice, repeated indefinitely by
+the echo, made the position of the _Forward_ a very gloomy one.
+Shandon saw that it was necessary to get away from there; within
+twenty-four hours, he calculated he would be able to get two miles
+from the spot. But that was not enough. Shandon felt himself
+embarrassed by fear, and the false position in which he was placed
+benumbed his energy; to obey his instructions in order to advance, he
+had brought his ship into a dangerous position; the towing wore out
+his men; more than three hours were necessary to cut a canal twenty
+feet in length through ice which was generally four or five feet
+thick; the health of the crew gave signs of failing. Shandon was
+astonished at the silence of the men, and their unaccustomed
+obedience; but he feared it was only the calm that foreboded a storm.
+
+We can, then, easily judge of the painful surprise, disappointment,
+and even despair which seized upon him, when he noticed that by means
+of an imperceptible movement in the ice, the _Forward_ lost in the
+night of the 18th all that had been gained by such toilsome efforts;
+on Saturday morning he was opposite the Devil's Thumb, in a still more
+critical position; the icebergs increased in number and passed by in
+the mist like phantoms.
+
+Shandon was thoroughly demoralized; it must be said that fear seized
+both this bold man and all his crew. Shandon had heard of the
+disappearance of the dog; but he did not dare to punish the guilty
+persons; he feared exciting a mutiny.
+
+The weather during that day was horrible; the snow, caught up in dense
+whirls, covered the brig with an impenetrable veil; at times, under
+the influence of the hurricane, the fog would rise, and their
+terror-stricken eyes beheld the Devil's Thumb rising on the shore like
+a spectre.
+
+The _Forward_ was anchored to a large piece of ice; there was nothing
+to be done, nothing to be tried; darkness was spreading about them,
+and the man at the helm could not see James Wall, who was on watch
+forward.
+
+Shandon withdrew to his cabin, a prey to perpetual disquiet; the
+doctor was arranging his notes of the expedition; some of the crew
+were on the deck, others in the common room.
+
+At a moment when the violence of the storm was redoubling, the Devil's
+Thumb seemed to rise immoderately from the mist.
+
+"Great God!" exclaimed Simpson, recoiling with terror.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Foker.
+
+Soon shouts were heard on all sides.
+
+"It's going to crush us!"
+
+"We are lost!"
+
+"Mr. Wall, Mr. Wall!"
+
+"It's all over!"
+
+"Commander, Commander!"
+
+All these cries were uttered by the men on watch.
+
+Wall hastened to the after-deck; Shandon, followed by the doctor, flew
+to the deck and looked out.
+
+Through a rift in the mist, the Devil's Thumb appeared to have
+suddenly come near the brig; it seemed to have grown enormously in
+size; on its summit was balanced a second cone, upside down, and
+revolving on its point; it threatened to crush the ship with its
+enormous mass; it wavered, ready to fall down. It was an alarming
+sight. Every one drew back instinctively, and many of the men, jumping
+upon the ice, abandoned the ship.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Let no one move!" cried the commander with a loud voice; "every one
+to his place!"
+
+"My friends, don't be frightened," said the doctor, "there is no
+danger! See, Commander, see, Mr. Wall, that's the mirage and nothing
+else."
+
+"You are right, Dr. Clawbonny," replied Johnson; "they've all been
+frightened by a shadow."
+
+When they had heard what the doctor said, most of the sailors drew
+near him, and from terror they turned to admiration of this wonderful
+phenomenon, which soon passed from their view.
+
+"They call that a mirage," said Clifton; "the Devil's at the bottom of
+it, I'm sure."
+
+"That's true," growled Gripper.
+
+But the break in the fog had given the commander a glimpse of a broad
+passage which he had not expected to find; it promised to lead him
+away from the shore; he resolved to make use of it at once; men were
+sent out on each side of the canal; hawsers were given them, and they
+began to tow the ship northward.
+
+During long hours this work was prosecuted busily but silently;
+Shandon had the furnace-fires lighted to help him through this passage
+so providentially discovered.
+
+"That's great luck," he said to Johnson, "and if we can only get on a
+few miles, we may be free. Make a hot fire, Mr. Brunton, and let me
+know as soon as you get steam on. Meanwhile, men, the farther on we
+get, the more gained! You want to get away from the Devil's Thumb;
+well, now is your chance!"
+
+Suddenly the brig stopped. "What's the matter?" shouted Shandon.
+"Wall, have the tow-ropes broken?"
+
+"No," answered Wall, leaning over the railing. "See, there are the men
+running back; they are climbing on board; they seem very much
+frightened."
+
+"What's happened?" cried Shandon, running forward.
+
+"On board, on board!" cried the sailors, evidently exceedingly
+terrified.
+
+Shandon looked towards the north, and shuddered in spite of himself.
+
+A strange animal, with alarming motions, whose steaming tongue hung
+from huge jaws, was bounding along within a cable's length from the
+ship; it seemed more than twenty feet high; its hair stood on end; it
+was chasing the sailors as if about to seize them, while its tail,
+which was at least ten feet long, lashed the snow and tossed it about
+in dense gusts. The sight of the monster froze the blood in the veins
+of the boldest.
+
+[Illustration: "A strange animal was bounding along within a cable's
+length from the ship."]
+
+"It's an enormous bear," said one.
+
+"It's the beast of Gévaudan!"
+
+"It's the lion of the Apocalypse!"
+
+Shandon ran to his cabin to get a gun which he kept always loaded; the
+doctor seized his arms, and made ready to fire at the beast, which by
+its size, recalled antediluvian monsters.
+
+It drew near with long leaps; Shandon and the doctor fired at the same
+time, and suddenly the report of the pieces agitated the air and
+produced an unlooked-for effect.
+
+The doctor gazed attentively, and could not help bursting out
+laughing. "It's refraction!" said he.
+
+"Refraction!" cried Shandon.
+
+But a terrible cry from the crew interrupted them.
+
+"The dog!" shouted Clifton.
+
+"The dog-captain!" repeated his companions.
+
+"It's he!" cried Pen.
+
+In fact, it was the dog who had burst his bonds and had made his way
+to the surface of the ice through another hole. At that moment the
+refraction, by a phenomenon common in these latitudes, exaggerated his
+size, and this had only been broken by the report of the guns; but,
+notwithstanding, a disastrous impression had been produced upon the
+minds of the sailors, who were not very much inclined to admit any
+explanation of the fact from physical causes. The adventure of the
+Devil's Thumb, the reappearance of the dog under such peculiar
+circumstances, completely upset them, and murmurs arose on all sides.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+CAPTAIN HATTERAS.
+
+
+The _Forward_ was advancing rapidly under steam between the ice-fields
+and the mountains of ice. Johnson was at the helm. Shandon was
+examining the horizon with his snow-spectacles; but his joy was brief,
+for he soon saw that the passage was blocked up by a circle of
+mountains.
+
+Nevertheless, he preferred to take his chances with pushing on, to
+returning.
+
+The dog followed the brig on the ice, but he kept at a respectful
+distance. Only, if he lagged too far, there was to be heard a singular
+whistle which at once brought him on.
+
+The first time that this whistle was heard, the sailors looked around;
+they were alone on the deck, talking together; there was no unknown
+person there; and yet this whistle was often repeated.
+
+Clifton was the first to take alarm.
+
+"Do you hear that?" he said; "and do you see how the dog starts as
+soon as he hears it?"
+
+"It's past belief," said Gripper.
+
+"Very well!" cried Pen; "I'm not going any farther."
+
+"Pen is right," said Brunton; "it's tempting Providence."
+
+"Tempting the Devil," answered Clifton. "I should rather give up all
+my share of the pay than go on."
+
+"We shall never get back," said Bolton, dejectedly.
+
+The crew was exceedingly demoralized.
+
+"Not a foot farther!" cried Wolston; "is that your opinion?"
+
+"Yes, yes!" answered the sailors.
+
+"Well," said Bolton, "let's go find the commander; I'll undertake to
+tell him."
+
+The sailors in a dense group made their way to the quarter-deck.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The _Forward_ was then advancing into a large arena, which had a
+diameter of about eight hundred feet; it was completely closed, with
+the exception of one place through which the ship entered.
+
+Shandon saw that he was locking himself in. But what was to be done?
+How could he retreat? He felt all the responsibility, and his hand
+nervously grasped his glass.
+
+The doctor looked on in silence, with folded arms; he gazed at the
+walls of ice, the average height of which was about three hundred
+feet. A cloud of fog lay like a dome above the gulf.
+
+Then it was that Bolton spoke to the commander.
+
+"Commander," said he in a broken voice, "we can't go any farther."
+
+"What's that you are saying?" said Shandon, who felt enraged at the
+slight given to his authority.
+
+"We have come to say, Commander," resumed Bolton, "that we have done
+enough for this invisible captain, and that we have made up our minds
+not to go on any farther."
+
+"Made up your minds?" cried Shandon. "Is that the way you talk to me,
+Bolton? Take care."
+
+"You need not threaten," retorted Pen, brutally, "we are not going any
+farther."
+
+Shandon stepped towards the mutinous sailors, when the boatswain said
+to him in a low voice,--
+
+"Commander, if we want to get out of this place, we have not a moment
+to lose. There's an iceberg crowding towards the entrance; it may
+prevent our getting out and imprison us here."
+
+Shandon returned to look at the state of affairs.
+
+"You will account for this afterwards," he said to the mutineers.
+"Now, go about!"
+
+The sailors hastened to their places. The _Forward_ went about
+rapidly; coal was heaped on the fires; it was necessary to beat the
+iceberg. There was a race between them; the brig stood towards the
+south, the berg was drifting northward, threatening to bar the way.
+
+"Put on all the steam, Brunton, do you hear?" said Shandon.
+
+The _Forward_ glided like a bird through the broken ice, which her
+prow cut through easily; the ship shook with the motion of the screw,
+and the gauge indicated a full pressure of steam, the deafening roar
+of which resounded above everything.
+
+"Load the safety-valve!" cried Shandon.
+
+The engineer obeyed at the risk of bursting the boilers.
+
+But these desperate efforts were vain; the iceberg, driven by a
+submarine current, moved rapidly towards the exit; the brig was still
+three cable-lengths distant, when the mountain, entering the vacant
+space like a wedge, joined itself to its companions, and closed the
+means of escape.
+
+"We are lost!" cried Shandon, who was unable to restrain that unwise
+speech.
+
+"Lost!" repeated the crew.
+
+"Lower the boats!" cried many.
+
+"To the steward's pantry!" cried Pen and some of his set; "if we must
+drown, let us drown in gin!"
+
+The wildest confusion raged among these half-wild men. Shandon felt
+unable to assert his authority; he wanted to give some orders; he
+hesitated, he stammered; his thoughts could find no words. The doctor
+walked up and down nervously. Johnson folded his arms stoically, and
+said not a word.
+
+Suddenly a strong, energetic, commanding voice was heard above the
+din, uttering these words:--
+
+"Every man to his place! Prepare to go about!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Johnson shuddered, and, without knowing what he did, turned the wheel
+rapidly.
+
+It was time; the brig, going under full steam, was about crashing
+against the walls of its prison.
+
+But while Johnson instinctively obeyed, Shandon, Clawbonny, the crew,
+all, even down to Warren the fireman, who had abandoned his fires, and
+Strong the cook, who had fled from his galley, were collected on the
+deck, and all saw issuing from the cabin, the key of which he alone
+possessed, a man.
+
+This man was the sailor Garry.
+
+"Sir!" cried Shandon, turning pale, "Garry--by what right do you give
+orders here?"
+
+"Duke!" said Garry, repeating the whistle which had so surprised the
+crew.
+
+The dog, on hearing his real name, sprang on the quarter-deck, and lay
+down quietly at his master's feet.
+
+The crew did not utter a word. The key which the captain alone should
+possess, the dog which he had sent and which had identified him, so to
+speak, the tone of command which it was impossible to mistake,--all
+this had a strong influence on the minds of the sailors, and was
+enough to establish firmly Garry's authority.
+
+Besides, Garry was hardly to be recognized; he had removed the thick
+whiskers which had surrounded his face, thereby giving it a more
+impassible, energetic, and commanding expression; he stood before them
+clothed in a captain's uniform, which he had had placed in his cabin.
+
+So the crew of the _Forward_, animated in spite of themselves,
+shouted,--
+
+"Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah for the captain!"
+
+"Shandon," he said to his first officer, "have the crew put in line; I
+want to inspect them."
+
+Shandon obeyed, and gave the requisite orders with an agitated voice.
+
+The captain walked in front of the officers and men, saying a word to
+each, and treating him according to his past conduct.
+
+When he had finished his inspection, he went back to the quarter-deck,
+and calmly uttered these words:--
+
+"Officers and sailors, I am an Englishman like you all, and my motto
+is that of Lord Nelson,--'England expects every man to do his duty.'
+
+"As Englishmen, I am unwilling, we are unwilling, that others should
+go where we have not been. As Englishmen, I shall not endure, we shall
+not endure, that others should have the glory of going farther north
+than we. If human foot is ever to reach the Pole, it must be the foot
+of an Englishman! Here is the flag of our country. I have equipped
+this ship, I have devoted my fortune to this undertaking, I shall
+devote to it my life and yours, but this flag shall float over the
+North Pole. Fear not. You shall receive a thousand pounds sterling for
+every degree that we get farther north after this day. Now we are at
+the seventy-second, and there are ninety in all. Figure it out. My
+name will be proof enough. It means energy and patriotism. I am
+Captain Hatteras."
+
+"Captain Hatteras!" cried Shandon. And this name, familiar to them
+all, soon spread among all the crew.
+
+"Now," resumed Hatteras, "let us anchor the brig to the ice; let the
+fires be put out, and every one return to his usual occupation.
+Shandon, I want to speak with you about the ship. You will join me in
+my cabin with the doctor, Wall, and the boatswain. Johnson, dismiss
+the men."
+
+Hatteras, calm and cold, quietly left the poop-deck, while Shandon had
+the brig made fast to the ice.
+
+Who was this Hatteras, and why did his name make so deep an impression
+upon the crew?
+
+John Hatteras, the only son of a London brewer, who died in 1852,
+worth six million pounds, took to the sea at an early age, unmindful
+of the large fortune which was to come to him. Not that he had any
+commercial designs, but a longing for geographical discovery possessed
+him; he was continually dreaming of setting foot on some spot
+untrodden of man.
+
+When twenty years old, he had the vigorous constitution of thin,
+sanguine men; an energetic face, with well-marked lines, a high
+forehead, rising straight from the eyes, which were handsome but cold,
+thin lips, indicating a mouth chary of words, medium height, well-knit
+muscular limbs, indicated a man ready for any experience. Any one who
+saw him would have called him bold, and any one who heard him would
+have called him coldly passionate; he was a man who would never
+retreat, and who would risk the lives of others as coldly as his own.
+One would hence think twice before following him in his expeditions.
+
+John Hatteras had a great deal of English pride, and it was he who
+once made this haughty reply to a Frenchman.
+
+The Frenchman said with what he considered politeness, and even
+kindness,--
+
+"If I were not a Frenchman, I should like to be an Englishman."
+
+"If I were not an Englishman, I should like to be an Englishman!"
+
+That retort points the nature of the man.
+
+He would have liked to reserve for his fellow-countrymen the monopoly
+of geographical discovery; but much to his chagrin, during previous
+centuries, they had done but little in the way of discovery.
+
+America was discovered by the Genoese, Christopher Columbus; the East
+Indies by the Portuguese, Vasco de Gama; China by the Portuguese,
+Fernao d'Andrada; Terra del Fuego by the Portuguese, Magellan; Canada
+by the Frenchman, Jacques Cartier; the islands of Sumatra, Java, etc.,
+Labrador, Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, the Azores, Madeira,
+Newfoundland, Guinea, Congo, Mexico, White Cape, Greenland, Iceland,
+the South Pacific Ocean, California, Japan, Cambodia, Peru,
+Kamschatka, the Philippine Islands, Spitzbergen, Cape Horn, Behring
+Strait, New Zealand, Van Diemen's Land, New Britain, New Holland, the
+Louisiana, Island of Jan-Mayen, by Icelanders, Scandinavians,
+Frenchmen, Russians, Portuguese, Danes, Spaniards, Genoese, and
+Dutchmen; but no Englishmen figured among them, and it was a constant
+source of grief to Hatteras to see his fellow-countrymen excluded from
+the glorious band of sailors who made the great discoveries of the
+fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
+
+Hatteras consoled himself somewhat when he considered modern times:
+the English took their revenge with Stuart, McDougall Stuart, Burke,
+Wells, King, Gray, in Australia; with Palliser in America; with
+Havnoan in Syria; with Cyril Graham, Waddington, Cunningham, in India;
+and with Barth, Burton, Speke, Grant, and Livingstone in Africa.
+
+But this was not enough; for Hatteras these men were rather finishers
+than discoverers; something better was to be done, so he invented a
+country in order to have the honor of discovering it.
+
+Now he had noticed that if the English were in a minority with regard
+to the early discoveries, that if it was necessary to go back to Cook
+to make sure of New Caledonia in 1774, and of the Sandwich Islands
+where he was killed in 1778, there was nevertheless one corner of the
+globe on which they had centred all their efforts.
+
+This was the northern seas and lands of North America.
+
+In fact, the list of polar discoveries runs as follows:--
+
+  Nova Zembla, discovered by Willoughby in 1553.
+  Island of Wiegehts, discovered by Barrow in 1556.
+  West Coast of Greenland, discovered by Davis in 1585.
+  Davis Strait, discovered by Davis in 1587.
+  Spitzbergen, discovered by Willoughby in 1596.
+  Hudson's Bay, discovered by Hudson in 1610.
+  Baffin's Bay, discovered by Baffin in 1616.
+
+During recent years Hearne, Mackenzie, John Ross, Parry, Franklin,
+Richardson, Beechey, James Ross, Back, Dease, Simpson, Rae,
+Inglefield, Belcher, Austin, Kellet, Moore, MacClure, Kennedy,
+MacClintock, were incessantly exploring these unknown regions.
+
+The northern coast of America had been accurately made out, the
+Northwest Passage nearly discovered, but that was not enough; there
+was something greater to be done, and this John Hatteras had twice
+tried, fitting out ships at his own expense; he wanted to reach the
+Pole itself, and thus to crown the list of English discoveries by a
+glorious success.
+
+To reach the Pole itself was the aim of his life.
+
+After many successful voyages in the southern seas, Hatteras tried for
+the first time in 1846 to reach the North through Baffin's Bay, but he
+could get no farther than latitude 74°; he sailed in the sloop
+_Halifax_; his crew suffered terribly, and John Hatteras carried his
+temerity so far that henceforth sailors were averse to undertaking a
+similar expedition under such a leader.
+
+Notwithstanding, in 1850, Hatteras succeeded in obtaining for the
+schooner _Farewell_ about twenty determined men, but who were
+persuaded especially by the high pay offered their boldness. It was
+then that Dr. Clawbonny began to correspond with John Hatteras, whom
+he did not know, about accompanying him; but the post of surgeon was
+filled, fortunately for the doctor.
+
+The _Farewell_, following the route taken by the _Neptune_ of Aberdeen
+in 1817, went to the north of Spitzbergen, as far as latitude 76°.
+There they were obliged to winter; but their sufferings were such, and
+the cold so intense, that of all on board, Hatteras alone returned to
+England. He was picked up by a Danish whaler after he had walked more
+than two hundred miles across the ice.
+
+The excitement produced by the return of this man alone was intense;
+who, after this, would accompany Hatteras in his bold attempts? Still
+he did not abandon the hope of trying again. His father, the brewer,
+died, and he came into possession of an enormous fortune.
+
+Meanwhile something had happened which cut John Hatteras to the heart.
+
+A brig, the _Advance_, carrying seventeen men, equipped by Mr.
+Grinnell, a merchant, commanded by Dr. Kane, and sent out in search of
+Franklin, went as far north, through Baffin's Bay and Smith's Sound,
+as latitude 82°, nearer to the Pole than any of his predecessors had
+gone.
+
+Now this was an American ship. Grinnell was an American, Kane was an
+American!
+
+It is easy to understand how the customary disdain of the Englishman
+for the Yankee turned to hatred in the heart of Hatteras; he made up
+his mind, at any price, to beat his bold rival, and to reach the Pole
+itself.
+
+For two years he lived at Liverpool incognito. He was taken for a
+sailor. He saw in Richard Shandon the man he wanted; he presented his
+plans by an anonymous letter to him and to Dr. Clawbonny. The
+_Forward_ was built and equipped. Hatteras kept his name a secret;
+otherwise no one would have gone with him. He resolved only to take
+command of the brig at some critical juncture, and when his crew had
+gone too far to be able to retreat; he kept in reserve, as we have
+seen, the power of making generous offers to the men, so that they
+would follow him to the end of the world.
+
+In fact, it was to the end of the world that he wanted to go.
+
+Now matters looked very serious, and John Hatteras made himself known.
+
+His dog, the faithful Duke, the companion of his expeditions, was the
+first to recognize him, and fortunately for the bold, and
+unfortunately for the timid, it was firmly established that the
+captain of the _Forward_ was John Hatteras.
+
+[Illustration: "John Hatteras."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+THE CAPTAIN'S PLANS.
+
+
+The appearance of this famous person was variously received by the
+different members of the crew: some allied themselves strongly with
+him, moved both by boldness and by avarice; others took renewed
+interest in the expedition, but they reserved to themselves the right
+of protesting later; besides, at that time, it was hard to make any
+resistance to such a man. Hence every man went back to his place. The
+20th of May was Sunday, and consequently a day of rest for the crew.
+
+The officers took counsel together in the doctor's cabin; there were
+present Hatteras, Shandon, Wall, Johnson, and the doctor.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the captain, with his peculiarly gentle but
+impressive voice, "you know my project of going to the Pole; I want to
+get your opinion of the undertaking. What do you think about it,
+Shandon?"
+
+"I have not to think, Captain," answered Shandon, coldly; "I have only
+to obey."
+
+Hatteras was not surprised at this answer.
+
+"Richard Shandon," he resumed with equal coldness, "I ask your opinion
+about our probable chance of success."
+
+"Well, Captain," answered Shandon, "facts must answer for me; all
+attempts hitherto have failed; I hope we may be more fortunate."
+
+"We shall be. And, gentlemen, what do you think?"
+
+"As for me," replied the doctor, "I consider your design practicable,
+Captain; and since there is no doubt but that at some time or other
+explorers will reach the Pole, I don't see why we should not do it."
+
+"There are very good reasons why we should," answered Hatteras, "for
+we have taken measures to make it possible, and we shall profit by the
+experience of others. And, Shandon, you must accept my thanks for the
+care you have given to the equipment of the brig; there are some
+ill-disposed men in the crew, whom I shall soon bring to reason; but
+on the whole, I can give nothing but praise."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Shandon bowed coldly. His position on the _Forward_, of which he had
+thought himself commander, was a false one. Hatteras understood this,
+and said nothing more about it.
+
+"As for you, gentlemen," he resumed, addressing Wall and Johnson, "I
+could not myself have chosen officers more skilled and intrepid."
+
+"On my word, Captain, I am your man," answered Johnson; "and although
+I think your plan a very bold one, you can count on me to the end."
+
+"And on me too," said Wall.
+
+"As for you, Doctor, I know your worth--"
+
+"Well, you know then a great deal more than I do," answered the
+doctor, quickly.
+
+"Now, gentlemen," said Hatteras, "it is well that you should know on
+what good grounds I have made up my mind about the accessibility of
+the Pole. In 1817 the _Neptune_, of Aberdeen, went to the north of
+Spitzbergen, as far as latitude 82°. In 1826 the celebrated Parry,
+after his third voyage in polar seas, started also from the extremity
+of Spitzbergen, and on sledges went one hundred and fifty miles
+farther north. In 1852, Captain Inglefield reached, through Smith's
+Sound, latitude 78° 35'. All these were English ships, and were
+commanded by Englishmen, our fellow-countrymen."
+
+Here Hatteras paused.
+
+"I ought to add," he resumed with some formality, and as if he could
+hardly bring himself to utter the words,--"I ought to add that in 1854
+the American, Captain Kane, in the brig _Advance_, went still farther
+north, and that his lieutenant, Morton, journeying over the ice,
+hoisted the United States flag beyond the eighty-second degree. Having
+once said this, I shall not return to it. Now the main point is that
+the captains of the _Neptune_, the _Enterprise_, the _Isabella_, and
+the _Advance_ agree in the statement that beyond these high latitudes
+there is an open polar sea, entirely free from ice."
+
+"Free from ice!" cried Shandon, interrupting the captain, "it's
+impossible!"
+
+"You will notice, Shandon," observed Hatteras, quietly, while his eye
+lighted up for an instant, "that I quote both facts and authorities. I
+must add that in 1851, when Penny was stationed by the side of
+Wellington Channel, his lieutenant, Stewart, found himself in the
+presence of an open sea, and that his report was confirmed when, in
+1853, Sir Edward Belcher wintered in Northumberland Bay, in latitude
+76° 52', and longitude 99° 20'; these reports are indisputable, and
+one must be very incredulous not to admit them."
+
+"Still, Captain," persisted Shandon, "facts are as contradictory--"
+
+"You're wrong, Shandon, you're wrong!" cried Dr. Clawbonny; "facts
+never contradict a scientific statement; the captain will, I trust,
+excuse me."
+
+"Go on, Doctor!" said Hatteras.
+
+"Well, listen to this, Shandon; it results very clearly from
+geographical facts, and from the study of isothermal lines, that the
+coldest spot on the globe is not on the Pole itself; like the magnetic
+pole, it lies a few degrees distant. So the calculations of Brewster,
+Berghaus, and other physicists prove that in our hemisphere there are
+two poles of extreme cold: one in Asia in latitude 79° 30' N., and
+longitude 120° E.; the other is in America, in latitude 78° N., and
+longitude 97° W. This last alone concerns us, and you see, Shandon,
+that it is more than twelve degrees below the Pole. Well, I ask you
+why, then, the sea should not be as free from ice as it often is in
+summer in latitude 66°, that is to say, at the southern end of
+Baffin's Bay?"
+
+"Well put," answered Johnson; "Dr. Clawbonny talks of those things
+like a man who understands them."
+
+"It seems possible," said James Wall.
+
+"Mere conjectures! nothing but hypotheses!" answered Shandon,
+obstinately.
+
+"Well, Shandon," said Hatteras, "let us consider the two cases; either
+the sea is free from ice, or it is not, and in neither case will it be
+impossible to reach the Pole. If it is free, the _Forward_ will take
+us there without difficulty; if it is frozen, we must try to reach it
+over the ice by our sledges. You will confess that it is not
+impracticable; having once come with our brig to latitude 83°, we
+shall have only about six hundred miles between us and the Pole."
+
+"And what are six hundred miles," said the doctor, briskly, "when it
+is proved that a Cossack, Alexis Markoff, went along the frozen sea,
+north of Russia, on sledges drawn by dogs, for a distance of eight
+hundred miles, in twenty-four days?"
+
+"You hear him, Shandon," answered Hatteras, "and will you say that an
+Englishman cannot do as much as a Cossack?"
+
+"Never!" cried the enthusiastic doctor.
+
+"Never!" repeated the boatswain.
+
+"Well, Shandon?" asked the captain.
+
+"Captain," answered Shandon, coldly, "I can only repeat what I have
+said,--I shall obey you."
+
+"Well. Now," continued Hatteras, "let us consider our present
+situation; we are caught in the ice, and it seems to me impossible for
+us to reach Smith's Sound this year. This is what we must do."
+
+Hatteras unfolded on the table one of the excellent charts published
+in 1859 by the order of the Admiralty.
+
+"Be good enough to look here. If Smith's Sound is closed, Lancaster
+Sound is not, to the west of Baffin's Bay; in my opinion, we ought to
+go up this sound as far as Barrow Strait, and thence to Beechey
+Island. This has been done a hundred times by sailing-vessels; we
+shall have no difficulty, going under steam. Once at Beechey Island,
+we shall follow Wellington Sound as far northward as possible, to
+where it meets the channel, connecting it with Queen's Sound, at the
+place where the open sea was seen. It is now only the 20th of May; if
+nothing happens, we shall be there in a month, and from there we shall
+start for the Pole. What do you say to that, gentlemen?"
+
+"Evidently," said Johnson, "it's the only way open to us."
+
+"Well, we shall take it, and to-morrow. Let Sunday be a day of rest;
+you will see, Shandon, that the Bible is read as usual; the religious
+exercises do the men good, and a sailor more than any one ought to put
+his trust in God."
+
+"Very well, Captain," answered Shandon, who went away with the second
+officer and the boatswain.
+
+"Doctor," said Hatteras, pointing at Shandon, "there's an offended
+man, whose pride has ruined him; I can no longer depend upon him."
+
+Early the next day the captain had the launch lowered; he went to
+reconnoitre the icebergs about the basin, of which the diameter was
+hardly more than two hundred yards. He noticed that by the gradual
+pressure of the ice, this space threatened to grow smaller; hence it
+became necessary to make a breach somewhere, to save the ship from
+being crushed; by the means he employed, it was easy to see that John
+Hatteras was an energetic man.
+
+In the first place he had steps cut, by which he climbed to the top of
+an iceberg; from that point he saw it would be easy to open a path to
+the southwest; by his orders an opening was made in the middle of an
+iceberg, a task which was completed by Monday evening.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Hatteras could not depend on his blasting-cylinders of eight or ten
+pounds of powder, whose action would have been insignificant against
+such large masses; they were only of use to break the field-ice; hence
+he placed in the opening a thousand pounds of powder, carefully laying
+it where it should be of the utmost service. This chamber, to which
+ran a long fuse, surrounded by gutta-percha, opened on the outside.
+The gallery, leading thereto, was filled with snow and lumps of ice,
+to which the cold of the next night gave the consistency of granite.
+In fact, the temperature, under the influence of the east-wind, fell
+to 12°.
+
+The next day at seven o'clock the _Forward_ was under steam, ready to
+seize any chance of escape. Johnson was charged with lighting the
+mine; the fuse was calculated to burn half an hour before exploding
+the powder. Hence Johnson had plenty of time to get back to the ship;
+indeed, within ten minutes he was at his post.
+
+The crew were all on deck; the day was dry and tolerably clear; the
+snow was no longer falling; Hatteras, standing on the deck with
+Shandon and the doctor, counted the minutes on his watch.
+
+At thirty-five minutes after eight a dull explosion was heard, much
+less deafening than had been anticipated. The outline of the mountains
+was suddenly changed, as by an earthquake; a dense white smoke rose
+high in the air, and long cracks appeared in the side of the iceberg,
+of which the upper part was hurled to a great distance, and fell in
+fragments about the _Forward_.
+
+But the way was by no means free yet; huge lumps of ice were suspended
+upon the neighboring icebergs, and their fall threatened to close the
+exit.
+
+Hatteras saw their situation in a flash of the eye.
+
+"Wolston!" he shouted.
+
+The gunner hastened to him.
+
+"Captain!" he said.
+
+"Put a triple charge in the forward gun, and ram it in as hard as
+possible!"
+
+"Are we going to batter the iceberg down with cannon-balls?" asked the
+doctor.
+
+"No," answered Hatteras. "That would do no good. No balls, Wolston,
+but a triple charge of powder. Be quick!"
+
+In a few moments the gun was loaded.
+
+"What is he going to do without a ball?" muttered Shandon between his
+teeth.
+
+"We'll soon see," answered the doctor.
+
+"We are all ready, Captain," cried Wolston.
+
+"Well," answered Hatteras. "Brunton!" he shouted to the engineer,
+"make ready! Forward a little!"
+
+Brunton opened the valves, and the screw began to move; the _Forward_
+drew near the blown-up iceberg.
+
+"Aim carefully at the passage!" cried the captain to the gunner.
+
+He obeyed; when the brig was only half a cable-length distant,
+Hatteras gave the order,--
+
+"Fire!"
+
+A loud report followed, and the fragments of ice, detached by the
+commotion of the air, fell suddenly into the sea. The simple
+concussion had been enough.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Put on full steam, Brunton!" shouted Hatteras. "Straight for the
+passage, Johnson!"
+
+Johnson was at the helm; the brig, driven by the screw, which tossed
+the water freely, entered easily the open passage. It was time. The
+_Forward_ had hardly passed through the opening, before it closed
+behind it.
+
+It was an exciting moment, and the only calm and collected man on
+board was the captain. So the crew, amazed at the success of this
+device, could not help shouting,--
+
+"Hurrah for John Hatteras!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+THE EXPEDITIONS IN SEARCH OF FRANKLIN.
+
+
+Wednesday, the 21st of May, the _Forward_ resumed her perilous voyage,
+making her way dexterously through the packs and icebergs, thanks to
+steam, which is seldom used by explorers in polar seas; she seemed to
+sport among the moving masses; one would have said she felt the hand
+of a skilled master, and that, like a horse under a skilful rider, she
+obeyed the thought of her captain.
+
+The weather grew warmer. At six o'clock in the morning the thermometer
+stood at 26°, at six in the evening at 29°, and at midnight at 25°;
+the wind was light from the southeast.
+
+Thursday, at about three o'clock in the morning, the _Forward_ arrived
+in sight of Possession Bay, on the American shore, at the entrance of
+Lancaster Sound; soon Cape Burney came into sight. A few Esquimaux
+came out to the ship; but Hatteras could not stop to speak with them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The peaks of Byam Martin, which rise above Cape Liverpool, were passed
+on the left, and they soon disappeared in the evening mist; this hid
+from them Cape Hay, which has a very slight elevation, and so is
+frequently confounded with ice about the shore, a circumstance which
+very often renders the determination of the coast-line in polar
+regions very difficult.
+
+Puffins, ducks, and white gulls appeared in great numbers. By
+observation the latitude was 74° 1', and the longitude, according to
+the chronometer, 77° 15'.
+
+The two mountains, Catherine and Elizabeth, raised their snowy heads
+above the clouds.
+
+At ten o'clock on Friday Cape Warrender was passed on the right side
+of the sound, and on the left Admiralty Inlet, a bay which has never
+been fully explored by navigators, who are always hastening westward.
+The sea ran rather high, and the waves often broke over the bows,
+covering the deck with small fragments of ice. The land on the north
+coast presented a strange appearance with its high, flat table-lands
+sparkling beneath the sun's rays.
+
+Hatteras would have liked to skirt these northern lands, in order to
+reach the sooner Beechey Island and the entrance of Wellington
+Channel; but, much to his chagrin, the bank-ice obliged him to take
+only the passes to the south.
+
+Hence, on the 26th of May, in the midst of a fog and a snow-storm, the
+_Forward_ found herself off Cape York; a lofty, steep mountain was
+soon recognized; the weather got a little clearer, and at midday the
+sun appeared long enough to permit an observation to be taken:
+latitude 74° 4', and longitude 84° 23'. The _Forward_ was at the end
+of Lancaster Sound.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Hatteras showed the doctor on the chart the route he had taken and
+that which he was to follow. At that time the position of the brig was
+interesting.
+
+"I should have liked to be farther north," he said, "but it was
+impossible; see, here is our exact position."
+
+The captain pointed to a spot near Cape York.
+
+"We are in the middle of this open space, exposed to every wind; into
+it open Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, Wellington Channel, and
+Regent's Inlet; here, of necessity, come all northern explorers."
+
+"Well," answered the doctor, "so much the worse for them; it is indeed
+an open space, where four roads meet, and I don't see any sign-post to
+point out the right way! What did Parry, Ross, and Franklin do?"
+
+"They didn't do anything in particular; they let themselves be
+governed by circumstances; they had no choice, I can assure you; at
+one time Barrow Strait would be closed against one, and the next year
+it would be open for another; again the ship would be irresistibly
+driven towards Regent's Inlet. In this way we have at last been able
+to learn the geography of these confused seas."
+
+"What a strange region!" said the doctor, gazing at the chart. "How
+everything is divided and cut up, without order or reason! It seems as
+if all the land near the Pole were divided in this way in order to
+make the approach harder, while in the other hemisphere it ends in
+smooth, regular points, like Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, and
+the Indian peninsula! Is it the greater rapidity at the equator which
+has thus modified things, while the land lying at the extremity, which
+was fluid at the beginning of the world, could not condense and unite
+as elsewhere, on account of slower rotation?"
+
+"That may be, for there is a reason for everything, and nothing
+happens without a cause, which God sometimes lets students find out;
+so, Doctor, find it out if you can."
+
+"I shall not waste too much time over it, Captain. But what is this
+fierce wind?" added the doctor, wrapping himself up well.
+
+"The north-wind is the common one, and delays our progress."
+
+"Still it ought to blow the ice toward the south, and leave our way
+free."
+
+"It ought to, Doctor, but the wind doesn't always do what it ought to.
+See, that ice looks impenetrable. We shall try to reach Griffith
+Island, then to get around Cornwallis Island to reach Queen's Channel,
+without going through Wellington Channel. And yet I am anxious to
+touch at Beechey Island to get some more coal."
+
+"How will you do that?" asked the astonished doctor.
+
+"Easily; by order of the Admiralty, a great amount has been placed on
+this island, to supply future expeditions, and although Captain
+MacClintock took some in 1859, I can assure you there is still some
+left for us."
+
+"In fact, these regions have been explored for fifteen years, and
+until certain proof of Franklin's death was received, the Admiralty
+always kept five or six ships cruising in these waters. If I'm not
+mistaken, Griffith Island, which I see in the middle of the open
+space, has become a general rendezvous for explorers."
+
+"True, Doctor, and Franklin's ill-fated expedition has been the means
+of our learning so much about these parts."
+
+"Exactly; for there have been a great many expeditions since 1845. It
+was not till 1848 that there was any alarm about the continued
+non-appearance of the _Erebus_ and the _Terror_, Franklin's two ships.
+Then the admiral's old friend, Dr. Richardson, seventy years of age,
+went through Canada, and descended Coppermine River to the Polar Sea;
+on the other side, James Ross, in command of the _Enterprise_ and the
+_Investigator_, sailed from Upernavik in 1848, and reached Cape York,
+where we are now. Every day he threw overboard a cask containing
+papers telling where he was; during fogs he fired cannon; at night he
+burned signal-fires and sent off rockets, carrying always but little
+sail; finally, he wintered at Leopold's Harbor in 1848-49; there he
+caught a large number of white foxes; he had put on their necks copper
+collars on which was engraved a statement of the position of the ship
+and where supplies had been left, and he drove them away in every
+direction; then, in the spring, he explored the coast of North
+Somerset on sledges, amid dangers and privations which disabled nearly
+all his men. He built cairns, enclosing copper cylinders with
+instructions to the absent expedition; during his absence, Lieutenant
+MacClure explored fruitlessly the northern coast of Barrow Strait. It
+is noteworthy, Captain, that James Ross had among his officers two men
+who afterwards became celebrated,--MacClure, who found the Northwest
+Passage, and MacClintock, who found the last remains of the Franklin
+expedition."
+
+[Illustration: "He caught a large number of white foxes; he had put on
+their necks copper collars."]
+
+"Two good and brave captains, two brave Englishmen; go on, Doctor,
+with this account which you know so well; there is always something to
+be learned from the account of bold adventurers."
+
+"Well, to conclude with James Ross, I have only to add that he tried
+to go farther west from Melville Island; but he nearly lost his ships,
+and being caught in the ice he was carried, against his will, to
+Baffin's Bay."
+
+"Carried," said Hatteras, frowning,--"carried against his will!"
+
+"He had discovered nothing," resumed the doctor; "it was only after
+1850 that English ships were always exploring there, when a reward of
+twenty thousand pounds was offered to any one who should discover the
+crews of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_. Already, in 1848, Captains Kellet
+and Moore, in command of the _Herald_ and the _Plover_, tried to make
+their way through by Behring Strait. I ought to say that the winter of
+1850-51, Captain Austin passed at Cornwallis Island; Captain Penny,
+with the _Assistance_ and _Resolute_, explored Wellington Channel; old
+John Ross, who discovered the magnetic pole, started in his yacht, the
+_Felix_, in search of his friend; the brig _Prince Albert_ made her
+first voyage at the expense of Lady Franklin; and, finally, two
+American ships, sent out by Grinnell, under Captain Haven, carried
+beyond Wellington Channel, were cast into Lancaster Sound. It was
+during this year that MacClintock, Austin's lieutenant, pushed on to
+Melville Island and to Cape Dundas, the extreme points reached by
+Parry in 1819, and on Beechey Island were found traces of Franklin's
+wintering there in 1845."
+
+"Yes," answered Hatteras, "three of his sailors were buried there,
+three fortunate men!"
+
+"From 1851 to 1852," continued the doctor, with a gesture of
+agreement, "we find the _Prince Albert_ making a second attempt with
+the French lieutenant, Bellot; he winters at Batty Bay in Prince
+Regent's Sound, explores the southwest of Somerset, and reconnoitres
+the coast as far as Cape Walker. Meanwhile, the _Enterprise_ and
+_Investigator_, having returned to England, came under the command of
+Collinson and MacClure, and they rejoined Kellet and Moore at Behring
+Strait; while Collinson returned to winter at Hong-Kong, MacClure went
+on, and after three winters, 1850-51, 1851-52, and 1852-53, he
+discovered the Northwest Passage without finding any traces of
+Franklin. From 1852 to 1853, a new expedition, consisting of three
+sailing-vessels, the _Assistance_, the _Resolute_, the _North Star_,
+and two steam-vessels, the _Pioneer_ and the _Intrepid_, started out
+under the orders of Sir Edward Belcher, with Captain Kellet second in
+command; Sir Edward visited Wellington Channel, wintered in
+Northumberland Bay, and explored the coast, while Kellet, pushing on
+as far as Brideport on Melville Island, explored that region without
+success. But then it was rumored in England that two ships, abandoned
+in the ice, had been seen not far from New Caledonia. At once Lady
+Franklin fitted out the little screw-steamer _Isabella_, and Captain
+Inglefield, after ascending Baffin's Bay to Victoria Point, at the
+eightieth parallel, returned to Beechey Island with equal unsuccess.
+At the beginning of 1855 the American Grinnell defrays the expense of
+a new expedition, and Dr. Kane, trying to reach the Pole--"
+
+"But he did not succeed," cried Hatteras with violence, "and thank God
+he did not! What he did not do, we shall!"
+
+"I know it, Captain," answered the doctor, "and I only speak of it on
+account of its connection with the search for Franklin. Besides, it
+accomplished nothing. I nearly forgot to say that the Admiralty,
+regarding Beechey Island as a general rendezvous, ordered the steamer
+_Phoenix_, Captain Inglefield, in 1853, to carry provisions there; he
+sailed with Lieutenant Bellot, who for the second, and last, time
+offered his services to England; we can get full details about the
+catastrophe, for Johnson, our boatswain, was eye-witness of this sad
+affair."
+
+"Lieutenant Bellot was a brave Frenchman," said Hatteras, "and his
+memory is honored in England."
+
+"Then," resumed the doctor, "the ships of Belcher's squadron began to
+return one by one; not all, for Sir Edward had to abandon the
+_Assistance_ in 1854, as McClure had the _Investigator_ in 1853.
+Meanwhile Dr. Rae, in a letter dated July 29, 1854, written from
+Repulse Bay, gave information that the Esquimaux of King William's
+Land had in their possession different objects belonging to the
+_Erebus_ and _Terror_; then there was no doubt possible about the fate
+of the expedition; the _Phoenix_, the _North Star_, and the ship of
+Collinson returned to England; there was then no English ship in these
+waters. But if the government seemed to have lost all hope, Lady
+Franklin did not despair, and with what was left of her fortune she
+fitted out the _Fox_, commanded by MacClintock; he set sail in 1857,
+wintered about where you made yourself known to us, Captain; he came
+to Beechey Island, August 11, 1858; the next winter he passed at
+Bellot Sound; in February, 1859, he began his explorations anew; on
+the 6th of May he found the document which left no further doubt as to
+the fate of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_, and returned to England at the
+end of the same year. That is a complete account of all that has been
+done in these regions during the last fifteen years; and since the
+return of the _Fox_, no ship has ventured among these dangerous
+waters!"
+
+"Well, we shall try it!" said Hatteras.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+THE FORWARD DRIVEN SOUTHWARD.
+
+
+Towards evening the weather cleared up, and land was clearly to be
+seen between Cape Sepping and Cape Clarence, which juts out to the
+east, then to the south, and is connected to the mainland on the west
+by a low tongue of land. There was no ice at the entrance of Regent's
+Sound; but it was densely massed beyond Leopold Harbor, as if to form
+an impassable barrier to the northward progress of the _Forward_.
+
+Hatteras, who, although he carefully concealed his feelings, was
+exceedingly annoyed, had to blow out a way with powder in order to
+enter Leopold Harbor; he reached it at midday, on Sunday, May 27th;
+the brig was securely anchored to the large icebergs, which were as
+firm, solid, and hard as rock.
+
+At once the captain, followed by the doctor, Johnson, and his dog
+Duke, leaped out upon the ice and soon reached the land. Duke leaped
+about with joy; besides, since the captain had made himself known, he
+had become very sociable and very gentle, preserving his ill-temper
+for some of the crew, whom his master disliked as much as he did.
+
+The harbor was free from the ice which is generally forced there by
+the east-wind; the sharp peaks, covered with snow, looked like a
+number of white waves. The house and lantern, built by James Ross,
+were still in a tolerable state of preservation; but the provisions
+appeared to have been eaten by foxes, and even by bears, of which
+fresh traces were to be seen; part of the devastation was probably due
+to the hand of man, for some ruins of Esquimaux huts were to be seen
+on the shores of the bay.
+
+The six tombs, enclosing six sailors of the _Enterprise_ and the
+_Investigator_, were recognizable by little mounds of earth; they had
+been respected by all, by both men and beasts.
+
+On first setting his foot on this northern earth, the doctor was
+really agitated; it would not be easy to describe the emotions one
+feels at the sight of these ruined houses, tents, huts, supplies,
+which nature preserves so perfectly in cold countries.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"There," said he to his companions,--"there is the spot which James
+Ross himself named Camp Refuge! If Franklin's expedition had reached
+this spot, it would have been saved. Here is the engine which was
+taken out and left here, and the furnace which warmed the crew of the
+_Prince Albert_ in 1851; everything remains as it was left, and one
+might fancy that Kennedy, her captain, had sailed away from here
+yesterday. This is the launch that sheltered them for some days, for
+Kennedy was separated from his ship, and only saved by Lieutenant
+Bellot, who braved the cold of October to join him."
+
+"A brave and excellent officer he was," said Johnson. "I knew him."
+
+While the doctor eagerly sought for traces of previous winterings
+there, Hatteras busied himself with collecting the scanty fragments of
+fuel and provisions which lay there. The next day was devoted to
+carrying them on board ship. The doctor explored the whole
+neighborhood, never going too far from the brig, and sketched the most
+remarkable views. The weather gradually grew milder; the snow-drifts
+began to melt. The doctor made a tolerably large collection of
+northern birds, such as gulls, divers, molly-nochtes, and eider-ducks,
+which resemble ordinary ducks, with a white back and breast, a blue
+belly, the top of the head blue, the rest of the plumage white, shaded
+with different tints of green; many of them had already plucked from
+their bellies the eider-down, which both the male and the female
+devote to lining their nests. The doctor also saw great seals
+breathing at the surface of the water, but he was unable to draw one.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In his wanderings he discovered the stone on which is engraved the
+following inscription:--
+
+  [E I]
+  1849,
+
+which marks the passage of the _Enterprise_ and _Investigator_; he
+pushed on to Cape Clarence, to the spot where, in 1833, John and James
+Ross waited so impatiently for the ice to thaw. The earth was covered
+with the skulls and bones of animals, and traces of the dwellings of
+Esquimaux were to be seen.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The doctor thought of erecting a cairn at Leopold Harbor, and of
+leaving a letter there to indicate the passage of the _Forward_ and
+the aim of the expedition. But Hatteras formally objected; he did not
+wish to leave behind him any traces which might be of use to a rival.
+In spite of all he could say, the doctor was obliged to yield to the
+captain's will. Shandon was ready enough to blame this obstinacy, for,
+in case of accident, no ship could have put out to the aid of the
+_Forward_.
+
+Hatteras refused to comply. Having completed his preparations on
+Monday, he tried once more to go to the north through the ice, but,
+after dangerous efforts, he was obliged to descend again Regent's
+Channel; he was utterly averse to remaining at Leopold's Harbor, which
+is open one day and closed the next by the unheralded motion of the
+ice,--a frequent phenomenon in these seas, and one against which
+navigators have to be ever on their guard.
+
+If Hatteras kept his anxiety from the others, he was at heart very
+anxious; he wanted to go northward, and he was obliged to retreat to
+the south! Where would that bring him? Was he going as far back as
+Victoria Harbor in the Gulf of Boothia, where Sir John Ross wintered
+in 1833? Should he find Bellot Sound free at this time, and, by going
+around North Somerset, could he ascend through Peel Sound? Or should
+he, like his predecessors, be caught for many winters, and be obliged
+to consume all his supplies and provisions?
+
+These fears tormented him; but he had to decide; he put about and
+started for the south.
+
+Prince Regent's Channel is of nearly uniform width from Leopold's
+Harbor to Adelaide Bay. The _Forward_ went rapidly through the ice,
+with better fortune than many other ships, most of which required a
+month to descend the channel, even in a better season; it is true that
+none of these ships, except the _Fox_, had steam at their command, and
+were obliged to do their best against frequent unfavorable winds.
+
+The crew seemed overjoyed at leaving the northern regions; they had
+but a slight desire to reach the Pole; they were alarmed at Hatteras's
+plans, for his reputation as a fearless man inspired them with but
+little confidence. Hatteras tried to make use of every opportunity to
+go forward, whatever the consequences might be. And yet in these
+parts, to advance is all very well, but one must also maintain his
+position and not run the risk of losing it.
+
+The _Forward_ went on under full steam; the black smoke whirled in
+spirals about the sparkling summits of the icebergs; the weather was
+changeable, turning from a dry cold to a snowstorm with inconceivable
+rapidity. Since the brig drew but little water, Hatteras hugged the
+west shore; he did not want to miss the entrance of Bellot Sound, for
+the Gulf of Boothia has no other entrance towards the south than the
+slightly known sound of the _Fury_ and the _Hecla_; hence the gulf
+would be impassable, if Bellot Sound were missed or found
+impracticable.
+
+By evening the _Forward_ was in sight of Elwin Bay, which was
+recognized by its high, steep cliffs; Tuesday morning Batty Bay was
+seen, where, on the 10th of September, 1851, the _Prince Albert_
+anchored for the winter. The doctor examined the coast with interest
+through his glass. From this point started the expeditions which
+determined the shape of North Somerset. The weather was clear enough
+for them to see the deep ravines surrounding the bay.
+
+The doctor and Johnson were probably the only ones who took any
+interest in these deserted countries. Hatteras, always studying his
+charts, talked little; his silence increased as the ship drew
+southward; he often went upon the quarter-deck, and there he would
+remain for hours, with folded arms, gazing absently at the horizon.
+His orders, when he gave any, were short and quick. Shandon maintained
+a cold silence, and drawing more and more into himself, he had nothing
+more to do with Hatteras than was officially required; James Wall
+remained devoted to Shandon, and modelled his conduct after that of
+his friend. The rest of the crew waited for whatever might turn up,
+ready to make the best use of it for their own profit. On board there
+was none of the unanimity which is so necessary for the accomplishment
+of great things. Hatteras knew this well.
+
+During the day two whalers were seen making toward the south; a white
+bear, too, was saluted with a few rifle-shots, but apparently without
+success. The captain knew the worth of an hour at that time, and
+refused permission to chase the animal.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Wednesday morning the end of Regent Channel was passed; the angle of
+the west coast was followed by a deep curve in the land. On examining
+his chart, the doctor recognized Somerset-House Point, or Point Fury.
+
+"There," he said to his usual companion,--"there is where the first
+English ship was lost that was sent to these seas in 1815, in Parry's
+third voyage; the _Fury_ was so much injured by the ice in her second
+winter, that the crew were obliged to abandon her and to return to
+England in her companion, the _Hecla_."
+
+"A good reason for having another ship," answered Johnson; "that is a
+precaution which polar explorers should not neglect; but Captain
+Hatteras was not the man to burden himself with a companion!"
+
+"Do you consider him rash, Johnson?" asked the doctor.
+
+"I? O, I don't say anything of the sort, Dr. Clawbonny! But see those
+piles there, with fragments of a tent hanging to them."
+
+"Yes, Johnson, it is there Parry unloaded all his ship's supplies,
+and, if my memory serves me right, the roof of the hut he built was
+made out of a mainsail covered by the running-rigging of the _Fury_."
+
+"That must have changed a good deal since 1825."
+
+"Not so very much. In 1829, John Ross kept his crew safe and sound in
+this light building. In 1851, when Prince Albert sent out an
+expedition, this hut was still standing; Captain Kennedy repaired it
+nine years ago. It would be interesting to visit it, but Hatteras is
+unwilling to stop."
+
+"And he is probably right, Dr. Clawbonny; if in England time is money,
+here it is safety, and for the delay of a day, of an hour even, the
+whole voyage might be rendered useless. We must let him do as he
+pleases."
+
+On Thursday, June 1st, the _Forward_ sailed diagonally across Creswell
+Bay; from Point Fury the coast rises in steep rocks three hundred feet
+high; towards the south, it is lower; a few snowy summits are to be
+seen, of a regular shape, while others, more fantastic, were hidden in
+the clouds.
+
+During that day the weather grew milder, but cloudier; they lost sight
+of land; the thermometer rose to 32°; a few water-quail were to be
+seen, and flocks of wild geese flew toward the north; the crew laid
+aside some of their thick clothes; they began to be aware of the
+approach of summer in the arctic regions.
+
+Toward evening the _Forward_ doubled Cape Garry, a quarter of a mile
+from the shore. The lead marked ten to twelve fathoms, and they bore
+along the shore to Brentford Bay. In this latitude they were to find
+Bellot Sound, a sound which entirely escaped the notice of Sir John
+Ross in his expedition of 1828; his charts indicated an unbroken
+coast-line, with the least irregularities indicated with the utmost
+care; hence it is to be supposed that when he passed by the entrance
+of the sound, it was completely closed with ice and so could not be
+distinguished from the land.
+
+This sound was really discovered by Captain Kennedy in an excursion
+made in April, 1852; he named it after Lieutenant Bellot, as "a just
+tribute," as he said, "to the important services rendered to our
+expedition by the French officer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+THE MAGNETIC POLE.
+
+
+As Hatteras drew near this sound he felt his anxiety redoubling; in
+fact, the success of his expedition was at stake; so far he had done
+nothing more than his predecessors, the most successful of whom,
+MacClintock, had consumed fifteen months in reaching this spot; but
+that was little, indeed nothing, if he could not make Bellot Sound;
+being unable to return, he would be kept a prisoner until the next
+year.
+
+Hence he took upon himself the care of examining the coast; he went up
+to the lookout, and on Saturday passed many hours there.
+
+The crew were all acquainted with the situation of the ship; an
+unbroken silence reigned on board; the engine was slackened; the
+_Forward_ ran as near shore as possible; the coast was lined with ice
+which the warmest summers could not melt; a practised eye was needed
+to make out an entrance through them.
+
+Hatteras was comparing his charts with the coast-line. The sun having
+appeared for a moment at noon, Shandon and Wall took an observation,
+the result of which was at once told him.
+
+There was half a day of anxiety for all. But suddenly, at about two
+o'clock, these words were shouted from aloft,--
+
+"Head to the west, and put on all steam."
+
+The brig obeyed at once, turning to the point directed; the screw
+churned the water, and the _Forward_ plunged under a full head of
+steam between two swiftly running ice-streams.
+
+The path was found; Hatteras came down to the quarter-deck, and the
+ice-master went aloft.
+
+"Well, Captain," said the doctor, "we have entered this famous sound
+at last!"
+
+"Yes," answered Hatteras; "but entering is not all, we have got to get
+out of it too."
+
+And with these words he went to his cabin.
+
+"He is right," thought the doctor; "we are in a sort of trap, without
+much space to turn about in, and if we had to winter here!--well, we
+shouldn't be the first to do it, and where others lived through it,
+there is no reason why we should not!"
+
+The doctor was right. It was at this very place, in a little sheltered
+harbor called Port Kennedy by MacClintock himself, that the _Fox_
+wintered in 1858. At that moment it was easy to recognize the lofty
+granite chains, and the steep beaches on each side.
+
+Bellot Sound, a mile broad and seventeen long, with a current running
+six or seven knots, is enclosed by mountains of an estimated height of
+sixteen hundred feet; it separates North Somerset from Boothia; it is
+easy to see that there is not too much sailing room there. The
+_Forward_ advanced carefully, but still she advanced; tempests are
+frequent in this narrow pass, and the brig did not escape their usual
+violence; by Hatteras's orders, all the topsail-yards were lowered,
+and the topmasts also; in spite of everything the ship labored
+fearfully; the heavy seas kept the deck continually deluged with
+water; the smoke flew eastward with inconceivable rapidity; they went
+on almost at haphazard through the floating ice; the barometer fell to
+29°; it was hard to stay on deck, so most of the men were kept below
+to spare them unnecessary exposure.
+
+Hatteras, Johnson, and Shandon remained on the quarter-deck, in spite
+of the whirlwinds of snow and rain; and the doctor, who had just asked
+himself what was the most disagreeable thing to be done at that time,
+soon joined them there; they could not hear, and hardly could they
+see, one another; so he kept his thoughts to himself.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Hatteras tried to pierce the dense cloud of mist, for, according to
+his calculation, they should be through the strait at six o'clock of
+the evening. At that time exit seemed closed, and Hatteras was obliged
+to stop and anchor to an iceberg; but steam was kept up all night.
+
+The weather was terrible. Every moment the _Forward_ threatened to
+snap her cables; there was danger, too, lest the mountain should be
+driven by the wind and crush the brig. The officers kept on the alert,
+owing to their extreme anxiety; besides the snow, large lumps of
+frozen spray were blown about by the hurricane like sharp arrows.
+
+The temperature arose strangely in that terrible night; the
+thermometer marked 57°; and the doctor, to his great surprise, thought
+he noticed some flashes of lightning followed by distant thunder. This
+seemed to corroborate the testimony of Scoresby, who noticed the same
+phenomenon above latitude 65°. Captain Parry also observed it in 1821.
+
+Towards five o'clock in the morning the weather changed with singular
+rapidity; the temperature fell to the freezing-point; the wind shifted
+to the north and grew quiet. The western opening of the strait could
+be seen, but it was entirely closed. Hatteras gazed anxiously at the
+coast, asking himself if there really were any exit.
+
+Nevertheless, the brig put out slowly into the ice-streams, while the
+ice crushed noisily against her bows; the packs at this time were six
+or seven feet thick; it was necessary carefully to avoid them, for if
+the ship should try to withstand them, it ran the risk of being lifted
+half out of the water and cast on her beam-ends.
+
+At noon, for the first time, a magnificent solar phenomenon could be
+observed, a halo with two parhelions; the doctor observed it, and took
+its exact dimensions; the exterior arc was only visible for about
+thirty degrees each side of the horizontal diameter; the two images of
+the sun were remarkably clear; the colors within the luminous area
+were, going toward the outside, red, yellow, green, faint blue, and
+last of all white, gently fading away, without any sharp line of
+termination.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The doctor remembered Thomas Young's ingenious theory about these
+meteors; he supposed that certain clouds composed of prisms of ice are
+hanging in the air; the sun's rays falling on these prisms are
+refracted at angles of sixty and ninety degrees. The halos can only be
+formed in a clear sky. The doctor thought this an ingenious
+explanation.
+
+Sailors, who are familiar with northern seas, consider this phenomenon
+a forerunner of heavy snow. If this should be the case, the position
+of the _Forward_ was very critical. Hence Hatteras resolved to push
+on; during the rest of that day and the next night he took no rest,
+but examined the horizon through his glass, entering every inlet, and
+losing no opportunity to get out of the strait.
+
+But in the morning he was compelled to stop before the impenetrable
+ice. The doctor joined him on the quarter-deck. Hatteras led him clear
+aft where they could talk without fear of being overheard.
+
+"We are caught," said Hatteras. "It's impossible to go on."
+
+"Impossible?" said the doctor.
+
+"Impossible! All the powder on board the _Forward_ would not open a
+quarter of a mile to us."
+
+"What are we to do?" asked the doctor.
+
+"I don't know. Curse this unlucky year!"
+
+"Well, Captain, if we must go into winter-quarters, we'll do it. As
+well here as anywhere else!"
+
+"Of course," said Hatteras in a low voice, "but we ought not to be
+going into winter-quarters, especially in the month of June. It is
+demoralizing, and bad for the health. The spirits of the crew are soon
+cast down during this long rest among real sufferings. So I had made
+up my mind to winter at a latitude nearer the Pole."
+
+"Yes, but, unluckily, Baffin's Bay was closed."
+
+"Any one else would have found it open," cried Hatteras; "that
+American, that--"
+
+"Come, Hatteras," said the doctor, purposely interrupting him, "it's
+now only the 5th of June; we should not despair; a path may open
+before us suddenly; you know the ice often breaks into separate
+pieces, even when the weather is calm, as if it were driven apart by
+some force of repulsion; at any moment we may find the sea free."
+
+"Well, if that happens, we shall take advantage of it. It is not
+impossible that beyond Bellot Strait we might get northward through
+Peel Sound or MacClintock Channel, and then--"
+
+"Captain," said James Wall, approaching, "the ice threatens to tear
+away the rudder."
+
+"Well," answered Hatteras, "never mind; I sha'n't unship it; I want to
+be ready at any hour, day or night. Take every precaution, Mr. Wall,
+and keep the ice off; but don't unship it, you understand."
+
+"But--" began Wall.
+
+"I don't care to hear any remarks, sir," said Hatteras, severely.
+"Go!"
+
+Wall returned to his post.
+
+"Ah!" said Hatteras, angrily, "I would give five years of my life to
+be farther north! I don't know any more dangerous place; and besides,
+we are so near the magnetic pole that the compass is of no use; the
+needle is inactive, or always shifting its direction."
+
+"I confess," said the doctor, "that it is not plain sailing; but
+still, those who undertook it were prepared for such dangers, and
+there is no need to be surprised."
+
+"Ah, Doctor! the crew has changed very much, and you have seen that
+the officers have begun to make remarks. The high pay offered the
+sailors induced them to ship; but they have their bad side, for as
+soon as they are off they are anxious to get back. Doctor, I have no
+encouragement in my undertaking, and if I fail, it won't be the fault
+of such or such a sailor, but of the ill-will of certain officers. Ah,
+they'll pay dearly for it!"
+
+"You are exaggerating, Hatteras."
+
+"Not at all! Do you fancy the crew are sorry for the obstacles we are
+meeting? On the contrary, they hope I shall be compelled to abandon my
+plans. So they do not murmur, and when the _Forward_ is headed for the
+south, it will be the same thing. Fools! They imagine they are
+returning to England! But when I'm turned towards the north, you will
+see a difference! I swear solemnly that no living being shall make me
+swerve from my course! Give me a passage, an opening through which my
+brig can go, and I shall take it, if I have to leave half her
+sheathing behind!"
+
+The desires of the captain were destined to be satisfied in a measure.
+As the doctor had foretold, there was a sudden change in the evening;
+under some influence of the wind, the ice-fields separated; the
+_Forward_ pushed on boldly, breaking the ice with her steel prow; all
+the night they advanced, and towards six o'clock they were clear of
+Bellot Strait.
+
+But great was Hatteras's anger at finding the way to the north closed!
+He was able to hide his despair; and as if the only open path were the
+one of his choice, he turned the _Forward_ towards Franklin Sound.
+Being unable to go up Peel Sound, he determined to go around Prince of
+Wales Land, to reach MacClintock Channel. But he knew that Shandon and
+Wall could not be deceived, and were conscious of the failure of his
+hopes.
+
+Nothing especial happened on the 6th of June; snow fell, and the
+prophecy of the halo came true.
+
+For thirty-six hours the _Forward_ followed the sinuosities of the
+coast of Boothia, without reaching Prince of Wales Land. Hatteras put
+on all steam, burning his coal extravagantly; he still intended to get
+further supplies on Beechey Island; on Thursday he arrived at Franklin
+Sound, and he still found the way northward impassable.
+
+His position was a desperate one; he could not return; the ice pushed
+him onward, and he saw his path forever closing behind him, as if
+there were no open sea where he had passed but an hour before.
+
+Hence, not only was the _Forward_ unable to go toward the north, but
+she could not stop for a moment lest she should be imprisoned, and she
+fled before the ice like a ship before a storm.
+
+Friday, June 7th, she arrived near the coast of Boothia, at the
+entrance of James Ross Sound, which had to be avoided because its only
+exit is to the west, close to the shore of America.
+
+The observations taken at noon showed them to be in latitude 70° 5'
+17", and longitude 96° 46' 45"; when the doctor heard this he examined
+his chart, and found that they were at the magnetic pole, at the very
+point where James Ross, the nephew of Sir John, came to determine its
+situation.
+
+The land was low near the coast, and it rose only about sixty feet at
+the distance of a mile from the sea.
+
+The boiler of the _Forward_ needed cleaning; the captain anchored his
+ship to a field of ice, and gave the doctor leave to go ashore with
+the boatswain. For himself, being indifferent to everything outside of
+his own plans, he shut himself up in his cabin, and studied the chart
+of the Pole.
+
+The doctor and his companion easily reached land; the first-named
+carried a compass for his experiments; he wanted to test the work of
+James Ross; he easily made out the mound of stones erected by him; he
+ran towards it; an opening in the cairn let him see a tin box in which
+James Ross had placed an account of his discovery. No living being had
+visited this lonely spot for thirty years.
+
+At this place a needle suspended as delicately as possible assumed a
+nearly vertical position under the magnetic influence; hence the
+centre of attraction was near, if not immediately beneath, the needle.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The doctor made the experiment with all care. But if James Ross, owing
+to the imperfection of his instruments, found a declination of only
+89° 50', the real magnetic point is found within a minute of this
+spot. Dr. Clawbonny was more fortunate, and at a little distance from
+there he found a declination of 90°.
+
+"This is exactly the magnetic pole of the earth!" he cried, stamping
+on the ground.
+
+"Just here?" asked Johnson.
+
+"Precisely here, my friend!"
+
+"Well, then," resumed the boatswain, "we must give up all the stories
+of a magnetic mountain or large mass."
+
+"Yes, Johnson," answered the doctor, laughing, "those are empty
+hypotheses! As you see, there is no mountain capable of attracting
+ships, of drawing their iron from them anchor after anchor, bolt after
+bolt! and your shoes here are as light as anywhere in the world."
+
+"But how do you explain--"
+
+"There is no explanation, Johnson; we are not wise enough for that.
+But what is mathematically certain is that the magnetic pole is at
+this very spot!"
+
+"Ah, Dr. Clawbonny, how glad the captain would be to say as much of
+the North Pole!"
+
+"He'll say it, Johnson; he'll say it!"
+
+"God grant it!" was the answer.
+
+The doctor and his companion raised a cairn at the spot where they
+tried their experiment, and the signal for their return being made,
+they returned to the ship at five o'clock of the evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+THE FATE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.
+
+
+The _Forward_ succeeded, though not without difficulty, in getting by
+James Ross Sound, by frequent use of the ice-saws and gunpowder; the
+crew was very much fatigued. Fortunately the temperature was
+agreeable, and even thirty degrees above what James Ross found at the
+same time of year. The thermometer marked 34°.
+
+Saturday they doubled Cape Felix at the northern end of King William's
+Land, one of the smaller islands of northern seas.
+
+At that time the crew became very much depressed; they gazed wistfully
+and sadly at its far-stretching shores.
+
+In fact, they were gazing at King William's Land, the scene of one of
+the saddest tragedies of modern times! Only a few miles to the west
+the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ were lost.
+
+The sailors of the _Forward_ were familiar with the attempts made to
+find Franklin, and the result they had obtained, but they did not know
+all the sad details. Now, while the doctor was following on his chart
+the course of the ship, many of them, Bell, Bolton, and Simpson, drew
+near him and began to talk with him. Soon the others followed to
+satisfy their curiosity; meanwhile the brig was advancing rapidly, and
+the bays, capes, and promontories of the coast passed before their
+gaze like a gigantic panorama.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Hatteras was pacing nervously to and fro on the quarter-deck; the
+doctor found himself on the bridge, surrounded by the men of the crew;
+he readily understood the interest of the situation, and the
+impression that would be made by an account given under those
+circumstances, hence he resumed the talk he had begun with Johnson.
+
+"You know, my friends, how Franklin began: like Cook and Nelson, he
+was first a cabin-boy; after spending his youth in long sea-voyages,
+he made up his mind, in 1845, to seek the Northwest Passage; he
+commanded the _Erebus_ and the _Terror_, two stanch vessels, which had
+visited the antarctic seas in 1840, under the command of James Ross.
+The _Erebus_, in which Franklin sailed, carried a crew of seventy men,
+all told, with Fitz-James as captain; Gore and Le Vesconte,
+lieutenants; Des Voeux, Sargent, and Couch, boatswains; and Stanley,
+surgeon. The _Terror_ carried sixty-eight men. Crozier was the
+captain; the lieutenants were Little, Hodgson, and Irving; boatswains,
+Horesby and Thomas; the surgeon, Peddie. In the names of the bays,
+capes, straits, promontories, channels, and islands of these latitudes
+you find memorials of most of these unlucky men, of whom not one has
+ever again seen his home! In all one hundred and thirty-eight men! We
+know that the last of Franklin's letters were written from Disco
+Island, and dated July 12, 1845. He said, 'I hope to set sail to-night
+for Lancaster Sound.' What followed his departure from Disco Bay? The
+captains of the whalers, the _Prince of Wales_ and the _Enterprise_,
+saw these two ships for the last time in Melville Bay, and nothing
+more was heard of them. Still we can follow Franklin in his course
+westward; he went through Lancaster and Barrow Sounds and reached
+Beechey Island, where he passed the winter of 1845-46."
+
+"But how is this known?" asked Bell, the carpenter.
+
+"By three tombs which the Austin expedition found there in 1850. Three
+of Franklin's sailors had been buried there; and, moreover, by a paper
+found by Lieutenant Hobson of the _Fox_, dated April 25, 1848. We know
+also that, after leaving winter-quarters, the _Erebus_ and _Terror_
+ascended Wellington Channel as far as latitude 77°; but instead of
+pushing to the north, which they doubtless found impossible, they
+returned towards the south--"
+
+"And that was a fatal mistake!" uttered a grave voice. "Safety lay to
+the north."
+
+Every one turned round. It was Hatteras, who, leaning on the rail of
+the quarter-deck, had just made that solemn remark.
+
+"Without doubt," resumed the doctor, "Franklin intended to make his
+way to the American shore; but tempests beset him, and September 12,
+1846, the two ships were caught in the ice, a few miles from here, to
+the northwest of Cape Felix; they were carried to the north-northwest
+of Point Victory; there," said the doctor, pointing out to the sea.
+"Now," he added, "the ships were not abandoned till April 22, 1848.
+What happened during these nineteen months? What did these poor men
+do? Doubtless they explored the surrounding lands, made every effort
+to escape, for the admiral was an energetic man; and if he did not
+succeed--"
+
+"It's because his men betrayed him," said Hatteras in a deep voice.
+
+The sailors did not dare to lift their eyes; these words made them
+feel abashed.
+
+"To be brief, this paper, of which I spoke, tells us, besides, that
+Sir John Franklin died, worn out by his sufferings, June 11, 1847. All
+honor to his memory!" said the doctor, removing his hat.
+
+The men did the same in silence.
+
+"What became of these poor men, deprived of their leader, during the
+next ten months? They remained on board of their ships, and it was not
+till April, 1848, that they made up their mind to abandon them; one
+hundred and five men survived out of the hundred and thirty-eight.
+Thirty-three had died! Then Captains Crozier and Fitz-James erected a
+cairn at Point Victory, and left their last paper there. See, my
+friends, we are passing by that point. You can see traces of the
+cairn, placed, so to speak, at the farthest point reached by John Ross
+in 1831! There is Cape Jane Franklin! There Point Franklin! There
+Point Le Vesconte! There Erebus Bay, where the launch, made of pieces
+of one of the ships, was found on a sledge! There were found silver
+spoons, plenty of food, chocolate, tea, and religious books. The
+hundred and five survivors, under the command of Captain Crozier, set
+out for Great Fish River. How far did they get? Did they reach
+Hudson's Bay? Have any survived? What became of them after that?--"
+
+"I will tell you what became of them," said John Hatteras in an
+energetic voice. "Yes, they tried to reach Hudson's Bay, and separated
+into several parties. They took the road to the south. In 1854 a
+letter from Dr. Rae states that in 1850 the Esquimaux had met in King
+William's Land a detachment of forty men, chasing sea-cows, travelling
+on the ice, dragging a boat along with them, thin, pale, and worn out
+with suffering and fatigue. Later, they discovered thirty corpses on
+the mainland and five on a neighboring island, some half buried,
+others left without burial; some lying beneath an overturned boat,
+others under the ruins of a tent; here lay an officer with his glass
+swung around his shoulder, and his loaded gun near him; farther on
+were kettles with the remains of a horrible meal. At this news, the
+Admiralty urged the Hudson's Bay Company to send its most skilful
+agents to this place. They descended Black River to its mouth. They
+visited Montreal and Maconochie Islands, and Point Ogle. In vain! All
+these poor fellows had died of misery, suffering, and starvation,
+after trying to prolong their lives by having recourse to cannibalism.
+That is what became of them along their way towards the south, which
+was lined with their mutilated bodies. Well, do you want to follow
+their path?"
+
+[Illustration: "All these poor fellows had died of misery, suffering,
+and starvation."]
+
+Hatteras's ringing voice, passionate gestures, and glowing face
+produced an indescribable effect. The crew, moved by the sight of
+these ill-omened lands, cried with one voice,--
+
+"To the north! to the north!"
+
+"Well, to the north! Safety and glory await us there at the north!
+Heaven is declaring for us! The wind is changing! The passage is free!
+Prepare to go about!"
+
+The sailors hastened to their places; the ice-streams grew slowly
+free; the _Forward_ went about rapidly, and ran under full steam
+towards MacClintock's Channel.
+
+Hatteras was justified in counting on a freer sea; on his way he
+retraced the probable path of Franklin; he went along the eastern side
+of Prince of Wales Land, which is clearly defined, while the other
+shore is still unknown. Evidently the clearing away of the ice towards
+the south took place through the eastern strait, for it appeared
+perfectly clear; so the _Forward_ was able to make up for lost time;
+she was put under full steam, so that the 14th they passed Osborne
+Bay, and the farthest points reached by the expeditions of 1851. There
+was still a great deal of ice about them, but there was every
+indication that the _Forward_ would have clear sailing-way before her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+THE WAY NORTHWARD.
+
+
+The crew seemed to have returned to their habits of discipline and
+obedience. Their duties were slight and infrequent, so that they had
+plenty of leisure. The temperature never fell below the
+freezing-point, and the thaw removed the greatest obstacles from their
+path.
+
+Duke had made friends with Dr. Clawbonny. They got on admirably
+together. But as in friendship one friend is always sacrificed to the
+other, it must be said that the doctor was not the other. Duke did
+with him whatever he pleased. The doctor obeyed him as a dog obeys his
+master. Moreover, Duke conducted himself very amicably with most of
+the officers and sailors; only, instinctively doubtless, he avoided
+Shandon; he had, too, a grudge against Pen and Foker; his hatred for
+them manifested itself in low growls when they came near him. They,
+for their part, did not dare attack the captain's dog, "his familiar
+spirit," as Clifton called him.
+
+In a word, the crew had taken courage again.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"It seems to me," said James Wall one day to Richard Shandon, "that
+the men took the captain's words for earnest; they seem to be sure of
+success."
+
+"They are mistaken," answered Shandon; "if they would only reflect,
+and consider our condition, they would see we are simply going from
+one imprudence to another."
+
+"Still," resumed Wall, "we are in a more open sea; we are going along
+a well-known route; don't you exaggerate somewhat, Shandon?"
+
+"Not a bit, Wall; the hate and jealousy, if you please, with which
+Hatteras inspires me, don't blind my eyes. Say, have you seen the
+coal-bunkers lately?"
+
+"No," answered Wall.
+
+"Well! go below, and you'll see how near we are to the end of our
+supply. By right, we ought to be going under sail, and only starting
+our engine to make headway against currents or contrary winds; our
+fuel ought to be burned only with the strictest economy, for who can
+say where and for how long we may be detained? But Hatteras is pushed
+by this mania of going forward, of reaching the inaccessible Pole, and
+he doesn't care for such a detail. Whether the wind is fair or foul,
+he goes on under steam; and if he goes on we run a risk of being very
+much embarrassed, if not lost."
+
+"Is that so, Shandon? That is serious!"
+
+"You are right, Wall, it is; not only would the engine be of no use to
+us if we got into a tight place, but what are we to do in the winter?
+We ought to take some precautions against the cold in a country where
+the mercury often freezes in the thermometer."
+
+"But if I'm not mistaken, Shandon, the captain intends getting a new
+supply at Beechey Island; they say there is a great quantity there."
+
+"Can any one choose where he'll go in these seas, Wall? Can one count
+on finding such or such a channel free of ice? And if he misses
+Beechey Island, or can't reach it, what is to become of us?"
+
+"You are right, Shandon; Hatteras seems to me unwise; but why don't
+you say something of this sort to him?"
+
+"No, Wall," answered Shandon, with ill-disguised bitterness, "I have
+made up my mind not to say a word; I am not responsible any longer for
+the ship; I shall await events; if I receive any commands, I obey, and
+I don't proclaim my opinions."
+
+"Let me tell you you are wrong, Shandon; for the well-being of all is
+at stake, and the captain's imprudence may cost us all dear."
+
+"And if I were to speak, Wall, would he listen to me?"
+
+Wall did not dare say he would.
+
+"But," he added, "he would perhaps listen to remonstrances of the
+crew."
+
+"The crew," said Shandon, shrugging his shoulders; "but, my dear Wall,
+haven't you noticed that they care for everything else more than for
+their safety? They know they're getting near latitude 72°, and that a
+thousand pounds is paid for every degree of latitude beyond which is
+reached."
+
+"You are right, Shandon," answered Wall, "and the captain has taken
+the surest means of securing his men."
+
+"Without doubt," answered Shandon; "for the present, at least."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that all will go very well in the absence of all dangers and
+fatigues, in an open sea; Hatteras has caught them by his money; but
+what is done for pay is ill done. But once let hardships, dangers,
+discomfort, sickness, melancholy, and fierce cold stare them in the
+face,--and we are flying towards them now,--and you will see whether
+they remember the pay they are to get."
+
+"So, in your opinion, Shandon, Hatteras will fail?"
+
+"Exactly; he will fail. In such an enterprise, there should be an
+identity of interests among the leaders, a sympathy which is lacking
+here. Besides, Hatteras is mad; his whole past proves it! But we shall
+see! Circumstances may arise in which the command of the ship will
+have to be given to a less foolhardy captain--"
+
+"Still," said Wall, shaking his head doubtfully, "Hatteras will always
+have on his side--"
+
+"He will have," interrupted Shandon,--"he will have that Dr.
+Clawbonny, who only cares to study; Johnson, who is a slave to
+discipline, and who never takes the trouble to reason; perhaps one or
+two besides, like Bell, the carpenter,--four at the most, and there
+are eighteen on board! No, Wall, Hatteras has not the confidence of
+the crew; he knows it well, and he tries to make up for it by bribery;
+he made a good use of the account of Franklin's catastrophe to create
+a different feeling in their excited minds; but that won't last, I
+tell you; and if he don't reach Beechey Island, he is lost!"
+
+"If the crew suspected--"
+
+"I beg of you," said Shandon, quickly, "not to say a word about this
+to the crew; they'll find it out for themselves. Now, at any rate, it
+is well to go on towards the north. But who can say whether what
+Hatteras takes for a step towards the Pole may not be really retracing
+our steps? At the end of MacClintock Channel is Melville Bay, and
+thence open the straits which lead back to Baffin's Bay. Hatteras had
+better take care! The way west is easier than the way north."
+
+From these words Shandon's state of mind may be judged, and how
+justified the captain was in suspecting a treacherous disposition in
+him.
+
+Shandon, moreover, was right when he ascribed the present satisfaction
+of the crew to the prospect they had of passing latitude 72°. This
+greed of gold seized the least audacious. Clifton had made out every
+one's share with great exactness. Leaving out the captain and the
+doctor, who could not be admitted to the division, there were sixteen
+men on board the _Forward_. The amount was a thousand pounds, that was
+£72 10_s_. for each man, for every degree. If they should ever reach
+the Pole the eighteen degrees to be crossed would give each one a sum
+of £1,125, a fair fortune. This whim would cost the captain £18,000;
+but he was rich enough to pay for such a costly trip to the Pole.
+
+These calculations aroused wonderfully the avarice of the crew, as can
+be readily believed, and more than one longed to pass latitude 72°,
+who, a fortnight before, rejoiced to be sailing southward.
+
+The _Forward_ sailed by Cape Alworth June 16th. Mount Rawlinson raised
+its white peaks towards the sky; the snow and mist exaggerated its
+size so that it appeared colossal; the temperature remained a few
+degrees above the freezing-point; cascades and cataracts appeared on
+the sides of the mountain; avalanches kept falling with a roar like
+that of artillery. The long stretches of glaciers made a loud echo.
+The contrast between this wintry scene and the thaw made a wonderful
+sight. The brig sailed along very near the coast; they were able to
+see on some sheltered rocks a few bushes bearing modest little roses,
+some reddish moss, and a budding dwarf willow barely rising above the
+ground.
+
+At last, June 19th, in latitude 72°, they doubled Point Minto, which
+forms one of the extremities of Ommanney Bay; the brig entered
+Melville Bay, called "the Sea of Money" by Bolton; this good-natured
+fellow used to be always jesting on this subject, much to Clawbonny's
+amusement.
+
+The obstacles to their course were but few, for June 23d, in the teeth
+of a strong northeasterly breeze, they passed latitude 74°. This was
+at the middle of Melville Bay, one of the largest seas of this region.
+It was first crossed by Captain Parry, in his great expedition of
+1819, and there it was that his crew won the £5,000 promised by act of
+Parliament.
+
+Clifton contented himself with remarking that there were two degrees
+between latitude 72° and latitude 74°: that was £125 to his credit.
+But they told him that a fortune did not amount to much up there, and
+that a man could be called rich only when he could have a chance to
+drink to his wealth; it seemed better to wait for the moment when they
+could meet at some tavern in Liverpool before rejoicing and rubbing
+their hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+A WHALE IN SIGHT.
+
+
+Melville Bay, although perfectly navigable, was not wholly free of
+ice; immense ice-fields could be seen stretching to the horizon; here
+and there appeared a few icebergs, but they stood motionless as if
+anchored in the ice. The _Forward_ went under full steam through broad
+passes where she had plenty of sailing-room. The wind shifted
+frequently from one point of the compass to another.
+
+The variability of the wind in the arctic seas is a remarkable fact,
+and very often only a few minutes intervene between a calm and a
+frightful tempest. This was Hatteras's experience on the 23d of June,
+in the middle of this huge bay.
+
+The steadiest winds blow generally from the ice to the open sea, and
+are very cold. On that day the thermometer fell several degrees; the
+wind shifted to the southward, and the heavy gusts, having passed over
+the ice, discharged themselves of their dampness under the form of a
+thick snow. Hatteras immediately ordered the sails which were aiding
+the engine to be reefed; but before this could be done his
+main-topsail was carried away.
+
+Hatteras gave his orders with the utmost coolness, and did not leave
+the deck during the storm; he was obliged to run before the gale. The
+wind raised very heavy waves which hurled about pieces of ice of every
+shape, torn from the neighboring ice-fields; the brig was tossed about
+like a child's toy, and ice was dashed against its hull; at one moment
+it rose perpendicularly to the top of a mountain of water; its steel
+prow shone like molten metal; then it sank into an abyss, sending
+forth great whirls of smoke, while the screw revolved out the water
+with a fearful clatter. Rain and snow fell in torrents.
+
+The doctor could not miss such a chance to get wet to the skin; he
+remained on deck, gazing at the storm with all the admiration such a
+spectacle cannot fail to draw forth. One standing next to him could
+not have heard his voice; so he said nothing, but looked, and soon he
+saw a singular phenomenon, one peculiar to the northern seas.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The tempest was confined to a small space of about three or four
+miles; in fact, the wind loses much of its force in passing over the
+ice, and cannot carry its violence very far; every now and then the
+doctor would see, through some rift in the storm, a clear sky and a
+quiet sea beyond the ice-fields; hence the _Forward_ had only to make
+her way through the passes to find smooth sailing; but she ran a risk
+of being dashed against the moving masses which obeyed the motion of
+the waves. Notwithstanding, Hatteras succeeded in a few hours in
+carrying his vessel into smooth water, while the violence of the
+storm, now at its worst at the horizon, was dying away within a few
+cable-lengths from the _Forward_.
+
+Melville Bay then looked very different; by the influence of the winds
+and waves a large number of icebergs had been detached from the shores
+and were now floating northward, continually crashing against one
+another. They could be counted by hundreds; but the bay is very broad,
+and the brig avoided them without difficulty. The sight of these
+floating masses, which seemed to be racing together, was indeed
+magnificent.
+
+The doctor was wild with enthusiasm about it, when Simpson, the
+harpooner, came up to him and asked him to notice the changing tints
+of the sea, which varied from deep blue to olive green; long bands ran
+from north to south with edges so sharply cut that the line of
+division could be seen as far as the horizon. Sometimes a transparent
+sheet would stretch out from an opaque one.
+
+"Well, Dr. Clawbonny, what do you think of that?" said Simpson.
+
+"I agree, my friend, with what Scoresby said about these differently
+colored waters," answered the doctor, "namely, that the blue water
+does not contain the millions of animalcules and medusæ which the
+green water contains; he made a great many experiments to test it, and
+I am ready to agree with him."
+
+"O, but there's something else it shows!"
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"Well, if the _Forward_ were only a whaler, I believe we should have
+some sport."
+
+"But," answered the doctor, "I don't see any whales."
+
+"We shall very soon, though, I promise you. It's great luck for a
+whaler to see those green patches in these latitudes."
+
+"Why so?" asked the doctor, whose curiosity was aroused by these
+remarks of a man who had had experience in what he was talking about.
+
+"Because," answered Simpson, "it is in that green water that most of
+the whales are caught."
+
+"What is the reason, Simpson?"
+
+"Because they get more food there."
+
+"You are sure of that?"
+
+"O, I have seen it a hundred times in Baffin's Bay! I don't see why
+the same shouldn't be the case in Melville Bay."
+
+"You must be right, Simpson."
+
+"And see," Simpson continued as he leaned over the rail,--"see there,
+Doctor."
+
+"One would say it was the track of a ship."
+
+"Well," said Simpson, "it's an oily substance that the whale leaves
+behind it. Really, the whale itself can't be far off."
+
+In fact, the atmosphere was filled with a strong fishy smell. The
+doctor began to examine the surface of the sea, and the harpooner's
+prediction was soon verified. Foker was heard shouting from aloft,--
+
+"A whale to leeward!"
+
+All turned their eyes in that direction; a low spout was seen rising
+from the sea about a mile from the brig.
+
+"There she spouts!" shouted Simpson, whose experienced eye soon
+detected it.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"It's gone," said the doctor.
+
+"We could soon find it again, if it were necessary," said Simpson,
+regretfully.
+
+But to his great surprise, although no one had dared to ask it,
+Hatteras gave the order to lower and man the whale-boat; he was glad
+to give the men some distraction, and also to get a few barrels of
+oil. They heard the order with great satisfaction.
+
+Four sailors took their places in the whale-boat; Johnson took the
+helm; Simpson stood in the bow, harpoon in hand. The doctor insisted
+on joining the party. The sea was quite smooth. The whale-boat went
+very fast, and in about ten minutes she was a mile from the brig.
+
+The whale, having taken another breath, had dived again; but soon it
+came up and projected fifteen feet into the air that combination of
+gases and mucous fluid which escapes from its vent-holes.
+
+"There, there!" cried Simpson, pointing to a place about eight hundred
+yards from the boat.
+
+They approached it rapidly; and the brig, having also seen it, drew
+near slowly.
+
+The huge monster kept appearing above the waves, showing its black
+back, which resembled a great rock in the sea; a whale never swims
+rapidly unless pursued, and this one was letting itself be rocked by
+the waves.
+
+The hunters approached in silence, choosing the green water, which was
+so opaque as to prevent the whale from seeing them. It is always
+exciting to watch a frail boat attacking one of these monsters; this
+one was about one hundred and thirty feet long, and often between
+latitude 72° and 80° whales are found more than one hundred and
+twenty-four feet long; ancient writers have often spoken of some
+longer than seven hundred feet, but they are imaginary animals.
+
+Soon the boat was very near the whale. Simpson made a sign, the men
+stopped rowing, and, brandishing his harpoon, he hurled it skilfully;
+this, with sharp barbs, sank into the thick layers of fat. The wounded
+whale dived rapidly. At once the four oars were unshipped; the rope
+which was attached to the harpoon ran out rapidly, and the boat was
+dragged along while Johnson steered it skilfully.
+
+The whale swam away from the brig and hastened towards the moving
+icebergs; for half an hour it went on in this way; the cord had to be
+kept wet to prevent its taking fire from friction. When the animal
+seemed to go more slowly, the rope was dragged back and carefully
+coiled; the whale rose again to the surface, lashing violently with
+its tail; huge spouts of water were dashed up by it and fell in
+torrents on the boat, which now approached rapidly; Simpson had taken
+a long lance and was prepared to meet the whale face to face.
+
+[Illustration: "The whale swam away from the brig and hastened towards
+the moving icebergs."]
+
+But it plunged rapidly into a pass between two icebergs. Further
+pursuit seemed dangerous.
+
+"The devil!" said Johnson.
+
+"Forward, forward, my friends," shouted Simpson, eager for the chase;
+"the whale is ours."
+
+"But we can't follow it among the icebergs," answered Johnson, turning
+the boat away.
+
+"Yes, yes!" cried Simpson.
+
+"No, no!" said some of the sailors.
+
+"Yes!" cried others.
+
+During this discussion the whale had got between two icebergs which
+the wind and waves were driving together.
+
+The whale-boat was in danger of being dragged into this dangerous
+pass, when Johnson sprang forward, axe in hand, and cut the line.
+
+It was time; the two icebergs met with irresistible force, crushing
+the whale between them.
+
+"Lost!" cried Simpson.
+
+"Saved!" said Johnson.
+
+"Upon my word," said the doctor, who had not flinched, "that was well
+worth seeing!"
+
+The crushing power of these mountains is enormous. The whale was the
+victim of an accident that is very frequent in these waters. Scoresby
+tells us that in the course of a single summer thirty whalers have
+been lost in this way in Baffin's Bay; he saw a three-master crushed
+in one minute between two walls of ice, which drew together with
+fearful rapidity and sank the ship with all on board. Two other ships
+he himself saw cut through, as if by a long lance, by huge pieces of
+ice more than a hundred feet long.
+
+A few moments later the whale-boat returned to the brig, and was
+hauled up to its usual place on deck.
+
+"That's a lesson," said Shandon, aloud, "for those who are foolhardy
+enough to venture into the passes!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+BEECHEY ISLAND.
+
+
+June 25th the _Forward_ sighted Cape Dundas, at the northwest
+extremity of Prince of Wales Land. There they found more serious
+difficulties amid thicker ice. The channel here grows narrower, and
+the line of Crozier, Young, Day, and Lowther Islands ranged in a line,
+like forts in a harbor, drive the ice-streams nearer together. What
+would otherwise have taken the brig a day now detained her from June
+25th to the end of the month; she was continually obliged to stop, to
+retreat, and to wait for a favorable chance to reach Beechey Island.
+Meanwhile a great deal of coal was consumed; though during the
+frequent halts only small fires were kept burning, sufficient to keep
+steam up day and night.
+
+Hatteras knew as well as Shandon the reduced state of their supply;
+but feeling sure that he would find fuel at Beechey Island, he did not
+wish to lose a minute for the sake of economy; he had been very much
+delayed by running south; and, although he had taken the precaution of
+leaving England in April, he now found himself no farther advanced
+than previous expeditions had been at that time of year.
+
+The 30th they passed Cape Walker at the northeast extremity of Prince
+of Wales Land; this is the farthest point seen by Kennedy and Bellot,
+May 3d, 1852, after an expedition across North Somerset. In 1851,
+Captain Ommaney of the Austin expedition had been fortunate enough to
+get fresh supplies there for his detachment.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+This cape, which is very lofty, is remarkable for its reddish-brown
+color; in clear weather one can see as far as the entrance of
+Wellington Channel. Towards evening they saw Cape Bellot, separated
+from Cape Walker by MacLeon's Bay. Cape Bellot was so named in
+presence of that young French officer to whom the English expedition
+gave three cheers. At this place the coast consists of a yellowish
+limestone, very rough in appearance; it is protected by huge masses of
+ice which the north-wind collects there in the most imposing way. It
+was soon no longer to be seen from the _Forward's_ deck, as she was
+making her way amid the loose ice towards Beechey Island through
+Barrow Strait.
+
+Hatteras, having resolved to go on in a straight line, in order not to
+be carried past the island, hardly left the deck during the subsequent
+days; he would go aloft to the cross-trees in order to pick out the
+most favorable path for the brig. All that skill, coolness, boldness,
+and even maritime genius could do, was done by him while sailing
+through the strait. It is true that fortune did not favor him, for at
+that season he ought to have found the sea nearly open. But by dint of
+sparing neither steam, his men, nor himself, he succeeded in his aim.
+
+July 3d, at eleven o'clock in the morning, the ice-master saw land to
+the north; Hatteras soon made it out as Beechey Island, the general
+rendezvous for arctic explorers. Almost all the ships which sail in
+these latitudes touch here. Here Franklin passed his first winter
+before advancing into Wellington Channel. Here Creswell, MacClure's
+lieutenant, after a march of four hundred and sixty miles on the ice,
+rejoined the _Phoenix_ and returned to England. The last ship which
+anchored at Beechey Island before the _Forward_ was the _Fox_;
+MacClintock took in supplies there, August 11, 1855, and repaired the
+dwellings and storehouses; that was but a short time previous.
+Hatteras knew all these details.
+
+The boatswain's heart beat strongly at the sight of this island; when
+he had last seen it he had been quartermaster on the _Phoenix_;
+Hatteras asked him about the coast, the place for anchoring, the
+possible change of the bottom. The weather was perfect; the
+thermometer marked 57°.
+
+"Well, Johnson," said the captain, "do you recognize this place?"
+
+"Yes, Captain, it's Beechey Island! Only we ought to bear a little
+farther north; the coast is more easily approached there."
+
+"But the buildings, the stores?" said Hatteras.
+
+"O, you can't see them till you get ashore; they are hidden behind
+those hillocks you see there!"
+
+"And did you carry large supplies there?"
+
+"Yes, they were large. The Admiralty sent us here in 1853, under the
+command of Captain Inglefield, with the steamer _Phoenix_ and a
+transport, the _Breadalbane_, loaded with supplies; we carried enough
+to revictual a whole expedition."
+
+"But did not the commander of the _Fox_ take a great deal away in
+1855?" said Hatteras.
+
+"O, don't be anxious, Captain!" answered Johnson; "there will be
+enough left for you; the cold keeps everything wonderfully, and we
+shall find everything as fresh and in as good condition as on the
+first day."
+
+"I'm not so anxious about the provisions," answered Hatteras; "I have
+enough for several years; what I stand in need of is coal."
+
+"Well, Captain, we left more than a thousand tons there; so you can
+feel easy about that."
+
+"Let us stand nearer," resumed Hatteras, who, glass in hand, kept
+examining the shore.
+
+"You see that point," said Johnson; "when we've doubled it, we shall
+be near our anchorage. Yes, it's from there we started for England
+with Lieutenant Creswell and twelve sick men of the _Investigator_.
+But if we were fortunate enough to be of service to Captain MacClure's
+lieutenant, Bellot, the officer who accompanied us on the _Phoenix_,
+never saw his home again! Ah, that's a sad memory! But, Captain, I
+think it's here we ought to anchor."
+
+"Very well," answered Hatteras.
+
+And he gave the proper orders. The _Forward_ lay in a little harbor
+sheltered from the north, east, and south winds, about a cable-length
+from the shore.
+
+"Mr. Wall," said Hatteras, "you will lower the launch and send six men
+to bring coal aboard."
+
+"Yes, sir," answered Wall.
+
+"I am going ashore in the gig with the doctor and the boatswain; Mr.
+Shandon, will you go with us?"
+
+"At your orders," answered Shandon.
+
+A few minutes later the doctor, with gun and baskets for any specimens
+he might find, took his place in the gig with his companions; ten
+minutes later they stepped out on a low, rocky shore.
+
+"Lead the way, Johnson," said Hatteras; "do you remember it?"
+
+"Perfectly, Captain; only here is a monument which I did not expect to
+find here."
+
+"That," shouted the doctor, "I know what it is; let's go look at it;
+it will tell us of itself why it was put here."
+
+The four men went up to it, and the doctor, baring his head, said,--
+
+"This, my friends, is a monument raised to the memory of Franklin and
+his companions."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In fact, Lady Franklin having, in 1855, sent a tablet of black marble
+to Dr. Kane, gave another in 1858 to MacClintock to be placed on
+Beechey Island. MacClintock discharged his duty, and placed this
+tablet near a funeral pile raised to the memory of Bellot by Sir John
+Barrow.
+
+This tablet bore the following inscription:--
+
+
+                        TO THE MEMORY OF
+                 FRANKLIN, CROZIER, FITZ-JAMES,
+  AND ALL THEIR GALLANT BROTHER OFFICERS AND FAITHFUL COMPANIONS
+                 Who have suffered and perished
+     in the cause of science and the service of their country.
+                          THIS TABLET
+   Is erected near the spot where they passed their first arctic
+                             Winter,
+     and whence they issued forth to conquer difficulties or
+                             TO DIE.
+  It commemorates the grief of their Admiring Countrymen and Friends,
+                and the anguish, subdued by Faith,
+   of her who has lost, in the heroic Leader of the Expedition, the
+                          Most Devoted
+                  and Affectionate of Husbands.
+
+   "_And so he bringeth them unto the Haven where they would be._"
+                              1855.
+
+
+This stone, on a lonely shore of these remote regions, touched every
+one's heart; the doctor felt the tears rising in his eyes. On the very
+spot whence Franklin and his men sailed, full of hope and strength,
+there was now merely a slab of marble to commemorate them; and in
+spite of this solemn warning of fate, the _Forward_ was about to
+follow the path of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_.
+
+Hatteras was the first to rouse himself; he ascended quickly a rather
+high hillock, which was almost entirely bare of snow.
+
+"Captain," said Johnson, following him, "from there we ought to see
+the stores."
+
+Shandon and the doctor joined them just as they reached the top of the
+hill.
+
+But their eyes saw nothing but large plains with no trace of a
+building.
+
+"This is very strange," said the boatswain.
+
+"Well, these stores?" said Hatteras, quickly.
+
+"I don't know,--I don't see--" stammered Johnson.
+
+"You must have mistaken the path," said the doctor.
+
+"Still it seems to me," resumed Johnson after a moment's reflection,
+"that at this very spot--"
+
+"Well," said Hatteras, impatiently, "where shall we go?"
+
+"Let's go down again," said the boatswain, "for it's possible I've
+lost my way! In seven years I may have forgotten the place."
+
+"Especially," said the doctor, "when the country is so monotonous."
+
+"And yet--" muttered Johnson.
+
+Shandon said not a word. After walking a few minutes, Johnson stopped.
+
+"No," he said, "I'm not mistaken."
+
+"Well," said Hatteras, looking around.
+
+"What makes you say so, Johnson?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Do you see this little rise in the earth?" asked the boatswain,
+pointing downwards to a mound in which three elevations could be
+clearly seen.
+
+"What does that mean?" asked the doctor.
+
+"There," answered Johnson, "are the three tombs of Franklin's sailors.
+I'm sure of it! I'm not mistaken, and the stores must be within a
+hundred paces of us, and if they're not there,--it's because--"
+
+He durst not finish his sentence; Hatteras ran forward, and terrible
+despair seized him. There ought to stand those much-needed
+storehouses, with supplies of all sorts on which he had been counting;
+but ruin, pillage, and destruction had passed over that place where
+civilized hands had accumulated resources for battered sailors. Who
+had committed these depredations? Wild animals, wolves, foxes, bears?
+No, for they would have destroyed only the provisions; and there was
+left no shred of a tent, not a piece of wood, not a scrap of iron, no
+bit of any metal, nor--what was more serious for the men of the
+_Forward_--a single lump of coal.
+
+Evidently the Esquimaux, who have often had much to do with European
+ships, had finally learned the value of these objects; since the visit
+of the _Fox_ they had come frequently to this great storehouse, and
+had pillaged incessantly, with the intention of leaving no trace of
+what had been there; and now a long drift of half-melted snow covered
+the ground.
+
+Hatteras was baffled. The doctor gazed and shook his head. Shandon
+said nothing, but an attentive observer would have noticed a wicked
+smile about his lips.
+
+At this moment the men sent by Wall arrived. They took it all in at a
+glance. Shandon went up to the captain and said,--
+
+"Mr. Hatteras, we need not despair; fortunately we are near the
+entrance to Barrow Strait, which will carry us back to Baffin's Bay."
+
+"Mr. Shandon," answered Hatteras, "we are fortunately near the
+entrance of Wellington Channel, and it will lead us to the north."
+
+"And how shall we go, Captain?"
+
+"Under sail, sir. We have two months' fuel left, and that is more than
+we shall need for next winter."
+
+"Permit me to say," began Shandon.
+
+"I permit you to follow me to the ship, sir," was Hatteras's answer.
+
+And turning his back on his first officer, he returned to the brig and
+locked himself in his cabin.
+
+For two days the wind was unfavorable; the captain did not come on
+deck. The doctor profited by this forced delay to examine Beechey
+Island; he collected a few plants which a comparatively high
+temperature let grow here and there on some rocks which projected from
+the snow, such as heather, a few lichens, a sort of yellow ranunculus,
+a plant like sorrel with leaves a trifle larger, and some sturdy
+saxifrages.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The fauna of this country was much richer; the doctor saw large flocks
+of geese and cranes flying northward; partridges, eider-ducks,
+northern divers, numerous ptarmigans, which are delicious eating,
+noisy flocks of kittiwakes, and great white-bellied loons represented
+the winged tribe. The doctor was lucky enough to kill some gray hares,
+which had not yet put on their white winter coat of fur, and a blue
+fox, which Duke skilfully caught. A few bears, evidently accustomed to
+fear men, could not be approached, and the seals were very timid,
+probably for the same reason. The harbor was full of a very good
+tasting shellfish. The genus _articulata_, order _diptera_, family
+_culicides_, division _nemocera_, was represented by a simple
+mosquito, a single one, which the doctor, though much bitten, had the
+pleasure of catching. As a conchologist, he was less fortunate, and he
+was obliged to content himself with a sort of mussel and some
+bivalves.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+THE DEATH OF BELLOT.
+
+
+The temperature remained at 57° during July 3d and 4th; this was the
+highest temperature observed. But on Thursday, the 5th, the wind
+shifted to the southeast, with violent snow-squalls. The thermometer
+fell twenty-three degrees in the preceding night. Hatteras,
+indifferent to the hostility of the crew, gave the order to set sail.
+For thirteen days, ever since passing Cape Dundas, the _Forward_ had
+not gone a single degree farther north; hence the party represented by
+Clifton was dissatisfied; their wishes, it is true, coincided with
+those of the captain, namely, that they should make their way through
+Wellington Channel, and they were all glad to be off once more.
+
+It was with difficulty that sail was set; but having in the course of
+the night run up the mainsail and topsails, Hatteras plunged boldly
+into the ice, which the current was driving towards the south. The
+crew became very tired of this tortuous navigation, which kept them
+very busy with the sails.
+
+Wellington Channel is not very broad; it lies between North Devon on
+the east and Cornwallis Island on the west; for a long time this
+island was considered a peninsula. It was Sir John Franklin who
+circumnavigated it, in 1846, from the western side, going about its
+northern coast.
+
+[Illustration: "The _Forward_ in Wellington Channel."]
+
+The exploration of Wellington Channel was made in 1851, by Captain
+Penny, in the whale-ships _Lady Franklin_ and _Sophia_; one of his
+lieutenants, Stewart, who reached Cape Beechey, latitude 76° 20',
+discovered the open sea. The open sea! It was for that Hatteras
+longed.
+
+"What Stewart found, I shall find," he said to the doctor; "and I
+shall be able to get to the Pole under sail."
+
+"But," answered the doctor, "don't you fear lest the crew--"
+
+"The crew!" said Hatteras, coldly.
+
+Then in a lower tone he murmured,--
+
+"Poor men!" much to the doctor's surprise.
+
+It was the first sentiment of this sort which he had ever noticed in
+the captain.
+
+"No," he went on warmly, "they must follow me, and they shall."
+
+Still, if the _Forward_ need not fear collision with the ice-streams,
+she made but little way northward, being much delayed by contrary
+winds. With some difficulty they got by Capes Spencer and Innis, and
+Tuesday, the 10th, latitude 75° was at last reached, much to Clifton's
+joy.
+
+The _Forward_ was now at the very spot where the American ships, the
+_Rescue_ and the _Advance_, commanded by Captain Haven, ran such
+terrible dangers. Dr. Kane accompanied this expedition; towards the
+end of September, 1850, these ships were caught in the ice, and
+carried with irresistible force into Lancaster Sound.
+
+Shandon told James Wall about it in the presence of some of the men.
+
+"The _Advance_ and the _Rescue_," he said, "were so tossed about by
+ice, that they could keep no fires on board; and yet the thermometer
+stood at 18° below zero. During the whole winter the crews were kept
+imprisoned, ready to abandon their ships, and for three weeks they did
+not take off their clothes! It was a terrible situation; after
+drifting a thousand miles, they were driven to the middle of Baffin's
+Bay!"
+
+One may easily judge of the effect of such a narration on a crew
+already discontented.
+
+While this conversation was going on, Johnson was talking with the
+doctor about an event which had taken place here; the doctor, at his
+request, told him the exact moment when the brig reached latitude 75°
+30'.
+
+"There it is! there it is!" said Johnson, "there is that unlucky
+land!"
+
+And so speaking, tears came into the boatswain's eyes.
+
+"You mean Lieutenant Bellot's death," said the doctor.
+
+"Yes, sir, of that brave, good man!"
+
+"And it was here, you say, that it took place?"
+
+"Just here, on this part of the coast of North Devon. It was very
+great ill-luck, and this would not have happened if Captain Pullen had
+come on board sooner."
+
+"What do you mean, Johnson?"
+
+"Listen, Doctor, and you will see by how slight a thread life is held.
+You know that Lieutenant Bellot had already made an expedition in
+search of Franklin, in 1850?"
+
+"Yes; in the _Prince Albert_."
+
+"Well, in 1853, having returned to France, he got permission to sail
+in the _Phoenix_, in which I was a sailor, under Captain Inglefield.
+We came with the _Breadalbane_ to carry supplies to Beechey Island."
+
+"Those which we did not find!"
+
+"Exactly, Doctor. We arrived at Beechey Island at the beginning of
+August; the 10th of that month, Captain Inglefield left the _Phoenix_
+to rejoin Captain Pullen, who had been away for a month from his ship,
+the _North Star_. He intended on his return to send the Admiralty
+despatches to Sir Edward Belcher, who was wintering in Wellington
+Channel. Now, shortly after our captain's departure, Captain Pullen
+reached his ship. If he had only come back before Captain Inglefield
+had left! Lieutenant Bellot, fearing that our captain's absence might
+be a long one, and knowing that the Admiralty despatches were
+important, offered to carry them himself. He left the two ships under
+Captain Pullen's charge, and left August 12, with a sledge and an
+india-rubber canoe. He took with him Harvey, quartermaster of the
+_North Star_, and three sailors, Madden, David Hook, and me. We
+thought that Sir Edward Belcher would be somewhere near Cape Beecher,
+at the northern part of the channel; hence we made for that part in
+our sledge, keeping on the east bank. The first day we encamped three
+miles from Cape Innis; the next day we stopped on the ice nearly three
+miles from Cape Bowden. During the night, which was as bright as day,
+land being only three miles distant, Lieutenant Bellot determined to
+go and camp there; he tried to reach it in the canoe; a violent
+southeast breeze drove him back twice; Harvey and Madden tried in
+their turn, and with success; they carried a rope, and with it they
+established communication with the shore; three objects were carried
+across by it; but at the fourth attempt, we felt the ice moving away
+from us; Mr. Bellot shouted to his companions to loosen the rope, and
+we (the lieutenant, David Hook, and I) were carried to a great
+distance from the shore. Then a strong southeaster was blowing, and
+snow was falling. But we were not in any great danger, and he might
+have been saved, since the rest of us were saved."
+
+Johnson stopped for a moment, and gazed at the ill-fated shore, then
+he went on:--
+
+"After losing sight of our companions, we tried at first to shelter
+ourselves under the cover of our sledge, but in vain; then with our
+knives we began to cut a house in the ice. Mr. Bellot sat down for
+half an hour, and talked with us about the danger of our situation; I
+told him I was not afraid. 'With God's protection,' he said, 'not a
+hair of our heads shall be hurt.' I then asked him what time it was.
+He answered, 'About quarter past six.' It was quarter past six in the
+morning of Thursday, August 18th. Then Mr. Bellot bound on his books,
+and said he wanted to go and see how the ice was moving; he was gone
+only four minutes, when I went to seek him behind the floe which
+sheltered us; but I did not find him, and, returning to our retreat, I
+saw his stick on the opposite side of a crevasse about three fathoms
+wide, where the ice was all broken. I shouted, but there was no
+answer. At that time the wind was blowing very hard. I searched all
+around, but I could find no trace of the poor lieutenant."
+
+"And what do you suppose became of him?" asked the doctor, who was
+much moved by this account.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"I suppose that when he left the shelter, the wind drove him into the
+crevasse, and that, being thickly clad, he could not swim to the
+surface. O Dr. Clawbonny, I never felt worse in my life! I could not
+believe it! That brave officer fell a victim to his sense of duty! For
+you know that it was in order to obey Captain Pullen's instructions
+that he was trying to reach the land before the ice began to break! He
+was a brave man, liked by every one, faithful, courageous! All England
+mourned him, and even the Esquimaux, when they heard of his death from
+Captain Inglefield, when he returned from Pound Bay, did nothing but
+weep and repeat, 'Poor Bellot! Poor Bellot!'"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"But you and your companions, Johnson," asked the doctor, much moved
+by this touching account,--"how did you manage to get to shore?"
+
+"O, it was very simple! We remained twenty-four hours on the ice
+without food or fire, but finally we reached a firmly fastened
+ice-field; we sprang upon it, and with an oar we got near a floe
+capable of supporting us, and being controlled like a boat. In that
+way we reached the shore, but alone, without our brave officer."
+
+At the end of this account the _Forward_ had passed by this fatal
+shore, and Johnson soon lost sight of the scene of this terrible
+catastrophe. The next day they left Griffin's Bay on the starboard,
+and two days later, Capes Grinnell and Helpman; finally, July 14th,
+they doubled Osborne Point, and the 15th the brig anchored in Baring
+Bay at the end of the channel. The navigation had not been very
+difficult; Hatteras found a sea nearly as free as that by which
+Belcher profited to go and winter with the _Pioneer_ and _Assistance_
+in latitude 77°. That was his first winter, 1852-53, for the next he
+spent in Baring Bay, where the _Forward_ now lay at anchor.
+
+It was in consequence of the most terrible dangers and trials that he
+was obliged to abandon the _Assistance_ in the midst of the eternal
+ice.
+
+Shandon gave a full account of this catastrophe to the demoralized
+sailors. Was Hatteras aware of the treachery of his first officer? It
+is impossible to say, but, at any rate, he said nothing about it.
+
+At the end of Baring Bay is a narrow canal uniting Wellington Channel
+with Queen's Strait. There the ice had accumulated very closely.
+Hatteras made vain efforts to get through the passages to the north of
+Hamilton Island; the wind was unfavorable; hence it was necessary to
+go between Hamilton and Cornwallis Islands; five precious days were
+lost in vain attempts. The air grew colder, and, July 19th, fell as
+low as 26°; the next day was warmer, but this harbinger of the arctic
+winter warned Hatteras not to linger longer. The wind seemed to blow
+steadily from the west and delayed his progress. And yet he was in
+haste to reach the point whence Stewart saw an open sea. The 19th he
+resolved to enter the channel at any price; the wind blew dead against
+the brig, which, with her screw, could have made headway against the
+violent snow-squalls, but Hatteras had before all to be economical
+with the fuel; on the other hand, the channel was too broad to permit
+of the brig being towed. Hatteras, without taking into account the
+fatigue of his crew, made use of a device which whalers often employ
+under similar circumstances. He lowered the small boats to the surface
+of the water, not letting them free from their tackle; then they were
+made fast, fore and aft; oars were put out, to starboard on one side
+and to port on the other; the men sat on the thwarts and rowed
+vigorously, so as to propel the brig against the wind.
+
+[Illustration: Hatteras made use of a device which whalers employ.]
+
+The _Forward_ made slight headway; this method of working was very
+fatiguing; the men began to murmur. For four days they advanced in
+that way, until July 23d, when they reached Baring Island, in Queen's
+Channel.
+
+The wind was still unfavorable. The crew could go no farther. The
+doctor found the strength of the crew much pulled down, and he thought
+he detected the first symptoms of scurvy; he used every precaution
+against this terrible disease, having abundant supplies of lime-juice
+and chalk-pastilles.
+
+Hatteras soon saw there was nothing more to be got from his crew;
+kindness and persuasion were fruitless; he resolved to employ
+severity, and, if need be, to be pitiless; he distrusted especially
+Richard Shandon, and even James Wall, who, however, never dared to
+speak too loud. Hatteras had on his side the doctor, Johnson, Bell,
+and Simpson; these were all devoted to him body and soul. Among the
+uncertain were Foker, Bolton, Wolston, the gunner, Brunton, the first
+engineer, who might at any moment declare against him. As to the
+others, Pen, Gripper, Clifton, and Warren, they openly meditated
+mutiny; they wanted to bring their companions over and compel the
+_Forward_ to return to England.
+
+Hatteras soon saw that he could get no more work from his dispirited
+crew, who now were worn out with fatigue from their hard work. For
+twenty-four hours they remained in sight of Baring Island without
+getting a foot forward. Still the weather grew colder, and in these
+high latitudes even July felt the influence of the approaching winter.
+The 24th, the thermometer fell to 22°. The young ice formed during the
+night to a depth of about half an inch; if snow should fall on it, it
+would soon be strong enough to bear the weight of a man. The sea soon
+acquired the turbid tint which indicates the formation of the first
+crystals.
+
+Hatteras read aright these alarming signs; if the passes should close,
+he would be obliged to winter here, far from the aim of his voyage,
+and without even having seen that open sea which he must have got very
+near, according to the accounts of his predecessors. Hence he resolved
+to get on at any price a few degrees farther north; seeing that he
+could neither try rowing with his crew exhausted, nor going under sail
+with the wind always unfavorable, he ordered the fires to be lighted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+THE FIRST SIGNS OF MUTINY.
+
+
+At this unexpected command, the surprise on board of the _Forward_ was
+very great.
+
+"Light the fires!" said some.
+
+"With what?" said others.
+
+"When we have only two months' supply in the hold!" cried Pen.
+
+"And how are we to keep warm in the winter?" asked Clifton.
+
+"We shall have to burn the ship down to the water-line, I suppose,"
+said Gripper.
+
+"And cram all the masts into the stove," answered Warren, "from the
+foretopmast to the jib-boom."
+
+Shandon gazed intently at Wall. The surprised engineers hesitated to
+go down into the engine-room.
+
+"Did you hear what I said?" shouted the captain, angrily.
+
+Brunton walked toward the hatchway; but he stopped before going down.
+
+"Don't go, Brunton," some one said.
+
+"Who spoke then?" shouted Hatteras.
+
+"I did," said Pen, approaching the captain.
+
+"And what is it you're saying?" asked the captain.
+
+"I say--I say," answered Pen with many oaths,--"I say that we have had
+enough of this, that we are not going any farther, that we don't want
+to wear ourselves out with fatigue and cold during the winter, and
+that the fires shall not be lighted."
+
+"Mr. Shandon," answered Hatteras, coldly, "have this man put in
+irons."
+
+"But, Captain," said Shandon, "what this man said--"
+
+"If you repeat what this man said," retorted Hatteras, "I shall order
+you to your cabin and confine you there. Seize that man! Do you hear?"
+
+Johnson, Bell, and Simpson stepped towards the sailor, who was beside
+himself with wrath.
+
+"The first man who lays a finger on me--" he cried, seizing a
+handspike, which he flourished about his head.
+
+Hatteras walked towards him.
+
+"Pen," he said very quietly, "if you move hand or foot, I shall blow
+your brains out!"
+
+With these words he drew a revolver and aimed it at the sailor.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A murmur arose from the crew.
+
+"Not a word from any of you," said Hatteras, "or he's a dead man."
+
+At that moment Johnson and Bell disarmed Pen, who no longer resisted,
+and suffered himself to be led to the bottom of the hold.
+
+"Now go below, Brunton," said Hatteras.
+
+The engineer, followed by Plover and Warren, went below. Hatteras
+returned to the quarter-deck.
+
+"That Pen is a worthless fellow," the doctor said to him.
+
+"No man was ever nearer death," answered the captain, simply.
+
+Soon there was enough steam on; the anchors of the _Forward_ were
+raised; and the brig started eastward, heading for Point Beecher, and
+cutting through the newly formed ice.
+
+A great number of islands lie between Baring Island and Point Beecher,
+scattered in the midst of the ice-fields; the ice-streams crowd in
+great numbers in the little straits into which they divide the sea;
+when the weather is cold they have a tendency to accumulate; here and
+there hummocks were forming, and it was easy to see that the floes,
+already harder and more crowded, would, under the influence of the
+first frosts, soon form an impenetrable mass.
+
+It was with great difficulty that the _Forward_ made her way through
+the whirling snow. Still, with the variability which is a peculiarity
+of these regions, the sun would appear from time to time; the air grew
+much milder; the ice melted as if by enchantment, and a clear expanse
+of water, a most welcome sight to the eyes of the crew, spread out
+before them where a few moments before the ice had blocked their
+progress. All over the horizon there spread magnificent orange tints,
+which rested their eyes, weary with gazing at the eternal snow.
+
+Thursday, July 26th, the _Forward_ coasted along Dundas Island, and
+then stood more northward; but there she found herself face to face
+with a thick mass of ice, eight or nine feet high, consisting of
+little icebergs washed away from the shore; they had to prolong the
+curve they were making to the west. The continual cracking of the ice,
+joining with the creaking of the rolling ship, sounded like a gloomy
+lamentation. At last the brig found a passage and advanced through it
+slowly; often a huge floe delayed her for hours; the fog embarrassed
+the steersman; at one moment he could see a mile ahead, and it was
+easy to avoid all obstacles; but again the snow-squalls would hide
+everything from their sight at the distance of a cable's length. The
+sea ran very high.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Sometimes the smooth clouds assumed a strange appearance, as if they
+were reflecting the ice-banks; there were days when the sun could not
+pierce the dense mist.
+
+The birds were still very numerous, and their cries were deafening;
+the seals, lying lazily on the drifting ice, raised their heads
+without being frightened, and turned their long necks to watch the
+ship go by. Often, too, the brig would leave bits of sheathing on the
+ice against which she grazed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Finally, after six days of this slow sailing, August 1st, Point
+Beecher was made, sighted in the north; Hatteras passed the last hours
+in the lookout; the open sea, which Stewart had seen May 30, 1851,
+towards latitude 76° 20', could not be far off, and yet, as far as
+Hatteras could see, he could make out no sign of an open polar sea. He
+came down without saying a word.
+
+"Do you believe in an open sea?" asked Shandon of the second mate.
+
+"I'm beginning to have my doubts," answered James Wall.
+
+"Wasn't I right in considering this pretended discovery as a mere
+hypothesis? No one agreed with me, and you too, Wall,--you sided
+against me."
+
+"They'll believe you next time, Shandon."
+
+"Yes," he answered, "when it's too late."
+
+And he returned to his cabin, where he had kept himself almost
+exclusively since his discussion with the captain.
+
+Towards evening the wind shifted to the south. Hatteras then set his
+sails and had the fires put out; for many days the crew were kept hard
+at work; every few minutes they had to tack or bear away, or to
+shorten sail quickly to stop the course of the brig; the braces could
+not run easily through the choked-up pulleys, and added to the fatigue
+of the crew; more than a week was required for them to reach Point
+Barrow. The _Forward_ had not made thirty miles in ten days.
+
+Then the wind flew around to the north, and the engine was started
+once more. Hatteras still hoped to find an open sea beyond latitude
+77°, such as Edward Belcher had seen.
+
+And yet, if he believed in Penny's account, the part of the sea which
+he was now crossing ought to have been open; for Penny, having reached
+the limit of the ice, saw in a canoe the shores of Queen's Channel at
+latitude 77°.
+
+Must he regard their reports as apochryphal, or had an unusually early
+winter fallen upon these regions?
+
+August 15th, Mount Percy reared into the mist its peaks covered with
+eternal snow; a violent wind was hurling in their teeth a fierce
+shower of hail. The next day the sun set for the first time,
+terminating at last the long series of days twenty-four hours long.
+The men had finally accustomed themselves to this perpetual daylight;
+but the animals minded it very little; the Greenland dogs used to go
+to sleep at the usual hour, and even Duke lay down at the same hour
+every evening, as if the night were dark.
+
+Still, during the nights following August 16th the darkness was never
+very marked; the sun, although it had set, still gave light enough by
+refraction.
+
+August 19th, after taking a satisfactory observation, Cape Franklin
+was seen on the eastern side, and opposite it Cape Lady Franklin; at
+what was probably the farthest point reached by this bold explorer,
+his fellow-countrymen wanted the name of his devoted wife should be
+remembered along with his own, as an emblem of the sympathy which
+always united them. The doctor was much moved by this sight in this
+distant country.
+
+In accordance with Johnson's advice, he began to accustom himself to
+enduring low temperature; he kept almost all the time on deck, braving
+the cold, wind, and snow. Although he had grown a little thinner, he
+did not suffer from the severity of the climate. Besides, he expected
+other dangers, and he rejoiced, almost, as he saw the winter
+approaching.
+
+"See," said he one day to Johnson,--"see those flocks of birds flying
+south! How they fly and cry adieu!"
+
+"Yes, Dr. Clawbonny," answered Johnson, "something has told them it
+was time to go, and they are off."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"More than one of our men, Johnson, would be glad to imitate them, I
+fancy."
+
+"They are timid fellows, Doctor; what a bird can't do, a man ought to
+try! Those birds have no supply of food, as we have, and they must
+support themselves elsewhere. But sailors, with a good deck under the
+feet, ought to go to the end of the world."
+
+"You hope, then, that Hatteras will succeed in his projects?"
+
+"He will succeed, Doctor."
+
+"I agree with you, Johnson, even if only one faithful man accompanies
+him--"
+
+"There will be two of us!"
+
+"Yes, Johnson," the doctor answered, pressing the brave sailor's hand.
+
+Prince Albert's Land, along which the _Forward_ was now coasting, is
+also called Grinnell's Land; and although Hatteras, from his dislike
+to Americans, never was willing to give it this name, nevertheless, it
+is the one by which it is generally known. This is the reason of this
+double title: at the same time that the Englishman Penny gave it the
+name of Prince Albert, the captain of the _Rescue_, Lieutenant
+DeHaven, named it Grinnell's Land, in honor of the American merchant
+who had fitted out the expedition in New York.
+
+As the brig followed the coast it met with serious difficulties, going
+sometimes under sail, sometimes under steam. August 18th, Mount
+Britannia was sighted through the mist, and the next day the _Forward_
+cast anchor in Northumberland Bay. The ship was completely protected.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+ATTACKED BY THE ICE.
+
+
+Hatteras, after seeing to the anchorage of the ship, returned to his
+cabin, took out his chart, and marked his position on it very
+carefully; he found himself in latitude 76° 57', and longitude 99°
+20', that is to say, only three minutes from latitude 77°. It was here
+that Sir Edward Belcher passed his first winter with the _Pioneer_ and
+_Assistance_. It was from here that he organized his sledge and canoe
+expeditions; he discovered Table Island, North Cornwall, Victoria
+Archipelago, and Belcher Channel. Having gone beyond latitude 78°, he
+saw the coast inclining towards the southeast. It seemed as if it
+ought to connect with Jones's Strait, which opens into Baffin's Bay.
+But, says the report, an open sea, in the northwest, "stretched as far
+as the eye could reach."
+
+Hatteras gazed with emotion at that portion of the charts where a
+large white space marked unknown regions, and his eyes always returned
+to the open polar sea.
+
+"After so many statements," he said to himself,--"after the accounts
+of Stewart, Penny, and Belcher, doubt is impossible! These bold
+sailors saw, and with their own eyes! Can I doubt their word? No! But
+yet if this sea is closed by an early winter-- But no, these
+discoveries have been made at intervals of several years; this sea
+exists, and I shall find it! I shall see it!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Hatteras went upon the quarter-deck. A dense mist enveloped the
+_Forward_; from the deck one could hardly see the top of the mast.
+Nevertheless, Hatteras ordered the ice-master below, and took his
+place; he wanted to make use of the first break in the fog to look at
+the horizon in the northwest.
+
+Shandon took occasion to say to the second mate,--
+
+"Well, Wall, and the open sea?"
+
+"You were right, Shandon," answered Wall, "and we have only six weeks'
+coal in the bunkers."
+
+"The doctor will invent some scientific way," continued Shandon, "of
+heating us without fuel. I've heard of making ice with fire; perhaps
+he will make fire with ice."
+
+Shandon returned to his cabin, shrugging his shoulders.
+
+The next day, August 20th, the fog lifted for a few minutes. From the
+deck they saw Hatteras in his lofty perch gazing intently towards the
+horizon; then he came down without saying a word and ordered them to
+set sail; but it was easy to see that his hopes had been once more
+deceived.
+
+The _Forward_ heaved anchor and resumed her uncertain path northward.
+So wearisome was it that the main-topsail and fore-topsail yards were
+lowered with all their rigging; the masts were also lowered, and it
+was no longer possible to place any reliance on the varying wind,
+which, moreover, the winding nature of the passes made almost useless;
+large white masses were gathering here and there in the sea, like
+spots of oil; they indicated an approaching thaw; as soon as the wind
+began to slacken, the sea began to freeze again, but when the wind
+arose this young ice would break and disperse. Towards evening the
+thermometer fell to 17°.
+
+When the brig arrived at the end of a closed pass, it rushed on at
+full steam against the opposing obstacle. Sometimes they thought her
+fairly stopped; but some unexpected motion of the ice-streams would
+open a new passage into which she would plunge boldly; during these
+stoppages the steam would escape from the safety-valves and fall on
+the deck in the form of snow. There was another obstacle to the
+progress of the brig; the ice would get caught in the screw, and it
+was so hard that the engine could not break it; it was then necessary
+to reverse the engines, turn the brig back, and send some men to free
+the snow with axes and levers; hence arose many difficulties,
+fatigues, and delays.
+
+It went on in this way for thirteen days; the _Forward_ advanced
+slowly through Penny Strait. The crew murmured, but obeyed; they knew
+that retreat was now impossible. The advance towards the north was
+less perilous than a return to the south; it was time to think of
+going into winter-quarters.
+
+The sailors talked together about their condition, and one day they
+even began to talk with Shandon, who, they knew, was on their side. He
+so far forgot his duty as an officer as to allow them to discuss in
+his presence the authority of his captain.
+
+"So you say, Mr. Shandon," asked Gripper, "that we can't go back now?"
+
+"No, it's too late," answered Shandon.
+
+"Then," said another sailor, "we need only look forward to going into
+winter-quarters?"
+
+"It's our only resource! No one would believe me--"
+
+"The next time," said Pen, who had returned to duty, "they will
+believe you."
+
+"Since I sha'n't be in command--" answered Shandon.
+
+"Who can tell?" remarked Pen. "John Hatteras is free to go as far as
+he chooses, but no one is obliged to follow him."
+
+"Just remember," resumed Gripper, "his first voyage to Baffin's Bay
+and what came of it!"
+
+"And the voyage of the _Farewell_," said Clifton, "which was lost in
+the Spitzenberg seas under his command."
+
+"And from which he came back alone," added Gripper.
+
+"Alone, but with his dog," said Clifton.
+
+"We don't care to sacrifice ourselves for the whims of that man,"
+continued Pen.
+
+"Nor to lose all the wages we've earned so hard."
+
+They all recognized Clifton by those words.
+
+"When we pass latitude 78°," he added, "and we are not far from it,
+that will make just three hundred and seventy-five pounds for each
+man, six times eight degrees."
+
+"But," asked Gripper, "sha'n't we lose them if we go back without the
+captain?"
+
+"No," answered Clifton, "if we can prove that it was absolutely
+necessary to return."
+
+"But the captain--still--"
+
+"Don't be uneasy, Gripper," answered Pen; "we shall have a captain,
+and a good one, whom Mr. Shandon knows. When a captain goes mad, he is
+dismissed and another appointed. Isn't that so, Mr. Shandon?"
+
+"My friends," answered Shandon, evasively, "you will always find me
+devoted to you. But let us wait and see what turns up."
+
+The storm, as may be seen, was gathering over Hatteras's head; but he
+pushed on boldly, firm, energetic, and confident. In fact, if he had
+not always managed the brig as he wanted to, and carried her where he
+was anxious to go, he had still been very successful; the distance
+passed over in five months was as great as what it had taken other
+explorers two or three years to make. Hatteras was now obliged to go
+into winter-quarters, but this would not alarm men of courage,
+experience, and confidence. Had not Sir John Ross and MacClure spent
+three successive winters in the arctic regions? Could not he do what
+they had done?
+
+"Yes, of course," Hatteras used to say, "and more too, if need be.
+Ah!" he said regretfully to the doctor, "why was I unable to get
+through Smith's Sound, at the north of Baffin's Bay? I should be at
+the Pole now!"
+
+"Well," the doctor used invariably to answer,--if necessary he could
+have invented confidence,--"we shall get there, Captain, but, it is
+true, at the ninety-ninth meridian instead of the seventy-fifth; but
+what difference does that make? If every road leads to Rome, it is
+even surer that every meridian leads to the Pole."
+
+August 31st, the thermometer fell to 13°. The end of the summer was
+evidently near; the _Forward_ left Exmouth Island to starboard, and
+three days afterward she passed Table Island, lying in the middle of
+Belcher Channel. Earlier in the season it would have been possible to
+reach Baffin's Bay through this channel, but at this time it was
+impossible to think of it. This arm of the sea was completely filled
+with ice, and would not have offered a drop of open water to the prow
+of the _Forward_; for the next eight months their eyes would see
+nothing but boundless, motionless ice-fields.
+
+Fortunately, they could still get a few minutes farther north, but
+only by breaking the new ice with huge beams, or by blowing it up with
+charges of powder. They especially had cause to fear calm weather
+while the temperature was so low, for the passes closed quickly, and
+they rejoiced even at contrary winds. A calm night, and everything was
+frozen!
+
+Now the _Forward_ could not winter where she was, exposed to the wind,
+icebergs, and the drift of the channel; a safe protection was the
+first thing to be found; Hatteras hoped to gain the coast of New
+Cornwall, and to find, beyond Point Albert, a bay sufficiently
+sheltered. Hence he persisted in crowding northward.
+
+But, September 8, an impenetrable, continuous mass of ice lay between
+him and the north; the temperature fell to 10°. Hatteras, with an
+anxious heart, in vain sought for a passage, risking his ship a
+hundred times and escaping from his perils with wonderful skill. He
+might have been accused of imprudence, recklessness, folly, blindness,
+but he was one of the best of sailors.
+
+The situation of the _Forward_ became really dangerous; in fact, the
+sea was closing behind her, and in a few hours the ice grew so hard
+that men could run upon it and tow the brig in perfect safety.
+
+Hatteras, not being able to get around this obstacle, determined to
+attack it boldly in front. He made use of his strongest blasting
+cylinders, containing eight or ten pounds of powder. The men would dig
+a hole in the broadest part of the ice, close the orifice with snow,
+after having placed the cylinder in a horizontal position, so that a
+greater extent of ice might be exposed to the explosion; then a fuse
+was lighted, which was protected by a gutta-percha tube.
+
+In this way they tried to break the ice; it was impossible to saw it,
+for the fissures would close immediately. Still, Hatteras was hoping
+to get through the next day.
+
+But during the night the wind blew a gale; the sea raised the crust of
+ice, and the terrified pilot was heard shouting,--
+
+"Look out there aft, look out there aft!"
+
+Hatteras turned his eyes in that direction, and what he saw in the dim
+light was indeed alarming.
+
+A great mass of ice, drifting northward with the tide, was rushing
+towards the brig with the speed of an avalanche.
+
+"All hands on deck!" shouted the captain.
+
+This floating mountain was hardly half a mile away; the ice was all in
+confusion and crashing together like huge grains of sand before a
+violent tempest; the air was filled with a terrible noise.
+
+"That, Doctor," said Johnson, "is one of the greatest perils we have
+yet met with."
+
+"Yes," answered the doctor, quietly; "it is terrible enough."
+
+"A real attack which we must repel," resumed the boatswain.
+
+"In fact, one might well think it was an immense crowd of antediluvian
+animals, such as might have lived near the Pole. How they hurry on, as
+if they were racing!"
+
+"Besides," added Johnson, "some carry sharp lances, of which you had
+better take care, Doctor."
+
+"It's a real siege," shouted the doctor. "Well, let us run to the
+ramparts!"
+
+He ran aft where the crew, provided with beams and bars, were standing
+ready to repel this formidable assault.
+
+The avalanche came on, growing larger at every moment as it caught up
+the floating ice in its eddy; by Hatteras's orders the cannon was
+loaded with ball to break the threatening line. But it came on and ran
+towards the brig; a crash was heard, and as it came against the
+starboard-quarter, part of the rail had given way.
+
+[Illustration: "A crash was heard, and as it came against the
+starboard-quarter, part of the rail had given way."]
+
+"Let no one stir!" shouted Hatteras. "Look out for the ice!"
+
+They swarmed on board the ship with an irresistible force; lumps of
+ice, weighing many hundredweight, scaled the sides of the ship; the
+smallest, hurled as high as the yards, fell back in sharp arrows,
+breaking the shrouds and cutting the rigging. The men were overcome by
+numberless enemies, who were heavy enough to crush a hundred ships
+like the _Forward_. Every one tried to drive away these lumps, and
+more than one sailor was wounded by their sharp ends; among others,
+Bolton, who had his left shoulder badly torn. The noise increased
+immensely. Duke barked angrily at these new enemies. The darkness of
+the night added to the horrors of the situation, without hiding the
+ice which glowed in the last light of the evening.
+
+Hatteras's orders sounded above all this strange, impossible,
+supernatural conflict of the men with the ice. The ship, yielding to
+this enormous pressure, inclined to larboard, and the end of the
+main-yard was already touching the ice, at the risk of breaking the
+mast.
+
+Hatteras saw the danger; it was a terrible moment; the brig seemed
+about to be overturned, and the masts might be easily carried away.
+
+A large block, as large as the ship, appeared to be passing along the
+keel; it arose with irresistible power; it came on past the
+quarter-deck; if it fell on the _Forward_, all was over; soon it rose
+even above the topmasts, and began to totter.
+
+A cry of terror escaped from every one's lips. Every one ran back to
+starboard.
+
+But at that moment the ship was relieved. They felt her lifted up, and
+for an instant she hung in the air, then she leaned over and fell back
+on the ice, and then she rolled so heavily that her planks cracked.
+What had happened?
+
+Raised by this rising tide, driven by the ice which attacked her aft,
+she was getting across this impenetrable ice. After a minute of this
+strange sailing, which seemed as long as a century, she fell back on
+the other side of the obstacle on a field of ice; she broke it with
+her weight, and fell back into her natural element.
+
+"We have got by the thick ice!" shouted Johnson, who had run forward.
+
+"Thank God!" said Hatteras.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In fact, the brig lay in the centre of a basin of ice, which entirely
+surrounded her, and although her keel lay under water she could not
+stir; but if she were motionless, the field was drifting along.
+
+"We are drifting, Captain!" shouted Johnson.
+
+"All right," answered Hatteras.
+
+Indeed, how was it possible to resist it?
+
+Day broke, and it was evident that under the influence of a submarine
+current the bank of ice was floating northward with great rapidity.
+This floating mass carried the _Forward_ with it, in the midst of the
+ice-field, the edge of which could not be seen; to provide for any
+accident that might happen, Hatteras had a large supply of provisions
+carried on deck, as well as materials for camping, clothing, and
+cover; as MacClure had done under similar circumstances, he surrounded
+the ship with hammocks filled with air to protect her from damage.
+Soon it was so cold (7°), that the ship was surrounded by a wall from
+which only the masts issued.
+
+For seven days they sailed in this way; Point Albert, which forms the
+western extremity of New Cornwall, was seen September 10th, and soon
+disappeared; the ice-field was seen to be drifting eastward from that
+time. Where was it going? Where would it stop? Who could say?
+
+The crew waited with folded arms. At last, September 15th, towards
+three o'clock in the afternoon, the ice-field, having probably run
+against another one, stopped suddenly; the ship was jarred violently;
+Hatteras, who had kept his reckoning all along, looked at his chart;
+he found himself in the north, with no land in sight, in longitude 95°
+35', and latitude 78° 15', in the centre of the region of the unknown
+sea, which geographers have considered the place of greatest cold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+PREPARATIONS FOR WINTERING.
+
+
+The same latitude is colder in the southern than in the northern
+hemisphere; but the temperature of the New World is fifteen degrees
+beneath that of the other parts of the world; and in America these
+countries, known under the name of the region of greatest cold, are
+the most inclement.
+
+The mean temperature for the whole year is two degrees below zero.
+Physicists have explained this fact in the following way, and Dr.
+Clawbonny shared their opinion.
+
+According to them, the most constant winds in the northern regions of
+America are from the southwest; they come from the Pacific Ocean, with
+an equal and agreeable temperature; but before they reach the arctic
+seas they are obliged to cross the great American continent, which is
+covered with snow; the contact chills them, and communicates to these
+regions their intense cold.
+
+Hatteras found himself at the pole of cold, beyond the countries seen
+by his predecessors; he consequently expected a terrible winter, on a
+ship lost amid the ice, with a turbulent crew. He resolved to meet
+these dangers with his usual energy. He faced what awaited him without
+flinching.
+
+He began, with Johnson's aid and experience, to take all the measures
+necessary for going into winter-quarters. According to his calculation
+the _Forward_ had been carried two hundred and fifty miles from any
+known land, that is to say, from North Cornwall; she was firmly fixed
+in a field of ice, as in a bed of granite, and no human power could
+extricate her.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+There was not a drop of open water in these vast seas chained by the
+fierce arctic winter. The ice-fields stretched away out of sight, but
+without presenting a smooth surface. Far from it. Numerous icebergs
+stood up in the icy plain, and the _Forward_ was sheltered by the
+highest of them on three points of the compass; the southeast wind
+alone reached them. Let one imagine rock instead of ice, verdure
+instead of snow, and the sea again liquid, and the brig would have
+quietly cast anchor in a pretty bay, sheltered from the fiercest
+blasts. But what desolation here! What a gloomy prospect! What a
+melancholy view!
+
+The brig, although motionless, nevertheless had to be fastened
+securely by means of anchors; this was a necessary precaution against
+possible thaws and submarine upheavals. Johnson, on hearing that the
+_Forward_ was at the pole of cold, took even greater precautions for
+securing warmth.
+
+"We shall have it severe enough," he had said to the doctor; "that's
+just the captain's luck, to go and get caught at the most disagreeable
+spot on the globe! Bah! you will see that we shall get out of it."
+
+As to the doctor, at the bottom of his heart he was simply delighted.
+He would not have changed it for any other. Winter at the pole of
+cold! What good luck!
+
+At first, work on the outside occupied the crew; the sails were kept
+furled on the yards instead of being placed at the bottom of the hold,
+as the earlier explorers did; they were merely bound up in a case, and
+soon the frost covered them with a dense envelope; the topmasts were
+not unshipped, and the crow's-nest remained in its place. It was a
+natural observatory; the running-rigging alone was taken down.
+
+It became necessary to cut away the ice from the ship to relieve the
+pressure. That which had accumulated outside was quite heavy, and the
+ship did not lie as deep as usual. This was a long and laborious task.
+At the end of some days the ship's bottom was freed, and could be
+inspected; it had not suffered, thanks to its solidity; only its
+copper sheathing was nearly torn away. The ship, having grown lighter,
+drew about nine inches less than she did earlier; the ice was cut away
+in a slope, following the make of the hull; in this way the ice formed
+beneath the brig's keel and so resisted all pressure.
+
+The doctor took part in this work; he managed the ice-cutter well; he
+encouraged the sailors by his good-humor. He instructed them and
+himself. He approved of this arrangement of the ice beneath the ship.
+
+"That is a good precaution," he said.
+
+"Without that, Dr. Clawbonny," answered Johnson, "resistance would be
+impossible. Now we can boldly raise a wall of snow as high as the
+gunwale; and, if we want to, we can make it ten feet thick, for there
+is no lack of material."
+
+"A capital idea," resumed the doctor; "the snow is a bad conductor of
+heat; it reflects instead of absorbing, and the inside temperature
+cannot escape."
+
+"True," answered Johnson; "we are building a fortification against the
+cold, and also against the animals, if they care to visit us; when
+that is finished, it will look well, you may be sure; in this snow we
+shall cut two staircases, one fore, the other aft; when the steps are
+cut in the snow, we shall pour water on them; this will freeze as hard
+as stone, and we shall have a royal staircase."
+
+"Precisely," answered the doctor; "and it must be said it is fortunate
+that cold produces both snow and ice, by which to protect one's self
+against it. Without that, one would be very much embarrassed."
+
+In fact, the ship was destined to disappear beneath a thick casing of
+ice, which was needed to preserve its inside temperature; a roof made
+of thick tarred canvas and covered with snow was built above the deck
+over its whole length; the canvas was low enough to cover the sides of
+the ship. The deck, being protected from all outside impressions,
+became their walk; it was covered with two and a half feet of snow;
+this snow was crowded and beaten down so as to become very hard; so it
+resisted the radiation of the internal heat; above it was placed a
+layer of sand, which as it solidified became a sort of macadamized
+cover of great hardness.
+
+"A little more," said the doctor, "and with a few trees I might
+imagine myself at Hyde Park, or even in the hanging-gardens at
+Babylon."
+
+A trench was dug tolerably near the brig; this was a circular space in
+the ice, a real pit, which had to be kept always open. Every morning
+the ice formed overnight was broken; this was to secure water in case
+of fire or for the baths which were ordered the crew by the doctor; in
+order to spare the fuel, the water was drawn from some distance below
+the ice, where it was less cold. This was done by means of an
+instrument devised by a French physicist (François Arago); this
+apparatus, lowered for some distance into the water, brought it up to
+the surface through a cylinder.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Generally in winter everything which encumbers the ship is removed,
+and stored on land. But what was practicable near land is impossible
+for a ship anchored on the ice.
+
+Every preparation was made to fight the two great enemies of this
+latitude, cold and dampness; the first produces the second, which is
+far more dangerous. The cold may be resisted by one who succumbs to
+dampness; hence it was necessary to guard against it.
+
+The _Forward_, being destined to a journey in arctic seas, contained
+the best arrangements for winter-quarters: the large room for the crew
+was well provided for; the corners, where dampness first forms, were
+shut off; in fact, when the temperature is very low, a film of ice
+forms on the walls, especially in the corners, and when it melts it
+keeps up a perpetual dampness. If it had been round, the room would
+have been more convenient; but, being heated by a large stove, and
+properly ventilated, it was very comfortable; the walls were lined
+with deerskins, not with wool, for wool absorbs the condensed moisture
+and keeps the air full of dampness.
+
+Farther aft the walls of the quarter were taken down, and the officers
+had a larger common-room, better ventilated, and heated by a stove.
+This room, like that of the crew, had a sort of antechamber, which cut
+off all communication with the outside. In this way, the heat could
+not be lost, and one passed gradually from one temperature to the
+other. In the anterooms were left the snow-covered clothes; the shoes
+were cleansed on the scrapers, so as to prevent the introduction of
+any unwholesomeness with one into the room.
+
+Canvas hose served to introduce air for the draught of the stoves;
+other pieces of hose permitted the steam to escape. In addition two
+condensers were placed in the two rooms, and collected this vapor
+instead of letting it form into water; twice a week they were emptied,
+and often they contained several bushels of ice. It was so much taken
+from the enemy.
+
+The fire was perfectly and easily controlled, by means of the canvas
+hose; by use of merely a small quantity of coal it was easy to keep
+the temperature of 50°. Still, Hatteras, having examined the bunkers,
+soon saw that the greatest economy was necessary, for there was not
+two months' fuel on board.
+
+A drying-room was set apart for the clothes which were to be washed;
+they could not be dried in the open air, for they would freeze and
+tear.
+
+The delicate pieces of the machinery were carefully taken down, and
+the room which contained them was hermetically closed.
+
+The life on board became the object of serious meditation; Hatteras
+regulated it with the utmost caution, and the order of the day was
+posted up in the common-room. The men arose at six o'clock in the
+morning; three times a week the hammocks were aired; every morning the
+floors were scoured with hot sand; tea was served at every meal, and
+the bill of fare varied as much as possible for every day of the week;
+it consisted of bread, farina, suet and raisins for puddings, sugar,
+cocoa, tea, rice, lemon-juice, potted meats, salt beef and pork,
+cabbages, and vegetables in vinegar; the kitchen lay outside of the
+living-rooms; its heat was consequently lost; but cooking is a
+perpetual source of evaporation and dampness.
+
+The health of the men depends a great deal on the sort of food they
+get; in high latitudes, the greatest amount of animal food ought to be
+eaten. The doctor had supervised the sort of food to be given.
+
+"We ought to follow the Esquimaux," he used to say; "they have
+received their lessons from nature, and are our masters in that; if
+the Arabs and Africans can content themselves with a few dates and a
+handful of rice, here it is important to eat, and to eat a good deal.
+The Esquimaux take from ten to fifteen pounds of oil a day. If that
+fare does not please you, we must try food rich in sugar and fat. In a
+word, we need carbon, so let us manufacture carbon! It is well to put
+coal in the stove, but don't let us forget to fill that precious stove
+we carry about with us."
+
+With this bill of fare, strict cleanliness was enforced; every other
+day each man was obliged to bathe in the half-frozen water which the
+iron pump brought up, and this was an excellent way of preserving
+their health. The doctor set the example; he did it at first as a
+thing which ought to be very disagreeable; but this pretext was
+quickly forgotten, for he soon took real pleasure in this healthy
+bath.
+
+When work or hunting or distant expeditions took the men off in the
+severe cold, they had to take special care not to be frost-bitten; if
+they were, rubbing with snow would restore the circulation. Moreover,
+the men, who all wore woollen clothes, put on coats of deerskin and
+trousers of sealskin, which perfectly resist the wind.
+
+The different arrangements of the ship, the getting-to-rights on
+board, took about three weeks, and they reached October 10th without
+any special incident.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+ONE OF JAMES ROSS'S FOXES.
+
+
+On that day the thermometer fell to three degrees below zero. The day
+was calm; the cold was very endurable in the absence of wind. Hatteras
+took advantage of the clearness of the air to reconnoitre the
+surrounding plains; he ascended one of the highest icebergs to the
+north, but even with his glass he could make out nothing but a series
+of ice-mountains and ice-fields. There was no land in sight, nothing
+but gloomy confusion. He returned, and tried to calculate the probable
+length of their imprisonment.
+
+The hunters, and among them the doctor, James Wall, Simpson, Johnson,
+and Bell, kept them supplied with fresh meat. The birds had
+disappeared, seeking a milder climate in the south. The ptarmigans
+alone, a sort of rock-partridge peculiar to this latitude, did not
+flee the winter; it was easy to kill them, and there were enough to
+promise a perpetual supply of game.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Hares, foxes, wolves, ermines, and bears were plentiful; a French,
+English, or Norwegian hunter would have had no right to complain; but
+they were so shy that it was hard to approach them; besides, it was
+hard to distinguish them on the white plain, they being white
+themselves, for in winter they acquire that colored fur. In opposition
+to the opinions of some naturalists, the doctor held that this change
+was not due to the lowering of the temperature, since it took place
+before October; hence it was not due to any physical cause, but rather
+providential foresight, to secure these animals against the severity
+of an arctic winter.
+
+Often, too, they saw sea-cows and sea-dogs, animals included under the
+name of seals; all the hunters were specially recommended to shoot
+them, as much for their skins as for their fat, which was very good
+fuel. Besides, their liver made a very good article of food; they
+could be counted by hundreds, and two or three miles north of the ship
+the ice was continually perforated by these huge animals; only they
+avoided the hunter with remarkable instinct, and many were wounded who
+easily escaped by diving under the ice.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Still, on the 19th, Simpson succeeded in getting one four hundred
+yards distant from the ship; he had taken the precaution to close its
+hole in the ice, so that it could not escape from its pursuers. He
+fought for a long time, and died only after receiving many bullets. He
+was nine feet long; his bull-dog head, the sixteen teeth in his jaw,
+his large pectoral fins shaped like little wings, his little tail with
+another pair of fins, made him an excellent specimen. The doctor
+wished to preserve his head for his collection of natural history, and
+his skin for future contingences, hence he prepared both by a rapid
+and economical process. He plunged the body in the hole, and thousands
+of little prawns removed the flesh in small pieces; at the end of half
+a day the work was half finished, and the most skilful of the
+honorable corporation of tanners at Liverpool could not have done
+better.
+
+When the sun had passed the autumn equinox, that is to say, September
+23d, the winter fairly begins in the arctic regions. The sun, having
+gradually sunk to the horizon, disappeared at last, October 23d,
+lighting up merely the tops of the mountains with its oblique rays.
+The doctor gave it his last farewell. He could not see it again till
+the month of February.
+
+Still the darkness was not complete during this long absence of the
+sun; the moon did its best to replace it; the stars were exceedingly
+brilliant, the auroras were very frequent, and the refractions
+peculiar to the snowy horizons; besides, the sun at the time of its
+greatest southern declension, December 21st, approaches within
+thirteen degrees of the polar horizon; hence, every day there was a
+certain twilight for a few hours. Only the mist and snow-storms often
+plunged these regions in the deepest obscurity.
+
+Still, up to this time the weather was very favorable; the partridges
+and hares alone had reason to complain, for the hunters gave them no
+rest; a great many traps were set for foxes, but these crafty animals
+could not be caught; very often they scraped the snow away beneath the
+trap and took the bait without running any risk; the doctor cursed
+them, being very averse to making them such a present.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+October 25th, the thermometer fell as low as -4°. A violent hurricane
+raged; the air was filled with thick snow, which permitted no ray of
+light to reach the _Forward_. For several hours there was some anxiety
+about the fate of Bell and Simpson, who had gone some distance away
+hunting; they did not reach the ship till the next day, having rested
+for a whole day wrapped up in their furs, while the hurricane swept
+over them and buried them under five feet of snow. They were nearly
+frozen, and the doctor found it very hard to restore their
+circulation.
+
+The tempest lasted eight days without interruption. No one could set
+foot outside. In a single day there were variations in the temperature
+of fifteen or twenty degrees.
+
+During this enforced leisure every one kept to himself, some sleeping,
+others smoking, others again talking in a low tone and stopping at the
+approach of Johnson or the doctor; there was no moral tie between the
+men of the crew; they only met at evening prayers and at Sunday
+services.
+
+Clifton knew perfectly well that when the seventy-eighth parallel was
+passed, his share of the pay would amount to three hundred and
+seventy-five pounds; he thought it a good round sum, and his ambition
+did not go any further. His opinion was generally shared, and all
+looked forward to the day when they should enjoy this hardly-earned
+fortune.
+
+Hatteras kept almost entirely out of sight. He never took part in the
+hunts or the walks from the ship. He took no interest in the
+meteorological phenomena which kept the doctor in a constant state of
+admiration. He lived with but a single idea; it consisted of three
+words,--The North Pole. He only thought of when the _Forward_, free at
+last, should resume her bold course.
+
+In fact, the general feeling on board was one of gloom. Nothing was so
+sad as the sight of this captive vessel, no longer resting in its
+natural element, but with its shape hidden beneath thick layers of
+ice; it looks like nothing; it cannot stir, though made for motion; it
+is turned into a wooden storehouse, a sedentary dwelling, this ship
+which knows how to breast the wind and the storms. This anomaly, this
+false situation, filled their hearts with an indefinable feeling of
+disquiet and regret.
+
+During these idle hours the doctor arranged the notes he had taken,
+from which this book is made up; he was never out of spirits, and
+never lost his cheerfulness. Yet he was glad to see the end of the
+storm, and prepared to resume his hunting.
+
+November 3d, at six o'clock in the morning, with a temperature of -5°,
+he set off in company with Johnson and Bell; the expanse of ice was
+unbroken; all the snow which had fallen so abundantly during the
+preceding days was hardened by the frost, and made good walking; the
+air was keen and piercing; the moon shone with incomparable purity,
+glistening on the least roughness in the ice; their footprints glowed
+like an illuminated trail, and their long shadows stood out almost
+black against the brilliant ice.
+
+[Illustration: "The moon shone with incomparable purity, glistening on
+the least roughness in the ice."]
+
+The doctor had taken Duke with him; he preferred him to the Greenland
+dogs to hunt game, and he was right; for they are of very little use
+under such circumstances, and they did not appear to possess the
+sacred fire of the race of the temperate zone. Duke ran along with his
+nose on the ground, and he often stopped on the recent marks of bears.
+Still, in spite of his skill, the hunters did not find even a hare in
+two hours' walking.
+
+"Has all the game felt it necessary to go south?" said the doctor,
+stopping at the foot of a hummock.
+
+"I should fancy it must be so, Doctor," answered the carpenter.
+
+"I don't think so," said Johnson; "the hares, foxes, and bears are
+accustomed to this climate; I think this last storm must have driven
+them away; but they will come back with the south-winds. Ah, if you
+were to talk about reindeer and musk-deer, that might be different!"
+
+"And yet at Melville Island numberless animals of this sort are
+found," resumed the doctor; "it lies farther south, it is true, and
+during the winters he spent there Parry always had plenty of this
+magnificent game."
+
+"We have much poorer luck," answered Bell; "if we could only get
+enough bear's meat, we would do very well."
+
+"The difficulty is," said the doctor, "the bears seem to me very rare
+and very wild; they are not civilized enough to come within gun-shot."
+
+"Bell is talking about the flesh of the bear," said Johnson, "but his
+grease is more useful than his flesh or his fur."
+
+"You are right, Johnson," answered Bell; "you are always thinking of
+the fuel."
+
+"How can I help it? Even with the strictest economy, we have only
+enough for three weeks!"
+
+"Yes," resumed the doctor, "that is the real danger, for we are now
+only at the beginning of November, and February is the coldest month
+in the frigid zone; still, if we can't get bear's grease, there's no
+lack of seal's grease."
+
+"But not for a very long time, Doctor," answered Johnson; "they will
+soon leave us; whether from cold or fright, soon they won't come upon
+the ice any more."
+
+"Then," continued the doctor, "we shall have to fall back on the bear,
+and I confess the bear is the most useful animal to be found in these
+countries, for he furnishes food, clothing, light, and fuel to men. Do
+you hear, Duke?" he said, patting the dog's head, "we want some bears,
+my friend, bears! bears!"
+
+Duke, who was sniffing at the ice at that time, aroused by the voices,
+and caresses of the doctor, started off suddenly with the speed of an
+arrow. He barked violently and, far off as he was, his loud barks
+reached the hunters' ears.
+
+The extreme distance to which sound is carried when the temperature is
+low is an astonishing fact; it is only equalled by the brilliancy of
+the constellations in the northern skies; the waves of light and sound
+are transmitted to great distances, especially in the dry cold of the
+nights.
+
+The hunters, guided by his distant barking, hastened after him; they
+had to run a mile, and they got there all out of breath, which happens
+very soon in such an atmosphere. Duke stood pointing about fifty feet
+from an enormous mass which was rolling about on the top of a small
+iceberg.
+
+"Just what we wanted!" shouted the doctor, cocking his gun.
+
+"A fine bear!" said Bell, following the doctor's example.
+
+"A curious bear!" said Johnson, who intended to fire after his
+companions.
+
+Duke barked furiously. Bell advanced about twenty feet, and fired; but
+the animal seemed untouched, for he continued rolling his head slowly.
+
+Johnson came forward, and, after taking careful aim, he pulled the
+trigger.
+
+"Good!" said the doctor; "nothing yet! Ah, this cursed refraction! We
+are too far off; we shall never get used to it! That bear is more than
+a mile away."
+
+"Come on!" answered Bell.
+
+The three companions hastened toward the animal, which had not been
+alarmed by the firing; he seemed to be very large, but, without
+weighing the danger, they gave themselves up already to the joy of
+victory. Having got within a reasonable distance, they fired; the bear
+leaped into the air and fell, mortally wounded, on the level ice
+below.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Duke rushed towards him.
+
+"That's a bear," said the doctor, "which was easily conquered."
+
+"Only three shots," said Bell with some scorn, "and he's down!"
+
+"That's odd," remarked Johnson.
+
+"Unless we got here just as he was going to die of old age," continued
+the doctor, laughing.
+
+"Well, young or old," added Bell, "he's a good capture."
+
+Talking in this way they reached the small iceberg, and, to their
+great surprise, they found Duke growling over the body of a white fox.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Upon my word," said Bell, "that's too much!"
+
+"Well," said the doctor, "we've fired at a bear, and killed a fox!"
+
+Johnson did not know what to say.
+
+"Well," said the doctor with a burst of laughter in which there was a
+trace of disappointment, "that refraction again! It's always deceiving
+us."
+
+"What do you mean, Doctor?" asked the carpenter.
+
+"Yes, my friend; it deceived us with respect to its size as well as
+the distance! It made us see a bear in a fox's skin! Such a mistake is
+not uncommon under similar circumstances! Well, our imagination alone
+was wrong!"
+
+"At any rate," answered Johnson, "bear or fox, he's good eating. Let's
+carry him off."
+
+But as the boatswain was lifting him to his shoulders:--
+
+"That's odd," he said.
+
+"What is it?" asked the doctor.
+
+"See there, Doctor, he's got a collar around his neck."
+
+"A collar?" asked the doctor again, examining the fox.
+
+In fact, a half-worn-out copper collar appeared under his white fur;
+the doctor thought he saw letters engraved upon it; he unfastened it
+from the animal's neck, about which it seemed to have been for a long
+time.
+
+"What does that mean?" asked Johnson.
+
+"That means," said the doctor, "that we have just killed a fox more
+than twelve years old,--a fox who was caught by James Ross in 1848."
+
+"Is it possible?" said Bell.
+
+"There's no doubt about it. I'm sorry we killed him! While he was in
+winter-quarters, James Ross thought of trapping a large number of
+white foxes; he fastened on their necks copper collars on which was
+engraved the position of his ships, the _Enterprise_ and
+_Investigator_, as well as where the supplies were left. These animals
+run over immense distances in search of food, and James Ross hoped
+that one of them might fall into the hands of one of the men of the
+Franklin expedition. That's the simple explanation; and this poor
+beast, who might have saved the life of two crews, has fallen
+uselessly beneath our guns."
+
+"Well, we won't eat it," said Johnson, "especially if it's twelve
+years old. But we shall keep the skin as a memento."
+
+Johnson raised it to his shoulders. The hunters made their way to the
+ship, guiding themselves by the stars; their expedition was not wholly
+without result; they were able to bring back several ptarmigans.
+
+An hour before reaching the _Forward_, there was a singular phenomenon
+which greatly interested the doctor. It was a real shower of
+shooting-stars; they could be counted by thousands, flying over the
+heavens like rockets; they dimmed the light of the moon. For hours
+they could have stood gazing at this beautiful sight. A similar
+phenomenon was observed in Greenland in 1799, by the Moravians. It
+looked like an exhibition of fireworks. The doctor after his return to
+the ship spent the whole night gazing at the sight, which lasted till
+seven o'clock in the morning, while the air was perfectly silent.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+THE LAST PIECE OF COAL.
+
+
+The bears, it seemed, could not be caught; a few seals were killed on
+the 4th, 5th, and 6th of November, and the wind shifted and the
+weather grew much milder; but the snow-drifts began again with
+incomparable severity. It became impossible to leave the ship, and it
+was hard to subdue the dampness. At the end of the week the condensers
+contained several bushels of ice.
+
+The weather changed again November 15th, and the thermometer, under
+the influence of certain atmospheric conditions, sank to -24°. That
+was the lowest temperature they had yet observed. This cold would have
+been endurable in calm weather; but the wind was blowing at that time,
+and it seemed as if the air was filled with sharp needles.
+
+The doctor regretted his captivity, for the snow was hardened by the
+wind, so as to make good walking, and he might have gone very far from
+the ship.
+
+Still, it should be said that the slightest exercise in so low a
+temperature is very exhausting. A man can perform hardly more than a
+quarter of his usual work; iron utensils cannot be touched; if the
+hand seizes them, it feels as if it were burned, and shreds of skin
+cleave to the object which had been incautiously seized.
+
+The crew, being confined to the ship, were obliged to walk on the
+covered deck for two hours a day, where they had leave to smoke, which
+was forbidden in the common-room.
+
+There, when the fire got low, the ice used to cover the walls and the
+intervals between the planks; every nail and bolt and piece of metal
+was immediately covered with a film of ice.
+
+The celerity of its formation astonished the doctor. The breath of the
+men condensed in the air, and, changing from a fluid to a solid form,
+it fell about them in the form of snow. A few feet from the stove it
+was very cold, and the men stood grouped around the fire.
+
+Still, the doctor advised them to harden themselves, and to accustom
+themselves to the cold, which was not so severe as what yet awaited
+them; he advised them to expose their skin gradually to this intense
+temperature, and he himself set the example; but idleness or numbness
+nailed most of them to their place; they refused to stir, and
+preferred sleeping in that unhealthy heat.
+
+Yet, according to the doctor, there was no danger in exposing one's
+self to great cold after leaving a heated room; these sudden changes
+only inconvenience those who are in a perspiration; the doctor quoted
+examples in support of his opinion, but his lessons were for the most
+part thrown away.
+
+As for John Hatteras, he did not seem to mind the inclement cold. He
+walked to and fro silently, never faster or slower. Did not the cold
+affect his powerful frame? Did he possess to a very great degree the
+principle of natural heat which he wanted his men to possess? Was he
+so bound up in his meditations that he was indifferent to outside
+impressions? His men saw him with great astonishment braving a
+temperature of -24°; he would leave the ship for hours, and come back
+without appearing to suffer from the cold.
+
+"He's a singular man," said the doctor to Johnson; "he astonishes me!
+He carries a glowing furnace within him! He is one of the strongest
+natures I ever saw!"
+
+"The fact is," answered Johnson, "he goes and comes and circulates in
+the open air, without dressing any more thickly than in the month of
+June."
+
+"O, it doesn't make much difference what one wears!" answered the
+doctor; "what is the use of dressing warmly if one can't produce heat
+within himself? It's like trying to heat ice by wrapping it up in
+wool! But Hatteras doesn't need it; he's built that way, and I should
+not be surprised if his side was as warm as the neighborhood of a
+glowing coal."
+
+Johnson, who was charged with clearing away the water-hole every
+morning, noticed that the ice was ten feet thick.
+
+Almost every night the doctor could observe the magnificent auroras;
+from four o'clock till eight of the evening, the sky in the north was
+slightly lighted up; then this took a regular shape, with a rim of
+light yellow, the ends of which seemed to touch the field of ice.
+Gradually the brilliancy arose in the heavens, following the magnetic
+meridian, and appeared striped with black bands; jets of luminosity
+shot with varying brightness here and there; when it reached the
+zenith it was often composed of several arcs bathed in waves of red,
+yellow, or green light. It was a dazzling sight. Soon the different
+curves met in a single point, and formed crowns of celestial richness.
+Finally the arcs all crowded together, the splendid aurora grew dim,
+the intense colors faded away into pale, vague, uncertain tints, and
+this wonderful phenomenon vanished gradually, insensibly, in the dark
+clouds of the south.
+
+[Illustration: "Almost every night the doctor could observe the
+magnificent auroras."]
+
+It is difficult to realize the wonderful, magical beauty of such a
+spectacle in high latitudes, less than eight degrees from the pole;
+the auroras which are seen in the temperate zone give no idea of it;
+it seems as if Providence wished to reserve the greatest wonders for
+these regions.
+
+Numerous mock-moons appeared also while the moon was shining, and a
+great many would appear in the sky, adding to the general brilliancy;
+often, too, simple lunar halos surrounded the moon with a circle of
+splendid lustre.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+November 26th the tide rose very high, and the water came through the
+hole with great violence; the thick crust of ice seemed pushed up by
+the force of the sea, and the frequent cracking of the ice proclaimed
+the conflict that was going on beneath; fortunately the ship remained
+firm in her bed, but her chains worked noisily; it was as a precaution
+against just such an event, that Hatteras had made the brig fast.
+
+The following days were still colder; a dense fog hid the sky; the
+wind tossed the snow about; it was hard to determine whether it came
+from the clouds or from the ice-fields; everything was in confusion.
+
+The crew kept busy with various interior occupations, the principal
+one being the preparation of the grease and oil from the seal; it was
+frozen into blocks of ice, which had to be cut with a hatchet; it was
+broken into small fragments, which were as hard as marble; ten barrels
+full were collected. As may be seen, every vessel became nearly
+useless, besides the risk of its breaking when the contents froze.
+
+The 28th the thermometer fell to -32°; there was only ten days' coal
+on board, and every one awaited with horror the moment when it should
+come to an end.
+
+Hatteras, for the sake of economy, had the fire in the stove in the
+after-room put out; and from that time Shandon, the doctor, and he
+were compelled to betake themselves to the common-room of the crew.
+Hatteras was hence brought into constant communication with his men,
+who gazed at him with surly, dejected glances. He heard their
+fault-finding, their reproaches, even their threats, without being
+able to punish them. However, he seemed deaf to every remark. He never
+went near the fire. He remained in a corner, with folded arms, without
+saying a word.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In spite of the doctor's recommendations, Pen and his friends refused
+to take the slightest exercise; they passed whole days crouching about
+the stove or under their bedclothes; hence their health began to
+suffer; they could not react against the rigor of the climate, and
+scurvy soon made its appearance on board.
+
+The doctor had long since begun to distribute, every morning,
+lemon-juice and lime pastilles; but these precautions, which were
+generally so efficacious, did very little good to the sick; and the
+disease, following its usual course, soon showed its most horrible
+symptoms.
+
+Terrible indeed it was to see those wretches with their nerves and
+muscles contracted with pain! Their legs were fearfully swollen, and
+were covered with large bluish-black patches; their bleeding gums,
+their swollen lips, permitted them to utter only inarticulate sounds;
+their blood was poisoned, deprived of fibrine, and no longer carried
+life to the extremities.
+
+Clifton was the first to be attacked by this cruel malady; soon
+Gripper, Brunton, and Strong had to keep to their hammocks. Those whom
+the illness spared could not avoid the sight of the sufferings of
+their friends; the common-room was the only place where they could
+stay; so it was soon transformed into a hospital, for of the eighteen
+sailors of the _Forward_, thirteen were soon down with scurvy. It
+seemed as if Pen would escape the contagion; his strong constitution
+preserved him; Shandon felt the first symptoms, but it went no further
+with him, and plenty of exercise soon restored him to good health.
+
+The doctor tended his patients with the greatest devotion, and his
+heart would bleed at the sight of the sufferings he could not assuage.
+Still, he inspired as much cheerfulness as he could in the lonely
+crew; his words, his consolations, his philosophical reflections, his
+fortunate inventions, broke the monotony of those long days of
+suffering; he would read aloud to them; his wonderful memory kept him
+supplied with amusing anecdotes, while the men who were well stood
+pressing closely around the stove; but the groans of the sick, their
+complaints, and their cries of despair would continually interrupt
+him, and, breaking off in the middle of a story, he would become the
+devoted and attentive physician.
+
+Besides, his health remained good; he did not grow thin; his
+corpulence stood him in better stead than the thickest raiment, and he
+used to say he was as well clad as a seal or a whale, who, thanks to
+their thick layers of fat, easily support the rigors of the winter.
+
+Hatteras did not suffer physically or morally. The sufferings of the
+crew did not seem to depress him. Perhaps he would not let his
+emotions appear on his face, while an acute observer would have
+detected the heart of a man beneath this mask of iron.
+
+The doctor analyzed him, studied him, and could not classify this
+strange organization, this unnatural temperament.
+
+The thermometer fell still lower; the deck was entirely deserted; the
+Esquimaux dogs alone walked up and down it, barking dismally.
+
+There was always a man on guard near the stove, who superintended
+putting on the coal; it was important not to let it go out; when the
+fire got low the cold crept into the room, formed on the walls, and
+the moisture suddenly condensed and fell in the form of snow on the
+unfortunate occupants of the brig.
+
+It was among these terrible sufferings that they reached December 8th;
+that morning the doctor went as usual to look at the thermometer. He
+found the mercury entirely frozen in the bulb.
+
+"Forty-four degrees below zero!" he said with terror.
+
+And on that day the last piece of coal on board was thrown into the
+stove.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+THE GREAT COLD AT CHRISTMAS.
+
+
+For a moment he had a feeling of despair. The thought of death, and
+death by cold, appeared in all its horror; this last piece of coal
+burned with an ominous splutter; the fire seemed about to go out, and
+the temperature of the room fell noticeably. But Johnson went to get
+some of the new fuel which the marine animals had furnished to them,
+and with it he filled the stove; he added to it some tow filled with
+frozen oil, and soon obtained sufficient heat. The odor was almost
+unendurable; but how get rid of it? They had to get used to it.
+Johnson agreed that his plan was defective, and that it would not be
+considered a success in Liverpool.
+
+"And yet," he added, "this unpleasant smell will, perhaps, produce
+good results."
+
+"What are they?" asked the carpenter.
+
+"It will doubtless attract the bears this way, for they are fond of
+the smell."
+
+"Well," continued Bell, "what is the need of having bears?"
+
+"Bell," replied Johnson, "we can't count on seals any longer; they're
+gone away, and for a long time; if bears don't come in their place to
+supply us with their share of fuel, I don't know what is to become of
+us."
+
+"True, Johnson, our fate is very uncertain; our position is a most
+alarming one. And if this sort of fuel gives out, I don't see how--"
+
+"There might be another--"
+
+"Another?" asked Bell.
+
+"Yes, Bell! in despair on account of--but the captain would never--but
+yet we shall perhaps have to come to it."
+
+And Johnson shook his head sadly, and fell to thinking gloomily. Bell
+did not interrupt him. He knew that the supply of fat, which it had
+been so hard to acquire, would only last a week, even with the
+strictest economy.
+
+The boatswain was right. A great many bears, attracted by the scent,
+were seen to leeward of the _Forward_; the healthy men gave chase; but
+these animals are very swift of foot, and crafty enough to escape most
+stratagems; it was impossible to get near them, and the most skilful
+gunners could not hit them.
+
+The crew of the brig was in great danger of dying from the cold; it
+could not withstand, for forty-eight hours, such a temperature as
+would exist in the common-room. Every one looked forward with terror
+to getting to the end of the fuel.
+
+Now this happened December 20th, at three o'clock in the afternoon;
+the fire went out; the sailors, grouped about the empty stove, gazed
+at one another with haggard eyes. Hatteras remained without moving in
+his corner; the doctor, as usual, paced up and down excitedly; he did
+not know what was to be done.
+
+The temperature in the room fell at once to -7°.
+
+But if the doctor was baffled and did not know what they should turn
+their hands to, others knew very well. So Shandon, cold and resolute,
+Pen, with wrath in his eyes, and two or three of his companions, such
+as he could induce to accompany him, walked towards Hatteras.
+
+"Captain!" said Shandon.
+
+Hatteras, absorbed in his thoughts, did not hear him.
+
+"Captain!" repeated Shandon, touching him with his hand.
+
+Hatteras arose.
+
+"Sir," he said.
+
+"Captain, the fire is out."
+
+"Well?" continued Hatteras.
+
+"If you intend that we shall freeze to death," Shandon went on with
+grim irony, "we should be glad if you would tell us."
+
+"My intention," answered Hatteras with a deep voice, "is that every
+man shall do his duty to the end."
+
+"There's something superior to duty, Captain," answered his first
+officer, "and that is the right of self-preservation. I repeat it, we
+have no fire; and if this goes on, in two days not one of us will be
+alive."
+
+"I have no wood," answered Hatteras, gloomily.
+
+"Well," shouted Pen, violently, "when the wood gives out, we must go
+cut it where it grows!"
+
+Hatteras grew pale with anger.
+
+"Where is that?" he asked.
+
+"On board," answered the sailor, insolently.
+
+"On board!" repeated the captain, with clinched fists and sparkling
+eyes.
+
+"Of course," answered Pen, "when the ship can't carry the crew, the
+ship ought to be burned."
+
+At the beginning of this sentence Hatteras had grasped an axe; at its
+end, this axe was raised above Pen's head.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Wretch!" he cried.
+
+The doctor sprang in front of Pen, and thrust him back; the axe fell
+on the floor, making a deep gash. Johnson, Bell, and Simpson gathered
+around Hatteras, and seemed determined to support him. But plaintive,
+grievous cries arose from the berths, transformed into death-beds.
+
+"Fire, fire!" they cried, shivering beneath their now insufficient
+covering.
+
+Hatteras by a violent effort controlled himself, and after a few
+moments of silence, he said calmly,--
+
+"If we destroy the ship, how shall we get back to England?"
+
+"Sir," answered Johnson, "perhaps we can without doing any material
+damage burn the less important parts, the bulwarks, the nettings--"
+
+"The small boats will be left," said Shandon; "and besides, why might
+we not make a smaller vessel out of what is left of the old one?"
+
+"Never!" answered Hatteras.
+
+"But--" interposed many of the men, shouting together.
+
+"We have a large quantity of spirits of wine," suggested Hatteras;
+"burn all of that."
+
+"All right; we'll take the spirits of wine!" answered Johnson,
+assuming an air of confidence which he was far from feeling.
+
+And with the aid of long wicks, dipped into this liquid of which the
+pale flame licked the walls of the stove, he was able to raise the
+temperature of the room a few degrees.
+
+In the following days the wind came from the south again and the
+thermometer rose; the snow, however, kept falling. Some of the men
+were able to leave the ship for the driest hours of the day; but
+ophthalmia and scurvy kept most of them on board; besides, neither
+hunting nor fishing was possible.
+
+But this was only a respite in the fearful severity of the cold, and
+on the 25th, after a sudden change of wind, the frozen mercury
+disappeared again in the bulb of the instrument; then they had to
+consult the spirit-thermometer, which does not freeze even in the most
+intense colds.
+
+The doctor, to his great surprise, found it marking -66°. Seldom has
+man been called upon to endure so low a temperature.
+
+The ice stretched in long, dark lines upon the floor; a dense mist
+filled the room; the dampness fell in the form of thick snow; the men
+could not see one another; their extremities grew cold and blue; their
+heads felt as if they wore an iron band; and their thoughts grew
+confused and dull, as if they were half delirious. A terrible symptom
+was that their tongues refused to articulate a sound.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+From the day the men threatened to burn the ship, Hatteras would walk
+for hours upon the deck, keeping watch. This wood was flesh and blood
+to him. Cutting a piece from it would have been like cutting off a
+limb. He was armed, and he kept constant guard, without minding the
+cold, the snow, or the ice, which stiffened his clothing as if it
+covered it with a granite cuirass. Duke understood him, and followed
+him, barking and howling.
+
+[Illustration: "He was armed, and he kept constant guard, without
+minding the cold, the snow, or the ice."]
+
+Nevertheless, December 25th he went down into the common-room. The
+doctor, with all the energy he had left, went up to him and said,--
+
+"Hatteras, we are going to die from want of fire!"
+
+"Never!" said Hatteras, knowing very well what request he was
+refusing.
+
+"We must," continued the doctor, mildly.
+
+"Never!" repeated Hatteras more firmly; "I shall never give my
+consent! Whoever wishes, may disobey me."
+
+Thus was permission given them. Johnson and Bell hastened to the deck.
+Hatteras heard the wood of the brig crashing under the axe, and wept.
+
+That was Christmas Day, the great family festival in England, one
+specially devoted to the amusement of the children. What a painful
+recollection was that of the happy children gathered about the green
+Christmas tree! Every one recalled the huge pieces of roast meat, cut
+from the fattened ox, and the tarts, the mince-pies, and other
+luxuries so dear to the English heart! But here was nothing but
+suffering, despair, and wretchedness, and for the Christmas log, these
+pieces of a ship lost in the middle of the frigid zone!
+
+Nevertheless, under the genial influence of the fire, the spirits and
+strength of the men returned; the hot tea and coffee brought great and
+immediate consolation, and hope is so firm a friend of man, that they
+even began to hope for some luckier fate. It was thus that the year
+1860 passed away, the early winter of which had so interfered with
+Hatteras's plans.
+
+Now it happened that this very New Year's Day was marked by an
+unexpected discovery. It was a little milder than the previous days
+had been; the doctor had resumed his studies; he was reading Sir
+Edward Belcher's account of his expedition in the polar regions.
+Suddenly, a passage which he had never noticed before filled him with
+astonishment; he read it over again; doubt was no longer possible.
+
+Sir Edward Belcher states that, having come to the end of Queen's
+Channel, he found there many traces of the presence of men. He says:--
+
+"There are remains of dwellings far superior to what can be attributed
+to the savage habits of the wandering tribes of Esquimaux. The walls
+are firmly placed on deep-dug foundations; the inside, covered with a
+thick layer of gravel, has been paved. Skeletons of moose, reindeer,
+and seals abound. We found coal there."
+
+At these last words an idea occurred to the doctor; he took his book
+and ran to tell Hatteras.
+
+"Coal!" shouted the captain.
+
+"Yes, Hatteras, coal; that is to say, our preservation!"
+
+"Coal, on this lonely shore!" continued Hatteras; "no, that's
+impossible!"
+
+"How can you doubt it, Hatteras? Belcher would not have mentioned it
+if he had not been sure, without having seen it with his own eyes."
+
+"Well, what then, Doctor?"
+
+"We are not a hundred miles from the place where Belcher saw this
+coal! What is a journey of a hundred miles? Nothing. Longer
+expeditions have often been made on the ice, and with the cold as
+intense. Let us go after it, Captain!"
+
+"We'll go!" said Hatteras, who had made up his mind quickly; and with
+his active imagination he saw the chance of safety.
+
+Johnson was informed of the plan, of which he approved highly; he told
+his companions; some rejoiced, others heard of it with indifference.
+
+"Coal on these shores!" said Wall from his sick-bed.
+
+"We'll let them go," answered Shandon, mysteriously.
+
+But before they had begun to make preparations for the trip, Hatteras
+wanted to fix the position of the _Forward_ with the utmost
+exactitude. The importance of this calculation it is easy to see. Once
+away from the ship, it could not be found again without knowing its
+position precisely.
+
+So Hatteras went up on deck; he took observations at different moments
+of several lunar distances, and the altitude of the principal stars.
+He found, however, much difficulty in doing this, for when the
+temperature was so low, the glass and the mirrors of the instrument
+were covered with a crust of ice from Hatteras's breath; more than
+once his eyelids were burned by touching the copper eye-pieces. Still,
+he was able to get very exact bases for his calculations, and he
+returned to the common-room to work them out. When he had finished, he
+raised his head with stupefaction, took his chart, marked it, and
+looked at the doctor.
+
+"Well?" asked the latter.
+
+"What was our latitude when we went into winter-quarters?"
+
+"Our latitude was 78° 15', and the longitude 95° 35', exactly the pole
+of cold."
+
+"Well," added Hatteras in a low voice, "our ice-field is drifting! We
+are two degrees farther north and farther west,--at least three
+hundred miles from your coal-supply!"
+
+"And these poor men who know nothing about it!" cried the doctor.
+
+"Not a word!" said Hatteras, raising his finger to his lips.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE.
+
+
+Hatteras did not wish to let his crew know about this new condition of
+affairs. He was right. If they had known that they were being driven
+towards the north with irresistible force, they would have given way
+to despair. The doctor knew this, and approved of the captain's
+silence.
+
+Hatteras had kept to himself the impressions which this discovery had
+caused within him. It was his first moment of joy during these long
+months of struggle with the hostile elements. He was one hundred and
+fifty miles farther north; hardly eight degrees from the Pole! But he
+hid his joy so well that the doctor did not even suspect it; he asked
+himself why Hatteras's eye shone with so unusual a lustre; but that
+was all, and the natural reply to this question did not enter his
+head.
+
+The _Forward_, as it approached the Pole, had drifted away from the
+coal which had been seen by Sir Edward Belcher; instead of a hundred
+miles, it would have to be sought two hundred and fifty miles farther
+south. Still, after a short discussion between Hatteras and Clawbonny,
+they determined to make the attempt.
+
+If Belcher was right, and his accuracy could not be doubted, they
+would find everything just at he had left it. Since 1853, no new
+expedition had visited these remote continents. Few, if any, Esquimaux
+are found in this latitude. The disaster which had befallen at Beechey
+Island could not be repeated on the shores of North Cornwall.
+Everything seemed to favor an excursion across the ice.
+
+They estimated that they would be gone forty days at the outside, and
+preparations were made by Johnson for that time of absence.
+
+In the first place, he saw about the sledge; it was of the shape of
+those used in Greenland, thirty-five inches broad and twenty-four feet
+long. The Esquimaux sometimes make them fifty feet long. It was built
+of long planks, bent at each end, and kept in position by two strong
+cords. This shape adapted it to resist violent shocks. The sledge ran
+easily upon the ice; but before the snow had hardened, it was
+necessary to place two vertical frames near together, and being raised
+in this way, it could run on without cutting too much into the snow.
+Besides, by rubbing it with a mixture of sulphur and snow in the
+Esquimaux fashion, it ran very easily.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was drawn by six dogs; they were strong in spite of their thinness,
+and did not appear to be injured by the severity of the winter; the
+harnesses of deerskin were in good condition; perfect reliance could
+be placed on the equipment, which the Greenlanders at Upernavik had
+sold in conscience. These six animals alone could draw a weight of two
+thousand pounds without inordinate fatigue.
+
+They carried with them a tent, in case it should be impossible to
+build a snow-house; a large sheet of mackintosh to spread over the
+snow, so that it should not melt at contact with their bodies; and,
+last of all, many coverings of wool and buffalo-skin. In addition,
+they carried the Halkett-boat.
+
+Their provisions consisted of five chests of pemmican, weighing four
+hundred and fifty pounds; a pound of pemmican was allotted for each
+man and dog; of the latter there were seven, including Duke; there
+were to be four men. They carried, besides, twelve gallons of spirits
+of wine, weighing nearly a hundred and fifty pounds; tea and biscuit,
+in proper amounts; a little portable kitchen, with a great many wicks;
+and much tow, ammunition, and four double-barrelled guns. The men of
+the party made use of Captain Parry's invention, and wore girdles of
+india-rubber in which the heat of the body and the motion in walking
+could keep tea, coffee, and water in a liquid state.
+
+Johnson took special care of the preparation of snow-shoes, with their
+wooden frames and leathern straps; they served as skates; on
+thoroughly frozen spots deerskin moccasins could be worn with comfort;
+every man carried two pairs of each.
+
+These preparations, which were so important because the omission of a
+single detail might have caused the ruin of the whole expedition,
+required four whole days. Every day at noon Hatteras took an
+observation of the ship's position; it was no longer drifting, and
+this had to be perfectly sure in order to secure their return.
+
+Hatteras undertook to choose the four men who were to accompany him.
+It was not an easy decision to take; some it was not advisable to
+take, but then the question of leaving them on board had also to be
+considered. Still, the common safety demanded the success of this
+trip, and the captain deemed it right to choose sure and experienced
+men.
+
+Hence Shandon was left out, but not much to his regret. James Wall was
+too ill to go. The sick grew no worse; their treatment consisted of
+repeated rubbing and strong doses of lemon-juice; this was easily seen
+to without the presence of the doctor being essential. Hence he
+enrolled himself among those who should go, and no voice was raised
+against it. Johnson would have gladly gone with the captain in his
+dangerous expedition; but Hatteras drew him to one side and said to
+him in an affectionate, almost weeping voice,--
+
+"Johnson, you are the only man I can trust. You are the only officer
+with whom I can leave the ship. I must know that you are here to keep
+an eye on Shandon and the others. They are kept to the ship by the
+winter; but who can say what plans they are not capable of forming?
+You shall receive my formal instructions, which shall place the
+command in your hands. You shall take my place. We shall be absent
+four or five weeks at the most, and I shall be at ease having you here
+where I cannot be. You need wood, Johnson. I know it! But, as much as
+possible, spare my ship. Do you understand, Johnson?"
+
+"I understand, Captain," answered the old sailor, "and I will remain
+if you prefer it."
+
+"Thanks!" said Hatteras, pressing the boatswain's hand; and he added,
+"In case we don't come back, Johnson, wait till the next thaw, and try
+to push on to the Pole. If the rest refuse, don't think of us, but
+take the _Forward_ back to England."
+
+"That is your wish, Captain?"
+
+"It is," answered Hatteras.
+
+"Your orders shall be obeyed," said Johnson, quietly.
+
+The doctor regretted that his friend was not going to accompany him,
+but he was obliged to recognize the wisdom of Hatteras's plan.
+
+His two other companions were Bell the carpenter, and Simpson. The
+first, who was sturdy, brave, and devoted, would be of great service
+in their camping in the snow; the other, although less resolute,
+nevertheless determined to take part in this expedition in which he
+might be of use as hunter and fisher.
+
+So this detachment consisted of Hatteras, Clawbonny, Bell, Simpson,
+and the faithful Duke, making in all four men and seven dogs to be
+fed. A suitable amount of provisions was made ready.
+
+During the early days of January the mean temperature was -33°.
+Hatteras waited impatiently for milder weather; he frequently
+consulted the barometer, but no confidence could be placed in this
+instrument, which in these high latitudes seems to lose some of its
+customary accuracy; in these regions there are many exceptions to the
+general laws of nature: for instance, a clear sky was not always
+accompanied by cold, nor did a fall of snow raise the temperature; the
+barometer was uncertain, as many explorers in these seas have noticed;
+it used to fall when the wind was from the north or east; when low it
+foretold fine weather; when high, rain or snow. Hence its indications
+could hardly be relied on.
+
+Finally, January 5th an easterly breeze brought with it a rise in the
+thermometer of fifteen degrees, so that it stood at -18°. Hatteras
+resolved to start the next day; he could no longer endure seeing his
+ship torn to pieces before his eyes; the whole quarter-deck had been
+burned up.
+
+So, January 6th, amid squalls of snow, the order to depart was given;
+the doctor gave his last words of advice to the sick; Bell and Simpson
+shook hands silently with their companions. Hatteras wanted to make a
+farewell speech to the men, but he saw nothing but angry faces around
+him. He fancied he saw an ironical smile playing about Shandon's lips.
+He held his peace. Perhaps he had a momentary pang at parting as he
+gazed at the _Forward_.
+
+But it was too late for him to change his mind; the sledge, loaded and
+harnessed, was waiting on the ice; Bell was the first to move; the
+others followed. Johnson accompanied the travellers for a quarter of a
+mile; then Hatteras asked him to return, which he did after a long
+leave-taking. At that moment, Hatteras, turning for the last time
+towards the brig, saw the tops of her masts disappearing in the dark
+snow-clouds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+ACROSS THE ICE-FIELDS.
+
+
+The little band made their way towards the southeast. Simpson drove
+the sledge. Duke aided him much, without being disturbed at the
+occupation of his mates. Hatteras and the doctor followed behind on
+foot, while Bell, who was charged with making a road, went on in
+advance, testing the ice with the iron point of his stick.
+
+[Illustration: "The little band made their way towards the
+southeast."]
+
+The rise in the thermometer foretold a fall of snow, and soon it came,
+beginning in large flakes. This added to the hardships of their
+journey; they kept straying from a straight line; they could not go
+quickly; nevertheless, they averaged three miles an hour.
+
+The ice-field, under the pressure of the frost, presented an unequal
+surface; the sledge was often nearly turned over, but they succeeded
+in saving it.
+
+Hatteras and his companions wrapped themselves up in their fur clothes
+cut in the Greenland fashion; they were not cut with extraordinary
+neatness, but they suited the needs of the climate; their faces were
+enclosed in a narrow hood which could not be penetrated by the snow or
+wind; their mouths, noses, and eyes were alone exposed to the air, and
+they did not need to be protected against it; nothing is so
+inconvenient as scarfs and nose-protectors, which soon are stiff with
+ice; at night they have to be cut away, which, even in the arctic
+seas, is a poor way of undressing. It was necessary to leave free
+passage for the breath, which would freeze at once on anything it met.
+
+The boundless plain stretched out with tiresome monotony; everywhere
+there appeared heaped-up ice-hills, hummocks, blocks, and icebergs,
+separated by winding valleys; they walked staff in hand, saying but
+little. In this cold atmosphere, to open the mouth was painful; sharp
+crystals of ice suddenly formed between the lips, and the heat of the
+breath could not melt them. Their progress was silent, and every one
+beat the ice with his staff. Bell's footsteps were visible in the
+fresh snow; they followed them mechanically, and where he had passed,
+the others could go safely.
+
+Numerous tracks of bears and foxes crossed one another everywhere; but
+during this first day not one could be seen; to chase them would have
+been dangerous and useless: they would only have overloaded the
+already heavy sledge.
+
+Generally, in excursions of this sort, travellers take the precaution
+of leaving supplies along their path; they hide them from the animals,
+in the snow, thus lightening themselves for their trip, and on their
+return they take the supplies which they did not have the trouble of
+carrying with them.
+
+Hatteras could not employ this device on an ice-field which perhaps
+was moving; on firm land it would have been possible; and the
+uncertainty of their route made it doubtful whether they would return
+by the same path.
+
+At noon, Hatteras halted his little troop in the shelter of an
+ice-wall; they dined off pemmican and hot tea; the strengthening
+qualities of this beverage produced general comfort, and the
+travellers drank a large quantity. After an hour's rest they started
+on again; in the first day they walked about twenty miles; that
+evening men and dogs were tired out.
+
+Still, in spite of their fatigue, they had to build a snow-house in
+which to pass the night; the tent would not have been enough. This
+took them an hour and a half. Bell was very skilful; the blocks of
+ice, which were cut with a knife, were placed on top of one another
+with astonishing rapidity, and they took the shape of a dome, and a
+last piece, the keystone of the arch, established the solidity of the
+building; the soft snow served as mortar in the interstices; it soon
+hardened and made the whole building of a single piece.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Access was had into this improvised grotto by means of a narrow
+opening, through which it was necessary to crawl on one's hands and
+knees; the doctor found some difficulty in entering, and the others
+followed. Supper was soon prepared on the alcohol cooking-stove. The
+temperature inside was very comfortable; the wind, which was raging
+without, could not get in.
+
+"Sit down!" soon shouted the doctor in his most genial manner.
+
+And this meal, though the same as the dinner, was shared by all. When
+it was finished their only thought was sleep; the mackintoshes, spread
+out upon the snow, protected them from the dampness. At the flame of
+the portable stove they dried their clothes; then three of them,
+wrapped up in their woollen coverings, fell asleep, while one was left
+on watch; he had to keep a lookout on the safety of all, and to
+prevent the opening from being closed, otherwise they ran a risk of
+being buried alive.
+
+Duke shared their quarters; the other dogs remained without, and after
+they had eaten their supper they lay down and were soon hidden by the
+snow.
+
+Their fatigue soon brought sound sleep. The doctor took the watch
+until three of the morning. In the night the hurricane raged
+furiously. Strange was the situation of these lonely men lost in the
+snow, enclosed in this vault with its walls rapidly thickening under
+the snow-fall.
+
+The next morning at six o'clock their monotonous march was resumed;
+there were ever before them the same valleys and icebergs, a
+uniformity which made the choice of a path difficult. Still, a fall of
+several degrees in the temperature made their way easier by hardening
+the snow. Often they came across little elevations, which looked like
+cairns or storing-places of the Esquimaux; the doctor had one
+destroyed to satisfy his curiosity, but he found nothing except a cake
+of ice.
+
+"What do you expect to find, Clawbonny?" asked Hatteras; "are we not
+the first men to penetrate into this part of the globe?"
+
+"Probably," answered the doctor, "but who knows?"
+
+"Don't let us waste our time in useless searching," resumed the
+captain; "I am in a hurry to rejoin the ship, even if this long-wanted
+fuel should not be found."
+
+"I have great hopes of finding it," said the doctor.
+
+"Doctor," Hatteras used to say frequently, "I did wrong to leave the
+_Forward_; it was a mistake! The captain's place is on board, and
+nowhere else."
+
+"Johnson is there."
+
+"Yes! but--let us hurry on!"
+
+They advanced rapidly; Simpson's voice could be heard urging on the
+dogs; they ran along on a brilliant surface, all aglow with a
+phosphorescent light, and the runners of the sledge seemed to toss up
+a shower of sparks. The doctor ran on ahead to examine this snow, when
+suddenly, as he was trying to jump upon a hummock, he disappeared from
+sight. Bell, who was near him, ran at once towards the place.
+
+"Well, Doctor," he cried anxiously, while Hatteras and Simpson joined
+him, "where are you?"
+
+"Doctor!" shouted the captain.
+
+"Down here, at the bottom of a hole," was the quiet answer. "Throw me
+a piece of rope, and I'll come up to the surface of the globe."
+
+They threw a rope down to the doctor, who was at the bottom of a pit
+about ten feet deep; he fastened it about his waist, and his three
+companions drew him up with some difficulty.
+
+"Are you hurt?" asked Hatteras.
+
+"No, there's no harm done," answered the doctor, wiping the snow from
+his smiling face.
+
+"But how did it happen?"
+
+"O, it was in consequence of the refraction," he answered, laughing;
+"I thought I had about a foot to step over, and I fell into this deep
+hole! These optical illusions are the only ones left me, my friends,
+and it's hard to escape from them! Let that be a lesson to us all
+never to take a step forward without first testing the ice with a
+staff, for our senses cannot be depended on. Here our ears hear wrong,
+and our eyes deceive us! It's a curious country!"
+
+"Can you go on?" asked the captain.
+
+"Go on, Hatteras, go on! This little fall has done me more good than
+harm."
+
+They resumed their march to the southeast, and at evening they halted,
+after walking about twenty-five miles; they were all tired, but still
+the doctor had energy enough to ascend an ice-mountain while the
+snow-hut was building.
+
+[Illustration: "The doctor had energy enough to ascend an ice-mountain
+while the snow-hut was building."]
+
+The moon, which was nearly at its full, shone with extraordinary
+brilliancy in a clear sky; the stars were wonderfully brilliant; from
+the top of the iceberg a boundless plain could be seen, which was
+covered with strangely formed hillocks of ice; in the moonlight they
+looked like fallen columns or overthrown tombstones; the scene
+reminded the doctor of a huge, silent graveyard barren of trees, in
+which twenty generations of human beings might be lying in their long
+sleep.
+
+In spite of the cold and fatigue, Clawbonny remained for a long time
+in a revery, from which it was no easy task for his companions to
+arouse him; but they had to think of resting; the snow-hut was
+completed; the four travellers crawled in like moles, and soon were
+all asleep.
+
+The following days went on without any particular incident; at times
+they went on slowly, at times quickly, with varying ease, according to
+the changes in the weather; they wore moccasins or snow-shoes, as the
+nature of the ice demanded.
+
+In this way they went on till January 15th; the moon, now in its last
+quarter, was hardly visible; the sun, although always beneath the
+horizon, gave a sort of twilight for six hours every day, but not
+enough to light up the route, which had to be directed by the compass.
+Then Bell went on ahead; Hatteras followed next; Simpson and the
+doctor sought also to keep in a straight line behind, with their eyes
+on Hatteras alone; and yet, in spite of all their efforts, they often
+got thirty or forty degrees from the right way, much to their
+annoyance.
+
+Sunday, January 15th, Hatteras judged that they had come about one
+hundred miles to the south; this morning was set aside to mending
+their clothes and materials; the reading of divine service was not
+forgotten.
+
+At noon they started again; the temperature was very low; the
+thermometer marked only -22°; the air was very clear.
+
+Suddenly, without warning, a frozen vapor arose into the air from the
+ice, to a height of about ninety feet, and hung motionless; no one
+could see a foot before him; this vapor formed in long, sharp crystals
+upon their clothing.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The travellers, surprised by this phenomenon, which is called
+frost-rime, only thought of getting together; so immediately various
+shouts were heard:--
+
+"O Simpson!"
+
+"Bell, this way!"
+
+"Dr. Clawbonny!"
+
+"Doctor!"
+
+"Captain, where are you?"
+
+They began to look for one another with outstretched arms, wandering
+through the fog which their eyes could not pierce. But to their
+disappointment they could hear no answer; the vapor seemed incapable
+of carrying sound.
+
+Each one then thought of firing his gun as a signal to the others. But
+if their voices were too feeble, the reports of the fire-arms were too
+loud; for the echoes, repeated in every direction, made but a confused
+roar, in which no particular direction could be perceived.
+
+Then they began to act, each one as he thought best. Hatteras stood
+still and folded his arms. Simpson contented himself with stopping the
+sledge. Bell retraced his steps, feeling them with his hand. The
+doctor, stumbling over the blocks of ice, wandered here and there,
+getting more and more bewildered.
+
+At the end of five minutes he said to himself,--
+
+"This can't last long! Singular climate! This is too much! There is
+nothing to help us, without speaking of these sharp crystals which cut
+my face. Halloo, Captain!" he shouted again.
+
+But he heard no answer; he fired his gun, but in spite of his thick
+gloves the iron burned his hands. Meanwhile he thought he saw a
+confused mass moving near him.
+
+"There's some one," he said. "Hatteras! Bell! Simpson! Is that you?
+Come, answer!"
+
+A dull roar was alone heard.
+
+"Ah!" thought the doctor, "what is that?"
+
+The object approached; it lost its first size and appeared in more
+definite shape. A terrible thought flashed into the doctor's mind.
+
+"A bear!" he said to himself.
+
+In fact, it was a huge bear; lost in the fog, it came and went with
+great danger to the men, whose presence it certainly did not suspect.
+
+"Matters are growing complicated!" thought the doctor, standing still.
+
+Sometimes he felt the animal's breath, which was soon lost in the
+frost-rime; again he would see the monster's huge paws beating the air
+so near him that his clothes were occasionally torn by its sharp
+claws; he jumped back, and the animal disappeared like a
+phantasmagoric spectre.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But as he sprang back he found an elevation beneath his feet; he
+climbed up first one block of ice, then another, feeling his way with
+his staff.
+
+"An iceberg!" he said to himself; "if I can get to the top I am safe."
+
+With these words he climbed up an elevation of about ninety feet with
+surprising agility; he arose above the frozen mist, the top of which
+was sharply defined.
+
+"Good!" he said to himself; and looking about him he saw his three
+companions emerging from the vapor.
+
+"Hatteras!"
+
+"Dr. Clawbonny!"
+
+"Bell!"
+
+"Simpson!"
+
+These names were shouted out almost at the same time; the sky, lit up
+by a magnificent halo, sent forth pale rays which colored the
+frost-rime as if it were a cloud, and the top of the icebergs seemed
+to rise from a mass of molten silver. The travellers found themselves
+within a circle of less than a hundred feet in diameter. Thanks to the
+purity of the air in this upper layer in this low temperature, their
+words could be easily heard, and they were able to talk on the top of
+this iceberg. After the first shots, each one, hearing no answer, had
+only thought of climbing above the mist.
+
+"The sledge!" shouted the captain.
+
+"It's eighty feet beneath us," answered Simpson.
+
+"Is it all right?"
+
+"All right."
+
+"And the bear?" asked the doctor.
+
+"What bear?" said Bell.
+
+"A bear!" said Hatteras; "let's go down."
+
+"No!" said the doctor; "we shall lose our way, and have to begin it
+all over again."
+
+"And if he eats our dogs--" said Hatteras.
+
+At that moment Duke was heard barking, the sound rising through the
+mist.
+
+"That's Duke!" shouted Hatteras; "there's something wrong. I'm going
+down."
+
+All sorts of howling arose to their ears; Duke and the dogs were
+barking furiously. The noise sounded like a dull murmur, like the roar
+of a crowded, noisy room. They knew that some invisible struggle was
+going on below, and the mist was occasionally agitated like the sea
+when marine monsters are fighting.
+
+"Duke, Duke!" shouted the captain, as he made ready to enter again
+into the frost-rime.
+
+"Wait a moment, Hatteras,--wait a moment! It seems to me that the fog
+is lifting."
+
+It was not lifting, but sinking, like water in a pool; it appeared to
+be descending into the ground from which it had risen; the summits of
+the icebergs grew larger; others, which had been hidden, arose like
+new islands; by an optical illusion, which may be easily imagined, the
+travellers, clinging to these ice-cones, seemed to be rising in the
+air, while the top of the mist sank beneath them.
+
+Soon the top of the sledge appeared, then the harnessed dogs, and then
+about thirty other animals, then great objects moving confusedly, and
+Duke leaping about with his head alternately rising and sinking in the
+frozen mist.
+
+"Foxes!" shouted Bell.
+
+"Bears!" said the doctor; "one, two, three."
+
+"Our dogs, our provisions!" cried Simpson.
+
+A troop of foxes and bears, having come across the sledge, were
+ravaging the provisions. Their instinct of pillaging united them in
+perfect harmony; the dogs were barking furiously, but the animals paid
+no heed, but went on in their work of destruction.
+
+"Fire!" shouted the captain, discharging his piece.
+
+[Illustration: "'Fire!' shouted the captain, discharging his piece."]
+
+His companions did the same. But at the combined report the bears,
+raising their heads and uttering a singular roar, gave the signal to
+depart; they fell into a little trot which a galloping horse could not
+have kept up with, and, followed by the foxes, they soon disappeared
+amid the ice to the north.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+THE CAIRN.
+
+
+This phenomenon, which is peculiar to the polar regions, had lasted
+three quarters of an hour; the bears and foxes had had plenty of time;
+these provisions arrived opportunely for these animals, who were
+nearly starved during the inclement weather; the canvas cover of the
+sledge was torn by their strong claws, the casks of pemmican were
+opened and emptied; the biscuit-sacks pillaged, the tea spilled over
+the snow, a barrel of alcohol torn open and its contents lost, their
+camping materials scattered and damaged, bore witness to the ferocity
+of these wild beasts, and their greediness.
+
+"This is a misfortune," said Bell, gazing at this scene of ruin.
+
+"Which is probably irreparable," said Simpson.
+
+"Let us first estimate the loss," interrupted the doctor, "and we'll
+talk about it afterwards."
+
+Hatteras, without saying a word, began to gather the scattered boxes
+and sacks; they collected the pemmican and biscuits which could be
+eaten; the loss of part of their alcohol was much to be regretted; for
+if that was gone there would be nothing warm to drink; no tea, no
+coffee. In making an inventory of the supplies left, the doctor found
+two hundred pounds of pemmican gone, and a hundred and fifty pounds of
+biscuit; if their journey continued they would have to subsist on
+half-rations.
+
+They then began to discuss what should be done, whether they should
+return to the ship and start out again. But how could they make up
+their minds to lose the hundred and fifty miles they had already made?
+To return without fuel would have a depressing effect upon the spirits
+of the crew. Could men be found again to resume their march across the
+ice?
+
+Evidently it was better to push on, even at the risk of severe
+privations.
+
+The doctor, Hatteras, and Bell were of this opinion; Simpson wanted to
+go back; the fatigue of the journey had worn upon his health; he was
+visibly weaker; but finding himself alone of this opinion, he resumed
+his place at the head of the sledge, and the little caravan continued
+its journey to the south.
+
+During the three next days, from the 15th to the 17th of January, all
+the monotonous incidents of the voyage were repeated; they advanced
+more slowly, and with much fatigue; their legs grew tired; the dogs
+dragged the sledge with difficulty; their diminished supply of food
+could not comfort men or beasts. The weather was very variable,
+changing from intense, dry cold to damp, penetrating mists.
+
+January 18th the aspect of the ice-fields changed suddenly; a great
+number of peaks, like sharp-pointed pyramids, and very high, appeared
+at the horizon; the ground in certain places came through the snow; it
+seemed formed of gneiss, schist, and quartz, with some appearance of
+limestone. The travellers at last touched earth again, and this land
+they judged to be that called North Cornwall.
+
+The doctor could not help striking the earth with joy; they had now
+only a hundred miles to go before reaching Cape Belcher, but their
+fatigue increased strangely on this soil, covered with sharp rocks,
+and interspersed with dangerous points, crevasses, and precipices;
+they had to go down into the depths of these abysses, climb steep
+ascents, and cross narrow gorges, in which the snow was drifted to the
+depth of thirty or forty feet.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The travellers soon regretted the almost easy journey over the
+ice-fields, which so well suited the sledge; now it had to be dragged
+by main force; the weary dogs were insufficient; the men, compelled to
+take their place alongside of them, wore themselves out with hauling;
+often they had to take off the whole load to get over some steep
+hills; a place only ten feet wide often kept them busy for hours; so
+in this first day they made only five miles in North Cornwall, which
+is certainly well named, for it exhibits all the roughness, the sharp
+points, the steep gorges, the confused rockiness, of the southwest
+coast of England.
+
+The next day the sledge reached the top of the hills near the shore;
+the exhausted travellers, being unable to make a snow-hut, were
+obliged to pass the night under the tent, wrapped up in buffalo-skins,
+and drying their wet stockings by placing them about their bodies. The
+inevitable consequences of such conduct are easily comprehended; that
+night the thermometer fell below -44°, and the mercury froze.
+
+Simpson's health caused great anxiety; a persistent cough, violent
+rheumatism, and intolerable pain obliged him to lie on the sledge
+which he could no longer guide. Bell took his place; he too was
+suffering, but not so much as to be incapacitated. The doctor also
+felt the consequences of this trip in this terrible weather; but he
+uttered no complaint; he walked on, resting on his staff; he made out
+the way and helped every one. Hatteras, impassible, and as strong as
+on the first day, followed the sledge in silence.
+
+January 20th the weather was so severe that the slightest effort
+produced complete prostration. Still, the difficulties of the way were
+so great, that Hatteras, the doctor, and Bell harnessed themselves
+with the dogs; sudden shocks had broken the front of the sledge, and
+they had to stop to repair it. Such delays were frequent every day.
+
+The travellers followed a deep ravine, up to their waists in snow, and
+perspiring violently in spite of the intense cold. They did not say a
+word. Suddenly Bell, who was near the doctor, looked at him with some
+alarm; then, without uttering a word, he picked up a handful of snow
+and began rubbing his companion's face violently.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Well, Bell!" said the doctor, resisting.
+
+But Bell continued rubbing.
+
+"Come, Bell," began the doctor again, his mouth, nose, and eyes full
+of snow, "are you mad? What's the matter?"
+
+"If you have a nose left," answered Bell, "you ought to be grateful to
+me."
+
+"A nose!" answered the doctor, quickly, clapping his hand to his face.
+
+"Yes, Doctor, you were frost-bitten; your nose was white when I looked
+at you, and if I had not done as I did, you would have lost that
+ornament which is in the way on a journey, but agreeable to one's
+existence."
+
+In fact, the doctor's nose was almost frozen; the circulation of the
+blood was restored in time, and, thanks to Bell, all danger was gone.
+
+"Thanks, Bell!" said the doctor; "I'll be even with you yet."
+
+"I hope so, Doctor," the carpenter answered; "and may Heaven protect
+us from worse misfortunes!"
+
+"Alas, Bell," continued the doctor, "you mean Simpson! The poor fellow
+is suffering terribly."
+
+"Do you fear for his life?" asked Hatteras, quickly.
+
+"Yes, Captain," answered the doctor.
+
+"And why?"
+
+"He has a violent attack of scurvy; his legs have begun to swell, and
+his gums too; the poor fellow lies half frozen on the sledge, and
+every movement redoubles his suffering. I pity him, Hatteras, and I
+can't do anything to relieve him."
+
+"Poor Simpson!" murmured Bell.
+
+"Perhaps we shall have to halt for a day or two," resumed the doctor.
+
+"Halt!" shouted Hatteras, "when the lives of eighteen men are hanging
+on our return!"
+
+"Still--" said the doctor.
+
+"Clawbonny, Bell, listen to me," said Hatteras; "we have food for only
+twenty days! Judge for yourselves whether we can stop for a moment!"
+
+Neither the doctor nor Bell made any reply, and the sledge resumed its
+progress, which had been delayed for a moment. That evening they
+stopped beneath a hillock of ice, in which Bell at once cut a cavern;
+the travellers entered it; the doctor passed the night attending to
+Simpson; the scurvy had already made fearful ravages, and his
+sufferings caused perpetual laments to issue from his swollen lips.
+
+"Ah, Dr. Clawbonny!"
+
+"Courage, my dear fellow!" said the doctor.
+
+"I shall never get well! I feel it! I'd rather die!"
+
+The doctor answered these despairing words by incessant cares;
+although worn out by the fatigue of the day, he spent the night in
+composing a soothing potion for his patient; but the lime-juice was
+ineffectual, and continual friction could not keep down the progress
+of the scurvy.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The next day he had to be placed again upon the sledge, although he
+besought them to leave him behind to die in peace; then they resumed
+their dreary and difficult march.
+
+The frozen mists penetrated the three men to the bone; the snow and
+sleet dashed against them; they were working like draught-horses, and
+with a scanty supply of food.
+
+Duke, like his master, kept coming and going, enduring every fatigue,
+always alert, finding out by himself the best path; they had perfect
+confidence in his wonderful instinct.
+
+During the morning of January 23d, amid almost total darkness, for the
+moon was new, Duke had run on ahead; for many hours he was not seen;
+Hatteras became uneasy, especially because there were many traces of
+bears to be seen; he was uncertain what to do, when suddenly a loud
+barking was heard.
+
+Hatteras urged on the sledge, and soon he found the faithful animal at
+the bottom of a ravine. Duke stood as motionless as if turned to
+stone, barking before a sort of cairn made of pieces of limestone,
+covered with a cement of ice.
+
+"This time," said the doctor, detaching his harness, "it's a cairn,
+there's no doubt of that."
+
+"What's that to us?" asked Hatteras.
+
+"Hatteras, if it is a cairn, it may contain some document of value for
+us; perhaps some provisions, and it would be worth while to see."
+
+"What European could have come as far as this?" asked Hatteras,
+shrugging his shoulders.
+
+"But in lack of Europeans," answered the doctor, "cannot Esquimaux
+have made it here to contain what they have fished or shot? It's their
+habit, I think."
+
+"Well, go and look at it," continued Hatteras; "but I'm afraid it will
+be hardly worth your while."
+
+Clawbonny and Bell walked to the cairn with picks in their hands. Duke
+continued barking furiously. The limestones were firmly fastened
+together by the ice; but a few blows scattered them on the ground.
+
+"There's something there, evidently," said the doctor.
+
+"I think so," answered Bell.
+
+They rapidly destroyed the cairn. Soon they found a bundle and in it a
+damp paper. The doctor took it with a beating heart. Hatteras ran
+forward, seized the paper, and read:--
+
+"Altam..., _Porpoise_, December 13, 1860, longitude 12..°, latitude
+8..° 35'."
+
+"The _Porpoise_?" said the doctor.
+
+"The _Porpoise_!" replied Hatteras. "I never heard of a ship of this
+name in these seas."
+
+"It is clear," resumed the doctor, "that travellers, perhaps
+shipwrecked sailors, have been here within two months."
+
+"That is sure," said Bell.
+
+"What are we going to do?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Push on," answered Hatteras, coldly. "I don't know anything about any
+ship called the _Porpoise_, but I know that the brig _Forward_ is
+waiting for our return."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+THE DEATH OF SIMPSON.
+
+
+They resumed their journey; the mind of every one was filled with new
+and unexpected ideas, for to meet any one in these regions is about
+the most remarkable event that can happen. Hatteras frowned uneasily.
+
+"The _Porpoise_!" he kept saying to himself; "what ship is that? And
+what is it doing so near the Pole?"
+
+At the thought, he shuddered. The doctor and Bell only thought of the
+two results which might follow the discovery of this document, that
+they might be of service in saving some one, or, possibly, that they
+might be saved by them. But the difficulties, obstacles, and dangers
+soon returned, and they could only think of their perilous position.
+
+[Illustration: "They could only think of their perilous position."]
+
+Simpson's condition grew worse; the doctor could not be mistaken about
+the symptoms of a speedy death. He could do nothing; he was himself
+suffering from a painful ophthalmia, which might be accompanied by
+deafness if he did not take care. The twilight at that time gave light
+enough, and this light, reflected by the snow, was bad for the eyes;
+it was hard to protect them from the reflection, for glasses would be
+soon covered with a layer of ice which rendered them useless. Hence
+they had to guard carefully against accident by the way, and they had
+to run the risk of ophthalmia; still, the doctor and Bell covered
+their eyes and took turns in guiding the sledge. It ran far from
+smoothly on its worn runners; it became harder and harder to drag it;
+their path grew more difficult; the land was of volcanic origin, and
+all cut up with craters; the travellers had been compelled gradually
+to ascend fifteen hundred feet to reach the top of the mountains. The
+temperature was lower, the storms were more violent, and it was a
+sorry sight to see these poor men on these lonely peaks.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+They were also made sick by the whiteness of everything; the uniform
+brilliancy tired them; it made them giddy; the earth seemed to wave
+beneath their feet with no fixed point on the immense white surface;
+they felt as one does on shipboard when the deck seems to be giving
+way beneath the foot; they could not get over the impression, and the
+persistence of the feeling wearied their heads. Their limbs grew
+torpid, their minds grew dull, and often they walked like men half
+asleep; then a slip or a sudden fall would rouse them for a few
+moments from their sluggishness.
+
+January 25th they began to descend the steep slopes, which was even
+more fatiguing; a false step, which it was by no means easy to avoid,
+might hurl them down into deep ravines where they would certainly have
+perished. Towards evening a violent tempest raged about the snowy
+summit; it was impossible to withstand the force of the hurricane;
+they had to lie down on the ground, but so low was the temperature
+that they ran a risk of being frozen to death at once.
+
+Bell, with Hatteras's aid, built with much difficulty a snow-house, in
+which the poor men sought shelter; there they partook of a few
+fragments of pemmican and a little hot tea; only four gallons of
+alcohol were left; and they had to use this to allay their thirst, for
+snow cannot be absorbed if taken in its natural state; it has to be
+melted first. In the temperate zone, where the cold hardly ever sinks
+much below the freezing-point, it can do no harm; but beyond the Polar
+Circle it is different; it reaches so low a temperature that the bare
+hand can no more touch it than it can iron at a white heat, and this,
+although it is a very poor conductor of heat; so great is the
+difference of temperature between it and the stomach that its
+absorption produces real suffocation. The Esquimaux prefer severe
+thirst to quenching it with this snow, which does not replace water,
+and only augments the thirst instead of appeasing it. The only way the
+travellers could make use of it was by melting it over the
+spirit-lamp.
+
+At three in the morning, when the tempest was at its height, the
+doctor took his turn at the watch; he was lying in a corner of the hut
+when a groan of distress from Simpson attracted his attention; he
+arose to see to him, but in rising he hit his head sharply against the
+icy roof; without paying any attention to that, he bent over Simpson
+and began to rub his swollen, discolored legs; after doing this for a
+quarter of an hour he started to rise, and bumped his head again,
+although he was on his knees.
+
+"That's odd," he said to himself.
+
+He raised his hand above his head; the roof was perceptibly sinking.
+
+"Great God!" he cried; "wake up, my friends!"
+
+At his shouts Hatteras and Bell arose quickly, striking their heads
+against the roof; they were in total darkness.
+
+"We shall be crushed!" said the doctor; "let's get out!"
+
+And all three, dragging Simpson after them, abandoned their dangerous
+quarters; and it was high time, for the blocks of ice, ill put
+together, fell with a loud crash.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The poor men found themselves then without shelter against the
+hurricane. Hatteras attempted to raise the tent, but it was
+impossible, so severe was the wind, and they had to shelter themselves
+beneath the canvas, which was soon covered with a thick layer of snow;
+but this snow prevented the radiation of their warmth and kept them
+from being frozen to death.
+
+The storm lasted all night; Bell, when he was harnessing the
+half-starved dogs, noticed that three of them had begun to eat the
+leather straps; two were very sick and seemed unable to go on. Still,
+they set out as well as they could; they had sixty miles between them
+and the point they wished to reach.
+
+On the 26th, Bell, who was ahead, shouted suddenly to his companions.
+They ran towards him, and he pointed with astonishment to a gun
+resting on a piece of ice.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"A gun!" cried the doctor.
+
+Hatteras took it; it was in good condition, and loaded.
+
+"The men of the _Porpoise_ can't be far off."
+
+Hatteras, as he was examining the gun, noticed that it was of American
+make; his hands clinched nervously its barrel.
+
+"Forward!" he said calmly.
+
+They continued to descend the mountains. Simpson seemed deprived of
+all feeling; he had not even strength left to moan.
+
+The tempest continued to rage; the sledge went on more and more
+slowly; they made but a few miles in twenty-four hours, and, in spite
+of the strictest economy, their supplies threatened to give out; but
+so long as enough was left to carry them back, Hatteras pushed on.
+
+On the 27th they found, partly buried beneath the snow, a sextant and
+then a flask, which contained brandy, or rather a piece of ice, in the
+middle of which all the spirit of the liquor had collected in the form
+of snow; it was of no use.
+
+Evidently, without meaning it, Hatteras was following in the wake of
+some great disaster; he went on by the only possible route, collecting
+the traces of some terrible shipwreck. The doctor kept a sharp lookout
+for other cairns, but in vain.
+
+Sad thoughts beset him: in fact, if he should discover these wretches,
+of what service could he be to them? He and his companions were
+beginning to lack everything; their clothing was torn, their supplies
+were scanty. If the survivors were many, they would all starve to
+death. Hatteras seemed inclined to flee from them! Was he not
+justified, since the safety of the crew depended upon him? Ought he to
+endanger the safety of all by bringing strangers on board?
+
+But then strangers were men, perhaps their countrymen! Slight as was
+their chance of safety, ought they to be deprived of it? The doctor
+wanted to get Bell's opinion; but Bell refused to answer. His own
+sufferings had hardened his heart. Clawbonny did not dare ask
+Hatteras: so he sought aid from Providence.
+
+Towards the evening of that day, Simpson appeared to be failing fast;
+his cold, stiff limbs, his impeded breathing, which formed a mist
+about his head, his convulsive movements, announced that his last hour
+had come. His expression was terrible to behold; it was despairing,
+with a look of impotent rage at the captain. It contained a whole
+accusation, mute reproaches which were full of meaning, and perhaps
+deserved.
+
+Hatteras did not go near the dying man. He avoided him, more silent,
+more shut into himself than ever!
+
+The following night was a terrible one; the violence of the tempest
+was doubled; three times the tent was thrown over, and snow was blown
+over the suffering men, blinding them, and wounding them with the
+pieces torn from the neighboring masses. The dogs barked incessantly.
+Simpson was exposed to all the inclemency of the weather. Bell
+succeeded in again raising the canvas, which, if it did not protect
+them from the cold, at least kept off the snow. But a sudden squall
+blew it down for the fourth time and carried it away with a fierce
+blast.
+
+"Ah, that is too much!" shouted Bell.
+
+"Courage, courage!" answered the doctor, stooping down to escape being
+blown away.
+
+Simpson was gasping for breath. Suddenly, with a last effort, he half
+rose, stretched his clinched fist at Hatteras, who was gazing steadily
+at him, uttered a heart-rending cry, and fell back dead in the midst
+of his unfinished threat.
+
+[Illustration: "Suddenly, with a last effort, he half rose."]
+
+"Dead!" said the doctor.
+
+"Dead!" repeated Bell.
+
+Hatteras, who was approaching the corpse, drew back before the
+violence of the wind.
+
+He was the first of the crew who succumbed to the murderous climate,
+the first to offer up his life, after incalculable sufferings, to the
+captain's persistent obstinacy. This man had considered him an
+assassin, but Hatteras did not quail before the accusation. But a
+tear, falling from his eyes, froze on his pale cheek.
+
+The doctor and Bell looked at him in terror. Supported by his long
+staff, he seemed like the genius of these regions, straight in the
+midst of the fierce blast, and terrible in his stern severity.
+
+He remained standing, without stirring, till the first rays of the
+twilight appeared, bold and unconquerable, and seeming to defy the
+tempest which was roaring about him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+THE RETURN TO THE FORWARD.
+
+
+Toward six o'clock in the morning the wind fell, and, shifting
+suddenly to the north, it cleared the clouds from the sky; the
+thermometer stood at -33°. The first rays of the twilight appeared on
+the horizon above which it would soon peer.
+
+Hatteras approached his two dejected companions and said to them,
+sadly and gently,--
+
+"My friends, we are more than sixty miles from the point mentioned by
+Sir Edward Belcher. We have only just enough food left to take us back
+to the ship. To go farther would only expose us to certain death,
+without our being of service to any one. We must return."
+
+"That is a wise decision, Hatteras," answered the doctor; "I should
+have followed you anywhere, but we are all growing weaker every day;
+we can hardly set one foot before the other; I approve of returning."
+
+"Is that your opinion, Bell?" asked Hatteras.
+
+"Yes, Captain," answered the carpenter.
+
+"Well," continued Hatteras, "we will take two days for rest. That's
+not too much. The sledge needs a great many repairs. I think, too, we
+ought to build a snow-house in which we can repose."
+
+This being decided, the three men set to work energetically. Bell took
+the necessary precautions to insure the solidity of the building, and
+soon a satisfactory retreat arose at the bottom of the ravine where
+they had last halted.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was doubtless after a hard struggle that Hatteras had decided to
+discontinue his journey. So much effort and fatigue thrown away! A
+useless trip, entailing the death of one of his men! To return without
+a scrap of coal: what would the crew say? What might it not do under
+the lead of Shandon? But Hatteras could not continue the struggle any
+longer.
+
+He gave all his attention to their preparations for returning; the
+sledge was repaired; its load, too, had become much lighter, and only
+weighed two hundred pounds. They mended their worn-out, torn clothes,
+all soaked through and through by the snow; new moccasins and
+snow-shoes replaced those which were no longer serviceable. This kept
+them busy the whole of the 29th and the morning of the 30th; then they
+all sought what rest they could get, and prepared for what was before
+them.
+
+During the thirty-six hours spent in or near the snow-house, the
+doctor had been noticing Duke, whose singular behavior did not seem to
+him to be natural; the dog kept going in circles which seemed to have
+a common centre; there was a sort of elevation in the soil, produced
+by accumulated layers of ice; Duke, as he ran around this place, kept
+barking gently and wagging his tail impatiently, looking at his master
+as if asking something.
+
+The doctor, after reflecting a moment, ascribed this uneasiness to the
+presence of Simpson's corpse, which his companions had not yet had
+time to bury. Hence he resolved to proceed to this sad ceremony on
+that very day; the next morning they were to start. Bell and the
+doctor, picks in hand, went to the bottom of the ravine; the elevation
+which Duke had noticed offered a suitable place for the grave, which
+would have to be dug deep to escape the bears.
+
+The doctor and Bell began by removing the soft snow, then they
+attacked the solid ice; at the third blow of his pick the doctor
+struck against some hard body; he picked up the pieces and found them
+the fragments of a glass bottle. Bell brought to light a stiffened
+bag, in which were a few crumbs of fresh biscuit.
+
+"What's this?" said the doctor.
+
+"What can it be?" asked Bell, stopping his work.
+
+The doctor called to Hatteras, who came at once.
+
+Duke barked violently, and with his paws tried to tear up the ice.
+
+"Have we by any possibility come across a supply of provisions?" said
+the doctor.
+
+"It looks like it," answered Bell.
+
+"Go on!" said Hatteras.
+
+A few bits of food were found and a box quarter full of pemmican.
+
+"If we have," said Hatteras, "the bears have visited it before we did.
+See, these provisions have been touched already."
+
+"It is to be feared," answered the doctor, "for--"
+
+He did not finish his sentence; a cry from Bell interrupted him; he
+had turned over a tolerably large piece of ice and showed a stiff,
+frozen human leg in the ice.
+
+"A corpse!" cried the doctor.
+
+"It's a grave," said Hatteras.
+
+It was the body of a sailor about thirty years old, in a perfect state
+of preservation; he wore the usual dress of Arctic sailors; the doctor
+could not say how long he had been dead.
+
+After this, Bell found another corpse, that of a man of fifty,
+exhibiting traces of the sufferings that had killed him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"They were never buried," cried the doctor; "these poor men were
+surprised by death as we find them."
+
+"You are right, Doctor," said Bell.
+
+"Go on, go on!" said Hatteras.
+
+Bell hardly dared. Who could say how many corpses lay hidden here?
+
+"They were the victims of just such an accident as we nearly perished
+by," said the doctor; "their snow-house fell in. Let us see if one may
+not be breathing yet!"
+
+The place was rapidly cleared away, and Bell brought up a third body,
+that of a man of forty; he looked less like a corpse than the others;
+the doctor bent over him and thought he saw some signs of life.
+
+"He's alive!" he shouted.
+
+Bell and he carried this body into the snow-house, while Hatteras
+stood in silence, gazing at the sunken dwelling.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The doctor stripped the body; it bore no signs of injury; with Bell's
+aid he rubbed it vigorously with tow dipped in alcohol, and he saw
+life gradually reviving within it; but the man was in a state of
+complete prostration, and unable to speak; his tongue clove to his
+palate as if it were frozen.
+
+The doctor examined his patient's pockets; they were empty. No paper.
+He let Bell continue rubbing, and went out to Hatteras.
+
+He found him in the ruined snow-house, clearing away the floor; soon
+he came out, bearing a half-burned piece of an envelope. A few words
+could be deciphered:--
+
+  ....tamont
+    ...._orpoise_
+      ....w York.
+
+"Altamont!" shouted the doctor, "of the _Porpoise_! of New York!"
+
+"An American!" said Hatteras.
+
+"I shall save him," said the doctor; "I'll answer for it, and we shall
+find out the explanation of this puzzle."
+
+He returned to Altamont, while Hatteras remained pensive. The doctor
+succeeded in recalling the unfortunate man to life, but not to
+consciousness; he neither saw, heard, nor spoke, but at any rate he
+was alive!
+
+The next morning Hatteras said to the doctor,--
+
+"We must start."
+
+"All right, Hatteras! The sledge is not loaded; we shall carry this
+poor fellow back to the ship with us.
+
+"Very well," said Hatteras. "But first let us bury these corpses."
+
+The two unknown sailors were placed beneath the ruins of the
+snow-house; Simpson's body took the place of Altamont's.
+
+The three travellers uttered a short prayer over their companion, and
+at seven o'clock in the morning they set off again for the ship.
+
+Two of the dogs were dead. Duke volunteered to drag the sledge, and he
+worked as resolutely as a Greenland dog.
+
+For twenty days, from January 31st to February 19th, the return was
+very much like the first part of the journey. Save that it was in the
+month of February, the coldest of the whole year, and the ice was
+harder; the travellers suffered terribly from the cold, but not from
+the wind or snow-storm.
+
+The sun reappeared for the first time January 31st; every day it rose
+higher above the horizon. Bell and the doctor were at the end of their
+strength, almost blind and quite lame; the carpenter could not walk
+without crutches. Altamont was alive, but continued insensible;
+sometimes his life was despaired of, but unremitting care kept him
+alive! And yet the doctor needed to take the greatest care of himself,
+for his health was beginning to suffer.
+
+Hatteras thought of the _Forward_! In what condition was he going to
+find it? What had happened on board? Had Johnson been able to
+withstand Shandon and his allies? The cold had been terrible! Had they
+burned the ship? Had they spared her masts and keel?
+
+While thinking of this, Hatteras walked on as if he had wished to get
+an early view of the _Forward_.
+
+February 24th, in the morning, he stopped suddenly. Three hundred
+paces before him appeared a reddish glow, above which rose an immense
+column of black smoke, which was lost in the gray clouds of the sky.
+
+"See that smoke!" he shouted.
+
+His heart beat as if it would burst.
+
+"See that smoke!" he said to his companions. "My ship is on fire!"
+
+"But we are more than three miles from it," said Bell. "It can't be
+the _Forward_!"
+
+"Yes, but it is," answered the doctor; "the mirage makes it seem
+nearer."
+
+"Let us run!" cried Hatteras.
+
+They left the sledge in charge of Duke, and hastened after the
+captain. An hour later they came in sight of the ship. A terrible
+sight! The brig was burning in the midst of the ice, which was melting
+about her; the flames were lapping her hull, and the southerly breeze
+brought to Hatteras's ears unaccustomed sounds.
+
+Five hundred feet from the ship stood a man raising his hands in
+despair; he stood there, powerless, facing the fire which was
+destroying the _Forward_.
+
+The man was alone; it was Johnson.
+
+Hatteras ran towards him.
+
+"My ship! my ship!" he cried.
+
+"You! Captain!" answered Johnson; "you! stop! not a step farther!"
+
+"Well?" asked Hatteras with a terrible air.
+
+"The wretches!" answered Johnson, "they've been gone forty-eight
+hours, after firing the ship!"
+
+"Curse them!" groaned Hatteras.
+
+Then a terrible explosion was heard; the earth trembled; the icebergs
+fell; a column of smoke rose to the clouds, and the _Forward_
+disappeared in an abyss of fire.
+
+[Illustration: "Then a terrible explosion was heard."]
+
+At that moment the doctor and Bell came up to Hatteras. He roused
+himself suddenly from his despair.
+
+"My friends," he said energetically, "the cowards have taken flight!
+The brave will succeed! Johnson, Bell, you are bold; Doctor, you are
+wise; as for me, I have faith! There is the North Pole! Come, to
+work!"
+
+Hatteras's companions felt their hearts glow at these brave words.
+
+And yet the situation was terrible for these four men and the dying
+man, abandoned without supplies, alone at the eighty-fourth degree of
+latitude, in the very heart of the polar regions.
+
+
+END OF PART I.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+THE DESERT OF ICE.
+
+
+
+
+THE DESERT OF ICE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+THE DOCTOR'S INVENTORY.
+
+
+The design which Captain Hatteras had formed of exploring the North,
+and of giving England the honor of discovering the Pole, was certainly
+a bold one. This hardy sailor had just done all that human skill could
+do. After struggling for nine months against contrary winds and seas,
+after destroying icebergs and ice-fields, after enduring the severity
+of an unprecedentedly cold winter, after going over all that his
+predecessors had done, after carrying the _Forward_ beyond the seas
+which were already known, in short, after completing half his task, he
+saw his grand plans completely overthrown. The treachery, or rather
+the demoralization of his wearied crew, the criminal folly of some of
+the ringleaders, left him in a terrible situation; of the eighteen men
+who had sailed in the brig, four were left, abandoned without
+supplies, without a boat, more than twenty-five hundred miles from
+home!
+
+The explosion of the _Forward_, which had just blown up before their
+eyes, took from them their last means of subsistence. Still,
+Hatteras's courage did not abandon him at this terrible crisis. The
+men who were left were the best of the crew; they were genuine heroes.
+He made an appeal to the energy and wisdom of Dr. Clawbonny, to the
+devotion of Johnson and Bell, to his own faith in the enterprise; even
+in these desperate straits he ventured to speak of hope; his brave
+companions listened to him, and their courage in the past warranted
+confidence in their promises for the future.
+
+The doctor, after listening to the captain's words, wanted to get an
+exact idea of their situation; and, leaving the others about five
+hundred feet from the ship, he made his way to the scene of the
+catastrophe.
+
+Of the _Forward_, which had been built with so much care, nothing was
+left; pieces of ice, shapeless fragments all blackened and charred,
+twisted pieces of iron, ends of ropes still burning like fuse, and
+scattered here and there on the ice-field, testified to the force of
+the explosion. The cannon had been hurled to some distance, and was
+lying on a piece of ice that looked like a gun-carriage. The surface
+of the ice, for a circle of six hundred feet in diameter, was covered
+with fragments of all sorts; the brig's keel lay under a mass of ice;
+the icebergs, which had been partly melted by the fire, had already
+recovered their rock-like hardness.
+
+The doctor then began to think of his ruined cabin, of his lost
+collections, of his precious instruments destroyed, his books torn,
+burned to ashes. So much that was valuable gone! He gazed with tearful
+eyes at this vast disaster, thinking not of the future, but of the
+irreparable misfortune which dealt him so severe a blow. He was
+immediately joined by Johnson; the old sailor's face bore signs of his
+recent sufferings; he had been obliged to struggle against his
+revolted companions, defending the ship which had been intrusted to
+his care. The doctor sadly pressed the boatswain's hand.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Well, my friend, what is going to become of us?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Who can say?" answered Johnson.
+
+"At any rate," continued the doctor, "don't let us give way to
+despair; let us be men!"
+
+"Yes, Doctor," answered the old sailor, "you are right; it's when
+matters look worst that we most need courage; we are in a bad way; we
+must see how we can best get out of it."
+
+"Poor ship!" said the doctor, sighing; "I had become attached to it; I
+had got to look on it as on my own home, and there's not left a piece
+that can be recognized!"
+
+"Who would think, Doctor, that this mass of dust and ashes could be so
+dear to our heart?"
+
+"And the launch," continued the doctor, gazing around, "was it
+destroyed too?"
+
+"No, Doctor; Shandon and the others, who left, took it with them."
+
+"And the gig?"
+
+"Was broken into a thousand pieces. See, those sheets of tin are all
+that's left of her."
+
+"Then we have nothing but the Halkett-boat?"[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Made of india-rubber, and capable of being inflated at
+pleasure.]
+
+"That is all, and it is because you insisted on our taking it, that we
+have that."
+
+"It's not of much use," said the doctor.
+
+"They were a pack of miserable, cowardly traitors who ran away!" said
+Johnson. "May they be punished as they deserve!"
+
+"Johnson," answered the doctor, mildly, "we must remember that their
+suffering had worn upon them very much. Only exceptional natures
+remain stanch in adversity, which completely overthrows the weak. Let
+us rather pity than curse them!"
+
+After these words the doctor remained silent for a few minutes, and
+gazed around uneasily.
+
+"What is become of the sledge?" asked Johnson.
+
+"We left it a mile back."
+
+"In care of Simpson?"
+
+"No, my friend; poor Simpson sank under the toil of the trip."
+
+"Dead!" cried the boatswain.
+
+"Dead!" answered the doctor.
+
+"Poor fellow!" said Johnson; "but who knows whether we may not soon be
+reduced to envying his fate?"
+
+"But we have brought back a dying man in place of the one we lost,"
+answered the doctor.
+
+"A dying man?"
+
+"Yes, Captain Altamont."
+
+The doctor gave the boatswain in a few words an account of their
+finding him.
+
+"An American!" said Johnson, thoughtfully.
+
+"Yes; everything seems to point that way. But what was this _Porpoise_
+which had evidently been shipwrecked, and what was he doing in these
+waters?"
+
+"He came in order to be lost," answered Johnson; "he brought his crew
+to death, like all those whose foolhardiness leads them here. But,
+Doctor, did the expedition accomplish what it set out for?"
+
+"Finding the coal?"
+
+"Yes," answered Johnson.
+
+The doctor shook his head sadly.
+
+"None at all?" asked the old sailor.
+
+"None; our supplies gave out, fatigue nearly conquered us. We did not
+even reach the spot mentioned by Edward Belcher."
+
+"So," continued Johnson, "you have no fuel?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor food?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And no boat with which to reach England?"
+
+They were both silent; they needed all their courage to meet this
+terrible situation.
+
+"Well," resumed the boatswain, "there can be no doubts about our
+condition! We know what we have to expect! But the first thing to do,
+when the weather is so cold, is to build a snow-house."
+
+"Yes," answered the doctor, "with Bell's aid that will be easy; then
+we'll go after the sledge, we'll bring the American here, and then
+we'll take counsel with Hatteras."
+
+"Poor captain!" said Johnson, forgetting his own griefs; "he must
+suffer terribly."
+
+With these words they returned to their companions. Hatteras was
+standing with folded arms, as usual, gazing silently into space. His
+face wore its usual expression of firmness. Of what was this
+remarkable man thinking? Of his desperate condition and shattered
+hopes? Was he planning to return, since both men and the elements had
+combined against his attempt?
+
+No one could have read his thoughts, which his face in no way
+expressed. His faithful Duke was with him, braving a temperature of
+-32°.
+
+Bell lay motionless on the ice; his insensibility might cost him his
+life; he was in danger of being frozen to death. Johnson shook him
+violently, rubbed him with snow, and with some difficulty aroused him
+from his torpor.
+
+"Come, Bell, take courage!" he said; "don't lose heart; get up; we
+have to talk matters over, and we need a shelter. Have you forgotten
+how to make a snow-house? Come, help me, Bell! There's an iceberg we
+can cut into! Come, to work! That will give us what we need, courage!"
+
+Bell, aroused by these words, obeyed the old sailor.
+
+"Meanwhile," Johnson went on, "the doctor will be good enough to go to
+the sledge and bring it back with the dogs."
+
+"I am ready," answered the doctor; "in an hour I shall be back."
+
+"Shall you go too, Captain?" added Johnson, turning to Hatteras.
+
+Although he was deep in thought, the captain heard the boatswain's
+question, for he answered gently,--
+
+"No, my friend, if the doctor is willing to go alone. We must form
+some plan of action, and I want to be alone to think matters over. Go.
+Do what you think right for the present. I will be thinking of the
+future."
+
+Johnson turned to the doctor.
+
+"It's singular," he said; "the captain seems to have forgotten his
+anger; his voice never was so gentle before."
+
+"Well!" answered the doctor; "he has recovered his presence of mind.
+Mark my words, Johnson, that man will be able to save us!"
+
+Thereupon the doctor wrapped himself up as well as he could, and,
+staff in hand, walked away towards the sledge in the midst of a fog
+which the moonlight made almost bright. Johnson and Bell set to work
+immediately; the old sailor encouraged the carpenter, who wrought on
+in silence; they did not need to build, but to dig into the solid ice;
+to be sure it was frozen very hard, and so rendered the task
+difficult, but it was thereby additionally secure; soon Johnson and
+Bell could work comfortably in the orifice, throwing outside all that
+they took from the solid mass.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+From time to time Hatteras would walk fitfully, stopping suddenly
+every now and then; evidently he did not wish to reach the spot where
+his brig had been. As he had promised, the doctor was soon back; he
+brought with him Altamont, lying on the sledge beneath all the
+coverings; the Greenland dogs, thin, tired, and half starved, could
+hardly drag the sledge, and were gnawing at their harness; it was high
+time that men and beasts should take some rest.
+
+While they were digging the house, the doctor happened to stumble upon
+a small stove which had not been injured by the explosion, and with a
+piece of chimney that could be easily repaired: the doctor carried it
+away in triumph. At the end of three hours the house was inhabitable;
+the stove was set in and filled with pieces of wood; it was soon
+roaring and giving out a comfortable warmth.
+
+The American was brought in and covered up carefully; the four
+Englishmen sat about the fire. The last supplies of the sledge, a
+little biscuit and some hot tea, gave them some comfort. Hatteras did
+not speak; every one respected his silence. When the meal was finished
+the doctor made a sign for Johnson to follow him outside.
+
+"Now," he said, "we are going to make an inventory of what is left. We
+must know exactly what things we have; they are scattered all about;
+we must pick them up; it may snow at any moment, and then it would be
+impossible to find a scrap."
+
+"Don't let us lose any time, then," answered Johnson; "food and wood
+is what we need at once."
+
+"Well, let us each take a side," answered the doctor, "so as to cover
+the whole ground; let us begin at the centre and go out to the
+circumference."
+
+They went at once to the bed of ice where the _Forward_ had lain; each
+examined with care all the fragments of the ship beneath the dim light
+of the moon. It was a genuine hunt; the doctor entered into this
+occupation with all the zest, not to say the pleasure, of a sportsman,
+and his heart beat high when he discovered a chest almost intact; but
+most were empty, and their fragments were scattered everywhere.
+
+The violence of the explosion had been considerable; many things were
+but dust and ashes; the large pieces of the engine lay here and there,
+twisted out of shape; the broken flanges of the screw were hurled
+twenty fathoms from the ship and buried deeply in the hardened snow;
+the bent cylinders had been torn from their pivots; the chimney, torn
+nearly in two, and with chains still hanging to it, lay half hid under
+a large cake of ice; the bolts, bars, the iron-work of the helm, the
+sheathing, all the metal-work of the ship, lay about as if it had been
+fired from a gun.
+
+[Illustration: "The large pieces of the engine lay here and there,
+twisted out of shape."]
+
+But this iron, which would have made the fortune of a tribe of
+Esquimaux, was of no use under the circumstances; before anything else
+food had to be found, and the doctor did not discover a great deal.
+
+"That's bad," he said to himself; "it is evident that the store-room,
+which was near the magazine, was entirely destroyed by the explosion;
+what wasn't burned was shattered to dust. It's serious; and if Johnson
+is not luckier than I am, I don't see what's going to become of us."
+
+Still, as he enlarged his circles, the doctor managed to collect a few
+fragments of pemmican, about fifteen pounds, and four stone bottles,
+which had been thrown out upon the snow and so had escaped
+destruction; they held five or six pints of brandy.
+
+Farther on he picked up two packets of grains of cochlearia, which
+would well make up for the loss of their lime-juice, which is so
+useful against the scurvy.
+
+Two hours later the doctor and Johnson met. They told one another of
+their discoveries; unfortunately they had found but little to eat:
+some few pieces of salt pork, fifty pounds of pemmican, three sacks of
+biscuit, a little chocolate, some brandy, and about two pounds of
+coffee, picked up berry by berry on the ice.
+
+No coverings, no hammocks, no clothing, were found; evidently the fire
+had destroyed all. In short, the doctor and boatswain had found
+supplies for three weeks at the outside, and with the strictest
+economy; that was not much for them in their state of exhaustion. So,
+in consequence of these disasters, Hatteras found himself not only
+without any coal, but also short of provisions.
+
+As to the fuel supplied by the fragments of the ship, the pieces of
+the masts and the keel, they might hold out about three weeks; but
+then the doctor, before using it to heat their new dwelling, asked
+Johnson whether out of it they might not build a new ship, or at least
+a launch.
+
+"No, Doctor," answered the boatswain, "it's impossible; there's not a
+piece of wood large enough; it's good for nothing except to keep us
+warm for a few days and then--"
+
+"Then?" asked the doctor.
+
+"God alone knows," answered the sailor.
+
+Having made out their list, the doctor and Johnson went after the
+sledge; they harnessed the tired dogs, returned to the scene of the
+explosion, packed up the few precious objects they had found, and
+carried them to their new house; then, half frozen, they took their
+place near their companions in misfortune.
+
+[Illustration: "They harnessed the tired dogs."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+ALTAMONT'S FIRST WORDS.
+
+
+Towards eight o'clock in the evening the snow-clouds cleared away for
+a few minutes; the constellations shone brilliantly in the clear air.
+Hatteras made use of this change to get the altitude of some stars; he
+went out without saying a word, carrying his instruments with him. He
+wished to ascertain his position and see if the ice-field had not been
+drifting again. After an absence of half an hour he came back, lay
+down in a corner, and remained perfectly still, although not asleep.
+
+The next day snow began to fall heavily; the doctor could not help
+being glad that he had made his examination the day before, for a
+white curtain soon covered the whole expanse, and every trace of the
+explosion was hidden under three feet of snow.
+
+On that day they could not set foot outside; fortunately their
+quarters were comfortable, or at least seemed so to the exhausted
+travellers. The little stove worked well, except occasionally when
+violent gusts drove the smoke into the room; with its heat they could
+make coffee and tea, which are both so serviceable beverages when the
+temperature is low.
+
+The castaways, for they deserve the name, found themselves more
+comfortable than they had been for a long time; hence they only
+thought of the present, of the agreeable warmth, of the brief rest,
+forgetting, or even indifferent to the future, which threatened with
+speedy death.
+
+The American suffered less, and gradually returned to life; he opened
+his eyes, but he did not say anything; his lips bore traces of the
+scurvy, and could not utter a sound; he could hear, and was told where
+he was and how he got there. He moved his head as a sign of gratitude;
+he saw that he had been saved from burial beneath the snow; the doctor
+forbore telling him how very short a time his death had been delayed,
+for, in a fortnight or three weeks at the most, their supply of food
+would be exhausted.
+
+Towards midday Hatteras arose and went up to the doctor, Johnson, and
+Bell.
+
+"My friends," he said to them, "we are going to take a final
+resolution as to the course we must follow. In the first place, I must
+ask Johnson to tell me under what circumstances this act of treachery
+came to pass."
+
+"Why should we know?" said the doctor; "the fact is certain, we need
+give it no more thought."
+
+"I am thinking of it, all the same," answered Hatteras. "But after
+I've heard what Johnson has to say, I shall not think of it again."
+
+[Illustration: Johnson's Story.]
+
+"This is the way it happened," went on the boatswain; "I did all I
+could to prevent the crime--"
+
+"I am sure of that, Johnson, and I will add that the leaders had been
+plotting it for some time."
+
+"So I thought," said the doctor.
+
+"And I too," continued Johnson; "for very soon after your departure,
+Captain, on the very next day, Shandon, who was angry with you and was
+egged on by the others, took command of the ship; I tried to resist,
+but in vain. After that, every one acted as he saw fit; Shandon did
+not try to control them; he wanted to let the crew see that the time
+of suffering and privation had gone by. Hence there was no economy; a
+huge fire was lighted in the stove; they began to burn the brig. The
+men had the provisions given them freely, and the spirits too, and you
+can easily imagine the abuse they made of them after their long
+abstinence. Things went on in this way from the 7th to the 15th of
+January."
+
+"So," said Hatteras, in a grave voice, "it was Shandon who incited the
+men to revolt?"
+
+"Yes, Captain."
+
+"Say nothing more about him. Go on, Johnson."
+
+"It was towards January 24th or 25th, that the plan of leaving the
+ship was formed. They determined to reach the western coast of
+Baffin's Bay; from there, in the launch, they could meet whalers, or,
+perhaps, the settlements on the eastern side. Their supplies were
+abundant; the sick grew better with the hope of reaching home. So they
+made their plans for leaving; they built a sledge for the transport of
+their food, fuel, and the launch; the men were to drag it themselves.
+This occupied them until February 15th. I kept anxiously awaiting your
+return, Captain, and yet I feared having you present; you would have
+had no influence over the crew, who would rather have killed you than
+have remained on board. They were wild with the hope of escape. I took
+all my companions aside and spoke to them, I besought them to stay; I
+pointed out all the dangers of such a journey, as well as the
+cowardliness of abandoning you. I could get nothing, even from the
+best. They chose February 22d for leaving. Shandon was impatient. They
+heaped upon the sledge all the food and liquor it could hold; they
+took a great deal of wood; the whole larboard side had been cut away
+to the water-line. The last day they passed carousing; they ravaged
+and stole everything, and it was during this drunkenness that Pen and
+two or three others set fire to the ship. I resisted, and struggled
+against them; they threw me down and struck me; at last, these
+villains, with Shandon at their head, fled to the east, and
+disappeared from my sight. I remained alone; what could I do against
+this fire which was seizing the whole ship? The water-hole was frozen
+over; I hadn't a drop of water. For two days the _Forward_ was wrapped
+in flames, and you know the rest."
+
+Having finished this account, a long silence prevailed in this
+ice-house; the gloomy tale of the burning of the ship, the loss of
+their precious brig, appeared so vividly before the minds of the
+castaways; they found themselves before an impossibility, and that was
+a return to England. They did not dare to look at one another, for
+fear of seeing on each other's faces blank despair. There was nothing
+to be heard save the hasty breathing of the American.
+
+At last Hatteras spoke.
+
+"Johnson," said he, "I thank you; you have done all you could to save
+my ship. But you could not do anything alone. Again I thank you, and
+now don't let us speak again of this misfortune. Let us unite our
+efforts for the common safety. There are four of us here, four
+friends, and the life of one is of no more worth than the life of
+another. Let each one give his opinion on what should be done."
+
+"Ask us, Hatteras," answered the doctor; "we are all devoted to you,
+our answers shall be sincere. And, in the first place, have you any
+plan?"
+
+"I can't have any alone," said Hatteras, sadly. "My opinion might seem
+interested; I want to hear your opinion first."
+
+"Captain," said Johnson, "before speaking on such weighty matters, I
+have an important question to ask you."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"You ascertained our position yesterday; well, has the ice-field
+drifted any more, or are we in just the same place?"
+
+"It has not stirred," answered Hatteras. "The latitude before we left
+was 80° 15', and longitude 97° 35'."
+
+"And," said Johnson, "how far are we from the nearest sea to the
+west?"
+
+"About six hundred miles," answered Hatteras.
+
+"And this water is--"
+
+"Smith's Sound."
+
+"The same which we could not cross last April?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"Well, Captain, now we know where we are, and we can make up our minds
+accordingly."
+
+"Speak, then," said Hatteras, letting his head sink into his hands.
+
+In that way he could hear his friends without looking at them.
+
+"Well, Bell," said the doctor, "what do you think is the best course
+to follow?"
+
+"It isn't necessary to reflect a long time," answered the carpenter;
+"we ought to return, without wasting a day or an hour, either to the
+south or the west, and reach the nearest coast, even if it took us two
+months!"
+
+"We have supplies for only three weeks," answered Hatteras, without
+raising his head.
+
+"Well," continued Johnson, "we must make that distance in three weeks,
+since it's our only chance of safety; if we have to crawl on our knees
+at the end, we must leave, and arrive in twenty-five days."
+
+"This part of the northern continent is not known," answered Hatteras.
+"We may meet obstacles, such as mountains and glaciers, which will
+completely bar our progress."
+
+"I don't consider that," answered the doctor, "a sufficient reason for
+not attempting the journey; evidently, we shall suffer a great deal;
+we ought to reduce our daily supply to the minimum, unless luck in
+hunting--"
+
+"There's only half a pound of powder left," answered Hatteras.
+
+"Come, Hatteras," resumed the doctor, "I know the weight of all your
+objections, and I don't nourish any vain hopes. But I think I can read
+your thoughts; have you any practicable plan?"
+
+"No," answered the captain, after a few moments' hesitation.
+
+"You do not doubt our courage," continued the doctor; "we are willing
+to follow you to the last, you know very well; but should we not now
+abandon all hope of reaching the Pole? Mutiny has overthrown your
+plans; you fought successfully against natural obstacles, but not
+against the weakness and perfidy of men; you have done all that was
+humanly possible, and I am sure you would have succeeded; but, in the
+present condition of affairs, are you not compelled to give up your
+project, and in order to take it up again, should you not try to reach
+England without delay?"
+
+"Well, Captain?" asked Johnson, when Hatteras had remained a long time
+silent.
+
+At last the captain raised his head, and said in a constrained tone,--
+
+"Do you think you are sure of reaching the shore of the sound, tired
+as you are, and almost without food?"
+
+"No," answered the doctor; "but it's sure the shore won't come to us;
+we must go to it. Perhaps we shall find to the south tribes of
+Esquimaux who may aid us."
+
+"Besides," added Johnson, "may we not find in the sound some ship that
+has been forced to winter there."
+
+"And if need be," continued the doctor, "when we've reached the sound,
+may we not cross it, and reach the west coast of Greenland, and then,
+either by Prudhoe's Land, or Cape York, get to some Danish settlement?
+Nothing of that sort is to be found on the ice-field. The way to
+England is down there to the south, and not here to the north!"
+
+"Yes," said Bell, "Dr. Clawbonny is right; we must go, and go at once.
+Hitherto we have forgotten home too much, and those who are dear to
+us."
+
+"Do you agree, Johnson?" Hatteras asked again.
+
+"Yes, Captain."
+
+"And you, Doctor?"
+
+"Yes, Hatteras."
+
+Hatteras still remained silent; in spite of all he could do, his face
+expressed his agitation. His whole life depended on the decision he
+should take; if he should return, it was all over with his bold plans;
+he could not hope to make the attempt a fourth time.
+
+The doctor, seeing the captain was silent, again spoke.
+
+"I ought to add, Hatteras," he said, "that we ought not to lose an
+instant; we ought to load the sledge with all our provisions, and take
+as much wood as possible. A journey of six hundred miles under such
+circumstances is long, I confess, but not insuperable; we can, or
+rather we ought, to make twenty miles a day, which would bring us to
+the coast in a month, that is to say, towards March 26th."
+
+"But," said Hatteras, "can't we wait a few days?"
+
+"What do you hope for?" answered Johnson.
+
+"I don't know. Who can foretell the future? Only a few days yet! It's
+hardly enough to rest your wearied bodies. We couldn't go two stages
+without dropping from weariness, without any snow-house to shelter
+us!"
+
+"But a terrible death certainly awaits us here!" cried Bell.
+
+"My friends," continued Hatteras in a tone almost of entreaty, "you
+are despairing too soon! I should propose to seek safety to the north,
+were it not that you would refuse to follow me. And yet are there not
+Esquimaux near the Pole, as well as at Smith's Sound? That open sea,
+of which the existence is uncertain, ought to surround a continent.
+Nature is logical in everything it does. Well, we ought to believe
+that vegetation appears when the greatest cold ceases. Is there not a
+promised land awaiting us at the north, and which you want to fly from
+without hope of return?"
+
+Hatteras warmed as he spoke; his heated imagination called up
+enchanting visions of these countries, whose existence was still so
+problematical.
+
+"One more day," he repeated, "a single hour!"
+
+Dr. Clawbonny, with his adventurous character and his glowing
+imagination, felt himself gradually aroused; he was about to yield;
+but Johnson, wiser and colder, recalled him to reason and duty.
+
+"Come, Bell," he said, "to the sledge!"
+
+"Come along!" answered Bell.
+
+The two sailors turned towards the door of the snow-house.
+
+"O Johnson! you! you!" shouted Hatteras. "Well, go! I shall stay!"
+
+"Captain!" said Johnson, stopping in spite of himself.
+
+"I shall stay, I say! Go! leave me like the rest! Go!--Come, Duke, we
+two shall stay!"
+
+The brave dog joined his master, barking. Johnson looked at the
+doctor. He did not know what to do; the best plan was to calm
+Hatteras, and to sacrifice a day to his fancies. The doctor was about
+making up his mind to this effect, when he felt some one touch his
+arm.
+
+He turned round. The American had just left the place where he had
+been lying; he was crawling on the floor; at last he rose to his
+knees, and from his swollen lips a few inarticulate sounds issued.
+
+The doctor, astonished, almost frightened, gazed at him silently.
+Hatteras approached the American, and examined him closely. He tried
+to make out the words which the poor fellow could not pronounce. At
+last, after trying for five minutes, he managed to utter this word:--
+
+"_Porpoise_."
+
+"The _Porpoise_?" asked the captain.
+
+The American bowed affirmatively.
+
+"In these seas?" asked Hatteras with beating heart.
+
+The same sign from the sick man.
+
+"To the north?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you know where it lies?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Exactly?"
+
+There was a moment's silence. The bystanders were all excited.
+
+"Now, listen carefully," said Hatteras to the sick man; "we must know
+where this ship lies. I am going to count the degrees aloud; you will
+stop me by a sign."
+
+The American bowed his head to show that he understood.
+
+"Come," said Hatteras, "we'll begin with the longitude. One hundred
+and five? No.--Hundred and six? Hundred and seven? Hundred and eight?
+Far to the west?"
+
+"Yes," said the American.
+
+"Let us go on. Hundred and nine? Ten? Eleven? Twelve? Fourteen?
+Sixteen? Eighteen? Nineteen? Twenty?"
+
+"Yes," answered Altamont.
+
+"Longitude one hundred and twenty?" said Hatteras. "And how many
+minutes? I shall count."
+
+Hatteras began at number one. At fifteen Altamont made a sign for him
+to stop.
+
+"All right!" said Hatteras. "Now for the latitude. You understand?
+Eighty? Eighty-one? Eighty-two? Eighty-three?"
+
+The American stopped him with a gesture.
+
+"Well! And the minutes? Five? Ten? Fifteen? Twenty? Twenty-five?
+Thirty? Thirty-five?"
+
+Another sign from Altamont, who smiled slightly.
+
+"So," continued Hatteras, in a deep voice, "the _Porpoise_ lies in
+longitude 120° 15', and 83° 35' latitude?"
+
+"Yes!" said the American, as he fell fainting into the doctor's arms.
+This exertion had exhausted him.
+
+[Illustration: "'Yes!' said the American."]
+
+"My friends," cried Hatteras, "you see that safety lies to the north,
+always to the north! We shall be saved!"
+
+But after these first words of joy, Hatteras seemed suddenly struck by
+a terrible thought. His expression changed, and he felt himself stung
+by the serpent of jealousy.
+
+Some one else, an American, had got three degrees nearer the Pole! And
+for what purpose?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+SEVENTEEN DAYS OF LAND JOURNEY.
+
+
+This new incident, these first words which Altamont uttered, had
+completely altered the situation of the castaways; but just now they
+had been far from any possible aid, without a reasonable chance of
+reaching Baffin's Bay, threatened with starvation on a journey too
+long for their wearied bodies, and now, within four hundred miles from
+their snow-house, there was a ship which offered them bounteous
+supplies, and perhaps the means of continuing their bold course to the
+Pole. Hatteras, the doctor, Johnson, and Bell, all began to take heart
+after having been so near despair; they were nearly wild with joy.
+
+But Altamont's account was still incomplete, and, after a few moments'
+repose, the doctor resumed his talk with him; he framed his questions
+in such a way that a simple sign of the head or a motion of the eyes
+would suffice for an answer.
+
+Soon he made out that the _Porpoise_ was an American bark from New
+York, that it had been caught in the ice with a large supply of food
+and fuel; and, although she lay on her beam-ends, she must have
+withstood the ice, and it would be possible to save her cargo.
+
+Two months before, Altamont and the crew had abandoned her, carrying
+the launch upon a sledge; they wanted to get to Smith's Sound, find a
+whaling-vessel, and be carried in her to America; but gradually
+fatigue and disease had fallen upon them, and they fell aside on the
+way. At last only the captain and two sailors were left of a crew of
+thirty men, and Altamont's life was the result of what was really a
+miracle.
+
+Hatteras wanted to find out from the American what he was doing in
+these high latitudes.
+
+Altamont managed to make him understand that he had been caught in the
+ice and carried by it without possibility of resisting it.
+
+Hatteras asked him anxiously for what purpose he was sailing.
+
+Altamont gave them to understand that he had been trying the Northwest
+Passage.
+
+Hatteras did not persist, and asked no other question of the sort.
+
+The doctor then began to speak.
+
+"Now," he said, "all our efforts should be directed to finding the
+_Porpoise_; instead of struggling to Baffin's Bay, we may, by means of
+a journey only two thirds as long, reach a ship which will offer us
+all the resources necessary for wintering."
+
+"There's nothing more to be done," said Bell.
+
+"I should add," said the boatswain, "that we should not lose a moment;
+we should calculate the length of our journey by the amount of our
+supplies, instead of the other and usual way, and be off as soon as
+possible."
+
+"You are right, Johnson," said the doctor; "if we leave to-morrow,
+Tuesday, February 26th, we ought to reach the _Porpoise_ March 15th,
+at the risk of starving to death. What do you think of that,
+Hatteras?"
+
+"Let us make our preparations at once," said the captain, "and be off.
+Perhaps we shall find the way longer than we suppose."
+
+"Why so?" asked the doctor. "This man seemed certain of the situation
+of his ship."
+
+"But," answered Hatteras, "supposing the _Porpoise_ has been drifting
+as the _Forward_ did?"
+
+"True," said the doctor, "that's not unlikely."
+
+Johnson and Bell had nothing to urge against the possibility of a
+drift of which they had themselves been victims.
+
+But Altamont, who was listening to the conversation, gave the doctor
+to understand that he wished to speak. After an effort of about a
+quarter of an hour, Clawbonny made out that the _Porpoise_ was lying
+on a bed of rocks, and so could not have drifted away. This
+information calmed the anxiety of the Englishmen; still it deprived
+them of their hope of returning to Europe, unless Bell should be able
+to build a small boat out of the timbers of the _Porpoise_. However
+that might be, it was now of the utmost importance that they should
+reach the wreck.
+
+The doctor put one more question to the American, namely, whether he
+had found an open sea at latitude 83°.
+
+"No," answered Altamont.
+
+There the conversation stopped. They began at once to prepare for
+departure; Bell and Johnson first began to see about the sledge, which
+needed complete repairing. Since they had plenty of wood, they made
+the uprights stronger, availing themselves of the experience of their
+southern trip. They had learned the dangers of this mode of transport,
+and since they expected to find plenty of deep snow, the runners were
+made higher.
+
+On the inside Bell made a sort of bed, covered with the canvas of the
+tent, for the American; the provisions, which were unfortunately
+scanty, would not materially augment the weight of the sledge, but
+still they made up for that by loading it with all the wood it could
+carry.
+
+The doctor, as he packed all the provisions, made out a very careful
+list of their amount; he calculated that each man could have three
+quarters of a ration for a journey of three weeks. A whole ration was
+set aside for the four dogs which should draw it. If Duke aided them,
+he was to have a whole ration.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+These preparations were interrupted by the need of sleep and rest,
+which they felt at seven o'clock in the evening; but before going to
+bed they gathered around the stove, which was well filled with fuel,
+and these poor men luxuriated in more warmth than they had enjoyed for
+a long time; some pemmican, a few biscuits, and several cups of coffee
+soon put them in good-humor, especially when their hopes had been so
+unexpectedly lighted up. At seven in the morning they resumed work,
+and finished it at three in the afternoon. It was already growing
+dark. Since January 31st the sun had appeared above the horizon, but
+it gave only a pale and brief light; fortunately the moon would rise
+at half past six, and with this clear sky it would make their path
+plain. The temperature, which had been growing lower for several days,
+fell at last to -33°.
+
+The time for leaving came. Altamont received the order with joy,
+although the jolting of the sledge would increase his sufferings; he
+told the doctor that medicine against the scurvy would be found on
+board of the _Porpoise_. He was carried to the sledge and placed there
+as comfortably as possible; the dogs, including Duke, were harnessed
+in; the travellers cast one last glance at the spot where the
+_Forward_ had lain. A glow of rage passed over Hatteras's face, but he
+controlled it at once, and the little band set out with the air very
+dry at first, although soon a mist came over them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Each one took his accustomed place, Bell ahead pointing out the way,
+the doctor and Johnson by the sides of the sledge, watching and
+lending their aid when it was necessary, and Hatteras behind,
+correcting the line of march.
+
+They went along tolerably quickly; now that the temperature was so
+low, the ice was hard and smooth for travel; the five dogs easily drew
+the sledge, which weighed hardly more than nine hundred pounds. Still,
+men and beasts panted heavily, and often they had to stop to take
+breath.
+
+Towards seven o'clock in the evening, the moon peered through mist on
+the horizon. Its rays threw out a light which was reflected from the
+ice; towards the northwest the ice-field looked like a perfectly
+smooth plain; not a hummock was to be seen. This part of the sea
+seemed to have frozen smooth like a lake.
+
+It was an immense, monotonous desert.
+
+Such was the impression that this spectacle made on the doctor's mind,
+and he spoke of it to his companion.
+
+"You are right, Doctor," answered Johnson; "it is a desert, but we
+need not fear dying of thirst."
+
+"A decided advantage," continued the doctor; "still, this immensity
+proves one thing to me, and that is that we are far distant from any
+land; in general, the proximity of land is indicated by a number of
+icebergs, and not one is to be seen near us."
+
+"We can't see very far for the fog," said Johnson.
+
+"Without doubt; but since we started we have crossed a smooth field of
+which we cannot see the end."
+
+"Do you know, Doctor, it's a dangerous walk we are taking! We get used
+to it and don't think of it, but we are walking over fathomless
+depths."
+
+"You are right, my friend, but we need not fear being swallowed; with
+such cold as this the ice is very strong. Besides, it has a constant
+tendency to get thicker, for snow falls nine days out of ten, even in
+April, May, and June, and I fancy it must be something like thirty or
+forty feet thick."
+
+"That is a comfort," said Johnson.
+
+"In fact, we are very much better off than those who skate on the
+Serpentine, and who are in constant dread of falling through; we have
+no such fear."
+
+"Has the resistance of ice been calculated?" asked the old sailor, who
+was always seeking information from the doctor.
+
+"Yes," the latter answered: "everything almost that can be measured is
+now known, except human ambition! and is it not that which is carrying
+us towards the North Pole? But to return to your question, my answer
+is this. Ice two inches thick will bear a man; three and a half inches
+thick, a horse and rider; five inches thick, an eight-pound cannon;
+eight inches, a fully harnessed artillery-piece; and ten inches, an
+army, any number of men! Where we are now, the Liverpool Custom House
+or the Halls of Parliament in London could be built."
+
+"One can hardly imagine such strength," said Johnson; "but just now,
+Doctor, you spoke of snow falling nine days out of ten; that is true,
+but where does all the snow come from? The sea is all frozen, and I
+don't see how the vapor can rise to form the clouds."
+
+"A very keen observation, Johnson; but, in my opinion, the greatest
+part of the snow or rain which we receive in the polar regions is
+formed from the water of the seas in the temperate zones. One flake
+arose into the air under the form of vapor from some river in Europe,
+it helped make a cloud, and finally came here to be condensed; it is
+not impossible that we who drink it may be quenching our thirst at the
+rivers of our own country."
+
+"That is true," answered Johnson.
+
+At that moment Hatteras's voice was heard directing their steps and
+interrupting their conversation. The fog was growing thicker, and
+making a straight line hard to follow.
+
+Finally the little band halted at about eight o'clock in the evening,
+after walking nearly fifteen miles; the weather was dry; the tent was
+raised, the fire lighted, supper cooked, and all rested peacefully.
+
+Hatteras and his companions were really favored by the weather. The
+following days brought no new difficulties, although the cold became
+extremely severe and the mercury remained frozen in the thermometer.
+If the wind had risen, no one could have withstood the temperature.
+The doctor was able to corroborate Parry's observations, which he made
+during his journey to Melville Island; he said that a man comfortably
+dressed could walk safely in the open air exposed to great cold, if
+the air were only calm; but as soon as the slightest wind arose, a
+sharp pain was felt in the face, and an extreme headache which is soon
+followed by death. The doctor was very anxious, for a slight wind
+would have frozen the marrow in their bones.
+
+March 5th he observed a phenomenon peculiar to these latitudes: the
+sky was clear and thick with stars, and thick snow began to fall
+without any cloud being visible; the constellations shone through the
+flakes which fell regularly on the ice-field. This went on for about
+two hours, and stopped before the doctor had found a satisfactory
+explanation of its fall.
+
+The last quarter of the moon had then disappeared; total darkness
+reigned for seventeen hours out of the twenty-four; the travellers had
+to tie themselves together by a long cord, to avoid being separated;
+it was almost impossible for them to go in a straight line.
+
+Still, these bold men, although animated by an iron will, began to
+grow weary; their halts were more frequent, and yet they ought not to
+lose an hour, for their supplies were rapidly diminishing. Hatteras
+would often ascertain their position by observation of the moon and
+stars. As he saw the days pass by and the destination appear as remote
+as before, he would ask himself sometimes if the _Porpoise_ really
+existed, whether the American's brain might not have been deranged by
+his sufferings, or whether, through hate of the English, and seeing
+himself without resources, he did not wish to drag them with him to
+certain death.
+
+He expressed his fears to the doctor, who discouraged them greatly,
+but he readily understood the lamentable rivalry which existed between
+the American and English captains.
+
+"They are two men whom it will be hard to make agree," he said to
+himself.
+
+March 14th, after journeying for sixteen days, they had only reached
+latitude 82°; their strength was exhausted, and they were still a
+hundred miles from the ship; to add to their sufferings, they had to
+bring the men down to a quarter-ration, in order to give the dogs
+their full supply.
+
+They could not depend on their shooting for food, for they had left
+only seven charges of powder and six balls; they had in vain fired at
+some white hares and foxes, which besides were very rare. None had
+been hit.
+
+Nevertheless, on the 18th, the doctor was fortunate enough to find a
+seal lying on the ice; he wounded him with several balls; the animal,
+not being able to escape through his hole in the ice, was soon slain.
+He was of very good size. Johnson cut him up skilfully, but he was so
+very thin that he was of but little use to the men, who could not make
+up their minds to drink his oil, like the Esquimaux. Still the doctor
+boldly tried to drink the slimy fluid, but he could not do it. He
+preserved the skin of the animal, for no special reason, by a sort of
+hunter's instinct, and placed it on the sledge.
+
+[Illustration: "The doctor was fortunate enough to find a seal."]
+
+The next day, the 16th, they saw a few icebergs on the horizon. Was it
+a sign of a neighboring shore, or simply a disturbance of the ice? It
+was hard to say.
+
+When they had reached one of these hummocks, they dug in it with a
+snow-knife a more comfortable retreat than that afforded by the tent,
+and after three hours of exertion they were able to rest about their
+glowing stove.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+THE LAST CHARGE OF POWDER.
+
+
+Johnson had admitted the tired dogs into the snow-house; when the snow
+is falling heavily it serves as a covering to the animals, preserving
+their natural heat. But in the open air, with a temperature of -40°,
+they would soon have frozen to death.
+
+Johnson, who made an excellent dog-driver, tried feeding the dogs with
+the dark flesh of the seals which the travellers could not swallow,
+and to his great surprise they made a rich feast out of it; the old
+sailor in his delight told the doctor. He, however, was not in the
+least surprised; he knew that in the north of America the horses make
+fish their main article of food, and what a herbivorous horse could
+content himself with would certainly satisfy an omnivorous dog.
+
+Before going to rest, although sleep became an imperious necessity for
+men who had walked fifteen miles on the ice, the doctor wished to have
+a few serious words with his companions about the dangers of their
+situation.
+
+"We are only at latitude 82°," he said, "and our supplies are already
+running short."
+
+"A reason for losing no time," answered Hatteras; "we must push on;
+the strong can draw the feeble."
+
+"Shall we find a ship when we get there?" asked Bell, who was much
+depressed by the fatigue of the journey.
+
+"Why doubt it?" said Johnson; "the American's safety depends on ours."
+
+To make sure, the doctor was anxious to question Altamont again. He
+could speak easily, although his voice was weak; he confirmed all the
+statements he had already made; he repeated that the ship was aground
+on some granite rocks, where it could not stir, and that it lay in
+longitude 120° 15', and latitude 83° 35'.
+
+"We can't doubt this statement," resumed the doctor; "the difficulty
+is not whether the _Porpoise_ is there, but the way of getting to
+her."
+
+"How much food have we left?" asked Hatteras.
+
+"Enough for three days at the outside," answered the doctor.
+
+"Well, we must get to her in three days," said the captain, firmly.
+
+"We must indeed," continued the doctor, "and if we succeed we shall
+have no need to complain, for we shall have been favored by faultless
+weather; the snow has given us a fortnight's respite, and the sledge
+has glided easily on the hardened ice! Ah, if it only carried two
+hundred pounds of food! Our dogs could have managed it easily enough.
+But still we can't help it!"
+
+"With luck and skill," said Johnson, "we might put to some use the few
+charges of powder which are left us. If we should kill a bear we
+should be supplied for all the rest of the journey."
+
+"Without doubt," answered the doctor, "but these animals are rare and
+shy; and then, when one thinks of the importance of a shot, his hand
+will shake and his aim be lost."
+
+"But you are a good shot," answered Bell.
+
+"Yes, when four men's dinners do not depend on my hitting; still, I
+will do my best if I get a chance. Meanwhile let us try to satisfy
+ourselves with this thin soup of scraps of pemmican, then go to sleep,
+and to-morrow early we'll start forth again."
+
+A few moments later excessive fatigue outweighed every other feeling,
+and they all sank into a heavy sleep. Early on Saturday Johnson awoke
+his companions; the dogs were harnessed to the sledge, and they took
+up again their journey northward.
+
+The heavens were magnificent, the air was very clear, the temperature
+very low; when the sun appeared above the horizon it appeared like an
+elongated ellipse; its horizontal diameter appeared, in consequence of
+refraction, to be double its vertical diameter. It sent forth its
+clear, cold rays over the vast icy plain. This return to light, if not
+to heat, rejoiced them all.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The doctor, gun in hand, walked off for a mile or two, braving the
+cold and solitude; before going he measured the supply carefully; only
+four charges of powder were left, and three balls; that was a small
+supply when one remembers that a strong animal like the polar bear
+often falls only after receiving ten or twelve shots. Hence the doctor
+did not go in search of so fierce game; a few hares or two or three
+foxes would have satisfied him and given him plenty of provisions. But
+during that day, if he saw one, or could not approach one, or if he
+were deceived by refraction, he would lose his shot; and this day, as
+it was, cost him a charge of powder and a ball. His companions, who
+trembled with hope at the report of his gun, saw him returning with
+downcast looks; they did not say anything; that evening they went to
+sleep as usual, after putting aside two quarter-rations reserved for
+the two following days. The next day their journey seemed more
+laborious; they hardly walked, they rather dragged along; the dogs had
+eaten even the entrails of the seal, and they were beginning to gnaw
+their harness.
+
+A few foxes passed at some distance from the sledge, and the doctor,
+having missed another shot as he chased them, did not dare to risk his
+last ball and his last charge save one of powder.
+
+That evening they halted early, unable to set one foot before the
+other, and, although their way was lighted by a brilliant aurora, they
+could not go on. This last meal, eaten Sunday evening under their icy
+tent, was very melancholy. If Heaven did not come to their aid, they
+were lost. Hatteras did not speak, Bell did not even think, Johnson
+reflected in silence, but the doctor did not yet despair.
+
+Johnson thought of setting some traps that night; but since he had no
+bait, he had very little hope of success, and in the morning he found,
+as he expected, that, although a great many foxes had left their marks
+around, yet not one had been caught. He was returning much
+disappointed, when he saw an enormous bear sniffing the air at about
+thirty yards from the sledge. The old sailor thought Providence had
+sent this animal to him to be slain; without awakening his companions
+he seized the doctor's gun and made his way towards the bear.
+
+Having got quite near he took aim, but just as he was about to pull
+the trigger he felt his arm trembling; his large fur gloves were in
+his way; he took them off quickly, and seized his gun with a firmer
+hand. Suddenly, a cry of pain escaped him; the skin of his fingers,
+burned by the cold of the gun-barrel, remained clinging to it, while
+the gun fell to the ground, and went off from the shock, sending the
+last ball off into space. At the sound of the report the doctor ran;
+he understood everything at a glance; he saw the animal trot quickly
+away; Johnson was in despair, and thought no more of the pain.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"I'm as tender as a baby," he cried, "not to be able to endure that
+pain! And an old man like me!"
+
+"Come back, Johnson," the doctor said to him, "you'll get frozen; see,
+your hands are white already; come back, come!"
+
+"I don't deserve your attentions, Doctor," answered the boatswain;
+"leave me!"
+
+"Come along, you obstinate fellow! Come along! It will soon be too
+late!"
+
+And the doctor, dragging the old sailor under the tent, made him
+plunge his hands into a bowl of water, which the heat of the stove had
+kept liquid, although it was not much above the freezing-point; but
+Johnson's hands had no sooner touched it than it froze at once.
+
+"You see," said the doctor, "it was time to come back, otherwise I
+should have had to amputate your hands."
+
+Thanks to his cares, all danger was gone in an hour; but it was no
+easy task, and constant friction was necessary to recall the
+circulation into the old sailor's fingers. The doctor urged him to
+keep his hands away from the stove, the heat of which might produce
+serious results.
+
+That morning they had to go without breakfast; of the pemmican and the
+salt meat nothing was left. There was not a crumb of biscuit, and only
+half a pound of coffee. They had to content themselves with drinking
+this hot, and then they set out.
+
+"There's nothing more!" said Bell to Johnson, in a despairing accent.
+
+"Let us trust in God," said the old sailor; "he is able to preserve
+us!"
+
+"This Captain Hatteras!" continued Bell; "he was able to return from
+his first expeditions, but he'll never get back from this one, and we
+shall never see home again!"
+
+"Courage, Bell! I confess that the captain is almost foolhardy, but
+there is with him a very ingenious man."
+
+"Dr. Clawbonny?" said Bell.
+
+"Yes," answered Johnson.
+
+"What can he do in such circumstances?" retorted Bell, shrugging his
+shoulders. "Can he change these pieces of ice into pieces of meat? Is
+he a god, who can work by miracles?"
+
+"Who can say?" the boatswain answered his companion's doubts; "I trust
+in him."
+
+Bell shook his head, and fell into a silent apathy, in which he even
+ceased to think.
+
+That day they made hardly three miles; at evening they had nothing to
+eat; the dogs threatened to devour one another; the men suffered
+extremely from hunger. Not a single animal was to be seen. If there
+had been one, of what use would it have been? They could not go
+hunting with a knife. Only Johnson thought he recognized a mile to
+leeward the large bear, who was following the ill-fated little party.
+
+"It is spying us!" he said to himself; "it sees a certain prey in us!"
+
+But Johnson said no word to his companions; that evening they made
+their accustomed halt, and their supper consisted only of coffee. They
+felt their eyes growing haggard, their brain growing confused, and,
+tortured by hunger, they could not get an hour's sleep; strange and
+painful dreams took possession of their minds.
+
+At a latitude in which the body imperiously demands refreshment, these
+poor men had not eaten solid food for thirty-six hours, when Tuesday
+morning came. Nevertheless, inspired by superhuman energy, they
+resumed their journey, pushing on the sledge which the dogs were
+unable to draw. At the end of two hours they fell, exhausted. Hatteras
+wanted to push on. He, still strong, besought his companions to rise,
+but they were absolutely unable. Then, with Johnson's assistance, he
+built a resting-place in an iceberg. It seemed as if they were digging
+their own graves.
+
+[Illustration: "At the end of two hours they fell, exhausted."]
+
+"I am willing to die of hunger," said Hatteras, "but not of cold."
+
+After much weariness the house was ready, and they all entered it.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+So that day passed. In that evening, while his companions lay inert,
+Johnson had a sort of hallucination; he dreamed of an immense bear.
+That word, which he kept repeating, attracted the doctor's attention,
+so that he shook himself free from his stupor, and asked the old
+sailor why he kept talking about a bear, and what bear he meant.
+
+"The bear which is following us," answered Johnson.
+
+"The bear which is following us?" repeated the doctor.
+
+"Yes, the last two days."
+
+"The last two days! Have you seen him?"
+
+"Yes, he's a mile to leeward."
+
+"And you didn't tell us, Johnson?"
+
+"What was the use?"
+
+"True," said the doctor; "we have no ball to fire at him."
+
+"Not a slug, a bit of iron, nor a bolt!" said the old sailor.
+
+The doctor was silent, and began to think intently. Soon he said to
+the boatswain,--
+
+"You are sure the bear is following us?"
+
+"Yes, Doctor, he's lying in wait to eat us. He knows we can't escape
+him!"
+
+"Johnson!" said the doctor, touched by the despairing accent of his
+companion.
+
+"His food is sure," continued the poor man, who was beginning to be
+delirious; "he must be half famished, and I don't see why we need keep
+him waiting any longer!"
+
+"Be quiet, Johnson!"
+
+"No, Doctor; if we've got to come to it, why should we prolong the
+animal's sufferings? He's hungry as we are; he has no seal to eat!
+Heaven sends him us men; well, so much the better for him!"
+
+Thereupon Johnson went out of his mind; he wanted to leave the
+snow-house. The doctor had hard work to prevent him, and he only
+succeeded by saying, as if he meant it,--
+
+"To-morrow I shall kill that bear!"
+
+"To-morrow!" said Johnson, as if he had awakened from a bad dream.
+
+"Yes, to-morrow."
+
+"You have no ball!"
+
+"I shall make one."
+
+"You have no lead!"
+
+"No, but I have some quicksilver."
+
+Thereupon the doctor took the thermometer; it marked +50°. He went
+outside, placed the instrument on the ice, and soon returned. The
+outside temperature was -50°. Then he said to the old sailor,--
+
+"Now go to sleep, and wait till to-morrow."
+
+That night they endured the horrors of hunger; only the doctor and the
+boatswain were able to temper them with a little hope. The next
+morning, at dawn, the doctor rushed out, followed by Johnson, and ran
+to the thermometer; all the mercury had sunk into the bulb, in the
+form of a compact cylinder. The doctor broke the instrument, and
+seized in his gloved fingers a piece of very hard metal. It was a real
+bullet.
+
+"Ah, Doctor," shouted the old sailor, "that's a real miracle! You are
+a wonderful man!"
+
+"No, my friend," answered the doctor, "I am only a man with a good
+memory, who has read a good deal."
+
+"Why, what do you mean?"
+
+"I happened to remember something Captain Ross related in the account
+of his voyage: he said he shot through an inch plank with a bullet of
+frozen mercury; if I had any oil it would amount to nearly the same
+thing, for he speaks of a ball of sweet almond, which was fired
+against a post and fell back to the ground unbroken."
+
+"That is hardly credible!"
+
+"But it is true, Johnson; this piece of metal may save our lives; let
+us leave it here in the air before we take it, and go and see whether
+the bear is still following us."
+
+At that moment Hatteras came out of the hut; the doctor showed him the
+bullet, and told him what he thought of doing; the captain pressed his
+hand, and the three went off to inspect. The air was very clear.
+Hatteras, who was ahead of his companions, discovered the bear about a
+half-mile off. The animal, seated on his hind quarters, was busily
+moving his head about, sniffing towards these new arrivals.
+
+"There he is!" shouted the captain.
+
+"Silence!" said the doctor.
+
+But the huge beast did not stir when he saw the hunters. He gazed at
+them without fear or anger. Still, it would be found hard to approach
+him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"My friends," said Hatteras, "we have not come out for sport, but to
+save our lives. Let us act cautiously."
+
+"Yes," answered the doctor; "we can only have one shot, and we must
+not miss; if he were to run away, he would be lost, for he can run
+faster than a hare."
+
+"Well, we must go straight for him," said Johnson; "it is dangerous,
+but what does it matter? I am willing to risk my life."
+
+"No, let me go!" cried the doctor.
+
+"No, I shall go," answered Hatteras, quietly.
+
+"But," said Johnson, "are not you of more use to the others than I
+should be?"
+
+"No, Johnson," answered the captain, "let me go; I shall run no
+needless risk; perhaps, too, I shall call on you to help me."
+
+"Hatteras," asked the doctor, "are you going to walk straight towards
+the bear?"
+
+"If I were sure of hitting him, I would do so, even at the risk of
+having my head torn open, but he would flee at my approach. He is very
+crafty; we must try to be even craftier."
+
+"What do you intend to do?"
+
+"To get within ten feet of him without his suspecting it."
+
+"How are you going to do it?"
+
+"By a simple but dangerous method. You kept, did you not, the skin of
+the seal you shot?"
+
+"Yes, it is on the sledge."
+
+"Well, let us go back to the snow-house, while Johnson stays here on
+watch."
+
+The boatswain crept behind a hummock which hid him entirely from the
+sight of the bear, who stayed in the same place, continually sniffing
+the air.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+THE SEAL AND THE BEAR.
+
+
+Hatteras and the doctor went back to the house.
+
+"You know," said the captain, "that the polar bears chase seals, which
+are their principal food. They watch for days at their
+breathing-holes, and seize them the moment they come upon the ice. So
+a bear will not be afraid of a seal; far from it."
+
+"I understand your plan," said the doctor, "but it's dangerous."
+
+"But there is a chance of success," answered the captain, "and we must
+try it. I am going to put on the sealskin and crawl over the ice. Let
+us lose no time. Load the gun and give it to me."
+
+The doctor had nothing to say; he would himself have done what his
+companion was about to try; he left the house, carrying two axes, one
+for Johnson, the other for himself; then, accompanied by Hatteras, he
+went to the sledge.
+
+There Hatteras put on the sealskin, which very nearly covered him.
+Meanwhile, Hatteras loaded the gun with the last charge of powder, and
+dropped in it the quicksilver bullet, which was as hard as steel and
+as heavy as lead. Then he handed Hatteras the gun, which he hid
+beneath the sealskin. Then he said to the doctor,--
+
+"You go and join Johnson; I shall wait a few moments to puzzle the
+enemy."
+
+"Courage, Hatteras!" said the doctor.
+
+"Don't be uneasy, and above all don't show yourselves before you hear
+my gun."
+
+The doctor soon reached the hummock which concealed Johnson.
+
+"Well?" the latter asked.
+
+"Well, we must wait. Hatteras is doing all this to save us."
+
+The doctor was agitated; he looked at the bear, which had grown
+excited, as if he had become conscious of the danger which threatened
+him. A quarter of an hour later the seal was crawling over the ice; he
+made a circuit of a quarter of a mile to baffle the bear; then he
+found himself within three hundred feet of him. The bear then saw him,
+and settled down as if he were trying to hide. Hatteras imitated
+skilfully the movements of a seal, and if he had not known, the doctor
+would certainly have taken him for one.
+
+"That's true!" whispered Johnson.
+
+The seal, as he approached the bear, did not appear to see him; he
+seemed to be seeking some hole through which to reach the water. The
+bear advanced towards him over the ice with the utmost caution; his
+eager eyes betrayed his excitement; for one or perhaps two months he
+had been fasting, and fortune was now throwing a sure prey before him.
+The seal had come within ten feet of his enemy; the bear hastened
+towards him, made a long leap, and stood stupefied three paces from
+Hatteras, who, casting aside the sealskin, with one knee resting on
+the ground, was aiming at the bear's heart.
+
+The report was sounded, and the bear rolled over on the ice.
+
+"Forward!" shouted the doctor. And, followed by Johnson, he hastened
+to the scene of combat. The huge beast rose, and beat the air with one
+paw while with the other he tore up a handful of snow to stanch the
+wound. Hatteras did not stir, but waited, knife in hand. But his aim
+had been accurate, and his bullet had hit its mark; before the arrival
+of his friends he had plunged his knife into the beast's throat, and
+it fell, never to rise.
+
+[Illustration: "He plunged his knife into the beast's throat."]
+
+"Victory!" shouted Johnson.
+
+"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" cried the doctor.
+
+Hatteras, with folded arms, was gazing calmly at the corpse of his
+foe.
+
+"It's now my turn," said Johnson; "it's very well to have killed it,
+but there is no need of waiting till it's frozen as hard as a stone,
+when teeth and knife will be useless for attacking it."
+
+Johnson began by skinning the bear, which was nearly as large as an
+ox; it was nine feet long and six feet in circumference; two huge
+tusks, three inches long, issued from his mouth. On opening him,
+nothing was found in his stomach but water; the bear had evidently
+eaten nothing for a long time; nevertheless, he was very fat, and he
+weighed more than fifteen hundred pounds; he was divided into four
+quarters, each one of which gave two hundred pounds of meat, and the
+hunters carried this flesh back to the snow-house, without forgetting
+the animal's heart, which went on beating for three hours.
+
+The others wanted to eat the meat raw, but the doctor bade them wait
+until it should be roasted. On entering the house he was struck by the
+great cold within it; he went up to the stove and found the fire out;
+the occupations as well as the excitement of the morning had made
+Johnson forget his customary duty. The doctor tried to rekindle the
+fire, but there was not even a spark lingering amid the cold ashes.
+
+"Well, we must have patience!" he said to himself. He then went to the
+sledge to get some tinder, and asked Johnson for his steel, telling
+him that the fire had gone out. Johnson answered that it was his
+fault, and he put his hand in his pocket, where he usually kept it; he
+was surprised not to find it there. He felt in his other pockets with
+the same success; he went into the snow-house and examined carefully
+the covering under which he had slept in the previous night, but he
+could not find it.
+
+"Well?" shouted the doctor.
+
+Johnson came back, and stared at his companions.
+
+"And haven't you got the steel, Dr. Clawbonny?" he asked.
+
+"No, Johnson."
+
+"Nor you, Captain?"
+
+"No," answered Hatteras.
+
+"You have always carried it," said the doctor.
+
+"Well, I haven't got it now--" murmured the old sailor, growing pale.
+
+"Not got it!" shouted the doctor, who could not help trembling. There
+was no other steel, and the loss of this might bring with it terrible
+consequences.
+
+"Hunt again!" said the doctor.
+
+Johnson ran to the piece of ice behind which he had watched the bear,
+then to the place of combat, where he had cut him up; but he could not
+find anything. He returned in despair. Hatteras looked at him without
+a word of reproach.
+
+"This is serious," he said to the doctor.
+
+"Yes," the latter answered.
+
+"We have not even an instrument, a glass from which we might take the
+lens to get fire by means of it!"
+
+"I know it," answered the doctor; "and that is a great pity, because
+the rays of the sun are strong enough to kindle tinder."
+
+"Well," answered Hatteras, "we must satisfy our hunger with this raw
+meat; then we shall resume our march and we shall try to reach the
+ship."
+
+"Yes," said the doctor, buried in reflection; "yes, we could do that
+if we had to. Why not? We might try--"
+
+"What are you thinking of?" asked Hatteras.
+
+"An idea which has just occurred to me--"
+
+"An idea," said Johnson; "one of your ideas! Then we are saved!"
+
+"It's a question," answered the doctor, "whether it will succeed."
+
+"What is your plan?" said Hatteras.
+
+"We have no lens; well, we will make one."
+
+"How?" asked Johnson.
+
+"With a piece of ice which we shall cut out."
+
+"Why, do you think--"
+
+"Why not? We want to make the sun's rays converge to a common focus,
+and ice will do as much good as crystal."
+
+"Is it possible?" asked Johnson.
+
+"Yes, only I should prefer fresh to salt water; it is more
+transparent, and harder."
+
+"But, if I am not mistaken," said Johnson, pointing to a hummock a
+hundred paces distant, "that dark green block shows--"
+
+"You are right; come, my friends; bring your hatchet, Johnson."
+
+The three men went towards the block which, as they supposed, was
+formed of fresh water.
+
+The doctor had a piece, a foot in diameter, cut through, and he began
+to smooth it with the hatchet; then he equalized the surface still
+further with his knife; then he polished it with his hand, and he
+obtained soon a lens as transparent as if it had been made of the most
+magnificent crystal. Then he returned to the snow-house, where he took
+a piece of tinder and began his experiment. The sun was shining
+brightly; the doctor held the lens so that the rays should be focused
+on the tinder, which took fire in a few seconds.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried Johnson, who could hardly trust his eyes. "O
+Doctor, Doctor!"
+
+The old sailor could not restrain his joy; he was coming and going
+like a madman. The doctor had returned to the house; a few minutes
+later the stove was roaring, and soon a delicious odor of cooking
+aroused Bell from his torpor. It may be easily imagined how the feast
+was enjoyed; still the doctor advised his friends to partake in
+moderation; he set an example, and while eating he again began to
+talk.
+
+"To-day is a lucky day," he said; "we have food enough for our
+journey. But we mustn't fall asleep in the delights of Capua, and we'd
+better start out again."
+
+"We can't be more than forty-eight hours from the _Porpoise_," said
+Altamont, who could now begin to speak once more.
+
+"I hope," said the doctor, smiling, "that we shall find material for a
+fire there."
+
+"Yes," said the American.
+
+"For, if my ice lens is good," continued the doctor, "there would
+still be something desired on cloudy days, and there are many of them
+less than four degrees from the Pole."
+
+"True!" said Altamont with a sigh, "less than four degrees! My ship
+has gone nearer than any yet has been!"
+
+"Forward!" said Hatteras, quickly.
+
+"Forward!" repeated the doctor, gazing uneasily at the two captains.
+
+The strength of the travellers soon returned; the dogs had eaten
+freely of the bear's flesh, and they continued their journey
+northward. During their walk the doctor tried to draw from Altamont
+the object of his expedition, but the American gave only evasive
+answers.
+
+"There are two men to be watched," he whispered to the boatswain.
+
+"Yes," answered Johnson.
+
+"Hatteras never says a word to the American, and the American seems to
+show very little gratitude. Fortunately I am here."
+
+"Dr. Clawbonny," answered Johnson, "since this Yankee has returned to
+life, I don't like his face much."
+
+"Either I'm mistaken," answered the doctor, "or he suspects Hatteras's
+plans."
+
+"Do you think that the stranger has the same plans?"
+
+"Who can tell? The Americans are bold; an American may well try what
+an Englishman tries!"
+
+"You think that Altamont--"
+
+"I don't think anything about it," answered the doctor; "but the
+situation of this ship on the way to the Pole gives one material for
+thought."
+
+"But Altamont said he had drifted there."
+
+"He said so! Yes, but he was smiling in a very strange way."
+
+"The devil, Dr. Clawbonny; it would be unfortunate if there should be
+any rivalry between two such men."
+
+"Heaven grant that I may be mistaken, Johnson, for this misfortune
+might produce serious complications, if not some catastrophe."
+
+"I hope Altamont will not forget that we saved his life."
+
+"But isn't he going to save us? I confess that without us he would not
+be alive; but what would become of us without him, without his ship,
+without its resources?"
+
+"Well, Doctor, you are here, and I hope with your aid all will go
+well."
+
+"I hope so, Johnson."
+
+The voyage went on without incident; there was no lack of bear's
+flesh, and they made copious meals of it; there was a certain
+good-humor in the little band, thanks to the jests of the doctor and
+his pleasant philosophy; this worthy man always had some scrap of
+information to give to his companions. His health continued good; he
+had not grown very thin, in spite of his fatigues and privations; his
+friends at Liverpool would have recognized him without difficulty;
+especially would they have recognized his unaltered good-humor.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+During the morning of Saturday the appearance of the plain of ice
+changed materially; the perturbed fragments, the frequent packs, the
+hummocks, showed that the ice-field was enduring some severe pressure;
+evidently some unknown continent, some new island, might have caused
+this by narrowing the passes. Blocks of fresh water, more frequent and
+larger, indicated the coast to be near. Hence, there was near them a
+new land, and the doctor yearned with a desire to add to the charts of
+the northern regions. Great is the pleasure of ascertaining the line
+of these unknown coasts, and of tracing it with a pencil; that was the
+doctor's aim, while that of Hatteras was merely to place his foot upon
+the Pole, and he took pleasure in advance in thinking of the names he
+was going to give to the seas, straits, bays, and slightest
+promontories in these new continents; certainly he would not forget
+the names of his companions, his friends, nor her Gracious Majesty,
+nor the royal family; and he foresaw a certain "Cape Clawbonny" with
+great satisfaction.
+
+These thoughts kept him busy all day; that evening they encamped as
+usual, and each one took his turn at watching near these unknown
+lands. The next day, Sunday, after a heavy breakfast of bear's paws,
+which were very good, the travellers pushed on to the north, inclining
+a little to the west; the road grew difficult, but yet they advanced
+rapidly. Altamont, from the top of the sledge, scanned the horizon
+with feverish attention; his companions were the victims of
+involuntary uneasiness. The last solar observations gave them latitude
+83° 35', and longitude 120° 15'; that was the place where the American
+ship was said to be lying; the question of life and death was to be
+solved that day. At last, at about half past two in the afternoon,
+Altamont stood straight, stopped the little band by a loud cry, and,
+pointing with his hand to a white mass, which all the rest had taken
+for an iceberg, he cried with a loud voice,--
+
+"The _Porpoise_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+THE PORPOISE.
+
+
+March 24th was Palm Sunday,--that day when the streets of the towns
+and villages of Europe are filled with flowers and leaves; bells are
+ringing, and the air is filled with rich perfumes. But here, in this
+desolate country, what sadness and silence! The wind was keen and
+bitter; not a leaf of foliage was to be seen! But still, this Sunday
+was a day of rejoicing for our travellers, for at last they were about
+to find supplies which would save them from certain death. They
+hastened their steps; the dogs drew the sledge briskly, Duke barked
+joyously, and they all soon reached the American ship. The _Porpoise_
+was wholly buried beneath the snow; there was no sign of mast, yard,
+or rigging; all had been lost at the time of the shipwreck; the ship
+lay on a bed of rocks now completely hidden. The _Porpoise_ was
+careened to one side by the violence of the shock, her bottom was torn
+open, so that the ship seemed uninhabitable. This was soon seen by the
+captain, the doctor, and Johnson, after they had entered the vessel;
+they had to cut away fifteen feet of ice to get to the hatchway; but
+to their great joy they saw that the animals, many traces of which
+were to be seen, had spared the supplies.
+
+"If we have here," said Johnson, "plenty of food and fuel, this hull
+does not seem inhabitable."
+
+"Well, we must build a snow-house," answered Hatteras, "and make
+ourselves as comfortable as possible on the mainland."
+
+"Without doubt," continued the doctor; "but don't let us hurry; let us
+do things carefully; if need be we can fit out some quarters in the
+ship; meanwhile we can build a strong house, capable of protecting us
+against the cold and wild beasts. I am willing to be the architect,
+and you'll see what I can do."
+
+"I don't doubt your skill, Doctor," answered Johnson; "we'll make
+ourselves as comfortable as possible here, and we'll make an inventory
+of all that the ship contains; unfortunately, I don't see any launch,
+or boat, and these ruins are in too bad a state to permit of our
+making a small boat."
+
+"Who can say?" answered the doctor. "With time and thought a great
+deal can be done; now we have not to trouble ourselves about
+navigation, but about a house to live in; I propose not to form any
+other plans, and to let everything have its turn."
+
+"That is wise," answered Hatteras; "let us begin with the beginning."
+
+The three companions left the ship, returned to the sledge, and
+announced their determination to Bell and the American; Bell said he
+was ready to work; the American shook his head, on learning that
+nothing could be done with his ship; but since all discussion would
+have been idle, they determined at first to take refuge in the
+_Porpoise_, and to build a large building on the shore.
+
+At four o'clock in the afternoon the five travellers were installed as
+comfortably as possible between decks; by means of spars and fragments
+of masts, Bell had made a nearly level floor; there they placed
+coverings stiffened by the frost, which the heat of the stove soon
+brought back to their natural state; Altamont, leaning on the doctor,
+was able to make his way to the corner which had been set aside for
+him; on setting foot on his ship, he had sighed with a feeling of
+relief, which did not encourage the boatswain.
+
+"He feels at home," the old sailor thought, "and one would say that he
+had invited us here."
+
+The rest of the day was devoted to repose; the weather threatened to
+change under the influence of the westerly winds; the thermometer
+outside stood at -26°. In fact, the _Porpoise_ lay beyond the pole of
+cold, at a latitude relatively less severe, though farther to the
+north. On that day they finished the bear, with some biscuits they
+found on the ship, and a few cups of tea; then fatigue overcame them,
+and each one sank into a sound sleep.
+
+The next morning they all awoke rather late; they soon recalled the
+difference in their situation; they were no longer perplexed with
+uncertainty about the morrow; they only thought of establishing
+themselves comfortably. These castaways looked at themselves as
+colonists who had reached their destination, and, forgetting the
+sufferings of their long march, they had no other thought than that of
+securing a comfortable future.
+
+[Illustration: "These castaways looked at themselves as colonists who
+had reached their destination."]
+
+"Well," said the doctor, stretching his arms, "it's something not to
+have to wonder where one will sleep to-night and what one will have to
+eat to-morrow."
+
+"Let us first make an inventory of the ship," answered Johnson.
+
+The _Porpoise_ had been carefully equipped for a long voyage.
+
+The inventory, when complete, indicated the following supplies:--
+
+  6,150 lbs. of flour, fat and raisins for puddings;
+  2,000  "   "  beef and salt pork;
+  1,500  "   "  pemmican;
+    700  "   "  sugar;
+    700  "   "  chocolate;
+    500  "   "  rice;
+      1½ chests of tea, weighing 87 lbs;
+many barrels of canned fruits and vegetables, lime-juice in abundance,
+cochlearia, sorrel and water-cresses, and three hundred gallons of rum
+and brandy; in the hold there was a large supply of ammunition; there
+was plenty of coal and wood. The doctor collected carefully the
+nautical instruments, and he also found a Bunsen's Pile, which had
+been carried for electrical tests and experiments. In short, they had
+supplies enough to keep five men on whole rations for two years; all
+fear of starving or freezing to death was hence wholly removed.
+
+"Our means of living are certain," said the doctor to the captain,
+"and there is nothing to prevent our reaching the Pole."
+
+"The Pole!" answered Hatteras, trembling with excitement.
+
+"Certainly," continued the doctor; "what's to prevent our pushing on
+during the summer across the land?"
+
+"Across the land! true! But how about the sea?"
+
+"Can't we build a small boat out of the timber of the _Porpoise_?"
+
+"An American boat, you mean," answered Hatteras, scornfully, "and
+commanded by this American!"
+
+The doctor understood the captain's repugnance, and judged it best to
+change the conversation.
+
+"Now that we know what our supplies are," he went on, "we must build
+some safe place for them, and a house for ourselves. We have plenty of
+material, and we can settle ourselves very comfortably. I hope, Bell,"
+he added, turning to the carpenter, "that you are going to distinguish
+yourself; I may be able to help you too, I trust."
+
+"I'm ready, Doctor," answered Bell; "if it were necessary I could
+easily build a whole city with houses and streets out of these blocks
+of ice--"
+
+"We sha'n't need as much as that; let us follow the example of the
+agents of the Hudson's Bay Company; they build forts which protect
+them from the wild beasts and the Indians; that is all we need; let us
+make it no larger than necessary; on one side the dwelling, on the
+other the stores, with a sort of curtain, and two bastions. I'll try
+to rub up what I know about fortification."
+
+"Upon my word, Doctor," said Johnson, "I don't doubt that we shall
+make something very fine under your direction."
+
+"Well, my friends, we must first choose a site; a good engineer should
+first study the lay of the land. Will you come with me, Hatteras?"
+
+"I shall trust to you, Doctor," answered the captain. "You see about
+that, while I explore the coast."
+
+Altamont, who was still too feeble to get to work, was left on board
+of his ship, and the two Englishmen set foot on the mainland. The
+weather was thick and stormy; at noon the thermometer stood at -11°,
+but, there being no wind, that temperature was comfortable. Judging
+from the outline of the shore, a large sea, at that time wholly
+frozen, stretched out farther than eye could reach in the west; on the
+east it was limited by a rounded coast, cut into by numerous
+estuaries, and rising suddenly about two hundred yards from the shore;
+it formed a large bay, full of dangerous rocks, on which the
+_Porpoise_ had been wrecked; far off on the land rose a mountain,
+which the doctor conjectured to be about three thousand feet high.
+Towards the north a promontory ran into the sea, after hiding a part
+of the bay. An island of moderate size rose from the field of ice,
+three miles from the mainland, so that it offered a safe anchorage to
+any ship that could enter the bay. In a hollow cut of the shore was a
+little inlet, easily reached by ships, if this part of the arctic seas
+was ever open. Yet, according to the accounts of Beecher and Penny,
+this whole sea was open in the summer months.
+
+In the middle of the coast the doctor noticed a sort of plateau about
+two hundred feet in diameter; on three sides it was open to the bay;
+the fourth was enclosed by an elevation about a hundred and twenty
+feet high; this could be ascended only by steps cut in the ice. This
+seemed a proper place for a solid building, and it could be easily
+fortified; nature had adapted it for the purpose; it was only
+necessary to make use of the place. The doctor, Bell, and Johnson
+reached this place by means of steps cut in the ice. As soon as the
+doctor saw the excellence of the place, he determined to dig away the
+ten feet of hardened snow which covered it; the buildings had to be
+built on a solid foundation.
+
+During Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, work went on without
+relaxation; at last the ground appeared; it consisted of a hard, dense
+granite, with the angles as sharp as glass; it contained, moreover,
+garnets and large crystals of feldspar, against which the pickaxe
+struck fire.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The doctor then gave them the dimensions and plan of the snow-house;
+it was to be forty feet long, twenty broad, and ten deep; it was
+divided into three rooms, a sitting-room, a bedroom, and a kitchen;
+more was not needed. To the left was the kitchen, to the right the
+bedroom, in the middle the sitting-room. For five days they worked
+busily. There was no lack of material; the ice walls were thick enough
+to resist thawing, for they could not risk being wholly without
+protection, even in summer. In proportion as the house rose, it became
+agreeable to see; there were four front windows, two in the
+sitting-room, one in the kitchen, another in the bedroom; for panes of
+glass they substituted large sheets of ice, in the Esquimaux fashion,
+which served as well as unpolished glass for the passage of light. In
+front of the sitting-room, between two windows, there ran a long entry
+like a tunnel, which gave admission to the house; a solid door,
+brought from the _Porpoise_, closed it hermetically. When the house
+was finished, the doctor was delighted with his handiwork; it would
+have been impossible to say to what school of architecture the
+building belonged, although the architect would have avowed his
+preferences for the Saxon Gothic, so common in England; but the main
+point was, that it should be solid; therefore the doctor placed on the
+front short uprights; on top a sloping roof rested against the granite
+wall. This served to support the stove-pipes, which carried the smoke
+away. When the task was completed, they began to arrange the interior.
+They carried into the bedroom the sleeping-accommodations from the
+_Porpoise_; they were arranged in a circle about a large stove.
+Benches, chairs, sofas, tables, wardrobes, were arranged in the
+sitting-room, which was also used as a dining-room; the kitchen
+received the cooking-stoves of the ship, and the various utensils.
+Sails, stretched on the floor, formed the carpet, and also served as
+hangings to the inner doors, which had no other way of closing. The
+walls of the house averaged five feet in thickness, and the recesses
+for the windows looked like embrasures in a fort. It was all built
+with great solidity; what more was to be desired? Ah, if they had
+listened to the doctor, there is no knowing what they would not have
+made of this ice and snow, which can be so easily manipulated! He all
+day long would ponder over plans which he never hoped to bring about,
+but he thereby lightened the dull work of all by the ingenuity of his
+suggestions. Besides, he had come across, in his wide reading, a
+rather rare book by one Kraft, entitled "Detailed Description of the
+Snow-Palace built at St. Petersburg, in January, 1740, and of all the
+Objects it contained." The recollection of this book impressed him.
+One evening he gave his companions a full account of the wonders of
+that snow-palace.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Why couldn't we do here," he asked, "what they did at St. Petersburg?
+What do we need? Nothing, not even imagination!"
+
+"So it was very handsome?" said Johnson.
+
+"It was fairy-like, my friend. The house, built by order of the
+Empress Anna, and in which she had celebrated the marriage of one of
+her buffoons in 1740, was nearly as large as ours; but in front stood
+six cannons of ice; they were often fired without bursting; there were
+also mortars to hold sixty-pound shells; so we could have some
+formidable artillery; the bronze is handy, and falls even from heaven.
+But the triumph of taste and art was on the front of the palace, which
+was adorned with handsome statues; the steps were garnished with vases
+of flowers of the same material; on the right stood an enormous
+elephant, who played water through his trunk by day, and burning
+naphtha by night. What a menagerie we might have if we only wanted
+to!"
+
+"As for animals," answered Johnson, "we sha'n't lack them, I fancy,
+and they won't be any the less interesting for not being made of ice."
+
+"Well," said the doctor, "we shall be able to defend ourselves against
+their attacks; but to return to the palace, I should add that inside
+there were mirrors, candelabra, beds, mattresses, pillows, curtains,
+clocks, chairs, playing-cards, wardrobes well furnished, and all cut
+out of ice; in fact, nothing was lacking."
+
+"It was then a true palace?" said Bell.
+
+"A splendid palace, worthy of a sovereign! Ice! It was kind of
+Providence to invent it, since it lends itself to so many miracles and
+accommodates so readily to the needs of castaways!"
+
+It took them until March 31st to get the house ready; this was Easter
+Sunday, and the day was set aside for rest; the whole day was spent in
+the sitting-room, where divine service was read, and each was able to
+judge of the excellent arrangements of the snow-house.
+
+The next morning they set about building stores and a magazine; this
+took them about a week, including the time employed for emptying the
+_Porpoise_, which was not done without difficulty, for the low
+temperature did not permit them to work very long. At last, April 8th,
+provisions, food, and supplies were safely sheltered on land; the
+stores were placed to the north, and the powder-house to the south,
+about sixty feet from the end of the house; a sort of dog-kennel was
+built near the stores; it was destined for the Greenland dogs, and the
+doctor honored it with the title of "Dog-Palace." Duke partook of the
+common quarters.
+
+Then the doctor passed to the means of defence of the place. Under his
+direction the plateau was surrounded by a real fortification of ice
+which secured it against every invasion; its height made a natural
+protection, and as there was no salient, it was equally strong on all
+sides. The doctor's system of defence recalled strongly the method of
+Sterne's Uncle Toby, whose gentleness and good-humor he also shared.
+He was a pleasant sight when he was calculating the inclination of the
+platform and the breadth of the causeway; but this task was so easy
+with the snow, that he enjoyed it, and he was able to make the wall
+seven feet thick; besides the plateau overlooking the bay, he had to
+build neither counterscarp nor glacis; the parapet of snow, after
+following the outlines of the plateau, joined the rock on the other
+side. The work of fortification was finished April 15th. The fort was
+completed, and the doctor seemed very proud of his work.
+
+[Illustration: The fort was completed.]
+
+In truth, this fortified enclosure could have withstood for a long
+time against a tribe of Esquimaux, if such enemies were met under that
+latitude; but there was no trace of human beings there; Hatteras, in
+making out the outline of the bay, did not see any ruins of the huts
+which are so commonly found in the places resorted to by Greenland
+tribes; the castaways of the _Forward_ and the _Porpoise_ appeared to
+be the first ever to set foot on this unknown shore. But if they need
+not fear men, animals were to be dreaded, and the fort, thus defended,
+would have to protect the little garrison against their attacks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+A DISCUSSION ABOUT CHARTS.
+
+
+During these preparations for going into winter-quarters, Altamont had
+entirely recovered his health and strength; he was even able to aid in
+unloading the ship. His vigorous constitution at last carried the day,
+and his pallor soon gave way before the vigor of his blood.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+They saw in him a sanguine, robust citizen of the United States, an
+intelligent, energetic man with a resolute character, a bold, hardy
+American ready for everything; he was originally from New York, and
+had been a sailor from infancy, as he told his companions; his ship,
+the _Porpoise_, had been equipped and sent out by a society of wealthy
+American merchants, at the head of whom was the famous Mr. Grinnell.
+
+There was a certain similarity between his disposition and that of
+Hatteras, but their sympathies were different. This similarity did not
+incline them to become friends; indeed, it had the opposite effect. A
+close observer would have detected serious discordances between them;
+and this, although they were very frank with one another. Altamont was
+less so, however, than Hatteras; with greater ease of manner, he was
+less loyal; his open character did not inspire as much confidence as
+did the captain's gloomy temperament. Hatteras would say what he had
+to say, and then he held his peace. The other would talk a great deal,
+but say very little. Such was the doctor's reading of the American's
+character, and he was right in his presentiment of a future
+disagreement, if not hatred, between the captains of the _Porpoise_
+and the _Forward_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And yet only one could command. To be sure, Hatteras had all the right
+of commanding, by virtue of anterior right and superior force. But if
+one was at the head of his own men, the other was on board of his own
+ship. And that was generally felt. Either from policy or
+instinctively, Altamont was at first attracted towards the doctor; it
+was to him he owed his life, but it was sympathy rather than gratitude
+which moved him. This was the invariable effect of Clawbonny's nature;
+friends grew about him like wheat under the summer sun. Every one has
+heard of people who rise at five o'clock in the morning to make
+enemies; the doctor could have got up at four without doing it.
+Nevertheless, he resolved to profit by Altamont's friendship to the
+extent of learning the real reason of his presence in the polar seas.
+But with all his wordiness the American answered without answering,
+and kept repeating what he had to say about the Northwest Passage. The
+doctor suspected that there was some other motive for the expedition,
+the same, namely, that Hatteras suspected. Hence he resolved not to
+let the two adversaries discuss the subject; but he did not always
+succeed. The simplest conversations threatened to wander to that
+point, and any word might kindle a blaze of controversy. It happened
+soon. When the house was finished, the doctor resolved to celebrate
+the fact by a splendid feast; this was a good idea of Clawbonny's, who
+wanted to introduce in this continent the habits and pleasures of
+European life. Bell had just shot some ptarmigans and a white rabbit,
+the first harbinger of spring. This feast took place April 14, Low
+Sunday, on a very pleasant day; the cold could not enter the house,
+and if it had, the roaring stoves would have soon conquered it. The
+dinner was good; the fresh meat made an agreeable variety after the
+pemmican and salt meat; a wonderful pudding, made by the doctor's own
+hand, was much admired; every one asked for another supply; the head
+cook himself, with an apron about his waist and a knife hanging by his
+side, would not have disgraced the kitchen of the Lord High Chancellor
+of England. At dessert, liquors appeared; the American was not a
+teetotaler; hence there was no reason for his depriving himself of a
+glass of gin or brandy; the other guests, who were never in any way
+intemperate, could permit themselves this infraction of their rule;
+so, by the doctor's command, each one was able to drain a glass at the
+end of the merry meal. When a toast was drunk to the United States,
+Hatteras was simply silent. It was then that the doctor brought
+forward an interesting subject.
+
+"My friends," he said, "it is not enough that we have crossed the
+waters and ice and have come so far; there is one thing left for us to
+do. Hence I propose that we should give names to this hospitable land
+where we have found safety and rest; that is the course pursued by all
+navigators, and there is not one who has neglected it; therefore we
+ought to carry back with us not only a map of the shores, but also the
+names of the capes, bays, points, and promontories which we find. That
+is absolutely necessary."
+
+"Good!" cried Johnson; "besides, when one can give all these lands
+their own names, it looks like genuine work, and we can't consider
+ourselves as cast away on an unknown shore."
+
+"Besides," added Bell, "that simplifies instructions and facilitates
+the execution of orders; we may be compelled to separate during some
+expedition or in hunting, and the best way for finding our way back is
+to know the names of the places."
+
+"Well," said the doctor, "since we are all agreed, let us try to
+settle on some names without forgetting our country and friends."
+
+"You are right, Doctor," answered the American, "and you give what you
+say additional value by your warmth."
+
+"Well," continued the doctor, "let us go on in order."
+
+Hatteras had not taken part in the conversation; he was thinking.
+Still the eyes of his companions were fastened on him; he rose and
+said,--
+
+"If you are all willing, and I don't think any one will dissent,"--at
+those words Hatteras looked at Altamont,--"it seems to me proper to
+name this house after its skilful architect, and to call it 'Doctor's
+House.'"
+
+"That's true," said Bell.
+
+"Good!" shouted Johnson; "Doctor's House!"
+
+"Couldn't be better," added Altamont. "Hurrah for Dr. Clawbonny!"
+
+Three cheers were then given, to which Duke added an approving bark.
+
+"So," resumed Hatteras, "let this house bear that name until some new
+land is discovered to bear the name of our friend."
+
+"Ah!" said Johnson, "if the earthly Paradise were to be named over
+again, the name of Clawbonny would suit it to a miracle!"
+
+The doctor, much moved, wanted to defend himself by modesty, but he
+was unable. It was then formally agreed that the feast had been eaten
+in the grand dining-hall of Doctor's House, after being cooked in the
+kitchen of Doctor's House, and that they would go comfortably to bed
+in the chamber of Doctor's House.
+
+"Now," said the doctor, "let us take the more important points of our
+discoveries."
+
+"There is," said Hatteras, "this immense sea which surrounds us, and
+in which no ship has ever floated."
+
+"No ship!" interrupted Altamont; "it seems to me the _Porpoise_ should
+not be forgotten, unless indeed it came by land," he added jestingly.
+
+"One might think it had," retorted Hatteras, "to see the rocks on
+which it is now resting."
+
+"Indeed, Hatteras," answered Altamont with some vexation; "but, on the
+whole, isn't even that better than blowing up as the _Forward_ did!"
+
+Hatteras was about to make some angry reply, when the doctor
+interrupted him.
+
+"My friends," he said, "we are not talking about ships, but about the
+new sea--"
+
+"It is not new," interrupted Altamont. "It already bears a name on all
+the charts of the Pole. It is the Arctic Ocean, and I don't see any
+reason for changing its name; if we should find out in the future that
+it is only a sound or gulf, we can see what is to be done."
+
+"Very well," said Hatteras.
+
+"Agreed," said the doctor, regretting that he had aroused a discussion
+between rival nationalities.
+
+"Let us come to the land which we are now in," resumed Hatteras. "I am
+not aware that it bears any name on the most recent maps."
+
+[Illustration: "I am not aware that it bears any name on the most
+recent maps."]
+
+At these words he turned to Altamont, who did not lower his eyes, but
+answered,--
+
+"You may be mistaken again, Hatteras."
+
+"Mistaken! this unknown land, this new country--"
+
+"Has a name already," answered the American, quietly.
+
+Hatteras was silent. His lips trembled.
+
+"And what is its name?" asked the doctor, a little surprised at the
+American's statement.
+
+"My dear Clawbonny," answered Altamont, "it is the custom, not to say
+the habit, of every explorer to give a name to the continent which he
+has discovered. It seems to me that on this occasion it was in my
+power and that it was my duty to use this indisputable right--"
+
+"Still--" said Johnson, whom Altamont's coolness annoyed.
+
+"It seems to me hard to pretend," the American resumed, "that the
+_Porpoise_ did not discover this coast, and even on the supposition
+that it came by land," he added, glancing at Hatteras, "there can't be
+any question."
+
+"That is a claim I can't admit," answered Hatteras, gravely, forcibly
+restraining himself. "To give a name, one should be the discoverer,
+and that I fancy you were not. Without us, besides, where would you
+be, sir, you who presume to impose conditions upon us? Twenty feet
+under the snow!"
+
+"And without me, sir," replied the American, "without my ship, where
+would you be at this moment? Dead of cold and hunger?"
+
+"My friends," said the doctor, intervening for the best, "come, a
+little calm, it can all settle itself. Listen to me!"
+
+"That gentleman," continued Altamont, pointing to the captain, "can
+give a name to all the lands he discovers, if he discovers any; but
+this continent belongs to me! I cannot admit of its bearing two names,
+like Grinnell Land and Prince Albert's Land, because an Englishman and
+American happened to find it at the same time. Here it's different. My
+rights of precedence are beyond dispute! No ship has ever touched this
+shore before mine. No human being before me has ever set foot upon it;
+now, I have given it its name, and it shall keep it."
+
+"And what is its name?" asked the doctor.
+
+"New America," answered Altamont.
+
+Hatteras clinched his fists on the table. But with a violent effort he
+controlled himself.
+
+"Can you prove to me," Altamont went on, "that any Englishman has ever
+set foot on this soil before me?"
+
+Johnson and Bell were silent, although they were no less angry than
+the captain at the haughty coolness of their opponent. But there was
+nothing to be said. The doctor began again after a few moments of
+painful silence.
+
+"My friends," he said, "the first law of humanity is justice; it
+embraces all the rest. Let us then be just, and not give way to evil
+feelings. Altamont's priority appears to me incontestable. There is no
+question about it; we shall have our revenge later, and England will
+have a good share in future discoveries. Let us leave to this land,
+then, the name of New America. But Altamont, in giving it this name,
+has not, I imagine, disposed of the bays, capes, points, and
+promontories which it encloses, and I don't see anything to prevent
+our calling it Victoria Bay."
+
+"None at all," answered Altamont, "provided that the cape jutting into
+the sea over there is named Cape Washington."
+
+"You might have chosen, sir," cried Hatteras, beside himself, "a name
+less offensive to an English ear."
+
+"But none dearer to an American ear," answered Altamont, with much
+pride.
+
+"Come, come," continued the doctor, who found it hard to keep the
+peace in this little world, "no discussion about that! Let an American
+be proud of his great men! Let us honor genius wherever it is found,
+and since Altamont has made his choice, let us now speak for ourselves
+and our friends. Let our captain--"
+
+"Doctor," answered Hatteras, "since this is an American land, I don't
+care to have my name figure here."
+
+"Is that opinion unchangeable?" asked the doctor.
+
+"It is," answered Hatteras.
+
+The doctor did not insist any further.
+
+"Well, then, it's our turn," he said, addressing the old sailor and
+the carpenter; "let us leave a trace of our passage here. I propose
+that we call that island about three miles from here Johnson Island,
+in honor of our boatswain."
+
+"O," said the latter, a little embarrassed, "O doctor!"
+
+"As to the mountain which we have seen in the west, we shall call it
+Bell Mountain, if our carpenter is willing."
+
+"It's too much honor for me," answered Bell.
+
+"It's only fair," said the doctor.
+
+"Nothing better," said Altamont.
+
+"Then we have only to name our fort," resumed the doctor; "there need
+be no discussion about that; it's neither to Her Royal Highness Queen
+Victoria nor to Washington that we owe our protection in it at this
+moment, but to God, who brought us together and saved us all. Let it
+be called Fort Providence!"
+
+"A capital plan!" answered Altamont.
+
+"Fort Providence," added Johnson, "that sounds well! So, then, in
+returning from our excursions in the north, we shall start from Cape
+Washington to reach Victoria Bay, and from there to Fort Providence,
+where we shall find rest and plenty in Doctor's House."
+
+"Then that's settled," answered the doctor; "later, as we make
+discoveries, we shall have other names to give, which I hope will not
+give rise to discussion; for, my friends, we ought to stand by one
+another and love one another; we represent humanity on this distant
+shore; let us not give ourselves up to the detestable passions which
+infest society; let us rather remain unattackable by adversity. Who
+can say what dangers Heaven has in store for us, what sufferings we
+may not have to support before we return to our own country? Let us
+five be like one man, and leave on one side the rivalry which is wrong
+anywhere, and especially here. You understand me, Altamont? And you,
+Hatteras?"
+
+The two men made no reply, but the doctor did not seem to notice their
+silence. Then they talked about other things; about hunting, so as to
+get a supply of fresh meat; with the spring, hares, partridges, even
+foxes, would return, as well as bears; they resolved accordingly not
+to let a favorable day pass without exploring the land of New America.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+EXCURSION TO THE NORTH OF VICTORIA BAY.
+
+
+The next morning, as soon as the sun appeared, Clawbonny ascended the
+wall of rock which rose above Doctor's House; it terminated suddenly
+in a sort of truncated cone; the doctor reached the summit with some
+little difficulty, and from there his eye beheld a vast expanse of
+territory which looked as if it were the result of some volcanic
+convulsion; a huge white canopy covered land and sea, rendering them
+undistinguishable the one from the other. The doctor, when he saw that
+this rock overlooked all the surrounding plain, had an idea,--a fact
+which will not astonish those who are acquainted with him. This idea
+he turned over, pondered, and made himself master of by the time he
+returned to the house, and then he communicated it to his companions.
+
+[Illustration: "The doctor reached the summit with some little
+difficulty."]
+
+"It has occurred to me," he said to them, "to build a lighthouse at
+the top of the cone up there."
+
+"A lighthouse?" they cried.
+
+"Yes, a lighthouse; it will be of use to show us our way back at night
+when we are returning from distant excursions, and to light up the
+neighborhood in the eight months of winter."
+
+"Certainly," answered Altamont, "such an apparatus would be useful;
+but how will you build it?"
+
+"With one of the _Porpoise's_ lanterns."
+
+"Very good; but with what will you feed the lamp? With seal-oil?"
+
+"No; it doesn't give a bright enough light; it could hardly pierce the
+fog."
+
+"Do you think you can get hydrogen from our coal and make illuminating
+gas?"
+
+"Well, that light would not be bright enough, and it would be wrong to
+use up any of our fuel."
+
+"Then," said Altamont, "I don't see--"
+
+"As for me," answered Johnson, "since the bullet of mercury, the ice
+lens, the building of Fort Providence, I believe Dr. Clawbonny is
+capable of anything."
+
+"Well," resumed Altamont, "will you tell us what sort of a light you
+are going to have?"
+
+"It's very simple," answered the doctor; "an electric light."
+
+"An electric light!"
+
+"Certainly; didn't you have on board of the _Porpoise_ a Bunsen's pile
+in an uninjured state?"
+
+"Yes," answered the American.
+
+"Evidently, when you took it, you intended to make some experiments,
+for it is complete. You have the necessary acid, and the wires
+isolated, hence it would be easy for us to get an electric light. It
+will be more brilliant, and will cost nothing."
+
+"That is perfect," answered the boatswain, "and the less time we
+lose--"
+
+"Well, the materials are there," answered the doctor, "and in an hour
+we shall have a column ten feet high, which will be enough."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The doctor went out; his companions followed him to the top of the
+cone; the column was promptly built and was soon surmounted by one of
+the _Porpoise's_ lanterns. Then the doctor arranged the conducting
+wires which were connected with the pile; this was placed in the
+parlor of the ice-house, and was preserved from the frost by the heat
+of the stoves. From there the wires ran to the lantern. All this was
+quickly done, and they waited till sunset to judge of the effect. At
+night the two charcoal points, kept at a proper distance apart in the
+lantern, were brought together, and flashes of brilliant light, which
+the wind could neither make flicker nor extinguish, issued from the
+lighthouse. It was a noteworthy sight, these sparkling rays, rivalling
+the brilliancy of the plains, and defining sharply the outlines of the
+surrounding objects. Johnson could not help clapping his hands.
+
+"Dr. Clawbonny," he said, "has made another sun!"
+
+"One ought to do a little of everything," answered the doctor,
+modestly.
+
+The cold put an end to the general admiration, and each man hastened
+back to his coverings.
+
+After this time life was regularly organized. During the following
+days, from the 15th to the 20th of April, the weather was very
+uncertain; the temperature fell suddenly twenty degrees, and the
+atmosphere experienced severe changes, at times being full of snow and
+squally, at other times cold and dry, so that no one could set foot
+outside without precautions. However, on Saturday, the wind began to
+fall; this circumstance made an expedition possible; they resolved
+accordingly to devote a day to hunting, in order to renew their
+provisions. In the morning, Altamont, the doctor, Bell, each one
+taking a double-barrelled gun, a proper amount of food, a hatchet, a
+snow-knife in case they should have to dig a shelter, set out under a
+cloudy sky. During their absence Hatteras was to explore the coast and
+take their bearings. The doctor took care to start the light; its rays
+were very bright; in fact, the electric light, being equal to that of
+three thousand candles or three hundred gas-jets, is the only one
+which at all approximates to the solar light.
+
+The cold was sharp, dry, and still. The hunters set out towards Cape
+Washington, finding their way made easier over the hardened snow. In
+about half an hour they had made the three miles which separated the
+cape from Fort Providence. Duke was springing about them. The coast
+inclined to the east, and the lofty summits of Victoria Bay tended to
+grow lower toward the north. This made them believe that New America
+was perhaps only an island; but they did not have then to concern
+themselves with its shape. The hunters took the route by the sea and
+went forward rapidly. There was no sign of life, no trace of any
+building; they were walking over a virgin soil. They thus made about
+fifteen miles in the first three hours, eating without stopping to
+rest; but they seemed likely to find no sport. They saw very few
+traces of hare, fox, or wolf. Still, a few snow-birds flew here and
+there, announcing the return of spring and the arctic animals. The
+three companions had been compelled to go inland to get around some
+deep ravines and some pointed rocks which ran down from Bell Mountain;
+but after a few delays they succeeded in regaining the shore; the ice
+had not yet separated. Far from it. The sea remained fast; still a few
+traces of seals announced the beginning of their visit, and that they
+were already come to breathe at the surface of the ice-field. It was
+evident from the large marks, the fresh breaking of the ice, that many
+had very recently been on the land. These animals are very anxious for
+the rays of the sun, and they like to bask on the shore in the sun's
+heat. The doctor called his companions' attention to these facts.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Let us notice this place," he said. "It is very possible that in
+summer we shall find hundreds of seals here; they can be approached
+and caught without difficulty, if they are unfamiliar with men. But we
+must take care not to frighten them, or they will disappear as if by
+magic and never return; in that way, careless hunters, instead of
+killing them one by one, have often attacked them in a crowd, with
+noisy cries, and have thereby driven them away."
+
+"Are they only killed for their skin and oil?" asked Bell.
+
+"By Europeans, yes, but the Esquimaux eat them; they live on them, and
+pieces of seal's flesh, which they mix with blood and fat, are not at
+all unappetizing. After all, it depends on the way it's treated, and I
+shall give you some delicate cutlets if you don't mind their dark
+color."
+
+"We shall see you at work," answered Bell; "I'll gladly eat it,
+Doctor."
+
+"My good Bell, as much as you please. But, however much you eat, you
+will never equal a Greenlander, who eats ten or fifteen pounds of it a
+day."
+
+"Fifteen pounds!" said Bell. "What stomachs!"
+
+"Real polar stomachs," answered the doctor; "prodigious stomachs which
+can be dilated at will, and, I ought to add, can be contracted in the
+same way, so that they support starving as well as gorging. At the
+beginning of his dinner, the Esquimaux is thin; at the end, he is fat,
+and not to be recognized! It is true that his dinner often lasts a
+whole day."
+
+"Evidently," said Altamont, "this voracity is peculiar to the
+inhabitants of cold countries!"
+
+"I think so," answered the doctor; "in the arctic regions one has to
+eat a great deal; it is a condition not only of strength, but of
+existence. Hence the Hudson's Bay Company gives each man eight pounds
+of meat a day, or twelve pounds of fish, or two pounds of pemmican."
+
+"That's a generous supply," said the carpenter.
+
+"But not so much as you imagine, my friend; and an Indian crammed in
+that way does no better work than an Englishman with his pound of beef
+and his pint of beer a day."
+
+"Then, Doctor, all is for the best."
+
+"True, but still an Esquimaux meal may well astonish us. While
+wintering at Boothia Land, Sir John Ross was always surprised at the
+voracity of his guides; he says somewhere that two men--two, you
+understand--ate in one morning a whole quarter of a musk-ox; they tear
+the meat into long shreds, which they place in their mouths; then each
+one, cutting off at his lips what his mouth cannot hold, passes it
+over to his companion; or else the gluttons, letting the shreds hang
+down to the ground, swallow them gradually, as a boa-constrictor
+swallows an animal, and like it stretched out at full length on the
+ground."
+
+"Ugh!" said Bell, "the disgusting brutes!"
+
+"Every one eats in his own way," answered the American,
+philosophically.
+
+"Fortunately!" replied the doctor.
+
+"Well," said Altamont, "since the need of food is so great in these
+latitudes, I'm no longer surprised that in accounts of arctic voyages
+there is always so much space given to describing the meals."
+
+"You are right," answered the doctor; "and it is a remark which I have
+often made myself; it is not only that plenty of food is needed, but
+also because it is often hard to get it. So one is always thinking of
+it and consequently always talking of it!"
+
+"Still," said Altamont, "if my memory serves me right, in Norway, in
+the coldest countries, the peasants need no such enormous supply: a
+little milk, eggs, birch-bark bread, sometimes salmon, never any meat;
+and yet they are hardy men."
+
+"It's a matter of organization," answered the doctor, "and one which I
+can't explain. Still, I fancy that the second or third generation of
+Norwegians, carried to Greenland, would end by feeding themselves in
+the Greenland way. And we too, my friends, if we were to remain in
+this lovely country, would get to live like the Esquimaux, not to say
+like gluttons."
+
+"Dr. Clawbonny," said Bell, "it makes me hungry to talk in this way."
+
+"It doesn't make me," answered Altamont; "it disgusts me rather, and
+makes me dislike seal's flesh. But I fancy we shall have an
+opportunity to try the experiment. If I'm not mistaken, I see some
+living body down there on the ice."
+
+"It's a walrus," shouted the doctor; "forward silently!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Indeed, the animal was within two hundred feet of the hunters; he was
+stretching and rolling at his ease in the pale rays of the sun. The
+three men separated so as to surround him and cut off his retreat; and
+they approached within a few fathoms' lengths of him, hiding behind
+the hummocks, and then fired. The walrus rolled over, still full of
+strength; he crushed the ice in his attempts to get away; but Altamont
+attacked him with his hatchet, and succeeded in cutting his dorsal
+fins. The walrus made a desperate resistance; new shots finished him,
+and he remained stretched lifeless on the ice-field stained with his
+blood. He was a good-sized animal, being nearly fifteen feet long from
+his muzzle to the end of his tail, and he would certainly furnish many
+barrels of oil. The doctor cut out the most savory parts of the flesh,
+and he left the corpse to the mercies of a few crows, which, at this
+season of the year, were floating through the air. The night began to
+fall. They thought of returning to Fort Providence; the sky had become
+perfectly clear, and while waiting for the moon to rise, the splendor
+of the stars was magnificent.
+
+"Come, push on," said the doctor, "it's growing late; to be sure,
+we've had poor luck; but as long as we have enough for supper, there's
+no need of complaining. Only let's take the shortest way and try not
+to get lost; the stars will help us."
+
+But yet in countries where the North Star shines directly above the
+traveller's head, it is hard to walk by it; in fact, when the north is
+directly in the zenith, it is hard to determine the other cardinal
+points; fortunately the moon and great constellations aided the doctor
+in determining the route. In order to shorten their way, he resolved
+to avoid the sinuosities of the coast, and to go directly across the
+land; it was more direct, but less certain; so, after walking for a
+few hours, the little band had completely lost its way. They thought
+of spending the night in an ice-house and waiting till the next day to
+find out where they were, even if they should have to return along the
+shore; but the doctor, fearing that Hatteras and Johnson might be
+anxious, insisted on their going on.
+
+"Duke is showing us the way," he said, "and he can't be wrong; he has
+an instinct which is surer than needle or star. Let us follow him."
+
+Duke went forward, and they all followed confidently. And they were
+justified in so doing. Soon a distant light appeared on the horizon;
+it was not to be confounded with a star in the low clouds.
+
+"There's our light!" cried the doctor.
+
+"Do you think so, Doctor!" asked the carpenter.
+
+"I'm sure of it. Let us push on."
+
+As they approached the light grew brighter, and soon they enjoyed its
+full brilliancy; they advanced in full illumination, and their sharply
+cut shadows ran out behind them over the snow. They hastened their
+gait, and in about half an hour they were climbing up the steps of
+Fort Providence.
+
+[Illustration: "They advanced in full illumination, and their sharply
+cut shadows ran out behind them over the snow."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+COLD AND HEAT.
+
+
+Hatteras and Johnson had waited for the three hunters with some
+uneasiness. When they returned they were delighted to find a warm and
+comfortable shelter. That evening the temperature had decidedly
+fallen, and the thermometer outside stood at -31°. The three were very
+much fatigued and almost frozen, so that they could hardly drag one
+foot after the other; fortunately the stoves were drawing well; the
+doctor became cook, and roasted a few walrus cutlets. At nine o'clock
+they all five sat down before a nourishing supper.
+
+"On my word," said Bell, "at the risk of passing for an Esquimaux, I
+will say that food is an important thing in wintering; one ought to
+take what one can get."
+
+Each of them having his mouth full, it was impossible for any one to
+answer the carpenter at once; but the doctor made a sign that he was
+right. The walrus cutlets were declared excellent; or, if they made no
+declarations about it, they ate it all up, which is much more to the
+purpose. At dessert the doctor made the coffee, as was his custom; he
+intrusted this task to no one else; he made it at the table, in an
+alcohol machine, and served it boiling hot. He wanted it hot enough to
+scald his throat, or else he did not think it worth drinking. That
+evening he drank it so hot that his companions could not imitate him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"But you'll burn yourself, Doctor," said Altamont.
+
+"O no!" was the answer.
+
+"Is your throat lined with copper?" asked Johnson.
+
+"No, my friends; I advise you to take counsel from me. There are some
+persons, and I am of the number, who drink coffee at a temperature of
+131°."
+
+"One hundred and thirty-one degrees!" cried Altamont; "but the hand
+can't support that heat!"
+
+"Evidently, Altamont, since the hand can't endure more than 122° in
+the water; but the palate and tongue are not so tender as the hand;
+they can endure much more."
+
+"You surprise me," said Altamont.
+
+"Well, I'm going to convince you."
+
+And the doctor, bringing the thermometer from the parlor, plunged the
+bulb into his cup of boiling coffee; he waited until it stood at a
+131°, and then he drank it with evident joy. Bell tried to do the same
+thing, but he burned himself and shouted aloud.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"You are not used to it," said the doctor.
+
+"Clawbonny," asked Altamont, "can you tell me the highest temperature
+the human body can support?"
+
+"Easily," answered the doctor; "various experiments have been made and
+curious facts have been found out. I remember one or two, and they
+serve to show that one can get accustomed to anything, even to not
+cooking where a beefsteak would cook. So, the story goes that some
+girls employed at the public bakery of the city of La Rochefoucauld,
+in France, could remain ten minutes in the oven in a temperature of
+300°, that is to say, 89° hotter than boiling water, while potatoes
+and meat were cooking around them."
+
+"What girls!" said Altamont.
+
+"Here is another indisputable example. Nine of our fellow-countrymen
+in 1778, Fordyce, Banks, Solander, Blagden, Home, North, Lord
+Seaforth, and Captain Phillips, endured a temperature of 295°, while
+eggs and roast beef were cooking near them."
+
+"And they were Englishmen!" said Bell, with an accent of pride.
+
+"Yes, Bell," answered the doctor.
+
+"O, Americans could have done better!" said Altamont.
+
+"They would have roasted," said the doctor, laughing.
+
+"And why not?" answered the American.
+
+"At any rate, they have not tried; still, I stand up for my
+countrymen. There's one thing I must not forget; it is incredible if
+one can doubt of the accuracy of the witnesses. The Duke of Ragusa and
+Dr. Jung, a Frenchman and an Austrian, saw a Turk dive into a bath
+which stood at 170°."
+
+"But it seems to me," said Johnson, that that is not equal to other
+people you mentioned."
+
+"I beg your pardon," answered the doctor; there is a great difference
+between entering warm air and entering warm water; warm air induces
+perspiration, and that protects the skin, while in such hot water
+there is no perspiration and the skin is burned. Hence a bath is
+seldom hotter than 107°. This Turk must have been an extraordinary man
+to have been able to endure so great heat."
+
+"Dr. Clawbonny," asked Johnson, "what is the usual temperature of
+living beings?"
+
+"It varies very much," answered the doctor; "birds are the warmest
+blooded, and of these the duck and hen are the most remarkable; their
+temperature is above 110°, while that of the owl is not more than
+104°; then come the mammalia, men; the temperature of Englishmen is
+generally 101°."
+
+"I'm sure Mr. Altamont is going to claim something more for the
+Americans," said Johnson.
+
+"Well," said Altamont, "there are some very warm; but as I've never
+placed a thermometer into their thorax or under their tongue, I can't
+be sure about it."
+
+"The difference of temperature," resumed the doctor, "between men of
+different races is quite imperceptible when they are placed in the
+same circumstances, whatever be the nature of their bringing-up; I
+should add, that the temperature varies but little between men at the
+equator and at the pole."
+
+"So," said Altamont, "our temperature is about the same here as in
+England?"
+
+"About the same," answered the doctor; "as to the other mammalia,
+their temperature is a trifle higher than that of man. The horse is
+about the same, as well as the hare, the elephant, the porpoise, the
+tiger; but the cat, the squirrel, the rat, panther, sheep, ox, dog,
+monkey, goat, reach 103°; and the warmest of all, the pig, goes above
+104°."
+
+"That is humiliating for us," said Altamont.
+
+"Then come amphibious animals and fish, whose temperature varies very
+much according to that of the water. The serpent does not go above
+86°, the frog 70°, and the shark the same in a medium a degree and a
+half cooler; insects appear to have the temperature of the water and
+the air."
+
+"That is all very well," said Hatteras, who had not yet spoken, "and
+I'm much obliged to the doctor for his information; but we are talking
+as if we had to endure torrid heats. Would it not be wiser to talk
+about the cold, to know to what we are exposed, and what is the lowest
+temperature that has ever been observed?"
+
+"True," added Johnson.
+
+"There's nothing easier," continued the doctor, "and I may be able to
+give you some information."
+
+"I dare say," said Johnson; "you know everything."
+
+"My friends, I only know what others have taught me, and when I've
+finished you'll know exactly as much. This is what I know about cold
+and the lowest temperatures observed in Europe. A great many
+noteworthy winters have been known, and it seems as if the severest
+has a periodic return about every forty-one years,--a period which
+nearly corresponds with the greater appearance of spots on the sun. I
+can mention the winter of 1364, when the Rhone was frozen as far as
+Arles; that of 1408, when the Danube was frozen its whole length, and
+when wolves ran over to Jutland without wetting their feet; that of
+1509, during which the Mediterranean at Cette and Marseilles and the
+Adriatic at Venice were frozen, and the Baltic as late as April 10;
+that of 1608, which killed all the cattle in England; that of 1789,
+when the Thames was frozen--as far as Gravesend, six leagues--below
+London; that of 1813, of which the French retain such a terrible
+memory; and that of 1829, the earliest and longest winter of this
+century. So much for Europe."
+
+"But what temperature has been reached above the Arctic Circle?" asked
+Altamont.
+
+"Really," said the doctor, "I believe we have experienced the greatest
+cold that has ever been observed, since our spirit thermometer
+indicated one day -72°; and if I remember aright, the lowest
+temperatures ever observed before were only -61° at Melville Island,
+-65° at Port Felix, and -70° at Fort Reliance."
+
+"Yes," said Hatteras; "we were delayed, and unfortunately too, by a
+very severe winter!"
+
+"You were delayed?" exclaimed Altamont, staring at the captain.
+
+"In our journey westward," interposed the doctor, hastily.
+
+"So," said Altamont, continuing the conversation, "the maximum and
+minimum temperatures endured by men vary about two hundred degrees?"
+
+"Yes," answered the doctor; "a thermometer exposed to the open air and
+sheltered from reflection has never risen above 135°, and in the
+greatest colds it never falls below -72°. So, my friends, you see we
+can take our ease."
+
+"But still," said Johnson, "if the sun were to be extinguished
+suddenly, would not the earth endure greater cold?"
+
+"The sun won't be extinguished," answered the doctor; "but even if it
+should be, the temperature would not fall any lower, probably, than
+what I have mentioned."
+
+"That's strange."
+
+"O, I know it used to be said that in the space outside of the
+atmosphere the temperature was thousands of degrees below zero! but
+since the experiments of the Frenchman Fourrier, this has been
+disproved; he has shown that if the earth were placed in a medium void
+of all heat, that the temperature at the pole would be much greater,
+and that there would be very great differences between night and day;
+so, my friends, it is no colder a few millions of miles from the earth
+than it is here."
+
+"Tell me, Doctor," said Altamont, "is not the temperature of America
+lower than that of other countries of the world?"
+
+"Without doubt; but don't be proud of it," answered the doctor with a
+laugh.
+
+"And what is the reason?"
+
+"No very satisfactory explanation has ever been given; so it occurred
+to Hadley that a comet had come into collision with the earth and had
+altered the position of its axis of rotation, that is to say, of its
+poles; according to him, the North Pole, which used to be situated at
+Hudson's Bay, found itself carried farther east, and the land at the
+old Pole preserved a greater cold, which long centuries of the sun
+have not yet heated."
+
+"And you do not admit this hypothesis?"
+
+"Not for a moment; for what is true of the eastern coast of America is
+not true of the western coast, which has a higher temperature. No! we
+can prove that the isothermal lines differ from the terrestrial
+parallels, and that is all."
+
+"Do you know, Doctor," said Johnson, "that it is pleasant to talk
+about cold in our present circumstances?"
+
+"Exactly, Johnson; we can call practice to the aid of theory. These
+countries are a vast laboratory where curious experiments on low
+temperatures can be made. Only, be always careful; if any part of your
+body is frozen, rub it at once with snow to restore the circulation of
+the blood; and if you come near the fire, be careful, for you may burn
+your hands or feet without noticing it; then amputation would be
+necessary, and we should try to leave nothing of ourselves in these
+lands. And now I think it would be well for us to seek a few hours of
+sleep."
+
+"Willingly," answered the doctor's companions.
+
+"Who keeps watch over the stove?"
+
+"I do," answered Bell.
+
+"Well, my friend, take care the fire does not fall out, for it's most
+abominably cold this evening."
+
+"Don't be uneasy, Doctor; it's very sharp, but see, the sky is all
+ablaze!"
+
+"Yes," answered the doctor, going up to the window, "it's a
+magnificent aurora. What a glorious sight! I should never get tired of
+looking at it!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In fact, the doctor admired all these cosmic phenomena, to which his
+companions paid but little attention; he had noticed, besides, that
+their appearance always preceded disturbances of the magnetic needle,
+and he was preparing some observations on the subject which he
+intended for Admiral Fitz-Roy's "Weather Book."
+
+Soon, while Bell was on watch near the stove, all the rest, stretched
+on their beds, slept quietly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+THE PLEASURES OF WINTER-QUARTERS.
+
+
+There is a gloomy monotony about life at the Pole. Man is wholly the
+sport of the changes of the weather, which alternates between intense
+cold and severe storms with savage relentlessness. The greater part of
+the time it is impossible to set foot out of doors; one is imprisoned
+in the hut of ice. Long months pass in this way, so that men lead the
+life of moles.
+
+The next day the thermometer was several degrees lower, and the air
+was full of clouds of snow, which absorbed all the light of day. The
+doctor saw himself kept within doors, and he folded his arms; there
+was nothing to be done, except every hour to clear away the
+entrance-hall and to repolish the ice-walls which the heat within made
+damp; but the snow-house was very finely built, and the snow added to
+its resistance by augmenting the thickness of its walls.
+
+The stores were equally secure. All the objects taken from the ship
+had been arranged in order in these "Docks of Merchandise," as the
+doctor called them. Now, although these stores were at a distance of
+only sixty feet from the house, it was yet on some days almost
+impossible to get to them; hence a certain quantity of provisions had
+always to be kept in the kitchen for daily needs.
+
+They had been wise in unloading the _Porpoise_. The ship was exposed
+to a gentle, but persistent pressure, which was gradually crushing it;
+it was evident that nothing could be done with its fragments; still
+the doctor kept hoping to be able to build a launch out of them to
+return to England in, but the time for building it had not yet come.
+
+So for the most part the five men remained in complete idleness.
+Hatteras was pensive and always lying on the bed; Altamont was
+drinking or sleeping, and the doctor took good care not to rouse him
+from his slumbers, for he was always afraid of some distressing
+quarrel. These two men seldom spoke to one another.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+So during meal-time the prudent Clawbonny always took care to guide
+the conversation and to direct it in such a way as not to offend the
+susceptibilities of either; but he had a great deal to do. He did his
+best to instruct, distract, and interest his companions; when he was
+not arranging his notes about the expedition, he read aloud some
+history, geography, or work on meteorology, which had reference to
+their condition; he presented things pleasantly and philosophically,
+deriving wholesome instruction from the slightest incidents; his
+inexhaustible memory never played him false; he applied his doctrines
+to the persons who were with him, reminding them of such or such a
+thing which happened under such or such circumstances; and he filled
+out his theories by the force of personal arguments.
+
+[Illustration: "He did his best to instruct and interest his
+companions."]
+
+This worthy man may be called the soul of this little world, a soul
+glowing with frankness and justice. His companions had perfect
+confidence in him; he even improved Captain Hatteras, who, besides,
+was very fond of him; he made his words, manners, and custom so
+agreeable, that the life of these five men within six degrees of the
+Pole seemed perfectly natural; when he was speaking, any one would
+have imagined he was in his office in Liverpool. And yet this
+situation was unlike that of castaways on the islands of the Pacific
+Ocean, those Robinsons whose touching history always aroused the envy
+of their readers. There, the natural richness offers a thousand
+different resources; a little imagination and effort suffice to secure
+material happiness; nature aids man; hunting and fishing supply all
+his wants; the trees grow to aid him, caverns shelter him, brooks
+slake his thirst, dense thickets hide him from the sun, and severe
+cold never comes upon him in the winter; a grain tossed into the earth
+brings forth a bounteous return a few months later. There, outside of
+society, everything is found to make man happy. And then these happy
+isles lie in the path of ships; the castaway can hope to be picked up,
+and he can wait in patience.
+
+But here on the coast of New America how great is the difference! This
+comparison would continually occur to the doctor, but he never
+mentioned it to the others, and he struggled against the enforced
+idleness.
+
+He yearned ardently for the spring, in order to resume his excursions;
+and yet he was anxious about it, for he foresaw difficulties between
+Hatteras and Altamont. If they pushed on to the Pole, there would
+necessarily be rivalry between the two men. Hence he had to prepare
+for the worst, and still, as far as he could, to try to pacify these
+rivals; but to reconcile an American and an Englishman, two men
+hostile to one another from their birth, one endowed with real insular
+prejudice, the other with the adventurous, irreverent spirit of his
+country, was no easy task. When the doctor thought of their eager
+rivalry, which in fact was one of nationalities, he could not help,
+not shrugging his shoulders, but lamenting human weakness. He would
+often talk to Johnson on this subject; he and the old sailor agreed in
+the matter; they were uncertain what view to take, and they foresaw
+complications in the future.
+
+Still, the bad weather continued; they could not leave Fort Providence
+even for an hour. Night and day they had to remain in the snow-house.
+They all found it tedious, except the doctor, who found diversion for
+himself.
+
+"Isn't there any way we can amuse ourselves?" said Altamont one
+evening. "This isn't really living, lying here like sluggish reptiles
+all winter."
+
+"It's a pity," said the doctor, "that we are too few to organize any
+system of distractions."
+
+"Do you mean it would be easier for us to combat idleness if there
+were more of us?" asked the American.
+
+"Yes; when whole crews have wintered in boreal regions, they have
+found out the way to avoid idleness."
+
+"To tell the truth," said Altamont, "I should like to know how they
+did; they must have been very ingenious to get any fun out of these
+surroundings. They didn't ask one another riddles, I suppose?"
+
+"No," answered the doctor, "but they introduced into these lands two
+great means of amusement, the press and the theatre."
+
+"What! did they have a newspaper?" asked the American.
+
+"Did they act plays?" asked Bell.
+
+"Yes, and with much amusement. While he was wintering at Melville
+Island, Captain Parry offered his crews these two entertainments, and
+they enjoyed them very much."
+
+"Well," said Johnson, "I should have liked to be there; it must have
+been funny enough."
+
+"Funny indeed; Lieutenant Beecher was manager of the theatre, and
+Captain Sabine editor of the 'Winter Chronicle, or Gazette of North
+Georgia.'"
+
+"Good names," said Altamont.
+
+"The paper appeared every Monday morning, from November 1, 1819, to
+March 20, 1820. It contained an account of everything that happened,
+the hunts, accidents, incidents, and of the weather; there were
+stories written for it; to be sure, it lacked the humor of Sterne, and
+the delightful articles of the 'Daily Telegraph'; but they got
+amusement from it; its readers were not over-critical, and I fancy no
+journalists ever enjoyed their occupation more."
+
+"Well," said Altamont, "I should like to hear some extracts from this
+paper, my dear Doctor; its articles must all have been frozen solid."
+
+"No, no," answered the doctor; "at any rate, what would have seemed
+simple enough to the Liverpool Philosophical Society, or the London
+Literary Institution, was perfectly satisfactory to the crews beneath
+the snow. Do you want a sample?"
+
+"What! Do you remember--"
+
+"No, but you had 'Parry's Voyages' on board the _Porpoise_, and I can
+read you his own account."
+
+"Do!" shouted the doctor's companions.
+
+"There's nothing easier."
+
+The doctor got the book from the shelves, and soon found the passage.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"See here," he said, "here are some extracts from the newspaper. It is
+a letter addressed to the editor:--
+
+"'It is with genuine satisfaction that your plan for the establishment
+of a newspaper has been received. I am convinced that under your
+charge it will furnish us with a great deal of amusement, and will
+serve to lighten materially the gloom of our hundred days of darkness.
+
+"'The interest which I, for my part, take in it has caused me to
+examine the effect of your announcement upon the members of our
+society, and I can assure you, to use the consecrated phrase of the
+London press, that it has produced a profound impression upon the
+public.
+
+"'The day after the appearance of your prospectus, there was on board
+an unusual and unprecedented demand for ink. The green cloth of our
+tables was suddenly covered with a deluge of quill-pens, to the great
+injury of one of our servants, who, in trying to remove them, got one
+under his nail.
+
+"'Finally, I know that Sergeant Martin has had no less than nine
+pocket-knives to sharpen.
+
+"'Our tables are groaning beneath the unaccustomed weight of
+inkstands, which had not seen the light for two months; and it is even
+whispered that the depths of the hold have been often opened to secure
+many reams of paper, which did not expect to issue so soon from their
+place of repose.
+
+"'I shall not forget to say to you that I have some suspicions that an
+effort will be made to slip into your box some articles, which,
+lacking complete originality, and not being wholly unpublished, may
+not suit your plan. I can affirm that no later than last evening an
+author was seen bending over his desk, holding in one hand an open
+volume of the "Spectator," while with the other he was thawing his ink
+by the flame of the lamp. It is useless to recommend you to keep a
+lookout against such devices; we must not see reappearing in the
+"Winter Chronicle" what our ancestors used to read at breakfast more
+than a century ago.'"
+
+"Well, well," said Altamont, when the doctor had finished reading,
+"there is really good humor in that, and the writer must have been a
+bright fellow."
+
+"Bright is the word," answered the doctor. "Stop a moment, here is an
+amusing advertisement:--
+
+"'Wanted. A middle-aged, respectable woman to help dress the ladies of
+the troupe of the "Theatre Royal of North Georgia." Suitable salary
+given, tea and beer free. Address the Committee of the theatre.--N. B.
+A widow preferred.'"
+
+"They were not disgusted, at any rate," said Johnson.
+
+"And did they get the widow?" asked Bell.
+
+"Probably," answered the doctor, "for here is an answer addressed to
+the committee:--
+
+
+"'Gentlemen: I am a widow, twenty-six years old, and I can produce
+warm testimonials as to my morals and talents. But before taking
+charge of the dresses of the actresses of your theatre, I am anxious
+to know if they intend to keep their trousers on, and whether I can
+have the aid of some strong sailors to lace their corsets properly.
+This being arranged, gentlemen, you may count upon your servant.
+
+"'A. B.
+
+"'P. S. Can you not substitute brandy for beer?'"
+
+
+"Bravo!" shouted Altamont. "I suppose they had ladies'-maids to lace
+you by the capstan. Well, they were jolly fellows!"
+
+"Like all who do what they set out to do," remarked Hatteras.
+
+Hatteras uttered these words, and then he relapsed into his usual
+silence. The doctor, unwilling to dwell on that subject, hastened to
+resume his reading.
+
+"See here," he said, "here is a picture of arctic sufferings; it may
+be varied infinitely; but a few of the observations are wise enough;
+for instance:--
+
+"'To go out in the morning to take the air, and on setting foot off
+the ship, to take a cold bath in the cook's trough.
+
+"'To go on a hunting-party, get near a fine reindeer, take aim, try to
+fire, and miss the shot on account of a damp cap.
+
+"'To start out with a piece of fresh bread in the pocket, and when one
+gets hungry to find it frozen hard enough to break one's teeth.
+
+"'To leave the table suddenly on hearing a wolf is in sight of the
+ship, and to come back and find one's dinner eaten by the cat.
+
+"'To return from a walk rapt in thought, and to be awakened suddenly
+by the embrace of a bear.'
+
+"You see, my friends," said the doctor, "we should not find it hard to
+imagine other polar troubles; but from the moment it becomes necessary
+to endure these miseries, it would be a pleasure to narrate them."
+
+"Upon my word," said Altamont, "that's an amusing paper, and it's a
+pity we can't subscribe to it."
+
+"Suppose we should start one," suggested Johnson.
+
+"We five!" answered Clawbonny; "we should all be editors, and there
+would be no readers."
+
+"Nor audience either, if we should act a play," said Altamont.
+
+"Tell us, Doctor," said Johnson, "something about Captain Parry's
+theatre; did they act new plays there?"
+
+"Of course; at first they made use of two volumes which were put on
+board of the _Hector_, and they had plays every fortnight; but soon
+they had acted all; then they resorted to original authors, and Parry
+himself wrote a suitable play for the Christmas holidays; it was very
+successful, and was called 'The Northwest Passage, or the End of the
+Voyage.'"
+
+"A capital title," answered Altamont; "but I confess, if I had to
+write on that subject, I should be puzzled about the end."
+
+"You are right," said Bell; "who can say how it will end?"
+
+"True," answered the doctor; "but why bother about the end, since the
+beginning is so favorable? Let us trust in Providence, my friends; let
+us act our part well, and since the end depends on the Author of all
+things, let us have confidence in him; he will know what to do with
+us."
+
+"Let us sleep on it," answered Johnson; "it is late, and since bedtime
+has come, let us turn in."
+
+"You are in a great hurry, my old friend," said the doctor.
+
+"Naturally enough, Doctor, I am so comfortable in bed! And then my
+dreams are pleasant. I dream of warm countries; or that, to tell the
+truth, half of my life is spent at the equator and half at the Pole!"
+
+"The deuce," said Altamont, "you have a happy temperament."
+
+"True," answered the boatswain.
+
+"Well, it would be cruel to detain Johnson any longer. His tropical
+sun is waiting for him. Let us go to bed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+DISQUIETING TRACES.
+
+
+In the night of April 26-27, the weather changed; the thermometer fell
+many degrees, and the inhabitants of Doctor's House perceived it from
+the cold which made its way beneath their coverings; Altamont, who was
+watching the stove, took care not to let the fire get low, and he was
+kept busy putting on enough coal to keep the temperature at 50°. This
+cold weather announced the end of the storm, and the doctor was glad
+of it, for now they could resume their usual occupations, their
+hunting, excursions, and explorations; this would put an end to the
+apathy of their loneliness, which in time sours even the finest
+characters.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The next morning the doctor rose early, and made his way over the
+drifts to the lighthouse. The wind was from the north; the air was
+clear, the snow was hard under his feet. Soon his five companions had
+left Doctor's House; their first care was to dig away the drifted
+snow, which now disguised the plateau; it would have been impossible
+to discover any traces of life upon it, for the tempest had buried all
+inequalities beneath fifteen feet of snow.
+
+After the snow was cleared away from the house, it was necessary to
+restore its architectural outline. This was very easy, and after the
+ice was removed a few blows with the snow-knife gave it its normal
+thickness. After two hours' work the granite appeared, and access to
+the stores and the powder-house was free. But since, in these
+uncertain climates, such things can happen every day, a new supply of
+food was carried to the kitchen. They were all wearied of salt food
+and yearned for fresh meat, and so the hunters were charged with
+changing the bill of fare, and they prepared to set out.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Still the end of April did not bring with it the polar spring, which
+was yet six weeks off; the sun's rays were still too feeble to melt
+the snow or to nourish the few plants of these regions. They feared
+lest animals should be scarce, both birds and quadrupeds. But a hare,
+a few ptarmigans, even a young fox, would have been welcome to the
+table of Doctor's House, and the hunters resolved to shoot whatever
+should come within range.
+
+The doctor, Altamont, and Bell determined to explore the country.
+Altamont, they felt sure from his habits, was a bold and skilful
+hunter, and, with all his bragging, a capital shot. So he went with
+the hunters, as did Duke, who was equally skilful and less prone to
+boasting.
+
+The three companions ascended the east cone and set out towards the
+large white plains; but they had gone no farther than two or three
+miles before they saw numerous tracks; from that point, they ran down
+to the shore of Victoria Bay, and appeared to surround Fort Providence
+with a series of concentric circles.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+After they had followed these footprints for a short time, the doctor
+said,--
+
+"Well, that is clear enough."
+
+"Too clear," said Bell; "they are bear tracks."
+
+"Good game," continued Altamont, "and there is only one fault in it
+to-day."
+
+"What's that?" asked the doctor.
+
+"The abundance," answered the American.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Bell.
+
+"I mean that there are distinct tracks of five bears; and five bears
+are a good many for five men."
+
+"Are you sure of what you say?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Judge for yourself; this mark is different from any other; the claws
+on this one are farther apart than those. Here is the print of a
+smaller bear. If you compare them together, you'll find traces of five
+animals."
+
+"You are right," said Bell, after a careful examination.
+
+"Then," said the doctor, "there is no need of useless bravado, but
+rather of caution; these animals are famished at the end of a severe
+winter, and they may be very dangerous; and since there is no doubt of
+their number--"
+
+"Nor of their intentions," interrupted the American.
+
+"Do you suppose," he asked, "that they have discovered our presence
+here?"
+
+"Without a doubt, unless we've fallen on a whole band of bears; but in
+that case, why do their prints go about in a circle, instead of
+running out of sight? See, they came from the southwest and stopped
+here, and began to explore the country."
+
+"You are right," said the doctor, "and it's certain they came last
+night."
+
+"And the other nights too," answered Altamont; "only the snow has
+covered their tracks."
+
+"No," said the doctor; "it's more likely that they waited for the end
+of the storm; they went to the bay to catch some seals, and then they
+scented us."
+
+"True," said Altamont; "so it is easy to know whether they will return
+to-night."
+
+"How so?" asked Bell.
+
+"By rubbing out some of their tracks; and if we find new ones
+to-morrow, we can be sure that they are trying to get into Fort
+Providence."
+
+"Well," said the doctor, "we shall at least know what to expect."
+
+The three then set to work, and soon effaced all the tracks over a
+space of about six hundred feet.
+
+"It's strange, however," said Bell, "that they could scent us at so
+great a distance; we didn't burn anything greasy which could attract
+them."
+
+"O," answered the doctor, "they have very fine sight, and delicate
+sense of smell! Besides, they are very intelligent, perhaps the most
+intelligent of animals, and they have found out something strange
+here."
+
+"Perhaps," continued Bell, "during the storm, they came up as far as
+the plateau."
+
+"Then," said the American, "why should they have stopped there?"
+
+"True, there is no answer to that," answered the doctor; "and we ought
+to believe that they are shortening the circle about Fort Providence."
+
+"We shall see," answered Altamont.
+
+"Now, let us go on," said the doctor; "but we'll keep our eyes open."
+
+They kept careful watch, through fear lest some bear should be hidden
+behind the masses of ice; often they took the blocks for animals, from
+their shape and whiteness, but soon they discovered their mistake.
+
+They returned at last to the shore beneath the cone, and from there
+their eyes swept in vain from Cape Washington to Johnson Island. They
+saw nothing; everything was white and motionless; not a sound was to
+be heard. They entered the snow-house.
+
+Hatteras and Johnson were informed of the condition of affairs, and
+they resolved to keep a strict watch. Night came; nothing occurred to
+alarm them, or to mar its beauty. At dawn the next morning, Hatteras
+and his companions, fully armed, went out to examine the condition of
+the snow; they found the same tracks as on the previous day, only
+nearer. Evidently the enemy was preparing to lay siege to Fort
+Providence.
+
+"They have opened their second parallel," said the doctor.
+
+"They have made a point in advance," answered Altamont; "see those
+footprints coming nearer the plateau; they are those of some strong
+animal."
+
+"Yes, they are gaining ground gradually," said Johnson; "it is evident
+that they are going to attack us."
+
+"There's no doubt of that," said the doctor; "let us avoid showing
+ourselves. We are not strong enough to fight successfully."
+
+"But where do these devilish bears come from?" asked Bell.
+
+"From behind those pieces of ice to the east, where they are spying
+us; don't let us get too near them."
+
+"And our hunt?" asked Altamont.
+
+"Let us put it off for a few days," answered the doctor; "let us again
+rub out these nearest marks, and to-morrow we shall see if they are
+renewed. In this way we can see the manoeuvres of our enemies."
+
+The doctor's advice was taken, and they returned to the fort; the
+presence of these terrible beasts forbade any excursion. Strict watch
+was kept over the neighborhood of Victoria Bay. The lighthouse was
+dismantled; it was of no real use, and might attract the attention of
+the animals; the lantern and the electric threads were carried to the
+house; then they took turns in watching the upper plateau.
+
+Again they had to endure the monotony of loneliness, but what else was
+to be done? They dared not risk a contest at so fearful odds; no one's
+life could be risked imprudently. Perhaps the bears, if they caught
+sight of nothing, might be thrown off the track; or, if they were met
+singly, they might be attacked successfully. However, this inaction
+was relieved by a new interest; they had to keep watch, and no one
+regretted it.
+
+April 28th passed by without any sign of the existence of the enemy.
+The next morning their curiosity as to the existence of new tracks was
+succeeded by astonishment. Not a trace was to be seen; the snow was
+intact.
+
+"Good," shouted Altamont, "the bears are thrown off the track! They
+have no perseverance! They are tired of waiting, and have gone! Good
+by, and now off to the hunt!"
+
+"Eh!" answered the doctor, "who can say? For greater safety, my
+friends, I beg one more day of watching; it is certain the enemy did
+not approach last night, at least from this side--"
+
+"Let us make a circuit of the plateau," said Altamont, "and then we
+shall make sure."
+
+"Willingly," said the doctor.
+
+But with all their care in exploration, not the slightest trace could
+be found.
+
+"Well, shall we start on our hunt?" asked Altamont, impatiently.
+
+"Let us wait till to-morrow," urged the doctor.
+
+"All right," answered Altamont, who had some reluctance, however,
+about conceding.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+They returned to the fort. Each one had to watch for an hour, as on
+the previous evening. When Altamont's turn came, he went to relieve
+Bell. As soon as he was gone, Hatteras called his companions together.
+The doctor left his notes, and Johnson his furnaces. It might have
+been supposed that Hatteras was going to discuss the dangers of the
+situation; he did not even think of them.
+
+"My friends," he said, "let us take advantage of the absence of this
+American, to talk over our affairs; some things don't concern him at
+all, and I don't care to have him meddling with them."
+
+The others looked at one another, uncertain of his meaning.
+
+"I want to speak with you," he said, "about our future plans."
+
+"Well," answered the doctor, "let us talk now we are alone."
+
+"In a month, or six weeks at the latest," Hatteras began, "we shall be
+able to make distant excursions. Had you thought of what might be done
+in the summer?"
+
+"Had you, Captain?" asked Johnson.
+
+"I? I can say that not an hour passes without my mind's recurring to
+my plan. I suppose no one of you has any thought of returning--"
+
+There was no immediate answer to this insinuation.
+
+"As for me," continued Hatteras, "if I have to go alone, I shall go to
+the North Pole; we are only three hundred and sixty miles from it at
+the outside. No men have ever been so near it, and I shall not let
+such a chance go by without the attempt, even if it be impossible.
+What are your views in the matter?"
+
+"Your own," answered the doctor.
+
+"And yours, Johnson?"
+
+"The same as the doctor's," answered the boatswain.
+
+"It is your turn to speak, Bell," said Hatteras.
+
+"Captain," answered the carpenter, "it is true we have no family
+awaiting us in England, but our country is our country: don't you
+think of going back?"
+
+"We shall go back easily as soon as we shall have discovered the Pole.
+In fact, more easily. The difficulties will not increase, for, on our
+way thither, we leave behind us the coldest spots on the globe. We
+have supplies of all sorts for a long time. There is nothing to hinder
+us, and we should be to blame if we did not push on to the end."
+
+"Well," answered Bell, "we are all of your opinion, Captain."
+
+"Good!" replied Hatteras. "I have never doubted of you. We shall
+succeed, my friends, and England shall have all the glory of our
+success."
+
+"But there is an American with us," said Johnson.
+
+Hatteras could not restrain a wrathful gesture at this remark.
+
+"I know it," he said in a deep voice.
+
+"We can't leave him here," continued the doctor.
+
+"No, we cannot," answered Hatteras, coldly.
+
+"And he will certainly come."
+
+"Yes, he will come, but who will command?"
+
+"You, Captain."
+
+"And if you obey me, will this Yankee refuse to obey?"
+
+"I don't think so," answered Johnson; "but if he is unwilling to obey
+your orders--"
+
+"It would have to be settled between him and me."
+
+The three Englishmen looked at Hatteras without a word. The doctor
+broke the silence.
+
+"How shall we travel?" he asked.
+
+"By keeping along the coast as much as possible," answered Hatteras.
+
+"But if we find the sea open, as is likely?"
+
+"Well, we shall cross it."
+
+"How? We have no boat."
+
+Hatteras did not answer; he was evidently embarrassed.
+
+"Perhaps," suggested Bell, "we might build a launch out of the timbers
+of the _Porpoise_."
+
+"Never!" shouted Hatteras, warmly.
+
+"Never?" exclaimed Johnson.
+
+The doctor shook his head; he understood the captain's unwillingness.
+
+"Never!" the latter answered. "A launch made out of the wood of an
+American ship would be an American launch--"
+
+"But, Captain--" interposed Johnson.
+
+The doctor made a sign to the old boatswain to keep silent. A more
+suitable time was required for that question. The doctor, although he
+understood Hatteras's repugnance, did not sympathize with it, and he
+determined to make his friend abandon this hasty decision. Hence he
+spoke of something else, of the possibility of going along the coast
+to the north, and that unknown point, the North Pole. In a word, he
+avoided all dangerous subjects of conversation up to the moment when
+it was suddenly ended by the entrance of Altamont. He had nothing new
+to report. The day ended in this way, and the night was quiet. The
+bears had evidently disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+THE ICE PRISON.
+
+
+The next day they determined to arrange the hunt, in which Hatteras,
+Altamont, and the carpenter were to take part; no more tracks were to
+be seen; the bears had decidedly given up their plan of attack, either
+from fear of their unknown enemies, or because there had been no sign
+of living beings beneath the mass of snow. During the absence of the
+three hunters, the doctor was to push on to Johnson Island to examine
+the condition of the ice, and to make some hydrographic
+investigations. The cold was sharp, but they supported it well, having
+become accustomed to it by this time. The boatswain was to remain at
+Doctor's House; in a word, to guard the house.
+
+The three hunters made their preparations; each one took a
+double-barrelled rifled gun, with conical balls; they carried a small
+quantity of pemmican, in case night should fall before their return;
+they also were provided with the snow-knife, which is so indispensable
+in these regions, and a hatchet which they wore in their belts. Thus
+armed and equipped they could go far; and since they were both skilled
+and bold, they could count on bringing back a good supply.
+
+At eight in the morning they set out. Duke sprang about ahead of them;
+they ascended the hill to the east, went about the lighthouse, and
+disappeared in the plains to the south, which were bounded by Mount
+Bell. The doctor, having agreed on a danger-signal with Johnson,
+descended towards the shore so as to reach the ice in Victoria Bay.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The boatswain remained at Fort Providence alone, but not idle. He
+first set free the Greenland dogs, which were playing about the Dog
+Palace; they in their joy rolled about in the snow. Johnson then gave
+his attentions to the cares of housekeeping. He had to renew the fuel
+and provisions, to set the stores in order, to mend many broken
+utensils, to patch the coverings, to work over the shoes for the long
+excursions of the summer. There was no lack of things to do, but the
+boatswain worked with the ease of a sailor, who has generally a
+smattering of all trades. While thus employed he began to think of the
+talk of the evening before; he thought of the captain, and especially
+of his obstinacy, which, after all, had something very heroic and very
+honorable about it, in his unwillingness that any American man or boat
+should reach the Pole before him, or even with him.
+
+"Still, it seems to me," he said to himself, "no easy task to cross
+the ocean without a boat; and if we have the open sea before us, we
+should need one. The strongest Englishman in the world couldn't swim
+three hundred miles. Patriotism has its limits. Well, we shall see. We
+have still time before us; Dr. Clawbonny has not yet said his last
+word in the matter; he is wise, and he may persuade the captain to
+change his mind. I'll bet that in going towards the island he'll
+glance at the fragments of the _Porpoise_, and will know exactly what
+can be made out of them."
+
+Johnson had reached this point in his reflections, and the hunters had
+been gone an hour, when a loud report was heard two or three miles to
+windward.
+
+"Good!" said the sailor; "they have come across something, and without
+going very far, for I heard them distinctly. After all, the air is so
+clear."
+
+A second and then a third report was heard.
+
+"Hulloa!" continued Johnson, "they've got into a good place."
+
+Three other reports, in quicker succession, were heard.
+
+"Six shots!" said Johnson; "now they've fired off everything. It was a
+hot time! Is it possible--"
+
+At the thought, Johnson grew pale; he quickly left the snow-house, and
+in a few moments he had run up to the top of the cone. He saw a sight
+that made him tremble.
+
+"The bears!" he shouted.
+
+The three hunters, followed by Duke, were running rapidly, followed by
+five enormous animals; their six bullets had not disabled them; the
+bears were gaining on them; Hatteras, behind the others, could only
+keep his distance from the animals by throwing away his cap, hatchet,
+and even his gun. The bears stopped, according to their habit, to
+sniff at the different objects, and lost a little on this ground on
+which they would have outstripped the swiftest horse. It was thus that
+Hatteras, Altamont, and Bell, all out of breath, came up to Johnson,
+and they all slid down the slope to the snow-house. The five bears
+were close behind, and the captain was obliged to ward off the blow of
+a paw with his knife. In a moment Hatteras and his companions were
+locked in the house. The animals stopped on the upper plateau of the
+truncated cone.
+
+[Illustration: "Hatteras could only keep his distance from the animals
+by throwing away his cap, hatchet, and even his gun."]
+
+"Well," said Hatteras, "we can now defend ourselves better, five to
+five!"
+
+"Four to five!" shouted Johnson in a terrified voice.
+
+"What?" asked Hatteras.
+
+"The doctor!" answered Johnson, pointing to the empty room.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"He is on the shore of the island!"
+
+"Poor man!" cried Bell.
+
+"We can't abandon him in this way," said Altamont.
+
+"Let us run!" said Hatteras.
+
+He opened the door quickly, but he had hardly time to shut it; a bear
+nearly crushed his skull with his claw.
+
+"They are there," he cried.
+
+"All?" asked Bell.
+
+"All!" answered Hatteras.
+
+Altamont hastened to the windows, heaping up the bays with pieces of
+ice torn from the walls of the house. His companions did the same
+without speaking. Duke's dull snarls alone broke the silence.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But it must be said these men had only a single thought; they forgot
+their own danger, and only considered the doctor. Poor Clawbonny! so
+kind, so devoted! the soul of the little colony! for the first time he
+was missing; extreme peril, a terrible death, awaited him; for when
+his excursion was over he would return quietly to Fort Providence, and
+would find these ferocious animals. And there was no way of warning
+him.
+
+"If I'm not mistaken, he will be on his guard; your shots must have
+warned him, and he must know something has happened."
+
+"But if he were far off," answered Altamont, "and did not understand?
+There are eight chances out of ten that he'll come back without
+suspicion of danger! The bears are hiding behind the scarp of the
+fort, and he can't see them."
+
+"We shall have to get rid of these dangerous beasts before his
+return," answered Hatteras.
+
+"But how?" asked Bell.
+
+To answer this question was not easy. A sortie seemed impossible. They
+took the precaution to barricade the entrance, but the bears could
+easily have overcome the obstacles if the idea had occurred to them;
+they knew the number and strength of their adversaries, and they could
+easily have reached them. The prisoners were posted in each one of the
+chambers of Doctor's House to watch for every attempt at entrance;
+when they listened, they heard the bears coming and going, growling,
+and tearing at the walls with their huge paws. But some action was
+necessary; time was pressing. Altamont resolved to make a loop-hole to
+shoot the assailants; in a few minutes he had made a little hole in
+the ice-wall; he pushed his gun through it; but it had scarcely
+reached the other side before it was torn from his hands with
+irresistible force before he could fire.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"The devil!" he cried, "we are too weak."
+
+And he hastened to close the loop-hole. Thus matters went for an hour,
+without any end appearing probable. The chances of a sortie were
+discussed; they seemed slight, for the bears could not be fought
+singly. Nevertheless, Hatteras and his companions, being anxious to
+finish it, and, it must be said, very much confused at being thus
+imprisoned by the beasts, were about to try a direct attack, when the
+captain thought of a new means of defence.
+
+He took the poker and plunged it into the stove; then he made an
+opening in the wall, but so as to keep a thin coating of ice outside.
+His companions watched him. When the poker was white hot, Hatteras
+said,--
+
+"This bar will drive away the bears, for they won't be able to seize
+it, and through the loop-hole we will be able to fire at them, without
+their taking our guns away from us."
+
+"A good idea!" cried Bell, going towards Altamont.
+
+Then Hatteras, withdrawing the poker from the stove, pushed it through
+the wall. The snow, steaming at its touch, hissed sharply. Two bears
+ran to seize the bar, but they roared fearfully when four shots were
+fired at once.
+
+"Hit!" shouted the American.
+
+"Hit!" repeated Bell.
+
+"Let us try again," said Hatteras, closing the opening for a moment.
+
+The poker was put again into the fire; in a few minutes it was red
+hot.
+
+Altamont and Bell returned to their place after loading their guns;
+Hatteras again pushed the poker through the loop-hole. But this time
+an impenetrable substance stopped it.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Curse it!" cried the American.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Johnson.
+
+"The matter! These cursed animals are heaping up the ice and snow so
+as to bury us alive!"
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"See, the poker can't go through! Really, this is absurd!"
+
+It was more than absurd, it was alarming. Matters looked worse. The
+bears, which are very intelligent beasts, employed this method of
+suffocating their prey. They heaped the ice in such a way as to render
+flight impossible.
+
+[Illustration: "The bears heaped the ice in such a way as to render
+flight impossible."]
+
+"This is hard," said Johnson, with a very mortified air. "It's well
+enough to have men treat you in this way, but bears!"
+
+After this reflection two hours passed by without any material change
+in their situation; a sortie became impossible; the thickened walls
+deadened all sound without. Altamont walked to and fro like a bold man
+in face of a danger greater than his courage. Hatteras thought
+anxiously of the doctor, and of the great danger awaiting him when he
+should return.
+
+"Ah," shouted Johnson, "if Dr. Clawbonny were only here!"
+
+"Well, what would he do?" asked Altamont.
+
+"O, he would be able to help us!"
+
+"How?" asked the American, with some asperity.
+
+"If I knew," answered Johnson, "I shouldn't want him here. Still, I
+can think of a piece of advice he would give us at this moment."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"To take some food. It can't hurt us. What do you think, Mr.
+Altamont?"
+
+"Let us eat if you care to," was the answer; "although our condition
+is stupid, not to say disgraceful."
+
+"I'll bet," said Johnson, "that we'll find some way of driving them
+off after dinner."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+They made no reply, but sat down to dinner. Johnson, as a pupil of the
+doctor, tried to be a philosopher in the face of danger, but he
+succeeded ill; his jokes stuck in his throat. Besides, they began to
+feel uncomfortable; the air was growing bad in this hermetically
+sealed prison; the stove-pipe drew insufficiently, and it was easy to
+see that in a short time the fire would go out; the oxygen, consumed
+by their lungs and the fire, would be replaced by carbonic acid, which
+would be fatal to them, as they all knew. Hatteras was the first to
+detect this new danger; he was unwilling to hide it from the others.
+
+"So, at any risk we must get out!" said Altamont.
+
+"Yes," answered Hatteras; "but let us wait till night; we will make a
+hole in the snow that we may get fresh air; then one shall take his
+place here and fire at the bears."
+
+"It's the only thing we can do," said the American.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Having agreed on this, they waited for the time of action; and during
+the following hours, Altamont did not spare imprecations against a
+state of things in which, as he put it, "there being men and bears
+concerned, the men were getting the worst of it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+THE MINE.
+
+
+Night came, and the lamp began to burn dimly in the close air of the
+room. At eight o'clock they made their final preparations. The guns
+were carefully loaded, and an opening was begun in the roof of the
+snow-house. Bell worked cleverly at this for a few minutes, when
+Johnson, who had left the bedroom, where he was on guard, for a few
+minutes, returned rapidly to his companions. He seemed disturbed.
+
+"What is the matter?" the captain asked.
+
+"The matter? nothing!" answered the old sailor, hesitatingly, "yet--"
+
+"What is it?" asked Altamont.
+
+"Hush! Don't you hear a strange sound?"
+
+"On which side?"
+
+"There! There is something happening to the wall of that room."
+
+Bell stopped his work; each one listened. A distant noise could be
+heard, apparently in the side wall; some one was evidently making a
+passage-way through the ice.
+
+"It's a tearing sound!" said Johnson.
+
+"Without a doubt," answered Altamont.
+
+"The bears?" asked Bell.
+
+"Yes, the bears," said Altamont.
+
+"They have changed their plan," continued the sailor; "they've given
+up trying to suffocate us."
+
+"Or else they think they've done it," added the American, who was
+getting very angry.
+
+"We shall be attacked," said Bell.
+
+"Well," remarked Hatteras, "we shall fight against them."
+
+"Confound it!" shouted Altamont; "I prefer that decidedly! I've had
+enough working in the dark! Now we shall see one another and fight!"
+
+"Yes," answered Johnson; "but with our guns it is impossible in so
+small a space."
+
+"Well, with a hatchet or a knife!"
+
+The noise increased; the scratching of claws could be heard; the bears
+had attacked the wall at the angle where it joined the snow fastened
+to the rock."
+
+"Evidently," said Johnson, "the animal is within six feet of us."
+
+"You are right, Johnson," answered the American, "but we have time to
+prepare ourselves to receive it!"
+
+The American took the axe in one hand, his knife in the other; resting
+on his right foot, his body thrown back, he stood ready to attack.
+Hatteras and Bell did the same. Johnson prepared his gun in case
+fire-arms should be necessary. The noise grew louder and louder; the
+ice kept cracking beneath the repeated blows. At last only a thin
+crust separated the adversaries; suddenly this crust tore asunder like
+paper through which a clown leaps, and an enormous black body appeared
+in the gloom of the room. Altamont raised his hand to strike it.
+
+[Illustration: "An enormous black body appeared in the gloom of the
+room. Altamont raised his hand to strike it."]
+
+"Stop! for heaven's sake, stop!" said a well-known voice.
+
+"The doctor, the doctor!" shouted Johnson.
+
+It was indeed the doctor, who, carried by the impetus, rolled into the
+room.
+
+"Good evening, my friends," he said, springing to his feet.
+
+His companions remained stupefied; but joy succeeded their
+stupefaction; each one wished to embrace the worthy man; Hatteras, who
+was much moved, clasped him for a long time to his breast. The doctor
+answered by a warm clasp of the hand.
+
+"What! you, Dr. Clawbonny!" said the boatswain.
+
+"Why, Johnson, I was much more anxious about your fate than you about
+mine."
+
+"But how did you know that we were attacked by bears?" asked Altamont;
+"our greatest fear was to see you returning quietly to Fort Providence
+without thought of danger."
+
+"O, I saw everything!" answered the doctor; "your shots warned me; I
+happened to be near the fragments of the _Porpoise_; I climbed up a
+hummock; I saw five bears chasing you; ah, I feared the worst for you!
+But the way you slid down the hill, and the hesitation of the animals,
+reassured me for a time; I knew you'd had time to lock yourselves in.
+Then I approached gradually, climbing and creeping between cakes of
+ice; I arrived near the fort, and I saw the huge beasts working like
+beavers; they were tossing the snow about, heaping up the ice so as to
+bury you alive. Fortunately, they did not think of hurling the blocks
+down from the top of the cone, for you would have been crushed without
+mercy."
+
+"But," said Bell, "you were not safe, Doctor; couldn't they leave
+their place and attack you?"
+
+"They didn't think of it; the Greenland dogs which Johnson let loose
+would sniff around at a little distance, but they didn't think of
+attacking them; no, they were sure of better game."
+
+"Thanks for the compliment," said Altamont, smiling.
+
+"O, you needn't be vain of it! When I saw the tactics of the bears, I
+resolved to join you; to be prudent, I waited till night; so at
+twilight I slipped noiselessly towards the slope, on the side of the
+magazine; I had my own idea in choosing this point; I wanted to make a
+gallery; so I set to work; I began with my snow-knife, and a capital
+tool it is! For three hours I dug and dug, and here I am, hungry and
+tired, but here at last--"
+
+"To share our fate?" asked Altamont.
+
+"To save all of us; but give me a piece of biscuit and some meat; I'm
+half starved."
+
+Soon the doctor was burying his white teeth in a large slice of salt
+beef. Although he was eating, he appeared willing to answer the
+questions they put to him.
+
+"To save us?" Bell began.
+
+"Certainly," answered the doctor, "and to rid us of the malicious
+pests who will end by finding our stores and devouring them."
+
+"We must stay here," said Hatteras.
+
+"Certainly," answered the doctor, "and yet rid ourselves of these
+animals."
+
+"There is then a means?" asked Bell.
+
+"A sure means," answered the doctor.
+
+"I said so," cried Johnson, rubbing his hands; "with Dr. Clawbonny, we
+need not despair; he always has some invention handy."
+
+"Not always handy; but after thinking for a while--"
+
+"Doctor," interrupted Altamont, "can't the bears get through the
+passage-way you cut?"
+
+"No, I took the precaution of closing it behind me; and now we can go
+from here to the powder-magazine without their suspecting it."
+
+"Good! Will you tell us what means you intend to employ to rid us of
+these unpleasant visitors?"
+
+"Something very simple, and which is already half done."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"You'll see. But I forgot I didn't come alone."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Johnson.
+
+"I have a companion to introduce to you."
+
+And with these words he pulled in from the gallery the newly killed
+body of a fox.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"A fox!" cried Bell.
+
+"My morning's game," answered the doctor, modestly, "and you'll see no
+fox was ever wanted more than this one."
+
+"But what is your plan, after all?" asked Altamont.
+
+"I intend to blow the bears up with a hundred pounds of powder."
+
+They all gazed at the doctor with amazement.
+
+"But the powder?" they asked.
+
+"It is in the magazine."
+
+"And the magazine?"
+
+"This passage-way leads to it. I had my own reason for digging this
+passage sixty feet long; I might have attacked the parapet nearer to
+the house, but I had my own idea."
+
+"Well, where are you going to put the mine?" asked the American.
+
+"On the slope, as far as possible from the house, the magazine, and
+the stores."
+
+"But how shall you get all the bears together?"
+
+"I'll take charge of that," answered the doctor; "but we've talked
+enough, now to work; we have a hundred feet to dig out to-night; it's
+tiresome work, but we five can do it in relays. Bell shall begin, and
+meanwhile we can take some rest."
+
+"Really," said Johnson, "the more I think of it, the more I admire Dr.
+Clawbonny's plan."
+
+"It's sure," answered the doctor.
+
+"O, from the moment you opened your mouth they are dead bears, and I
+already feel their fur about my shoulders!"
+
+"To work, then!"
+
+The doctor entered the dark gallery, followed by Bell; where the
+doctor had gone through, his companions were sure to find no
+difficulty; two reached the magazine and entered among the barrels,
+which were all arranged in good order. The doctor gave Bell the
+necessary instructions; the carpenter began work on the wall towards
+the slope, and his companion returned to the house.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Bell worked for an hour, and dug a passage about ten feet long,
+through which one might crawl. Then Altamont took his place, and did
+about as much; the snow which was taken from the gallery was carried
+into the kitchen, where the doctor melted it at the fire, that it
+might take up less room. The captain followed the American; then came
+Johnson. In ten hours, that is to say, at about eight o'clock in the
+morning, the gallery was finished. At daybreak the doctor peeped at
+the bears through a loop-hole in the wall of the powder-magazine.
+
+The patient animals had not left their place; there they were, coming
+and going, growling, but in general patrolling patiently; they kept
+going around the house, which was gradually disappearing beneath the
+snow. But at length they seemed to lose patience, for the doctor saw
+them begin to tear away the ice and snow they had heaped up.
+
+"Good!" he said to the captain, who was standing near him.
+
+"What are they doing?" he asked.
+
+"They seem to be trying to destroy what they have done and to get to
+us! But they'll be destroyed first! At any rate, there is no time to
+lose."
+
+The doctor made his way to the place where the mine was to be laid;
+then he enlarged the chamber all the height and breadth of the slope;
+a layer of ice, only a foot thick at the outside, remained; it had to
+be supported lest it should fall in. A stake resting on the granite
+soil served as a post; the fox's body was fastened to the top, and a
+long knotted cord ran the whole length of the gallery to the magazine.
+The doctor's companions followed his orders without clearly
+understanding his intention.
+
+"This is the bait," he said, pointing to the fox.
+
+At the foot of the post he placed a cask holding about a hundred
+pounds of powder.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"And here is the charge," he added.
+
+"But," asked Hatteras, "sha'n't we blow ourselves up at the same
+time?"
+
+"No, we are far enough off from the explosion; besides, our house is
+solid; and if it is hurt a little we can easily repair it."
+
+"Well," continued Altamont; "but how are you going to set it off?"
+
+"This way. By pulling this cord we pull over the post which holds up
+the ice above the powder; the fox's body will suddenly be seen on the
+slope, and you must confess that the starving animals will rush upon
+this unexpected prey."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Well, at that moment I shall explode the mine, and blow up guest and
+dinner."
+
+"Well, well!" exclaimed Johnson, who was listening eagerly.
+
+Hatteras had perfect confidence in his friend, and asked no question.
+He waited. But Altamont wanted it made perfectly clear.
+
+"Doctor," he began, "how can you calculate the length of the fuse so
+exactly that the explosion will take place at the right moment?"
+
+"It's very simple," answered the doctor; "I don't make any
+calculation."
+
+"But you have a fuse a hundred feet long?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Shall you set a train of powder simply?"
+
+"No! that might fail."
+
+"Will some one have to volunteer and light the powder?"
+
+"If you want any one," said Johnson, eagerly, "I'm your man."
+
+"It's not necessary, my friend," answered the doctor, grasping the
+boatswain's hand; "our five lives are precious, and they will be
+spared, thank God!"
+
+"Then," said the American, "I can't guess."
+
+"Well," answered the doctor, smiling, "if we couldn't get out of this
+little affair, what would be the use of physics?"
+
+"Ah!" said Johnson, brightening up, "physics!"
+
+"Yes! Haven't we here an electric pile and wires long enough,--those,
+you know, which connected with the lighthouse?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, we shall explode the powder when we please, instantly, and
+without danger."
+
+"Hurrah!" shouted Johnson.
+
+"Hurrah!" repeated his companions, not caring whether the enemy heard
+them or not. Soon the electric wires were run through the gallery from
+the house to the chamber of the mine. One of the extremities remained
+at the pile, the other was plunged into the centre of the cask, the
+two ends being placed at but a little distance from one another. At
+nine of the morning all was finished, and it was time; the bears were
+tearing the snow away furiously. The doctor thought the proper time
+had come. Johnson was sent to the magazine and charged with pulling
+the cord fastened to the post. He took his place.
+
+"Now," said the doctor to his companions, "load your guns in case they
+should not be all killed at once, and take your place near Johnson; as
+soon as you hear the explosion, run out."
+
+"All right!" said the American.
+
+"And now we have done all that men can do! We have helped ourselves;
+may God help us!"
+
+Hatteras, Altamont, and Bell went to the magazine. The doctor remained
+alone at the pile. Soon he heard Johnson's voice crying,--
+
+"Ready?"
+
+"All right!" he answered.
+
+Johnson gave a strong pull at the rope; it pulled over the stake; then
+he ran to the loop-hole and looked out. The surface of the slope had
+sunk in. The fox's body was visible upon the shattered ice. The bears,
+at first surprised, crowded about this new prey.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Fire!" shouted Johnson.
+
+The doctor at once established the electric current between the
+threads; a loud explosion followed; the house shook as if in an
+earthquake; the walls fell in. Hatteras, Altamont, and Bell hastened
+out of the magazine, ready to fire. But their guns were not needed;
+four of the five bears fell about them in fragments, while the fifth,
+badly burned, ran away as fast as he could.
+
+[Illustration: "A loud explosion followed."]
+
+"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" shouted the doctor's companions, while they
+crowded about him and embraced him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+THE POLAR SPRING.
+
+
+The prisoners were set free; they expressed their joy by the warmth of
+their thanks to the doctor. Johnson regretted somewhat the skins,
+which were burned and useless; but his regret did not sour his temper.
+They spent the day in repairing the house, which was somewhat injured
+by the explosion. They took away the blocks heaped up by the animals,
+and the walls were made secure. They worked briskly, encouraged by the
+cheery songs of the boatswain.
+
+The next day the weather was much milder; the wind changed suddenly,
+and the thermometer rose to +15°. So great a difference was soon felt
+by both man and nature. The southerly wind brought with it the first
+signs of the polar spring. This comparative warmth lasted for many
+days; the thermometer, sheltered from the wind, even rose as high as
++31°, and there were signs of a thaw. The ice began to crack; a few
+spirts of salt-water arose here and there, like jets in an English
+park; a few days later it rained hard.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A dense vapor arose from the snow; this was a good sign, and the
+melting of the immense masses appeared to be near at hand. The pale
+disk of the sun grew brighter and drew longer spirals above the
+horizon; the night lasted scarcely three hours. Another similar
+symptom was the reappearance of some ptarmigans, arctic geese, plover,
+and flocks of quail; the air was soon filled with the deafening cries
+which they remembered from the previous summer. A few hares, which
+they were able to shoot, appeared on the shores of the bay, as well as
+the arctic mice, the burrows of which were like a honeycomb. The
+doctor called the attention of his friends to the fact that these
+animals began to lose their white winter plumage, or hair, to put on
+their summer dress; they were evidently getting ready for summer,
+while their sustenance appeared in the form of moss, poppy, saxifrage,
+and thin grass. A new life was peering through the melting snows. But
+with the harmless animals returned the famished foes; foxes and wolves
+arrived in search of their prey; mournful howling sounded during the
+brief darkness of the nights.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The wolf of these countries is near of kin to the dog; like him, it
+barks, and often in such a way as to deceive the sharpest ears, those
+of the dogs themselves, for instance; it is even said that they employ
+this device to attract dogs, and then eat them. This has been observed
+on the shores of Hudson's Bay, and the doctor could confirm it at New
+America; Johnson took care not to let loose the dogs of the sledge,
+who might have been destroyed in that way. As for Duke, he had seen
+too many of them, and he was too wise to be caught in any such way.
+
+During a fortnight they hunted a great deal; fresh food was abundant;
+they shot partridges, ptarmigans, and snow-birds, which were delicious
+eating. The hunters did not go far from Fort Providence. In fact,
+small game could almost be killed with a stick; and it gave much
+animation to the silent shores of Victoria Bay,--an unaccustomed sight
+which delighted their eyes.
+
+The fortnight succeeding the great defeat of the bears was taken up
+with different occupations. The thaw advanced steadily; the
+thermometer rose to 32°, and torrents began to roar in the ravines,
+and thousands of cataracts fell down the declivities. The doctor
+cleared an acre of ground and sowed in it cresses, sorrel, and
+cochlearia, which are excellent remedies for the scurvy; the little
+greenish leaves were peeping above the ground when, with incredible
+rapidity, the cold again seized everything.
+
+In a single night, with a violent north-wind, the thermometer fell
+forty degrees, to -8°. Everything was frozen; birds, quadrupeds, and
+seals disappeared as if by magic; the holes for the seals were closed,
+the crevasses disappeared, the ice became as hard as granite, and the
+waterfalls hung like long crystal pendants.
+
+It was a total change to the eye; it took place in the night of May
+11-12. And when Bell the next morning put his nose out of doors into
+this sharp frost, he nearly left it there.
+
+"O, this polar climate!" cried the doctor, a little disappointed;
+"that's the way it goes! Well, I shall have to begin sowing again."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Hatteras took things less philosophically, so eager was he to renew
+his explorations. But he had to resign himself.
+
+"Will this cold weather last long?" asked Johnson.
+
+"No, my friend, no," answered Clawbonny; "it's the last touch of
+winter we shall have! You know it's at home here, and we can't drive
+it away against its will."
+
+"It defends itself well," said Bell, rubbing his face.
+
+"Yes, but I ought to have expected it," said the doctor; "and I should
+not have thrown the seed away so stupidly, especially since I might
+have started them near the kitchen stove."
+
+"What!" asked Altamont, "could you have foreseen this change of
+weather?"
+
+"Certainly, and without resorting to magic. I ought to have put the
+seed under the protection of Saints Mamert, Panera, and Servais, whose
+days are the 11th, 12th, and 13th of this month."
+
+"Well, Doctor," said Altamont, "will you tell me what influence these
+three saints have on the weather?"
+
+"A very great influence, to believe gardeners, who call them the three
+saints of ice."
+
+"And why so, pray?"
+
+"Because generally there is a periodic frost in the month of May, and
+the greatest fall of temperature takes place from the 11th to the 13th
+of this month. It is a fact, that is all."
+
+"It is curious, but what is the explanation?" asked the American.
+
+"There are two: either by the interposition of a greater number of
+asteroids between the earth and the sun at this season, or simply by
+the melting of the snow, which thereby absorbs a great quantity of
+heat. Both explanations are plausible; must they be received? I don't
+know; but if I'm uncertain of the truth of the explanation, I ought
+not to have been of the fact, and so lose my crop."
+
+The doctor was right; for one reason or another the cold was very
+intense during the rest of the month of May; their hunting was
+interrupted, not so much by the severity of the weather as by the
+absence of game; fortunately, the supply of fresh meat was not yet
+quite exhausted. They found themselves accordingly condemned to new
+inactivity; for a fortnight, from the 11th to the 25th of May, only
+one incident broke the monotony of their lives; a serious illness,
+diphtheria, suddenly seized the carpenter; from the swollen tonsils
+and the false membrane in the throat, the doctor could not be ignorant
+of the nature of the disease; but he was in his element, and he soon
+drove it away, for evidently it had not counted on meeting him; his
+treatment was very simple, and the medicines were not hard to get; the
+doctor simply prescribed pieces of ice to be held in the mouth; in a
+few hours the swelling went down and the false membrane disappeared;
+twenty-four hours later Bell was up again.
+
+When the others wondered at the doctor's prescriptions: "This is the
+land of these complaints," he answered; "the cure must be near the
+disease."
+
+"The cure, and especially the doctor," added Johnson, in whose mind
+the doctor was assuming colossal proportions.
+
+During this new leisure the latter resolved to have a serious talk
+with the captain; he wanted to induce Hatteras to give up his
+intention of going northward without carrying some sort of a boat; a
+piece of wood, something with which he could cross an arm of the sea,
+if they should meet one. The captain, who was fixed in his views, had
+formally vowed not to use a boat made of the fragments of the American
+ship. The doctor was uncertain how to broach the subject, and yet a
+speedy decision was important, for the month of June would be the time
+for distant excursions. At last, after long reflection, he took
+Hatteras aside one day, and with his usual air of kindness said to
+him,--
+
+"Hatteras, you know I am your friend?"
+
+"Certainly," answered the captain, warmly, "my best friend; indeed, my
+only one."
+
+"If I give you a piece of advice," resumed the doctor, "advice which
+you don't ask for, would you consider it disinterested?"
+
+"Yes, for I know that selfish interest has never been your guide; but
+what do you want to say?"
+
+"One moment, Hatteras; I have something else to ask of you: Do you
+consider me a true Englishman like yourself, and eager for the glory
+of my country?"
+
+Hatteras looked at the doctor with surprise.
+
+"Yes," he answered, with his face expressing surprise at the question.
+
+"You want to reach the North Pole," resumed the doctor; "I understand
+your ambition, I share it, but to reach this end we need the means."
+
+"Well, haven't I so far sacrificed everything in order to succeed?"
+
+"No, Hatteras, you have not sacrificed your personal prejudices, and
+at this moment I see that you are ready to refuse the indispensable
+means of reaching the Pole."
+
+"Ah!" answered Hatteras, "you mean the launch; this man--"
+
+"Come, Hatteras, let us argue coolly, without passion, and look at all
+sides of the question. The line of the coast on which we have wintered
+may be broken; there is no proof that it runs six degrees to the
+north; if the information which has brought you so far is right, we
+ought to find a vast extent of open sea during the summer months. Now,
+with the Arctic Ocean before us, free of ice and favorable for
+navigation, what shall we do if we lack the means of crossing it?"
+
+Hatteras made no answer.
+
+"Do you want to be within a few miles of the Pole without being able
+to reach it?"
+
+Hatteras's head sank into his hands.
+
+"And now," continued the doctor, "let us look at the question from a
+moral point of view. I can understand that an Englishman should give
+up his life and his fortune for the honor of his country. But because
+a boat made of a few planks torn from a wrecked American ship first
+touches the coast or crosses the unknown ocean, can that diminish the
+honor of the discovery? If you found on this shore the hull of an
+abandoned ship, should you hesitate to make use of it? Doesn't the
+glory of success belong to the head of the expedition? And I ask you
+if this launch built by four Englishmen, manned by four Englishmen,
+would not be English from keel to gunwale?"
+
+Hatteras was still silent.
+
+"No," said Clawbonny, "let us talk frankly; it's not the boat you
+mind, it's the man."
+
+"Yes, Doctor, yes," answered the captain, "that American; I hate him
+with real English hate, that man thrown in my way by chance--"
+
+"To save you!"
+
+"To ruin me! He seems to defy me, to act as master, to imagine he
+holds my fate in his hands, and to have guessed my plans. Didn't he
+show his character when we were giving names to the new lands? Has he
+ever said what he was doing here? You can't free me of the idea which
+is killing me, that this man is the head of an expedition sent out by
+the government of the United States."
+
+"And if he is, Hatteras, what is there to show that he is in search of
+the Pole? Can't America try to discover the Northwest Passage as well
+as England? At any rate, Altamont is perfectly ignorant of your plans;
+for neither Johnson nor Bell nor you nor I has said a single word
+about them in his presence."
+
+"Well, I hope he'll never know them!"
+
+"He will know them finally, of course, for we can't leave him alone
+here."
+
+"Why not?" asked the captain, with some violence; "can't he remain at
+Fort Providence?"
+
+"He would never give his consent, Hatteras; and then to leave him
+here, uncertain of finding him again, would be more than imprudent, it
+would be inhuman. Altamont will come with us; he must come! But since
+there is no need of suggesting new ideas to him, let us say nothing,
+and build a launch apparently for reconnoitring these new shores."
+
+Hatteras could not make up his mind to accede to the demands of his
+friend, who waited for an answer which did not come.
+
+"And if he refused to let us tear his ship to pieces!" said the
+captain, finally.
+
+"In that case, you would have the right on your side; you could build
+the boat in spite of him, and he could do nothing about it."
+
+"I hope he will refuse," exclaimed Hatteras.
+
+"Before he refuses," answered the doctor, "he must be asked. I will
+undertake to do it."
+
+In fact, that evening, before supper, Clawbonny turned the
+conversation to certain proposed expeditions in the summer months for
+hydrographic observations.
+
+"I suppose, Altamont," he said, "that you will join us?"
+
+"Certainly," was the reply; "we must know how large New America is."
+
+Hatteras gazed earnestly at his rival while he made his answer.
+
+"And for that," continued Altamont, "we must make the best use we can
+of the fragments of the _Porpoise_; let us make a strong boat which
+can carry us far."
+
+"You hear, Bell," said the doctor, quickly; "to-morrow we shall set to
+work."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE.
+
+
+The next day Bell, Altamont, and the doctor went to the _Porpoise_;
+they found no lack of wood; the old three-masted launch, though
+injured by being wrecked, could still supply abundant material for the
+new one. The carpenter set to work at once; they needed a seaworthy
+boat, which should yet be light enough to carry on a sledge. Towards
+the end of May the weather grew warmer; the thermometer rose above the
+freezing-point; the spring came in earnest this time, and the men were
+able to lay aside their winter clothing. Much rain fell, and soon the
+snow began to slide and melt away. Hatteras could not hide his joy at
+seeing the first signs of thaw in the ice-fields. The open sea meant
+liberty for him.
+
+[Illustration: "The carpenter set to work at once."]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Whether or not his predecessors had been wrong on this great question
+of an open polar sea, he hoped soon to know. All chance of success in
+his undertaking depended on this. One evening, after a warm day in
+which the ice had given unmistakable signs of breaking up, he turned
+the conversation to the question of an open sea. He took up the
+familiar arguments, and found the doctor, as ever, a warm advocate of
+his doctrine. Besides, his conclusions were evidently accurate.
+
+"It is plain," he said, "that if the ocean before Victoria Bay gets
+clear of ice, its southern part will also be clear as far as New
+Cornwall and Queen's Channel. Penny and Belcher saw it in that state,
+and they certainly saw clearly."
+
+"I agree with you, Hatteras," answered the doctor, "and I have no
+reason for doubting the word of these sailors; a vain attempt has been
+made to explain their discovery as an effect of mirage; but they were
+so certain, it was impossible that they could have made such a
+mistake."
+
+"I always thought so," said Altamont; "the polar basin extends to the
+east as well as to the west."
+
+"We can suppose so, at any rate," answered Hatteras.
+
+"We ought to suppose so," continued the American, "for this open sea
+which Captains Penny and Belcher saw near the coast of Grinnell Land
+was seen by Morton, Kane's lieutenant, in the straits which are named
+after that bold explorer."
+
+"We are not in Kane's sea," answered Hatteras, coldly, "and
+consequently we cannot verify the fact."
+
+"It is supposable, at least," said Altamont.
+
+"Certainly," replied the doctor, who wished to avoid useless
+discussion. "What Altamont thinks ought to be the truth; unless there
+is a peculiar disposition of the surrounding land, the same effects
+appear at the same latitudes. Hence I believe the sea is open in the
+east as well as in the west."
+
+"At any rate, it makes very little difference to us," said Hatteras.
+
+"I don't agree with you, Hatteras," resumed the American, who was
+beginning to be annoyed by the affected unconcern of the captain; "it
+may make considerable difference to us."
+
+"And when, if I may ask?"
+
+"When we think of returning."
+
+"Returning!" cried Hatteras, "and who's thinking of that?"
+
+"No one," answered Altamont; "but we shall stop somewhere, I suppose."
+
+"And where?" asked Hatteras.
+
+For the first time the question was fairly put to Altamont. The doctor
+would have given one of his arms to have put a stop to the discussion.
+Since Altamont made no answer, the captain repeated his question.
+
+"And where?"
+
+"Where we are going," answered the American, quietly.
+
+"And who knows where that is?" said the peace-loving doctor.
+
+"I say, then," Altamont went on, "that if we want to make use of the
+polar basin in returning, we can try to gain Kane's sea; it will lead
+us more directly to Baffin's Bay."
+
+"So that is your idea?" asked the captain, ironically.
+
+"Yes, that is my idea, as it is that if these seas ever become
+practicable, they will be reached by the straightest way. O, that was
+a great discovery of Captain Kane's!"
+
+"Indeed!" said Hatteras, biting his lips till they bled.
+
+"Yes," said the doctor, "that cannot be denied; every one should have
+the praise he deserves."
+
+"Without considering," went on the obstinate American, "that no one
+had ever before gone so far to the north."
+
+"I like to think," said Hatteras, "that now the English have got ahead
+of him."
+
+"And the Americans!" said Altamont.
+
+"Americans!" repeated Hatteras.
+
+"What am I, then?" asked Altamont, proudly.
+
+"You are," answered Hatteras, who could hardly control his
+voice,--"you are a man who presumes to accord equal glory to science
+and to chance! Your American captain went far to the north, but as
+chance alone--"
+
+"Chance!" shouted Altamont; "do you dare to say that this great
+discovery is not due to Kane's energy and knowledge?"
+
+"I say," answered Hatteras, "that Kane's name is not fit to be
+pronounced in a country made famous by Parry, Franklin, Ross, Belcher,
+and Penny in these seas which opened the Northwest Passage to
+MacClure--"
+
+"MacClure!" interrupted the American; "you mention that man, and yet
+you complain of the work of chance? Wasn't it chance alone that
+favored him?"
+
+"No," answered Hatteras, warmly,--"no! It was his courage, his
+perseverance in spending four winters in the ice--"
+
+"I should think so!" retorted the American; "he got caught in the ice
+and couldn't get out, and he had to abandon the _Investigator_ at last
+to go back to England."
+
+"My friends--" said the doctor.
+
+"Besides," Altamont went on, "let us consider the result. You speak of
+the Northwest Passage; well, it has yet to be discovered!"
+
+Hatteras started at these words; no more vexatious question could have
+arisen between two rival nationalities. The doctor again tried to
+intervene.
+
+"You are mistaken, Altamont," he said.
+
+"No, I persist in my opinions," he said obstinately; "the Northwest
+Passage is yet to be found, to be sailed through, if you like that any
+better! MacClure never penetrated it, and to this day no ship that has
+sailed from Behring Strait has reached Baffin's Bay!"
+
+That was true, speaking exactly. What answer could be made?
+
+Nevertheless, Hatteras rose to his feet and said,--
+
+"I shall not permit the good name of an English captain to be attacked
+any further in my presence."
+
+"You will not permit it?" answered the American, who also rose to his
+feet; "but these are the facts, and it is beyond your power to destroy
+them."
+
+"Sir!" said Hatteras, pale with anger.
+
+"My friends," said the doctor, "don't get excited! We are discussing a
+scientific subject."
+
+Clawbonny looked with horror at a scientific discussion into which the
+hate of an American and an Englishman could enter.
+
+"I am going to give you the facts," began Hatteras, threateningly.
+
+"But I'm speaking now!" retorted the American.
+
+Johnson and Bell became very uneasy.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the doctor, severely, "let me say a word! I insist
+upon it, I know the facts as well, better than you do, and I can speak
+of them impartially."
+
+"Yes, yes," said Bell and Johnson, who were distressed at the turn the
+discussion had taken, and who formed a majority favorable to the
+doctor.
+
+"Go on, Doctor," said Johnson, "these gentlemen will listen, and you
+cannot fail to give us some information."
+
+"Go on, Doctor," said the American.
+
+Hatteras resumed his place with a sign of acquiescence, and folded his
+arms.
+
+"I will tell the simple truth about the facts," said the doctor, "and
+you must correct me if I omit or alter any detail."
+
+"We know you, Doctor," said Bell, "and you can speak without fear of
+interruption."
+
+"Here is the chart of the Polar Seas," resumed the doctor, who had
+brought it to the table; "it will be easy to trace MacClure's course,
+and you will be able to make up your minds for yourselves."
+
+Thereupon he unrolled one of the excellent maps published by order of
+the Admiralty, containing the latest discoveries in arctic regions;
+then he went on:--
+
+"You know, in 1848, two ships, the _Herald_, Captain Kellet, and the
+_Plover_, Commander Moore, were sent to Behring Strait in search of
+traces of Franklin; their search was vain; in 1850 they were joined by
+MacClure, who commanded the _Investigator_, a ship in which he had
+sailed, in 1849, under James Ross's orders. He was followed by Captain
+Collinson, his chief, who sailed in the _Enterprise_; but he arrived
+before him. At Behring Strait he declared he would wait no longer, and
+that he would go alone, on his own responsibility, and--you hear me,
+Altamont--that he would find either Franklin or the passage."
+
+Altamont showed neither approbation nor the contrary.
+
+"August 5, 1850," continued the doctor, "after a final communication
+with the _Plover_, MacClure sailed eastward by an almost unknown
+route; see how little land is marked upon the chart. August 30th he
+rounded Cape Bathurst; September 6th he discovered Baring Land, which
+he afterwards discovered to form part of Banks Land, then Prince
+Albert's Land. Then he resolved to enter the long straits between
+these two large islands, and he called it Prince of Wales Strait. You
+can follow his plan. He hoped to come out in Melville Sound, which we
+have just crossed, and with reason; but the ice at the end of the
+strait formed an impassable barrier. There MacClure wintered in
+1850-51, and meanwhile he pushed on over the ice, to make sure that
+the strait connected with the sound."
+
+"Yes," said Altamont, "but he didn't succeed."
+
+"One moment," said the doctor. "While wintering there, MacClure's
+officers explored all the neighboring coasts: Creswell, Baring's Land;
+Haswell, Prince Albert's Land, to the south; and Wynniat, Cape Walker,
+to the north. In July, at the beginning of the thaw, MacClure tried a
+second time to carry the _Investigator_ to Melville Sound; he got
+within twenty miles of it, twenty miles only, but the winds carried
+him with irresistible force to the south, before he could get through
+the obstacle. Then he determined to go back through Prince of Wales
+Strait, and go around Banks Land, to try at the west what he could not
+do in the east; he put about; the 18th he rounded Cape Kellet; the
+19th, Cape Prince Alfred, two degrees higher; then, after a hard
+struggle with the icebergs, he was caught in Banks Strait, in the
+series of straits leading to Baffin's Bay."
+
+[Illustration: "A hard struggle with the icebergs."]
+
+"But he couldn't get through them," said Altamont.
+
+"Wait a moment, and be as patient as MacClure was. September 26th, he
+took his station for the winter in Mercy Bay, and stayed there till
+1852. April came; MacClure had supplies for only eighteen months.
+Nevertheless, he was unwilling to return; he started, crossing Banks
+Strait by sledge, and reached Melville Island. Let us follow him. He
+hoped to find here Commander Austin's ships, which were sent to meet
+him by Baffin's Bay and Lancaster Sound; April 28th he arrived at
+Winter Harbor, at the place where Parry had wintered thirty-three
+years previously, but no trace of the ships; only he found in a cairn
+a paper, telling him that MacClintock, Austin's lieutenant, had been
+there the year before, and gone away. Any one else would have been in
+despair, but MacClure was not. He put in the cairn another paper, in
+which he announced his intention of returning to England by the
+Northwest Passage, which he had discovered by reaching Baffin's Bay
+and Lancaster Sound. If he is not heard from again, it will be because
+he will have been to the north or west of Melville Island; then he
+returned, not discouraged, to Mercy Bay for the third winter,
+1852-53."
+
+"I have never doubted his courage," said Altamont, "but his success."
+
+"Let us follow him again," resumed the doctor. "In the month of March,
+being on two-thirds rations, at the end of a very severe winter, when
+no game was to be had, MacClure determined to send back half of his
+crew to England, either by Baffin's Bay, or by Mackenzie River and
+Hudson's Bay; the other half was to bring the _Investigator_ back. He
+chose the weakest men, who could not stand a fourth winter; everything
+was ready, and their departure settled for April 15th, when on the
+6th, MacClure, who was walking on the ice with his lieutenant,
+Creswell, saw a man running northward and gesticulating; it was
+Lieutenant Pim of the _Herald_, lieutenant of the same Captain Kellet
+whom two years before he had left at Behring Strait, as I said when I
+began. Kellet, having reached Winter Harbor, found the paper left
+there by MacClure; having heard in that way of his position in Mercy
+Bay, he sent Lieutenant Pim to meet the captain. He was followed by a
+detachment of the men of the _Herald_, among whom was a midshipman of
+a French ship, M. de Bray, who was a volunteer aid of Captain Kellet.
+You don't doubt this meeting?"
+
+[Illustration: MacClure saw a man running and gesticulating.]
+
+"Not at all," answered Altamont.
+
+"Well, see what followed, and whether the Northwest Passage was really
+made. If you join Parry's discoveries to those of MacClure, you will
+see the northern coast of America was rounded."
+
+"But not by a single ship," said Altamont.
+
+"No, but by a single man. Let us go on. MacClure went to see Captain
+Kellet at Melville Island; in twelve days he made the one hundred and
+seventy miles between Winter Harbor and the island; he agreed with the
+commander of the _Herald_ to send him his sick, and returned; many
+others would have thought, had they been in MacClure's place, that
+they had done enough, but this bold young man determined to try his
+fortune again. Then, and please observe this, Lieutenant Creswell,
+with the sick and disabled men of the _Investigator_, left Mercy Bay,
+reached Winter Harbor, and from there, after a journey of four hundred
+and seventy miles on the ice, reached Beechey Island, June 2d, and a
+few days later, with twelve of his men, he took passage on board of
+the _Phoenix_."
+
+"In which I was at the time," said Johnson, "with Captain Inglefield,
+and we returned to England."
+
+"And October 7, 1853," continued the doctor, "Creswell arrived at
+London, after having crossed over the whole distance between Behring
+Strait and Cape Farewell."
+
+"Well," said Hatteras, "to enter at one end and go out by the other,
+isn't that going through?"
+
+"Yes," answered Altamont, "but by going four hundred and seventy miles
+over the ice."
+
+"Well, what difference does that make?"
+
+"The whole," answered the American. "Did MacClure's ship make the
+passage?"
+
+"No," answered the doctor, "for after a fourth winter, MacClure was
+obliged to leave it in the ice."
+
+"Well, in a sea-voyage it's important to have the ship reach her
+destination. If the Northwest Passage ever becomes practicable, it
+must be for ships and not for sledges. The ship must accomplish the
+voyage, or if not the ship, the launch."
+
+"The launch!" shouted Hatteras, who detected the hidden meaning in the
+American's words.
+
+"Altamont," said the doctor, hurriedly, "you make a puerile
+distinction, and we all consider you wrong."
+
+"That is easy, gentlemen," answered the American; "you are four to
+one. But that won't keep me from holding my own opinion."
+
+"Keep it," said Hatteras, "and so closely that we need hear nothing
+about it."
+
+"And what right have you to speak to me in that way?" asked the
+American in a rage.
+
+"My right as captain," answered Hatteras.
+
+"Am I under your commands?" retorted Altamont.
+
+"Without doubt, and look out for yourself, if--"
+
+The doctor, Johnson, and Bell intervened. It was time; the two enemies
+were gazing at one another. The doctor was very anxious. Still, after
+a few gentler words, Altamont went off to bed whistling "Yankee
+Doodle," and, whether he slept or not, he did not speak. Hatteras went
+out and paced up and down for an hour, and then he turned in without
+saying a word.
+
+[Illustration: "The doctor, Johnson, and Bell intervened. It was time;
+the two enemies were gazing at one another."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+NORTHERN ARCADIA.
+
+
+On May 29th, for the first time, the sun did not set; it merely
+touched the horizon and then rose at once; the day was twenty-four
+hours long. The next day it was surrounded by a magnificent halo, a
+bright circle with all the colors of the prism; this apparition, which
+was by no means rare, always attracted the doctor's attention; he
+never failed to note the date and appearance of the phenomenon; the
+one he saw on that day was of an elliptic shape, which he had seldom
+seen before.
+
+Soon the noisy flocks of birds appeared; bustards and wild geese came
+from Florida or Arkansas, flying northward with inconceivable rapidity
+and bringing the spring with them. The doctor shot a few, as well as
+three or four cranes and a single stork. However, the snow was melting
+everywhere beneath the sun; the salt-water, which overran the
+ice-field through the crevasses and the seal-holes, hastened the
+melting; the ice which was mingled with salt-water formed a soft
+slush. Large pools appeared on the land near the bay, and the exposed
+soil seemed to be a production of the arctic spring.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The doctor then resumed his planting; he had plenty of seed; besides,
+he was surprised to see a sort of sorrel growing naturally between the
+dried rocks, and he wondered at the force of nature which demanded so
+little in order to manifest itself. He sowed some cresses, of which
+the young sprouts, three weeks later, were already an inch long.
+
+The heath began to show timidly its little pale, rosy flowers. In
+fact, the flora of New America is very defective; still, this rare
+vegetation was agreeable to their eyes; it was all the feeble rays of
+the sun could nourish, a trace of the Providence which had not
+completely forgotten these distant countries. At last it became really
+warm; June 15th the thermometer stood at 57°; the doctor could hardly
+believe his eyes; the country changed its appearance; numerous noisy
+cascades fell from the sunny summits of the hills; the ice loosened,
+and the great question of an open sea would soon be decided. The air
+was full of the noise of avalanches falling from the hills to the
+bottom of the ravines, and the cracking of the ice-field produced a
+deafening sound.
+
+A trip was made to Johnson Island; it was merely an unimportant, arid,
+barren island; but the old boatswain was no less proud of giving his
+name to a few desolate rocks. He even wanted to carve it on a high
+peak. During this excursion, Hatteras had carefully explored these
+lands, even beyond Cape Washington; the melting of the snow sensibly
+changed the country; ravines and hillocks appeared here and there,
+where the snow indicated nothing but monotonous stretches. The house
+and magazines threatened to melt away, and they had frequently to be
+repaired; fortunately, a temperature of 57° is rare in these
+latitudes, and the mean is hardly above the freezing-point.
+
+By the middle of June the launch was far advanced and getting into
+shape. While Bell and Johnson were working at it, the others had a few
+successful hunts. Reindeer were shot, although they are hard to
+approach; but Altamont put in practice a device employed by the
+Indians of his own country; he crept over the ground with his gun and
+arms outstretched like the horns of one of these shy animals, and
+having thus come within easy gunshot, he could not fail.
+
+But the best game, the musk-ox, of which Parry found plenty at
+Melville Island, appeared not to frequent the shores of Victoria Bay.
+A distant hunt was determined on, as much to get these valuable
+animals as to reconnoitre the eastern lands. Hatteras did not propose
+to reach the Pole by this part of the continent, but the doctor was
+not sorry to get a general idea of the country. Hence they decided to
+start to the east of Fort Providence. Altamont intended to hunt; Duke
+naturally was of the party.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+So, Monday, June 17th, a pleasant day, with the thermometer at 41°,
+and the air quiet and clear, the three hunters, each carrying a
+double-barrelled gun, a hatchet, a snow-knife, and followed by Duke,
+left Doctor's House at six o'clock in the morning. They were fitted
+out for a trip of two or three days, with the requisite amount of
+provisions. By eight o'clock Hatteras and his two companions had gone
+eight miles. Not a living thing had tempted a shot, and their hunt
+threatened to be merely a trip.
+
+This new country exhibited vast plains running out of sight; new
+streams divided them everywhere, and large, unruffled pools reflected
+the sun. The layers of melting ice bared the ground to their feet; it
+belonged to the great division of sedimentary earth, and the result of
+the action of the water, which is so common on the surface of the
+globe. Still a few erratic blocks were seen of a singular nature,
+foreign to the soil where they were found, and whose presence it was
+hard to explain. Schists and different productions of limestone were
+found in abundance, as was also a sort of strange, transparent,
+colorless crystal, which has a refraction peculiar to Iceland spar.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But, although he was not hunting, the doctor had not time to
+geologize; he had to walk too quickly, in order to keep up with his
+friends. Still, he observed the land and talked as much as possible,
+for had he not there would have been total silence in the little band;
+neither Altamont nor the captain had any desire to talk to one
+another.
+
+By ten o'clock the hunters had got a dozen miles to the east; the sea
+was hidden beneath the horizon; the doctor proposed a halt for
+breakfast. They swallowed it rapidly, and in half an hour they were
+off again. The ground was sloping gently; a few patches of snow,
+preserved either by their position or the slope of the rocks, gave it
+a woolly appearance, like waves in a high wind. The country was still
+barren, and looking as if no living being had ever set foot in it.
+
+"We have no luck," said Altamont to the doctor; "to be sure, the
+country doesn't offer much food to animals, but the game here ought
+not to be over-particular, and ought to show itself."
+
+"Don't let us despair," said the doctor; "the summer has hardly begun;
+and if Parry met so many animals at Melville Island, we may be as
+lucky here."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Still, we are farther north," said Hatteras.
+
+"Certainly, but that is unimportant; it is the pole of cold we ought
+to consider; that is to say, that icy wilderness in the middle of
+which we wintered with the _Forward_; now the farther north we go, the
+farther we are from the coldest part of the globe; we ought to find,
+beyond, what Parry, Ross, and others found on the other side."
+
+"Well," said Altamont, with a regretful sigh, "so far we've been
+travellers rather than hunters."
+
+"Be patient," answered the doctor; "the country is changing gradually,
+and I should be astonished if we don't find game enough in the ravines
+where vegetation has had a chance to sprout."
+
+"It must be said," continued Altamont, "that we are going through an
+uninhabited and uninhabitable country."
+
+"O, uninhabitable is a strong word!" answered the doctor; "I can't
+believe any land uninhabitable; man, by many sacrifices, and for
+generations using all the resources of science, might finally
+fertilize such a country."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Do you think so?" asked Altamont.
+
+"Without doubt! If you were to go to the celebrated countries of the
+world, to Thebes, Nineveh, or Babylon, in the fertile valleys of our
+ancestors, it would seem impossible that men should ever have lived
+there; the air itself has grown bad since the disappearance of human
+beings. It is the general law of nature which makes those countries in
+which we do not live unhealthy and sterile, like those out of which
+life has died. In fact, man himself makes his own country by his
+presence, his habits, his industry, and, I might add, by his breath;
+he gradually modifies the exhalations of the soil and the atmospheric
+conditions, and he makes the air he breathes wholesome. So there are
+uninhabited lands, I grant, but none uninhabitable."
+
+Talking in this way, the hunters, who had become naturalists, pushed
+on and reached a sort of valley, fully exposed, at the bottom of which
+a river, nearly free of ice, was flowing; its southern exposure had
+brought forth a certain amount of vegetation. The earth showed a
+strong desire to grow fertile; with a few inches of rich soil it would
+have produced a good deal. The doctor called their attention to these
+indications.
+
+"See," he said, "a few hardy colonists might settle in this ravine.
+With industry and perseverance they could do a great deal; not as much
+as is seen in the temperate zones, but a respectable show. If I am not
+mistaken, there are some four-footed animals! They know the good
+spots."
+
+"They are Arctic hares," shouted Altamont, cocking his gun.
+
+"Wait a moment," cried the doctor,--"wait a moment, you hasty fellow.
+They don't think of running away! See, they'll come to us!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And, in fact, three or four young hares, springing about in the heath
+and young moss, ran boldly towards the three men; they were so cunning
+that even Altamont was softened.
+
+Soon they were between the doctor's legs; he caressed them with his
+hand, saying,--
+
+"Why shoot these little animals which come to be petted? We need not
+kill them."
+
+"You are right, Doctor," answered Hatteras; "we'll let them live."
+
+"And these ptarmigan, too, which are flying towards us!" cried
+Altamont; "and these long-legged water-fowl!"
+
+A whole flock of birds passed over the hunters, not suspecting the
+peril from which the doctor's presence saved them. Even Duke was
+compelled to admire them.
+
+They were a curious and touching sight, flying about without fear,
+resting on Clawbonny's shoulders, lying at his feet, offering
+themselves to his caresses, seeming to do their best to welcome their
+new guests; they called one another joyously, flying from the most
+distant points; the doctor seemed to be a real bird-charmer. The
+hunters continued their march up the moist banks of the brook,
+followed by the familiar band, and turning from the valley they
+perceived a troop of eight or ten reindeer browsing on a few lichens
+half buried beneath the snow; they were graceful, quiet animals, with
+their branching antlers, which the female carried as well as the male;
+their wool-like fur was already losing its winter whiteness in favor
+of the summer brown and gray; they seemed no more timid than the hares
+and birds of the country. Such were the relations of the first men to
+the first animals in the early ages of the world.
+
+[Illustration: "They were a curious and touching sight, flying about
+without fear, resting on Clawbonny's shoulders," etc.]
+
+The hunters reached the middle of the band without any one flying;
+this time the doctor found it hard to restrain the instincts of
+Altamont, who could not calmly look on this game without a thirst for
+blood rising in his brain. Hatteras looked mildly at these gentle
+beasts, who rubbed their noses against the doctor's clothes; he was
+the friend of all the animals.
+
+"But," said Altamont, "didn't we come here to shoot?"
+
+"To shoot musk-ox," answered Clawbonny, "and nothing else! We should
+have no need of this game; we have food enough, so let us enjoy the
+sight of man walking thus among these animals, without alarming them."
+
+"That proves they have never seen one before," said Hatteras.
+
+"Evidently," answered the doctor; "and so we can be sure that these
+animals are not of American origin."
+
+"And why so?" said Altamont.
+
+"If they were born on the continent of North America, they would know
+what to think of men, and they would have fled at the sight of us. No;
+they probably came from the north, from those unknown lands where our
+kind has never set foot, and they have crossed the continents near the
+Pole. So, Altamont, you can't claim them as your fellow-countrymen."
+
+"O," answered Altamont, "a hunter does not scrutinize so closely, and
+the game belongs to the land where it was shot!"
+
+"Well, calm yourself, my Nimrod! As for me, I would rather never fire
+a gun in my life than alarm this timid population. See, even Duke
+fraternizes with the charming beasts! Come, we'll be kind when we can!
+Kindness is a force!"
+
+"Well, well," answered Altamont, who sympathized but slightly with
+this sensitiveness; "but I should be amused to see you armed with this
+kindness alone among a flock of bears or wolves!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"O, I don't pretend to charm wild beasts!" answered the doctor; "I
+have little faith in the enchantment of Orpheus; besides, bears and
+wolves wouldn't come up to us like the hares, partridges, and
+reindeer."
+
+"Why not," answered Altamont, "if they have never seen men?"
+
+"Because they are naturally ferocious, and ferocity, like
+maliciousness, begets suspicion; a remark which is true of man as well
+as of animals. A wicked man is distrustful, and fear is commonly found
+in those who are able to inspire it."
+
+This little lesson in natural philosophy ended the conversation.
+
+The whole day was passed in this Northern Arcadia, as the doctor named
+the valley, with the consent of his companions; and that evening,
+after a supper which had not cost the life of a single inhabitant of
+the country, the three hunters went to sleep in a cleft of a rock
+which was admirably adapted for a shelter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+ALTAMONT'S REVENGE.
+
+
+The next day the doctor and his two companions woke up after a
+perfectly quiet night. The cold, although not keen, increased towards
+daybreak, but they were well covered, and slept soundly under the
+watch of the peaceful animals.
+
+The weather being pleasant, they resolved to consecrate the day to a
+reconnaissance of the country, and the search of musk-oxen. Altamont
+insisted on shooting something, and they decided that, even if these
+oxen should be the gentlest animals in the world, they should be shot.
+Besides, their flesh, although strongly flavored with musk, was
+pleasant eating, and they all hoped to carry back to Fort Providence a
+good supply of it.
+
+During the early morning hours nothing noteworthy took place; the land
+grew different in the northeast; a few elevations, the beginning of a
+mountainous district, indicated a change. If this New America were not
+a continent, it was at any rate an important island; but then they did
+not have to trouble themselves about its geography.
+
+Duke ran ahead, and soon came across some traces of a herd of
+musk-oxen; he then advanced rapidly, and soon disappeared from the
+eyes of the hunters. They followed his clear barking, which soon grew
+so hasty that they knew he had discovered the object of their search.
+They pushed on, and in an hour and a half they came up to two of these
+animals; they were large, and formidable in appearance. They appeared
+much surprised at Duke's attacks, but not alarmed; they were feeding
+off a sort of reddish moss which grew on the thin soil. The doctor
+recognized them at once from their moderate height, their horns, which
+were broad at the base, the absence of muzzle, their sheep-like
+forehead, and short tail; their shape has earned for them from
+naturalists the name of "ovibos," a compound, and which expresses the
+two sorts of animals whose characteristics they share. Thick, long
+hair and a sort of delicate brown silk formed their fur.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+They ran away when they saw the two hunters, who came running up after
+them. It was hard to reach them for men who were out of breath after
+running half an hour. Hatteras and his companions stopped.
+
+"The Devil!" said Altamont.
+
+"That's just the word," said the doctor, as soon as he could take
+breath. "I'll grant they are Americans, and they can't have a very
+good idea of your countrymen."
+
+"That proves we are good hunters," answered Altamont.
+
+Still, the musk-oxen, seeing they were not pursued, stopped in a
+posture of surprise. It became evident that they could never be run
+down; they would have to be surrounded; the plateau on which they were
+aided this manoeuvre. The hunters, leaving Duke to harass them,
+descended through the neighboring ravines, so as to get around the
+plateau. Altamont and the doctor hid behind a rock at one end, while
+Hatteras, suddenly advancing from the other end, should drive the oxen
+towards them. In half an hour each had gained his post.
+
+"You don't object any longer to our shooting?" asked Altamont.
+
+"No, it's fair fighting," answered the doctor, who, in spite of
+gentleness, was a real sportsman.
+
+They were talking in this way, when they saw the oxen running, and
+Duke at their heels; farther on Hatteras was driving them, with loud
+cries, towards the American and the doctor, who ran to meet this
+magnificent prey.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+At once the oxen stopped, and, less fearful of a single enemy, they
+turned upon Hatteras. He awaited them calmly, aimed at the nearest,
+and fired; but the bullet struck the animal in the middle of his
+forehead, without penetrating the skull. Hatteras's second shot
+produced no other effect than to make the beasts furious; they ran to
+the disarmed hunter, and threw him down at once.
+
+"He is lost," cried the doctor.
+
+At the moment Clawbonny pronounced these words with an accent of
+despair, Altamont made a step forward to run to Hatteras's aid; then
+he stopped, struggling against himself and his prejudices.
+
+"No," he cried, "that would be cowardice."
+
+He hastened with Clawbonny to the scene of combat. His hesitation had
+not lasted half a second. But if the doctor saw what was taking place
+in the American's heart, Hatteras understood it, who would rather have
+died than have implored his rival's interference. Still, he had hardly
+time to perceive it, for Altamont appeared before him. Hatteras, lying
+on the ground, was trying to ward off the horns and hoofs of the two
+animals. But he could not long continue so unequal a struggle. He was
+about to be torn in pieces, when two shots were heard. Hatteras heard
+the bullets whistling by his head.
+
+"Don't be frightened!" shouted Altamont, hurling his gun to one side,
+and rushing upon the angry animals.
+
+One of the oxen fell, shot through the heart; the other, wild with
+rage, was just going to gore the captain, when Altamont faced him, and
+plunged into his mouth his hand, armed with a snow-knife; with the
+other he gave him a terrible blow with a hatchet on the head. This was
+done with marvellous rapidity, and a flash of lightning would have lit
+up the whole scene.
+
+[Illustration: "Gave him a terrible blow with a hatchet on the head."]
+
+The second ox fell back dead.
+
+"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried Clawbonny.
+
+Hatteras was saved. He owed his life to the man whom he detested most
+in the world. What was going on in his mind at this time? What emotion
+was there which he could not master? That is one of the secrets of the
+heart which defy all analysis.
+
+However that may be, Hatteras advanced to his rival without
+hesitation, and said to him seriously,--
+
+"You have saved my life, Altamont."
+
+"You saved mine," answered the American. There was a moment's silence.
+Then Altamont added, "We are now quits, Hatteras!"
+
+"No, Altamont," answered the captain; "when the doctor took you from
+your icy tomb, I did not know who you were, and you have saved me at
+the risk of your own life, knowing who I was."
+
+"You are a fellow-being," answered Altamont; "and whatever else he may
+be, an American is not a coward."
+
+"No, he is not," said the doctor; "he is a man! a man like you,
+Hatteras!"
+
+"And like me he shall share the glory which is awaiting us!"
+
+"The glory of going to the North Pole?" said Altamont.
+
+"Yes," said the captain, haughtily.
+
+"I had guessed it!" exclaimed the American. "So you dared conceive of
+this bold design! You dared try to reach that inaccessible point! Ah,
+that is great! It is sublime!"
+
+"But you," asked Hatteras, hurriedly, "were you not on your way to the
+Pole?"
+
+Altamont seemed to hesitate about replying.
+
+"Well?" said the doctor.
+
+"Well, no," answered the American,--"no; tell the truth, and shame the
+Devil! No, I did not have this great idea, which has brought you here.
+I was trying simply to sail through the Northwest Passage, that is
+all."
+
+"Altamont," said Hatteras, holding out his hand to the American,
+"share our glory, and go with us to the North Pole!"
+
+The two men then shook hands warmly.
+
+When they turned towards the doctor, they saw his eyes full of tears.
+
+"Ah, my friends," he murmured, as he dried his eyes, "how can my heart
+hold the joy with which you fill it? My dear companions, you have
+sacrificed a miserable question of nationality in order to unite in
+your common success! You know that England and America have nothing to
+do with all this; that mutual sympathy ought to bind you together
+against the dangers of the journey! If the North Pole is discovered,
+what difference does it make who does it? Why stand bickering about
+English or American, when we can be proud of being men?"
+
+The doctor embraced the reconciled foes; he could not restrain his
+joy. The two new friends felt themselves drawn closer together by the
+friendship this worthy man had for them both. Clawbonny spoke freely
+of the vanity of competition, of the madness of rivalry, and of the
+need of agreement between men so far from home. His words, his tears
+and caresses, came from the bottom of his heart.
+
+Still, he grew calm after embracing Hatteras and Altamont for the
+twentieth time.
+
+"And now," he said, "to work, to work! Since I was no use as a hunter,
+let me try in another capacity!"
+
+Thereupon he started to cut up the ox, which he called the "ox of
+reconciliation," but he did it as skilfully as if he were a surgeon
+conducting a delicate autopsy. His two companions gazed at him in
+amusement. In a few minutes he had cut from the body a hundred pounds
+of flesh; he gave each one a third of it, and they again took up their
+march to Fort Providence. At ten o'clock in the evening, after walking
+in the oblique rays of the sun, they reached Doctor's House, where
+Johnson and Bell had a good supper awaiting them.
+
+But before they sat down to table, the doctor said in a voice of
+triumph, as he pointed to his two companions,--
+
+"Johnson, I carried away with me an Englishman and an American, did I
+not?"
+
+"Yes, Dr. Clawbonny," answered the boatswain.
+
+"Well, I've brought back two brothers."
+
+[Illustration: "'Well, I've brought back two brothers.'"]
+
+The two sailors gladly shook Altamont's hand; the doctor told them
+what the American captain had done for the English captain, and that
+night the snow-house held five perfectly happy men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+THE LAST PREPARATIONS.
+
+
+The next day the weather changed; there was a return of cold; the snow
+and rain gust raged for many days.
+
+Bell had finished the launch; it was perfectly satisfactory for the
+purpose it was intended for; partly decked, and partly open, it could
+sail in heavy weather under mainsail and jib, while it was so light as
+not to be too heavy a load on the sledge for the dogs.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Then, too, a change of great importance was taking place in the state
+of the polar basin. The ice in the middle of the bay was beginning to
+give way; the tallest pieces, forever weakened by the collision of the
+rest, only needed a sufficiently heavy tempest to be torn away and to
+become icebergs. Still, Hatteras was unwilling to wait so long before
+starting. Since it was to be a land journey, he cared very little
+whether the sea was open or not. He determined to start June 25th;
+meanwhile all the preparations could be completed. Johnson and Bell
+put the sledge into perfect repair; the frame was strengthened and the
+runners renewed. The travellers intended to devote to their journey
+the few weeks of good weather which nature allows to these northern
+regions. Their sufferings would be less severe, the obstacles easier
+to overcome.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A few days before their departure, June 20th, the ice had so many free
+passages, that they were able to make a trial trip on board of the new
+launch as far as Cape Washington. The sea was not perfectly free, far
+from it; but its surface was not solid, and it would have been
+impossible to make a trip on foot over the ice-fields. This half-day's
+sail showed the good sailing qualities of the launch. During the
+return they beheld a curious incident. It was a monstrous bear chasing
+a seal. Fortunately the former was so busily occupied, that he did not
+see the launch, otherwise he would certainly have pursued it; he kept
+on watch near a crevasse in the ice-field, into which the seal had
+evidently plunged. He was awaiting his reappearance with all the
+patience of a hunter, or rather of a fisherman, for he was really
+fishing. He was silent, motionless, without any sign of life. Suddenly
+the surface of the water was agitated; the seal had come up to
+breathe. The bear crouched low upon the ice, and rounded his two paws
+about the crevasse. The next moment the seal appeared, with his head
+above water; but he had not time to withdraw it. The bear's paws, as
+if driven by a spring, were clashed together, strangling the animal
+with irresistible force and dragging it out of the water.
+
+It was but a brief struggle; the seal struggled for a few seconds, and
+was then suffocated on the breast of his adversary, who, dragging him
+away easily, in spite of his size, and springing lightly from one
+piece of ice to another, reached land and disappeared with his prey.
+
+[Illustration: "The seal struggled for a few seconds, and was then
+suffocated on the breast of his adversary."]
+
+"A pleasant journey!" shouted Johnson; "that bear has got rather too
+many paws!"
+
+The launch soon reached the little anchorage Bell had made for her in
+the ice.
+
+Only four days were there before the time fixed for their departure.
+Hatteras hurried on the last preparations; he was in a hurry to leave
+New America, a land which was not his, and which he had not named; he
+did not feel at home.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+June 22d they began to carry to the sledge their camp-material, tent,
+and food. They carried only two hundred pounds of salt meat, three
+chests of preserved meat and vegetables, fifty pounds of pickles and
+lime-juice, five quarters of flour, packets of cresses and cochlearia
+from the doctor's garden; with the addition of two hundred pounds of
+powder, the instruments, arms, and personal baggage, the launch,
+Halkett-boat, and the weight of the sledge itself, the whole weighed
+fifteen hundred pounds,--a heavy load for four dogs, especially since,
+unlike the Esquimaux, who never travel more than four days in
+succession, they had none to replace them, and would have to work them
+every day. But the travellers determined to aid them when it was
+necessary, and they intended to proceed by easy stages; the distance
+from Victoria Bay to the Pole was three hundred and fifty-five miles
+at the outside, and going twelve miles a day they could make the
+journey in a month. Besides, when the land came to an end, the launch
+would enable them to finish the journey without fatigue for dogs or
+men.
+
+The latter were well, and in excellent condition. The winter, although
+severe, ended favorably enough. Each one had followed the doctor's
+advice, and escaped from the diseases common in these severe climates.
+In fact, they had grown a trifle thinner, which gave a great deal of
+pleasure to Clawbonny; but their bodies were inured to the rigors of
+that life, and these men were able to face the severest attacks of
+cold and hunger without succumbing. And then, too, they were going to
+the end of their journey, to the inaccessible Pole, after which their
+only thought would be of returning. The sympathy which bound together
+the five members of the expedition would aid their success in this
+bold trip, and no one doubted of their success.
+
+As a precaution, the doctor had urged his companions to prepare
+themselves for some time beforehand, and to "train" with much care.
+
+"My friends," he used to say, "I don't ask you to imitate the English
+racers, who lose eighteen pounds after two days' training, and
+twenty-five after five days, but we ought to do something to get into
+the best possible condition for a long journey. Now the first
+principle of training is to get rid of the fat on both horse and
+jockey, and this is done by means of purging, sweating, and violent
+exercise. These gentlemen know they will lose so much by medicine, and
+they arrive at their results with incredible accuracy; such a one who
+before training could not run a mile without being winded, can run
+twenty-five easily after it. There was a certain Townsend who ran a
+hundred miles in twelve hours without stopping."
+
+"A good result," answered Johnson; "and although we are not very fat,
+if we must get thinner yet--"
+
+"There is no need of it, Johnson; but without exaggerating, it can't
+be denied that training produces good effects; it strengthens the
+bones, makes the muscles more elastic, improves the hearing and the
+sight; so let us not forget it."
+
+In short, whether in training or not, the travellers were ready June
+23d; it was Sunday, and the day was devoted to absolute rest.
+
+The time for departure drew near, and the inhabitants of Fort
+Providence could not see it approach without a certain emotion. It
+grieved them to leave this snow-hut which had served so well to
+protect them; Victoria Bay, this hospitable shore where they had spent
+the last days of the winter. Would they find these buildings standing
+when they returned? Would not the rays of the sun melt away its
+fragile walls?
+
+In a word, they had passed pleasant hours there. The doctor, at the
+evening meal, called up to his companions' memory touching
+reminiscences, and he did not forget to thank Heaven for its evident
+protection.
+
+At last the hour of sleeping came. Each one went to bed early, so as
+to be up betimes. Thus passed their last night at Fort Providence.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+THE JOURNEY NORTHWARD.
+
+
+At dawn the next day Hatteras gave the signal for departure. The dogs
+were harnessed to the sledge; since they were well fed and had
+thoroughly rested, after a comfortable winter there was no reason for
+their not being of great service during the summer. Hence they were
+not averse to being put into harness.
+
+After all, these Greenland dogs are kind beasts. Their wildness was
+partly gone; they had lost their likeness to the wolf, and had become
+more like Duke, the finished model of the canine race,--in a word,
+they were becoming civilized. Duke could certainly claim a share in
+their education; he had given them lessons and an example in good
+manners. In his quality of Englishman, and so punctilious in the
+matter of cant, he was a long time in making the acquaintance of the
+other dogs, who had not been introduced to him, and in fact he never
+used to speak to them; but after sharing the same dangers and
+privations, they gradually grew used to one another. Duke, who had a
+kind heart, made the first advances, and soon all the dogs were
+friends. The doctor used to pet the Greenland dogs, and Duke saw him
+do it without jealousy. The men were in equally good condition; if the
+dogs could draw well, the men could walk well.
+
+They left at six o'clock in the morning; it was a very pleasant day.
+After they had followed the line of the bay and passed Cape
+Washington, Hatteras gave the order to turn northward; by seven the
+travellers lost sight of the lighthouse and of Fort Providence in the
+south.
+
+[Illustration: "They left at six o'clock in the morning."]
+
+The journey promised well, much better than the expedition begun in
+the dead of winter in search of coal. Hatteras then left behind him,
+on board of the ship, mutiny and despair, without being certain of the
+object of his journey; he left a crew half dead with cold, he started
+with companions who were weakened by the miseries of an arctic winter;
+he, too, eager for the north, had to return to the south! Now, on the
+other hand, surrounded by vigorous, healthy friends, encouraged and
+aided in many ways, he was starting for the Pole, the object of his
+whole life! No man had ever been nearer acquiring this glory for
+himself and his country.
+
+Was he thinking of all this, which was so naturally inspired by his
+present position? The doctor liked to think so, and could hardly doubt
+it when he saw him so eager. Clawbonny rejoiced in what so pleased his
+friend; and since the reconciliation of the two captains, the two
+friends, he was the happiest of men; for hatred, envy, and rivalry
+were passions he had never felt. What would be the issue of this
+voyage he did not know; but, at any rate, it began well, and that was
+a good deal.
+
+The western shore of New America stretched out in a series of bays
+beyond Cape Washington; the travellers, to avoid this long curve,
+after crossing the first spurs of Mount Bell, turned northward over
+the upper plateaus. This was a great saving of time; Hatteras was
+anxious, unless prevented by seas or mountains, to make a straight
+line of three hundred and fifty miles to the Pole from Fort
+Providence.
+
+Their journey was easy; these lofty plains were covered with deep
+snow, over which the sledge passed easily, and the men in their
+snow-shoes walked easily and rapidly.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The thermometer stood at 37°. The weather was not absolutely settled;
+at one moment it was clear, the next cloudy: but neither cold nor
+showers could have stopped the eager party. They could be followed
+easily by the compass; the needle was more active as they receded from
+the magnetic pole; it is true that it turned to the opposite direction
+and pointed to the south, while they were walking northward; but this
+did not in any way embarrass them. Besides, the doctor devised a
+simple method of staking out the way and thereby avoiding perpetual
+reference to the compass; when once they had got their bearings by
+some object two or three miles to the north, they walked till they
+reached it, when they chose another, and so on. In this way they had a
+straight road.
+
+In the first two days they made twenty miles in twelve hours; the rest
+of the time was devoted to meals and rest. The tent was ample
+protection against the cold when they were sleeping. The temperature
+gradually rose. The snow melted away in some places, according to the
+shape of the ground, while in others it lay in large patches. Broad
+pools appeared here and there, often almost as large as lakes. They
+would walk in up to their waists very often; but they only laughed at
+it, and the doctor more than any.
+
+"Water has no right to wet us in this country," he used to say; "it
+ought to appear only as a solid, or a gas; as to its being liquid,
+it's absurd! Ice or vapor will do, but water won't!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+They did not forget their shooting, for thereby they got fresh meat.
+So Altamont and Bell, without going very far away, scoured the
+neighboring ravines; they brought back ptarmigan, geese, and a few
+gray rabbits. Gradually these animals became very shy and hard to
+approach. Without Duke they would often have found it hard to get any
+game. Hatteras advised them not to go off farther than a mile, for not
+a day nor an hour was to be lost, and he could not count on more than
+three months of good weather.
+
+Besides, each one had to be at his post by the sledge whenever a hard
+spot, a narrow gorge, or steep inclines lay in the path; then each one
+helped pull or push. More than once everything had to be taken off;
+and this even did not fully protect against shocks and damage, which
+Bell repaired as well as he could.
+
+The third day, Wednesday, June 26th, they came across a vast lake,
+still frozen by reason of its being sheltered from the sun; the ice
+was even strong enough to bear both men and sledge. It was a solid
+mirror which no arctic summers had melted, as was shown by the fact
+that its borders were surrounded by a dry snow, of which the lower
+layers evidently belonged to previous years.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+From this moment the land grew lower, whence the doctor concluded that
+it did not extend very far to the north. Besides, it was very likely
+that New America was merely an island, and did not extend to the Pole.
+The ground grew more level; in the west a few low hills could be seen
+in the distance, covered with a bluish mist.
+
+So far they had experienced no hardships; they had suffered from
+nothing except the reflection of the sun's rays upon the snow, which
+could easily give them snow-blindness. At any other time they would
+have travelled by night to avoid this inconvenience, but then there
+was no night. The snow was fortunately melting away, and it was much
+less brilliant when it was about turning into water.
+
+June 28th the temperature arose to 45°; this was accompanied with
+heavy rain, which the travellers endured stoically, even with
+pleasure, for it hastened the disappearance of the snow. They had to
+put on their deer-skin moccasins, and change the runners of the
+sledge. Their journey was delayed, but still they were advancing
+without any serious obstacles. At times the doctor would pick up
+rounded or flat stones like pebbles worn smooth by the waves, and then
+he thought he was near the Polar Sea; but yet the plain stretched on
+out of sight. There was no trace of man, no hut, no cairn nor
+Esquimaux snow-house; they were evidently the first to set foot in
+this new land. The Greenlanders never had gone so far, and yet this
+country offered plenty of game for the support of that half-starved
+people. Sometimes bears appeared in the distance, but they showed no
+signs of attacking; afar off were herds of musk-oxen and reindeer. The
+doctor would have liked to catch some of the latter to harness to the
+sledge; but they were timid, and not to be caught alive.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The 29th, Bell shot a fox, and Altamont was lucky enough to bring down
+a medium-sized musk-ox, after giving his companions a high idea of his
+bravery and skill; he was indeed a remarkable hunter, and so much
+admired by the doctor. The ox was cut out, and gave plenty of
+excellent meat. These lucky supplies were always well received; the
+least greedy could not restrain their joy at the sight of the meat.
+The doctor laughed at himself when he caught himself admiring these
+huge joints.
+
+[Illustration: "On the 29th Bell shot a fox, and Altamont a
+medium-sized musk-ox."]
+
+"Let us not be afraid to eat it," he used to say; "a good dinner is a
+good thing in these expeditions."
+
+"Especially," said Johnson, "when it depends on a better or worse
+shot."
+
+"You are right, Johnson," replied the doctor; "one thinks less of
+one's food when one gets a regular supply from the kitchen."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The 30th, the country became unexpectedly rugged, as if it had been
+upheaved by some volcanic commotion; the cones and peaks increased
+indefinitely in number, and were very high. A southeast breeze began
+to blow with violence, and soon became a real hurricane. It rushed
+across the snow-covered rocks, among the ice-mountains, which,
+although on the firm land, took the form of hummocks and icebergs;
+their presence on these lofty plateaus could not be explained even by
+the doctor, who had an explanation for almost everything. Warm, damp
+weather succeeded the tempest; it was a genuine thaw; on all sides
+resounded the cracking of the ice amid the roar of the avalanches.
+
+[Illustration: "The masses of ice took the forms of hummocks and
+icebergs."]
+
+[Illustration: "On all sides resounded the cracking of the ice amid
+the roar of the avalanches."]
+
+The travellers carefully avoided the base of these hills; they even
+took care not to talk aloud, for the sound of the voice could shake
+the air and cause accident. They were witnesses of frequent and
+terrible avalanches which they could not have foreseen. In fact, the
+main peculiarity of polar avalanches is their terrible swiftness;
+therein they differ from those of Switzerland and Norway, where they
+form a ball, of small size at first, and then, by adding to themselves
+the snow and rocks in its passage, it falls with increasing swiftness,
+destroys forests and villages, but taking an appreciable time in its
+course. Now, it is otherwise in the countries where arctic cold rages;
+the fall of the block of ice is unexpected and startling; its fall is
+almost instantaneous, and any one who saw it from beneath would be
+certainly crushed by it; the cannon-ball is not swifter, nor lightning
+quicker; it starts, falls, and crashes down in a single moment with
+the dreadful roar of thunder, and with dull echoes.
+
+So the amazed spectators see wonderful changes in the appearance of
+the country; the mountain becomes a plain under the action of a sudden
+thaw; when the rain has filtered into the fissures of the great blocks
+and freezes in a single night, it breaks everything by its
+irresistible expansion, which is more powerful in forming ice than in
+forming vapor: the phenomenon takes place with terrible swiftness.
+
+No catastrophe, fortunately, threatened the sledge and its drivers;
+the proper precautions were taken, and every danger avoided. Besides,
+this rugged, icy country was not of great extent, and three days
+later, July 3d, the travellers were on smoother ground. But their eyes
+were surprised by a new phenomenon, which has for a long time claimed
+the attention of the scientific men of the two worlds. It was this:
+the party followed a line of hills not more than fifty feet high,
+which appeared to run on several miles, and their eastern side was
+covered with red snow.
+
+The surprise and even the sort of alarm which the sight of this
+crimson curtain gave them may be easily imagined. The doctor hastened,
+if not to reassure, at least to instruct, his companions; he was
+familiar with this red snow and the chemical analysis made of it by
+Wollaston, Candolle, Bäuer. He told them this red snow was not found
+in the arctic regions alone, but in Switzerland in the middle of the
+Alps; De Saussure collected a large quantity on the Breven in 1760;
+and since then Captains Ross, Sabine, and others had brought some back
+from their arctic journeys.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Altamont asked the doctor about the nature of this extraordinary
+substance. He was told that its color came simply from the presence of
+organic corpuscles. For a long time it was a question whether these
+corpuscles were animal or vegetable; but it was soon ascertained that
+they belonged to the family of microscopic mushrooms, of the genus
+_Uredo_, which Bäuer proposed naming _Uredo vivalis_.
+
+Then the doctor, prying into the snow with his cane, showed his
+companions that the scarlet layer was only nine feet deep, and he bade
+them calculate how many of these mushrooms there might be on a space
+of many miles, when scientific men estimated forty-three thousand in a
+square centimetre.
+
+This coloring probably ran back to a remote period, for the mushrooms
+were not decomposed by either evaporation or the melting of the snow,
+nor was their color altered.
+
+The phenomenon, although explained, was no less strange. Red is a rare
+color in nature; the reflection of the sun's rays on this crimson
+surface produced strange effects; it gave the surrounding objects, men
+and animals, a brilliant appearance, as if they were lighted by an
+inward flame; and when the snow was melting, streams of blood seemed
+to be flowing beneath the travellers' feet.
+
+The doctor, who had not been able to examine this substance when he
+saw it on crimson cliffs from Baffin's Bay, here examined it at his
+ease, and gathered several bottlefuls of it.
+
+This red ground, the "Field of Blood," as he called it, took three
+hours' walk to pass over, and then the country resumed its habitual
+appearance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+FOOTPRINTS ON THE SNOW.
+
+
+July 4th a dense fog prevailed. They were only able with the greatest
+difficulty to keep a straight path; they had to consult the compass
+every moment. Fortunately there was no accident in the darkness,
+except that Bell lost his snow-shoes, which were broken against a
+projecting rock.
+
+"Well, really," said Johnson, "I thought, after seeing the Mersey and
+the Thames, that I knew all about fogs, but I see I was mistaken."
+
+"We ought," answered Bell, "to light torches as is done at London and
+Liverpool."
+
+[Illustration: "'We ought,' answered Bell, 'to light torches, as is
+done at London and Liverpool.'"]
+
+"Why not?" asked the doctor; "that's a good idea; it wouldn't light up
+the road much, but we could see the guide, and follow him more
+easily."
+
+"But what shall we do for torches?"
+
+"By lighting tow dipped in alcohol, and fastening to the end of
+walking-sticks."
+
+"Good!" said Johnson; "and we shall soon have it ready."
+
+A quarter of an hour later the little band was walking along with
+torches faintly lighting up the general gloom.
+
+But if they went straighter, they did not go quicker, and the fog
+lasted till July 6th; the earth being cold then, a blast of north-wind
+carried away all the mist as if it had been rags. Soon the doctor took
+an observation, and ascertained that meanwhile they had not made eight
+miles a day.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The 6th, they made an effort to make up for lost time, and they set
+out early. Altamont and Bell were ahead, choosing the way and looking
+out for game. Duke was with them. The weather, with its surprising
+fickleness, had become very clear and dry; and although the guides
+were two miles from the sledge, the doctor did not miss one of their
+movements. He was consequently very much startled to see them stop
+suddenly, and remain in a position of surprise; they seemed to be
+gazing into the distance, as if scanning the horizon. Then they bent
+down to the ground and seemed to be examining it closely, and they
+arose in evident amazement. Bell seemed to wish to push on, but
+Altamont held him back.
+
+"What can they be doing?" asked the doctor of Johnson.
+
+"I know no more than you, Doctor; I don't understand their gestures."
+
+"They have found the track of some animals," answered Hatteras.
+
+"That's not it," said the doctor.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because Duke would bark."
+
+"Still, they've seen marks of some sort."
+
+"Let us go on," said Hatteras; "we shall soon know."
+
+Johnson urged on the dogs, who quickened their pace.
+
+In twenty minutes the five were together, and Hatteras, the doctor,
+and Johnson were as much surprised as Bell and Altamont.
+
+There were in the snow indubitable traces of men, as fresh as if they
+had just been made.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"They are Esquimaux," said Hatteras.
+
+"Yes," said the doctor, "there is no doubt of that!"
+
+"You think so?" said Altamont.
+
+"Without any doubt."
+
+"Well, and this mark?" continued Altamont, pointing to another print,
+which was often repeated.
+
+"That one?"
+
+"Do you think it was made by an Esquimau?"
+
+The doctor examined it carefully, and was stupefied. The print of a
+European shoe, with nails, sole, and heel, was clearly stamped in the
+snow. There could be no further doubt; a man, a stranger, had been
+there.
+
+"Europeans here!" cried Hatteras.
+
+"Evidently," said Johnson.
+
+"And still," said the doctor, "it is so unlikely, that we ought to
+look twice before being sure."
+
+Thereupon he looked twice, three times, at the print, and he was
+obliged to acknowledge its extraordinary origin.
+
+De Foe's hero was not more amazed when he saw the footprint on the
+sand of his island; but if he was afraid, Hatteras was simply angry. A
+European so near the Pole!
+
+They pushed on to examine the footprints; for a quarter of a mile they
+were continually repeated, mingled with marks of moccasins; then they
+turned to the west. When they had reached this point they consulted as
+to whether they should follow them any farther.
+
+"No," said Hatteras. "Let us go on--"
+
+He was interrupted by an exclamation of the doctor, who had just
+picked up on the snow an object even more convincing, and of the
+origin of which there could be no doubt. It was the object-glass of a
+pocket telescope.
+
+"Now," he said, "we can't doubt that there is a stranger here--"
+
+"Forward!" cried Hatteras.
+
+He uttered this word so sharply that each one obeyed, and the sledge
+resumed its monotonous progress.
+
+They all scanned the horizon attentively, except Hatteras, who was
+filled with wrath and did not care to see anything. Still, since they
+ran the risk of coming across a band of travellers, they had to take
+precautions; it was very disappointing to see any one ahead of them on
+the route. The doctor, although not as angry as Hatteras, was somewhat
+vexed, in spite of his usual philosophy. Altamont seemed equally
+annoyed; Johnson and Bell muttered threatening words between their
+teeth.
+
+"Come," said the doctor, "let us take heart against our bad fortune."
+
+"We must confess," said Johnson, without being heard by Altamont,
+"that if we find the place taken, it would disgust us with journeying
+to the Pole."
+
+"And yet," answered Bell, "there is no possibility of doubting--"
+
+"No," retorted the doctor; "I turn it all over in vain, and say it is
+improbable, impossible; I have to give it up. This shoe was not
+pressed into the snow without being at the end of a leg, and without
+the leg being attached to a human body. I could forgive Esquimaux, but
+a European!"
+
+"The fact is," answered Johnson, "that if we are going to find all the
+rooms taken in the hotel of the end of the world, it would be
+annoying."
+
+"Very annoying," said Altamont.
+
+"Well, we shall see," said the doctor.
+
+And they pushed on. The day ended without any new fact to indicate the
+presence of strangers in this part of New America, and they at last
+encamped for the evening.
+
+A rather strong wind from the south had sprung up, and obliged them to
+seek a secure shelter for their tent in the bottom of a ravine. The
+sky was threatening; long clouds passed rapidly through the air; they
+passed near the ground, and so quickly that the eye could hardly
+follow them. At times some of the mist touched the ground, and the
+tent resisted with difficulty the violence of the hurricane.
+
+[Illustration: The hut was pitched in a ravine for shelter.]
+
+"It's going to be a nasty night," said Johnson, after supper.
+
+"It won't be cold, but stormy," answered the doctor; "let us take
+precautions, and make the tent firm with large stones."
+
+"You are right, Doctor; if the wind should carry away the canvas,
+Heaven alone knows where we should find it again."
+
+Hence they took every precaution against such a danger, and the
+wearied travellers lay down to sleep. But they found it impossible.
+The tempest was loose, and hastened northward with incomparable
+violence; the clouds were whirling about like steam which has just
+escaped from a boiler; the last avalanches, under the force of the
+hurricane, fell into the ravines, and their dull echoes were
+distinctly heard; the air seemed to be struggling with the water, and
+fire alone was absent from this contest of the elements.
+
+Amid the general tumult their ears distinguished separate sounds, not
+the crash of heavy falling bodies, but the distinct cracking of bodies
+breaking; a clear snap was frequently heard, like breaking steel, amid
+the roar of the tempest. These last sounds were evidently avalanches
+torn off by the gusts, but the doctor could not explain the others. In
+the few moments of anxious silence, when the hurricane seemed to be
+taking breath in order to blow with greater violence, the travellers
+exchanged their suppositions.
+
+"There is a sound of crashing," said the doctor, "as if icebergs and
+ice-fields were being blown against one another."
+
+"Yes," answered Altamont; "one would say the whole crust of the globe
+was falling in. Say, did you hear that?"
+
+"If we were near the sea," the doctor went on, "I should think it was
+ice breaking."
+
+"In fact," said Johnson, "there is no other explanation possible."
+
+"Can we have reached the coast?" asked Hatteras.
+
+"It's not impossible," answered the doctor. "Hold on," he said, after
+a very distinct sound; "shouldn't you say that was the crashing of
+ice? We may be very near the ocean."
+
+"If it is," continued Hatteras, "I should not be afraid to go across
+the ice-fields."
+
+"O," said the doctor, "they must be broken by such a tempest! We shall
+see to-morrow. However that may be, if any men have to travel in such
+a night as this, I pity them."
+
+The hurricane raged ten hours without cessation, and no one of those
+in the tent had a moment's sleep; the night passed in profound
+uneasiness. In fact, under such circumstances, every new incident, a
+tempest, an avalanche, might bring serious consequences. The doctor
+would gladly have gone out to reconnoitre, but how could he with such
+a wind raging?
+
+Fortunately the hurricane grew less violent early the next day; they
+could leave the tent which had resisted so sturdily. The doctor,
+Hatteras, and Johnson went to a hill about three hundred feet high,
+which they ascended without difficulty. Their eyes beheld an entirely
+altered country, composed of bare rocks, sharp ridges entirely clear
+of ice. It was summer succeeding winter, which had been driven away by
+the tempest; the snow had been blown away by the wind before it could
+melt, and the barren soil reappeared.
+
+[Illustration: "They climbed a hill which commanded a wide view."]
+
+But Hatteras's glances were all turned towards the north, where the
+horizon appeared to be hidden by dark mist.
+
+"That may be the effect of the ocean," said the doctor.
+
+"You are right," said Hatteras; "the sea must be there."
+
+"That's what we call the blink of the water," said Johnson.
+
+"Exactly," said the doctor.
+
+"Well, let us start," said Hatteras, "and push on to this new ocean."
+
+"That rejoices my heart," said Clawbonny to the captain.
+
+"Certainly," was the enthusiastic answer. "Soon we shall have reached
+the Pole! and doesn't the prospect delight you, too, Doctor?"
+
+"It does. I am always happy, and especially about the happiness of
+others!"
+
+The three Englishmen returned to the ravine; the sledge was made
+ready, and they left the camp and resumed their march. Each one
+dreaded finding new tracks, but all the rest of the way they saw no
+trace of any human being. Three hours later they reached the coast.
+
+"The sea! the sea!" they all shouted.
+
+"And the open sea!" cried the captain.
+
+[Illustration: "Three hours later they reached the coast. 'The sea!
+the sea!' they all shouted."]
+
+It was ten o'clock in the morning.
+
+In fact, the hurricane had cleared up the polar basin; the shattered
+ice was floating away in every direction; the largest pieces, forming
+icebergs, had just weighed anchor and were sailing on the open sea.
+The wind had made a harsh attack upon the field. Fragments of ice
+covered the surrounding rocks. The little which was left of the
+ice-field seemed very soft; on the rocks were large pieces of
+sea-weed. The ocean stretched beyond the line of vision, with no
+island or new land peering above the horizon.
+
+In the east and west were two capes gently sloping to the water; at
+their end the sea was breaking, and the wind was carrying a slight
+foam. The land of New America thus died away in the Polar Ocean,
+quietly and gently. It rounded into an open bay, with roadstead
+enclosed by the two promontories. In the middle a rock made a little
+natural harbor, sheltered against three points of the compass; it ran
+back into the land in the broad bed of a stream, through which ran
+down the melted snows of winter, now forming a perfect torrent.
+
+Hatteras, after noticing the outline of the coast, resolved to make
+the preparations for departure that very day, to launch the boat, to
+put the unloaded sledge on board for future excursions. That took all
+day; then the tent was raised, and after a comfortable meal work
+began. Meanwhile the doctor took out his instruments to take an
+observation and determine the position of a part of the bay. Hatteras
+hurried on the work; he was anxious to start; he wanted to leave the
+land, and to be in advance in case any others should reach the sea.
+
+At five o'clock in the evening Johnson and Bell had nothing to do but
+to fold their arms. The launch was rocking gently in her little
+harbor, with her mast set, her jib lowered, and her foresail in the
+brails; the provisions and most of the things on the sledge had been
+put on board; only the tent and a little of the camping material
+remained to be put on board the next day. The doctor found all these
+preparations complete on his return. When he saw the launch quietly
+sheltered from the wind, it occurred to him to give a name to the
+little harbor, and he proposed that of Altamont. This proposition was
+unanimously agreed to. So it was named Altamont Harbor.
+
+[Illustration: "The launch was rocking gently in her little harbor."]
+
+According to the doctor's calculations, it lay in latitude 87° 5', and
+longitude 118° 35' E. of Greenwich; that is to say, less than three
+degrees from the Pole. The band had gone more than two hundred miles
+from Victoria Bay to Altamont Harbor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+THE OPEN SEA.
+
+
+The next morning Johnson and Bell set about carrying on board the
+camping material. At eight o'clock all the preparations for departure
+were complete. At the moment of starting the doctor's thoughts
+returned to the footprints they had seen. Were these men trying to
+gain the North? Had they any means of crossing the Polar Sea! Should
+they meet them again? For three days they had come across no trace of
+the travellers, and certainly, whoever they were, they could not have
+reached Altamont Harbor. That was a place which they were the first to
+set foot in. But the doctor, who was harassed by his thoughts, wanted
+to take a last view of the country, and he ascended a little hill
+about a hundred feet high, whence he had a distant view to the south.
+
+When he had reached the top, he put his glass to his eyes. Great was
+his surprise when he found he could not see anything, either at a
+distance on the plains, or within a few feet of him. This seemed very
+odd; he made another examination, and at last he looked at the
+glass,--the object-glass was missing.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"The object-glass!" he cried.
+
+The sudden revelation may be imagined; he uttered a cry so loud as to
+be heard by his companions, and they were much astonished at seeing
+him running down the hill.
+
+"Well, what's the matter now?" asked Johnson.
+
+The doctor was out of breath, and unable to speak. At length he
+managed to bring out,--
+
+"The footprints!--the expedition!--"
+
+"Well, what?" said Hatteras; "are they here?"
+
+"No, no!" resumed the doctor,--"the object-glass, mine!"
+
+And he showed his own glass.
+
+"O, ho!" cried the American, "so you lost--"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"But then the footprints--"
+
+"Our own!" cried the doctor. "We lost our way in the fog! We went
+around in a circle, and came across our own footprints!"
+
+"But the print of the shoes?" asked Hatteras.
+
+"Bell's, you know, who walked all day in the snow after breaking his
+snow-shoes."
+
+"That's true," said Bell.
+
+Their mistake was so clear, that they all, except Hatteras, burst out
+laughing, and he was none the less pleased at the discovery.
+
+"We were stupid enough," said the doctor, when they had stopped
+laughing. What good guesses we made! Strangers up here! Really, we
+ought to think before speaking. Well, since we are easy on this point,
+we can't do better than start."
+
+"Forward!" said Hatteras.
+
+A quarter of an hour later each one had taken his place on board of
+the launch, which sailed out of Altamont Harbor under mainsail and
+jib. This voyage began Wednesday, July 10th; they were then very near
+the Pole, exactly one hundred and seventy-five miles from it. However
+small the land might be at that point of the globe, the voyage would
+certainly be a short one. The wind was light, but fair. The
+thermometer stood at 50°; it was really warm.
+
+The launch had not been injured by the journey on the sledge; it was
+in perfect order, and sailed easily. Johnson was at the helm; the
+doctor, Bell, and Altamont were lying as best they might among the
+load, partly on deck, partly below.
+
+Hatteras stood forward, with his eyes turned to the mysterious point,
+which attracted him with an irresistible power, as the magnetic pole
+attracts the needle. If there should be any land, he wanted to be the
+first to see it. This honor really belonged to him. He noticed,
+besides, that the surface of the Polar Sea was covered with short
+waves, like those of land locked seas. This he considered a proof of
+the nearness of the opposite shore, and the doctor shared his opinion.
+
+Hatteras's desire to find land at the North Pole is perfectly
+comprehensible. His disappointment would have been great if the
+uncertain sea covered the place where he wanted to find a piece of
+land, no matter how small! In fact, how could he give a special name
+to an uncertain portion of the sea? How plant the flag of his country
+among the waves? How take possession, in the name of her Gracious
+Majesty, of the liquid element?
+
+So Hatteras, compass in hand, gazed steadily at the north. There was
+nothing that he could see between him and the horizon, where the line
+of the blue water met the blue sky. A few floating icebergs seemed to
+be leaving the way free for these bold sailors. The appearance of this
+region was singularly strange. Was this impression simply the result
+of the nervous excitement of the travellers? It is hard to say. Still,
+the doctor in his journal has described the singular appearance of the
+ocean; he spoke of it as Penny did, according to whom these countries
+present an appearance "offering the most striking contrast of a sea
+filled with millions of living creatures."
+
+The sea, with its various colors, appeared strangely transparent, and
+endowed with a wonderful dispersive quality, as if it had been made
+with carburet of sulphur. This clearness let them see down into
+immeasurable depths; it seemed as if the sea were lit up like a large
+aquarium; probably some electric phenomenon at the bottom of the sea
+lit it up. So the launch seemed hung in a bottomless abyss.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+On the surface of the water the birds were flying in large flocks,
+like thick clouds big with a storm. Aquatic birds of all sorts were
+there, from the albatross which is common to the south, to the penguin
+of the arctic seas, but of enormous size. Their cries were deafening.
+In considering them the doctor found his knowledge of natural history
+too scanty; many of the names escaped him, and he found himself bowing
+his head when their wings beat the air.
+
+[Illustration: "Aquatic birds of all sorts were there."]
+
+Some of these large birds measured twenty feet from tip to tip; they
+covered the whole launch with their expanded wings; and there were
+legions of these birds, of which the names had never appeared in the
+London "Index Ornithologus." The doctor was dejected and stupefied at
+finding his science so faulty. Then, when his glance fell from the
+wonders of the air to the calm surface of the ocean, he saw no less
+astonishing productions of the animal kingdom, among others, medusæ
+thirty feet broad; they served as food for the other fish, and they
+floated like islands amid the sea-weed. What a difference from the
+microscopic medusæ observed in the seas of Greenland by Scoresby, and
+of which that explorer estimated the number at twenty-three trillions
+eight hundred and ninety-eight billions of millions in a space of two
+square miles!
+
+Then the eye glancing down into the transparent water, the sight was
+equally strange, so full was it of fishes; sometimes the animals were
+swimming about below, and the eye saw them gradually disappearing, and
+fading away like spectres; then they would leave the lower layers and
+rise to the surface. The monsters seemed in no way alarmed at the
+presence of the launch; they even passed near it, rubbing their fins
+against it; this, which would have alarmed whalers, did not disturb
+these men, and yet the sea-monsters were very large.
+
+[Illustration: "Then the eye glancing down into the transparent water,
+the sight was equally strange."]
+
+Young sea-calves played about them; the sword-fish, with its long,
+narrow, conical sword, with which it cleaves the ice, was chasing the
+more timid cetacea; numberless spouting whales were clearly to be
+heard. The sword-caper, with its delicate tail and large caudal fins,
+swam with incomprehensible quickness, feeding on smaller animals, such
+as the cod, as swift as itself; while the white whale, which is more
+inactive, swallowed peacefully the tranquil, lazy mollusks.
+
+Farther down were Greenland anamaks, long and dark; huge sperm-whales,
+swimming in the midst of ambergris, in which took place thomeric
+battles that reddened the ocean for many miles around; the great
+Labrador tegusik. Sharp-backed dolphins, the whole family of seals and
+walruses, sea-dogs, horses and bears, lions and elephants, seemed to
+be feeding on the rich pastures; and the doctor admired the numberless
+animals, as he would have done the crustacea in the crystal basins of
+the zoölogical garden.
+
+What beauty, variety, and power in nature! How strange and wonderful
+everything seemed in the polar regions!
+
+The air acquired an unnatural purity; one would have said it was full
+of oxygen; the explorers breathed with delight this air, which filled
+them with fresher life; without taking account of the result, they
+were, so to speak, exposed to a real consuming fire, of which one can
+give no idea, not even a feeble one. Their emotions, their breathing
+and digestion, were endowed with superhuman energy; their ideas became
+more excited; they lived a whole day in an hour.
+
+Through all these wonders the launch pushed on before a moderate
+breeze, occasionally feeling the air moved by the albatrosses' wings.
+
+Towards evening, the coast of New America disappeared beneath the
+horizon. In the temperate zones, as well as at the equator, night
+falls; but here the sun simply described a circle parallel to the line
+of the horizon. The launch, bathed in its oblique rays, could not lose
+sight of it.
+
+The animate beings of these regions seemed to know the approach of
+evening as truly as if the sun had set; birds, fish, cetacea, all
+disappeared. Whither? To the depths of the ocean? Who could say? But
+soon total silence succeeded to their cries, and the sound of their
+passage through the water; the sea grew calmer and calmer, and night
+retained its gentle peace even beneath the glowing sun.
+
+Since leaving Altamont Harbor the launch had made one degree to the
+north; the next day nothing appeared on the horizon, neither
+projecting peaks nor those vague signs by which sailors detect their
+nearness to land.
+
+The wind was good, but not strong, the sea not high; the birds and
+fish came as thick as the day before; the doctor, leaning over the
+gunwale, could see the cetacea rising slowly to the surface; a few
+icebergs and scattered pieces of ice alone broke the monotony of the
+ocean.
+
+But the ice grew rarer, and was not enough to interfere with the boat.
+It is to be remembered that the launch was then ten degrees above the
+pole of cold; and as to the parallels of temperature, they might as
+well have been ten degrees to the other side. There was nothing
+surprising in the sea being open at this epoch, as it must have been
+at Disco Island in Baffin's Bay. So a sailing vessel would have plenty
+of sailing room in the summer months.
+
+This observation had a great practical importance; in fact, if whalers
+can ever get to the polar basin, either by the seas of North America
+or those of the north of Asia, they are sure of getting full cargoes,
+for this part of the ocean seems to be the universal fishing-pond, the
+general reservoir of whales, seals, and all marine animals. At noon
+the line of the horizon was still unbroken; the doctor began to doubt
+of the existence of a continent in so high latitudes.
+
+Still, as he reflected, he was compelled to believe in the existence
+of an arctic continent; in fact, at the creation of the world, after
+the cooling of the terrestrial crust, the waters formed by the
+condensation of the atmospheric vapor were compelled to obey the
+centrifugal force, to fly to the equator and leave the motionless
+extremities of the globe. Hence the necessary emersion of the
+countries near the Pole. The doctor considered this reasoning very
+just. And so it seemed to Hatteras.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Hence the captain still tried to pierce the mists of the horizon. His
+glass never left his eyes. In the color of the water, the shape of the
+waves, the direction of the wind, he tried to find traces of
+neighboring land. His head was bent forward, and even one who did not
+know his thoughts would have admired, so full was his attitude of
+energetic desire and anxious interrogation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+THE APPROACH TO THE POLE.
+
+
+The time flew by in this uncertainty. Nothing appeared on the sharply
+defined circle of the sea; nothing was to be seen save sky and
+sea,--not one of those floating land-plants which rejoiced the heart
+of Christopher Columbus as he was about to discover America. Hatteras
+was still gazing. At length, at about six o'clock in the evening, a
+shapeless vapor appeared at a little height above the level of the
+sea; it looked like a puff of smoke; the sky was perfectly cold, so
+this vapor was no cloud; it would keep appearing and disappearing, as
+if it were in commotion. Hatteras was the first to detect this
+phenomenon; he examined it with his glass for a whole hour.
+
+Suddenly, some sure sign apparently occurred to him, for he stretched
+out his arms to the horizon and cried in a loud voice,--
+
+"Land, ho!"
+
+At these words each one sprang to his feet as if moved by electricity.
+A sort of smoke was clearly rising above the sea.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"I see it," cried the doctor.
+
+"Yes! certainly!--yes!" said Johnson.
+
+"It's a cloud," said Altamont.
+
+"It's land!" answered Hatteras, as if perfectly convinced.
+
+But, as often happens with objects that are indistinct in the
+distance, the point they had been looking at seemed to have
+disappeared. At length they found it again, and the doctor even
+fancied that he could see a swift light twenty or twenty-five miles to
+the north.
+
+"It's a volcano!" he cried.
+
+[Illustration: "'It's a volcano!' he cried."]
+
+"A volcano?" said Altamont.
+
+"Without doubt."
+
+"At this high latitude?"
+
+"And why not?" continued the doctor; "isn't Iceland a volcanic land,
+so to speak, made of volcanoes?"
+
+"Yes, Iceland," said the American, "but so near the Pole!"
+
+"Well, didn't Commodore James Ross find in the Southern Continent two
+active volcanoes, Erebus and Terror by name, in longitude 170° and
+latitude 78°? Why then shouldn't there be volcanoes at the North
+Pole?"
+
+"It may be so, after all," answered Altamont.
+
+"Ah," cried the doctor, "I see it clearly! It is a volcano."
+
+"Well," said Hatteras, "let us sail straight towards it."
+
+"The wind is changing," said Johnson.
+
+"Haul on the fore-sheet, and bring her nearer the wind."
+
+But this manoeuvre only turned the launch away from the point they had
+been gazing at, and even with their closest examination they could not
+find it again. Still, they could not doubt that they were nearing
+land. They had seen, if they had not reached, the object of their
+voyage, and within twenty-four hours they would set foot on this
+unknown shore. Providence, after letting them get so near, would not
+drive them back at the last moment.
+
+Still, no one manifested the joy which might have been expected under
+the circumstances; each one wondered in silence what this polar land
+might be. The animals seemed to shun it; at evening the birds, instead
+of seeking refuge there, flew with all speed to the south. Could not a
+single gull or ptarmigan find a resting-place there? Even the fish,
+the large cetacea, avoided that coast. Whence came this repugnance,
+which was shared by all the animals they saw, unless from terror?
+
+The sailors experienced the same feeling; they gave way to the
+feelings inspired by the situation, and gradually each one felt his
+eyelids grow heavy. It was Hatteras's watch. He took the tiller; the
+doctor, Altamont, Johnson, and Bell fell asleep, stretched on the
+benches, and soon were dreaming soundly. Hatteras struggled against
+his sleepiness; he wished to lose not a moment; but the gentle motion
+of the launch rocked him, in spite of himself, into a gentle sleep.
+
+The boat made hardly any headway; the wind did not keep her sails
+full. Far off in the west a few icebergs were reflecting the sun's
+rays, and glowing brightly in the midst of the ocean.
+
+Hatteras began to dream. He recalled his whole life, with the
+incalculable speed of dreams; he went through the winter again, the
+scenes at Victoria Bay, Fort Providence, Doctor's House, the finding
+the American beneath the snow. Here remoter incidents came up before
+him; he dreamed of the burning of the _Forward_, of his treacherous
+companions who had abandoned him. What had become of them? He thought
+of Shandon, Wall, and the brutal Pen. Where were they now? Had they
+succeeded in reaching Baffin's Bay across the ice? Then he went
+further back, to his departure from England, to his previous voyages,
+his failures and misfortunes. Then he forgot his present situation,
+his success so near at hand, his hopes half realized. His dreams
+carried him from joy to agony. So it went on for two hours; then his
+thoughts changed; he began to think of the Pole, and he saw himself at
+last setting foot on this English continent, and unfolding the flag of
+the United Kingdom. While he was dozing in this way a huge, dark cloud
+was climbing across the sky, throwing a deep shadow over the sea.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It is difficult to imagine the great speed with which hurricanes arise
+in the arctic seas. The vapors which rise under the equator are
+condensed above the great glaciers of the North, and large masses of
+air are needed to take their place. This can explain the severity of
+arctic storms.
+
+At the first shock of the wind the captain and his friends awoke from
+their sleep, ready to manage the launch. The waves were high and
+steep. The launch tossed helplessly about, now plunged into deep
+abysses, now oscillated on the pointed crest of a wave, inclining
+often at an angle of more than forty-five degrees. Hatteras took firm
+hold of the tiller, which was noisily sliding from one side to the
+other. Every now and then some strong wave would strike it and nearly
+throw him over. Johnson and Bell were busily occupied in bailing out
+the water which the launch would occasionally ship.
+
+[Illustration: "The launch tossed helplessly about."]
+
+"This is a storm we hardly expected," said Altamont, holding fast to
+his bench.
+
+"We ought to expect anything here," answered the doctor.
+
+These remarks were made amid the roar of the tempest and the hissing
+of the waves, which the violence of the wind reduced to a fine spray.
+It was nearly impossible for one to hear his neighbor. It was hard to
+keep the boat's head to the north; the clouds hid everything a few
+fathoms from the boat, and they had no mark to sail by. This sudden
+tempest, just as they were about attaining their object, seemed full
+of warning; to their excited minds it came like an order to go no
+farther. Did Nature forbid approach to the Pole? Was this point of the
+globe surrounded by hurricanes and tempests which rendered access
+impossible? But any one who had caught sight of those men could have
+seen that they did not flinch before wind or wave, and that they would
+push on to the end. So they struggled on all day, braving death at
+every instant, and making no progress northward, but also losing no
+ground; they were wet through by the rain and waves; above the din of
+the storm they could hear the hoarse cries of the birds.
+
+But at six o'clock in the evening, while the waves were rising, there
+came a sudden calm. The wind stopped as if by a miracle. The sea was
+smooth, as if it had not felt a puff of wind for twelve hours. The
+hurricane seemed to have respected this part of the Polar Ocean. What
+was the reason? It was an extraordinary phenomenon, which Captain
+Sabine had witnessed in his voyages in Greenland seas. The fog,
+without lifting, was very bright. The launch drifted along in a zone
+of electric light, an immense St. Elmo fire, brilliant but without
+heat. The mast, sail, and rigging stood out black against the
+phosphorescent air; the men seemed to have plunged into a bath of
+transparent rays, and their faces were all lit up. The sudden calm of
+this portion of the ocean came, without doubt, from the ascending
+motion of the columns of air, while the tempest, which was a cyclone,
+turned rapidly about this peaceful centre. But this atmosphere on fire
+suggested a thought to Hatteras.
+
+[Illustration: "The fog, without lifting, was very bright."]
+
+"The volcano!" he cried.
+
+"Is it possible?" asked Bell.
+
+"No, no!" answered the doctor; "we should be smothered if the flames
+were to reach us."
+
+"Perhaps it is its reflection in the fog," said Altamont.
+
+"No. We should have to admit that we were near land, and in that case
+we should hear the eruption."
+
+"But then?" asked the captain.
+
+"It is a phenomenon," said the doctor, "which has been seldom observed
+hitherto. If we go on we cannot help leaving this luminous sphere and
+re-entering storm and darkness."
+
+"Whatever it is, push on!" said Hatteras.
+
+"Forward!" cried his companions, who did not wish to delay even for
+breathing-time in this quiet spot. The bright sail hung down the
+glistening mast; the oars dipped into the glowing waves, and appeared
+to drip with sparks. Hatteras, compass in hand, turned the boat's head
+to the north; gradually the mist lost its brightness and transparency;
+the wind could be heard roaring a short distance off; and soon the
+launch, lying over before a strong gust, re-entered the zone of
+storms. Fortunately, the hurricane had shifted a point towards the
+south, and the launch was able to run before the wind, straight for
+the Pole, running the risk of foundering, but sailing very fast; a
+rock, reef, or piece of ice might at any moment rise before them, and
+crush them to atoms. Still, no one of these men raised a single
+objection, nor suggested prudence. They were seized with the madness
+of danger. Thirst for the unknown took possession of them. They were
+going along, not blinded, but blindly, finding their speed only too
+slow for their impatience. Hatteras held the tiller firm amid the
+waves lashed into foam by the tempest. Still the proximity of land
+became evident. Strange signs filled the air. Suddenly the mist parted
+like a curtain torn by the wind, and for a moment, brief as a flash of
+lightning, a great burst of flame could be seen rising towards the
+sky.
+
+"The volcano! the volcano!" was the cry which escaped from the lips of
+all; but the strange vision disappeared at once; the wind shifted to
+the southeast, took the launch on her quarter, and drove her from this
+unapproachable land.
+
+"Malediction!" said Hatteras, shifting her sail; "we were not three
+miles from land!"
+
+Hatteras could not resist the force of the tempest; but without
+yielding to it, he brought the boat about in the wind, which was
+blowing with fearful violence. Every now and then the launch leaned to
+one side, so that almost her whole keel was exposed; still she obeyed
+her rudder, and rose like a stumbling horse which his rider brings up
+by spur and reins. Hatteras, with his hair flying and his hand on the
+tiller, seemed to be part of the boat, like horse and man at the time
+of the centaurs. Suddenly a terrible sight presented itself to their
+eyes. Within less than ten fathoms a floe was balancing on the waves;
+it fell and rose like the launch, threatening in its fall to crush it
+to atoms. But to this danger of being plunged into the abyss was added
+another no less terrible; for this drifting floe was covered with
+white bears, crowded together and wild with terror.
+
+[Illustration: "This drifting floe was covered with white bears,
+crowded together."]
+
+"Bears! bears!" cried Bell, in terror.
+
+And each one gazed with terror. The floe pitched fearfully, sometimes
+at such an angle that the bears were all rolled together. Then their
+roars were almost as loud as the tempest; a formidable din arose from
+the floating menagerie.
+
+If the floe had upset, the bears would have swum to the boat and
+clambered aboard.
+
+For a quarter of an hour, which was as long as a century, the launch
+and floe drifted along in consort, twenty fathoms from one another at
+one moment and nearly running together the next, and at times they
+were so near to one another, the bears need only have dropped to have
+got on board. The Greenland dogs trembled from terror; Duke remained
+motionless. Hatteras and his companions were silent; it did not occur
+to them to put the helm down and sail away, and they went straight on.
+A vague feeling, of astonishment rather than terror, took possession
+of them; they admired this spectacle which completed the struggle of
+the elements. Finally the floe drifted away, borne by the wind, which
+the launch was able to withstand, as she lay with her head to the
+wind, and it disappeared in the mist, its presence being known merely
+by the distant roaring of the bears.
+
+At that moment the fury of the tempest redoubled; there was an endless
+unchaining of atmospheric waves; the boat, borne by the waves, was
+tossed about giddily; her sail flew away like a huge white bird; a
+whirlpool, a new Maelstrom, formed among the waves; the boat was
+carried so fast that it seemed to the men as if the rapidly revolving
+water were motionless. They were gradually sinking down. There was an
+irresistible power dragging them down and ingulfing them alive. All
+five arose. They looked at one another with terror. They grew dizzy.
+They felt an undefinable dread of the abyss! But suddenly the launch
+arose perpendicularly. Her prow was higher than the whirling waves;
+the speed with which she was moving hurled her beyond the centre of
+attraction, and escaping by the tangent of this circumference which
+was making more than a thousand turns a second, she was hurled away
+with the rapidity of a cannon-ball.
+
+[Illustration: "Her sail flew away like a huge white bird; a
+whirlpool, a new Maelstrom, formed among the waves."]
+
+Altamont, the doctor, Johnson, and Bell were thrown down among the
+seats. When they rose, Hatteras had disappeared. It was two o'clock in
+the morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+THE ENGLISH FLAG.
+
+
+One cry, bursting from the lips of the other four, succeeded their
+first stupefaction.
+
+"Hatteras!" cried the doctor.
+
+"Gone!" said Johnson and Bell.
+
+"Lost!"
+
+They looked about, but nothing was to be seen on the storm-tossed sea.
+Duke barked despairingly; he tried to spring into the water, but Bell
+managed to hold him.
+
+"Take a place at the helm, Altamont," said the doctor; "let us try
+everything to save the captain."
+
+Johnson and Bell took their seats. Altamont took the helm, and the
+launch came into wind again. Johnson and Bell began to row vigorously;
+for an hour they remained at the scene of the accident. They sought
+earnestly, but in vain. The unfortunate Hatteras was lost in the
+storm! Lost, so near the Pole, so near the end, of which he had had
+but a glimpse!
+
+The doctor called aloud, and fired the guns; Duke added his howling,
+but there was no answer. Then profound grief seized Clawbonny; his
+head sank into his hands, and his companions saw that he was weeping.
+In fact, at this distance from land, with a scrap of wood to hold him
+up, Hatteras could not reach the shore alive; and if anything did come
+ashore, it would be his disfigured corpse. After hunting for an hour,
+they decided to turn to the north, and struggle against the last
+furies of the tempest.
+
+At five o'clock in the morning of July 11th the wind went down; the
+sea grew quieter; the sky regained its polar clearness, and within
+three miles of them appeared the land. This continent was but an
+island, or rather a volcano, peering up like a lighthouse at the North
+Pole. The mountain, in full eruption, was hurling forth a mass of
+burning stones and melting rocks. It seemed to be rising and falling
+beneath the successive blasts as if it were breathing; the things
+which were cast out reached a great height in the air; amid the jets
+of flame, torrents of lava were flowing down the side of the mountain;
+here creeping between steaming rocks, there falling in cascades amid
+the purple vapor: and lower down a thousand streams united in one
+large river, which ran boiling into the sea.
+
+[Illustration: "The mountain was in full eruption."]
+
+The volcano seemed to have but a single crater, whence arose a column
+of fire, lighted by transverse rays; one would have said that part of
+the magnificence of the phenomenon was due to electricity. Above the
+flames floated an immense cloud of smoke, red below, black above. It
+rose with great majesty, and unrolled into huge layers.
+
+The sky at a considerable height had an ashy hue; the darkness, which
+was so marked during the tempest, and of which the doctor could give
+no satisfactory explanation, evidently came from the ashes, which
+completely hid the sun. He remembered a similar fact that took place
+in 1812, at the Barbadoes, which at noon was plunged into total
+darkness by the mass of cinders thrown from the crater of Isle St.
+Vincent.
+
+This enormous volcano, jutting up in mid-ocean, was about six thousand
+feet high, very nearly the altitude of Hecla. A line from the summit
+to the base would form with the horizon an angle of about eleven
+degrees. It seemed to rise from the bosom of the waves as the launch
+approached it. There was no trace of vegetation. There was no shore;
+it ran down steep to the sea.
+
+"Shall we be able to land?" said the doctor.
+
+"The wind is carrying us there," answered Altamont.
+
+"But I can't see any beach on which we could set foot."
+
+"So it seems from here," answered Johnson; "but we shall find some
+place for our boat; that is all we need."
+
+"Let us go on, then!" answered Clawbonny, sadly.
+
+The doctor had no eyes for the strange continent which was rising
+before him. The land of the Pole was there, but not the man who had
+discovered it. Five hundred feet from the rocks the sea was boiling
+under the action of subterraneous fires. The island was from eight to
+ten miles in circumference, no more; and, according to their
+calculation, it was very near the Pole, if indeed the axis of the
+world did not pass exactly through it. As they drew near they noticed
+a little fiord large enough to shelter their boat; they sailed towards
+it, filled with the fear of finding the captain's body cast ashore by
+the tempest.
+
+[Illustration: "They noticed a little fiord."]
+
+Still, it seemed unlikely that any corpse should rest there; there was
+no beach, and the sea beat against the steep rocks; thick ashes, on
+which no human foot had ever stepped, covered the ground beyond the
+reach of the waves. At last the launch slipped between the breakers,
+and there she was perfectly sheltered against the surf. Then Duke's
+lamentable howling redoubled; the poor animal called for the captain
+with his sad wails among the rocks. His barking was vain; and the
+doctor caressed him, without being able to calm him, when the faithful
+dog, as if he wanted to replace his master, made a prodigious leap,
+and was the first to get ashore amid the dust and ashes which flew
+about him.
+
+"Duke! Duke!" said the doctor.
+
+Duke did not hear him, but disappeared. The men then went ashore, and
+made the launch fast. Altamont was preparing to climb up a large pile
+of rocks, when Duke's distant barking was heard; it expressed pain,
+not wrath.
+
+"Listen!" said the doctor.
+
+"Has he got on the track of some animal?" asked the boatswain.
+
+"No," answered the doctor, quivering with emotion; "he's mourning,
+crying! Hatteras's body is there!"
+
+At these words the four men started after Duke, in the midst of
+blinding cinders; they reached the end of the fiord, a little place
+ten feet broad, where the waves were gently breaking. There Duke was
+barking near a body wrapped up in the English flag.
+
+"Hatteras, Hatteras!" cried the doctor, rushing to the body of his
+friend.
+
+But at once he uttered an explanation which it is impossible to
+render. This bleeding and apparently lifeless body had just given
+signs of life.
+
+"Alive, alive!" he cried.
+
+"Yes," said a feeble voice, "living on the land of the Pole, where the
+tempest cast me up! Living on Queen Island!"
+
+"Hurrah for England!" cried the five together.
+
+"And for America!" added the doctor, holding out one hand to Hatteras
+and the other to Altamont. Duke, too, hurrahed in his own way, which
+was as good as any other.
+
+At first these kind-hearted men were wholly given up to the pleasure
+of seeing their captain again; they felt the tears welling up into
+their eyes. The doctor examined Hatteras's condition. He was not
+seriously injured. The wind had carried him to the shore, where it was
+hard to land; the bold sailor, often beaten back, at last succeeded in
+clambering upon a rock above the reach of the waves. Then he lost
+consciousness, after wrapping himself up in his flag, and he only came
+to himself under Duke's caresses and barking. After receiving a few
+attentions, Hatteras was able to rise, and, leaning on the doctor's
+arm, to go to the launch.
+
+"The Pole, the North Pole!" he repeated as he walked along.
+
+"You are happy!" the doctor said to him.
+
+"Yes, happy! And you, my friend, don't you feel happy at being here?
+This land is the land of the Pole! This sea we have crossed is the sea
+of the Pole! This air we breathe is the air of the Pole! O, the North
+Pole, the North Pole!"
+
+As he spoke, Hatteras was the victim of a violent excitement, a sort
+of fever, and the doctor in vain tried to calm him. His eyes were
+strangely bright, and his thoughts were boiling within him. Clawbonny
+ascribed this condition to the terrible perils he had gone through.
+Hatteras evidently needed rest, and they set about seeking a place to
+camp. Altamont soon found a grotto in the rocks, which had fallen in
+such a way as to form a cavern. Johnson and Bell brought provisions
+there, and let loose the dogs. Towards eleven o'clock everything was
+prepared for a meal; the canvas of the tent served as a cloth; the
+breakfast, consisting of pemmican, salt meat, tea and coffee, was set
+and soon devoured. But first, Hatteras demanded that an observation
+should be made; he wanted to know its position exactly. The doctor and
+Altamont then took their instruments, and after taking an observation
+they found the precise position of the grotto to be latitude 89° 59'
+15". The longitude at this height was of no importance, for all the
+meridians run together within a few hundred feet higher. So in reality
+the island was situated at the North Pole, and the ninetieth degree of
+latitude was only forty-five seconds from there, exactly three
+quarters of a mile, that is to say, towards the top of the volcano.
+When Hatteras knew this result, he asked that it should be stated in
+two documents, one to be placed in a cairn on the shore. So at once
+the doctor took his pen and wrote the following document, one copy of
+which is now in the archives of the Royal Geographical Society in
+London:--
+
+
+"July 11, 1861, in north latitude 89° 59' 15", 'Queen Island' was
+discovered at the North Pole by Captain Hatteras, commanding the brig
+_Forward_ of Liverpool, who has set his name hereto, with his
+companions. Whoever shall find this document is entreated to forward
+it to the Admiralty.
+
+  (Signed)  JOHN HATTERAS, Captain of the _Forward_.
+            DR. CLAWBONNY.
+            ALTAMONT, Captain of the _Porpoise_.
+            JOHNSON, Boatswain.
+            BELL, Carpenter."
+
+
+"And now, my friends, to table!" said the doctor, gayly.
+
+[Illustration: "Altamont soon found a grotto in the rocks."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+POLAR COSMOGRAPHY.
+
+
+Of course, to eat at table, they were obliged to sit on the ground.
+
+"But," said Clawbonny, "who wouldn't give all the tables and
+dining-rooms in the world, to dine in north latitude 89° 59' 15"?"
+
+The thoughts of each one were about their situation. They had no other
+idea than the North Pole. The dangers they had undergone to reach it,
+those to overcome before returning, were forgotten in their
+unprecedented success. What neither Europeans, Americans, nor Asiatics
+had been able to do, they had accomplished. Hence they were all ready
+to listen to the doctor when he told them all that his inexhaustible
+memory could recall about their position. It was with real enthusiasm
+that he first proposed their captain's health.
+
+[Illustration: "They were all ready to listen to the doctor."]
+
+"To John Hatteras!" he said.
+
+"To John Hatteras!" repeated the others.
+
+"To the North Pole!" answered the captain, with a warmth that was
+unusual in this man who was usually so self-restrained, but who now
+was in a state of great nervous excitement. They touched glasses, and
+the toasts were followed by earnest hand-shakings.
+
+"It is," said the doctor, "the most important geographical fact of our
+day! Who would have thought that this discovery would precede that of
+the centre of Africa or Australia? Really, Hatteras, you are greater
+than Livingstone, Burton, and Barth! All honor to you!"
+
+"You are right, Doctor," said Altamont; "it would seem, from the
+difficulty of the undertaking, that the Pole would be the last place
+discovered. Whenever the government was absolutely determined to know
+the middle of Africa, it would have succeeded at the cost of so many
+men and so much money; but here nothing is less certain than success,
+and there might be obstacles really insuperable."
+
+"Insuperable!" cried Hatteras with warmth; "there are no insuperable
+obstacles; there are more or less determined minds, that is all!"
+
+"Well," said Johnson, "we are here, and it is well. But, Doctor, will
+you tell me, once for all, what there is so remarkable about the
+Pole?"
+
+"It is this, Johnson, that it is the only motionless part of the
+globe, while all the rest is turning with extreme rapidity."
+
+"But I don't see that we are more motionless here than at Liverpool."
+
+"No more than you perceive the motion at Liverpool; and that is
+because in both cases you participate in the movement or the repose.
+But the fact is no less certain. The earth rotates in twenty-four
+hours, and this motion is on an axis with its extremities at the two
+poles. Well, we are at one of the extremities of the axis, which is
+necessarily motionless."
+
+"So," said Bell, "when our countrymen are turning rapidly, we are
+perfectly still?"
+
+"Very nearly, for we are not exactly at the Pole."
+
+"You are right, Doctor," said Hatteras seriously, and shaking his
+head; "we are still forty-five seconds from the precise spot."
+
+"That is not far," answered Altamont, "and we can consider ourselves
+motionless."
+
+"Yes," continued the doctor, "while those living at the equator move
+at the rate of three hundred and ninety-six leagues an hour."
+
+"And without getting tired!" said Bell.
+
+"Exactly!" answered the doctor.
+
+"But," continued Johnson, "besides this movement of rotation, doesn't
+the earth also move about the sun?"
+
+"Yes, and this takes a year."
+
+"Is it swifter than the other?"
+
+"Infinitely so; and I ought to say that, although we are at the Pole,
+it takes us with it as well as all the people in the world. So our
+pretended immobility is a chimera: we are motionless with regard to
+the other points of the globe, but not so with regard to the sun."
+
+"Good!" said Bell, with an accent of comic regret; "so I, who thought
+I was still, was mistaken! This illusion has to be given up! One can't
+have a moment's peace in this world."
+
+"You are right, Bell," answered Johnson; "and will you tell us,
+Doctor, how fast this motion is?"
+
+"It is very fast," answered the doctor; "the earth moves around the
+sun seventy-six times faster than a twenty-four-pound cannon-ball
+flies, which goes one hundred and ninety-five fathoms a second. It
+moves, then, seven leagues and six tenths per second; you see it is
+very different from the diurnal movement of the equator."
+
+"The deuce!" said Bell; "that is incredible, Doctor! More than seven
+leagues a second, and that when it would have been so easy to be
+motionless, if God had wished it!"
+
+"Good!" said Altamont; "do you think so, Bell? In that case no more
+night, nor spring, nor autumn, nor winter!"
+
+"Without considering a still more terrible result," continued the
+doctor.
+
+"What is that?" asked Johnson.
+
+"We should all fall into the sun!"
+
+"Fall into the sun!" repeated Bell with surprise.
+
+"Yes. If this motion were to stop, the earth would fall into the sun
+in sixty-four days and a half."
+
+"A fall of sixty-four days!" said Johnson.
+
+"No more nor less," answered the doctor; "for it would have to fall a
+distance of thirty-eight millions of leagues."
+
+"What is the weight of the earth?" asked Altamont.
+
+"It is five thousand eight hundred and ninety-one quadrillions of
+tons."
+
+"Good!" said Johnson; "those numbers have no meaning."
+
+"For that reason, Johnson, I was going to give you two comparisons
+which you could remember. Don't forget that it would take seventy-five
+moons to make the sun, and three hundred and fifty thousand earths to
+make up the weight of the sun."
+
+"That is tremendous!" said Altamont.
+
+"Tremendous is the word," answered the doctor; "but, to return to the
+Pole, no lesson on cosmography on this part of the globe could be more
+opportune, if it doesn't weary you."
+
+"Go on, Doctor, go on!"
+
+"I told you," resumed the doctor, who took as much pleasure in giving
+as the others did in receiving instruction,--"I told you that the Pole
+was motionless in comparison with the rest of the globe. Well, that is
+not quite true!"
+
+"What!" said Bell, "has that got to be taken back?"
+
+"Yes, Bell, the Pole is not always exactly in the same place; formerly
+the North Star was farther from the celestial pole than it is now. So
+our Pole has a certain motion; it describes a circle in about
+twenty-six years. That comes from the precession of the equinoxes, of
+which I shall speak soon."
+
+"But," asked Altamont, "might it not happen that some day the Pole
+should get farther from its place?"
+
+"Ah, my dear Altamont," answered the doctor, "you bring up there a
+great question, which scientific men investigated for a long time in
+consequence of a singular discovery."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"This is it. In 1771 the body of a rhinoceros was found on the shore
+of the Arctic Sea, and in 1799 that of an elephant on the coast of
+Siberia. How did the animals of warm countries happen to be found in
+these latitudes? Thereupon there was much commotion among geologists,
+who were not so wise as a Frenchman, M. Elie de Beaumont, has been
+since. He showed that these animals used to live in rather high
+latitudes, and that the streams and rivers simply carried their bodies
+to the places where they were found. But do you know the explanation
+which scientific men gave before this one?"
+
+"Scientific men are capable of anything," said Altamont.
+
+"Yes, in explanation of a fact; well, they imagined that the Pole used
+to be at the equator and the equator at the Pole."
+
+"Bah!"
+
+"It was exactly what I tell you. Now, if it had been so, since the
+earth is flattened more than five leagues at the pole, the seas,
+carried to the equator by centrifugal force, would have covered
+mountains twice as high as the Himalayas; all the countries near the
+polar circle, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Siberia, Greenland, and New
+Britain, would have been buried in five leagues of water, while the
+regions at the equator, having become the pole, would have formed
+plateaus fifteen leagues high!"
+
+"What a change!" said Johnson.
+
+"O, that made no difference to scientific men!"
+
+"And how did they explain the alteration?" asked Altamont.
+
+"They said it was due to the shock of collision with a comet. The
+comet is the _deus ex machina_; whenever one comes to a difficult
+question in cosmography, a comet is lugged in. It is the most obliging
+of the heavenly bodies, and at the least sign from a scientific man it
+disarranges itself to arrange everything."
+
+"Then," said Johnson, "according to you, Doctor, this change is
+impossible?"
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"And if it should take place?"
+
+"If it did, the equator would be frozen in twenty-four hours!"
+
+"Good! if it were to take place now," said Bell, "people would as
+likely as not say we had never gone to the Pole."
+
+"Calm yourself, Bell. To return to the immobility of the terrestrial
+axis, the following is the result: if we were to spend a winter here,
+we should see the stars describing a circle about us. As for the sun,
+the day of the vernal equinox, March 23d, it would appear to us (I
+take no account of refraction) exactly cut in two by the horizon, and
+would rise gradually in longer and longer curves; but here it is
+remarkable that when it has once risen it sets no more; it is visible
+for six months. Then its disk touches the horizon again at the
+autumnal equinox, September 22d, and as soon as it is set, it is seen
+no more again all winter."
+
+"You were speaking just now of the flattening of the earth at the
+poles," said Johnson; "be good enough to explain that, Doctor."
+
+"I will. Since the earth was fluid when first created, you understand
+that its rotary movement would try to drive part of the mobile mass to
+the equator, where the centrifugal force was greater. If the earth had
+been motionless, it would have remained a perfect sphere; but in
+consequence of the phenomenon I have just described, it has an
+ellipsoidal form, and points at the pole are nearer the centre of the
+earth than points at the equator by about five leagues."
+
+"So," said Johnson, "if our captain wanted to take us to the centre of
+the earth, we should have five leagues less to go?"
+
+"Exactly, my friend."
+
+"Well, Captain, it's so much gained! We ought to avail ourselves of
+it."
+
+But Hatteras did not answer. Evidently he had lost all interest in the
+conversation, or perhaps he was listening without hearing.
+
+"Well," answered the doctor, "according to certain scientific men, it
+would be worth while to try this expedition."
+
+"What! really?" exclaimed Johnson.
+
+"But let me finish," answered the doctor. "I will tell you. I must
+first tell you this flattening of the poles is the cause of the
+precession of the equinoxes; that is to say, why every year the vernal
+equinox comes a day sooner than it would if the earth were perfectly
+round. This comes from the attraction of the sun operating in a
+different way on the heaped-up land of the equator, which then
+experiences a retrograde movement. Subsequently it displaces this Pole
+a little, as I just said. But, independently of this effect, this
+flattening ought to have a more curious and more personal effect,
+which we should perceive if we had mathematical sensibility."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Bell.
+
+"I mean that we are heavier here than at Liverpool."
+
+"Heavier?"
+
+"Yes; ourselves, the dogs, our guns, and instruments!"
+
+"Is it possible?"
+
+"Certainly, and for two reasons: the first is, that we are nearer the
+centre of the globe, which consequently attracts us more strongly, and
+this force of gravitation is nothing but weight; the second is, the
+rotary force, which is nothing at the pole, is very marked at the
+equator, and objects there have a tendency to fly from the earth: they
+are less heavy."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Johnson, seriously; "have we not the same weight
+everywhere?"
+
+"No, Johnson; according to Newton's law, bodies attract one another
+directly as their masses, and inversely to the square of their
+distances. Here I weigh more, because I am nearer the centre of
+attraction; and on another planet I should weigh more or less
+according to the mass of the planet."
+
+"What!" said Bell, "in the moon--"
+
+"In the moon my weight, which is two hundred pounds at Liverpool,
+would be only thirty-two pounds."
+
+"And in the sun?"
+
+"O, in the sun I should weigh more than five thousand pounds!"
+
+"Heavens!" said Bell; "you'd need a derrick to move your legs."
+
+"Probably," answered the doctor, laughing at Bell's amazement; "but
+here the difference is imperceptible, and by an equal effort of the
+muscles Bell would leap as high as on the docks at Liverpool."
+
+"Yes, but in the sun?" urged Bell.
+
+"My friend," answered the doctor, "the upshot of it all is that we are
+well off where we are, and need not want to go elsewhere."
+
+"You said just now," resumed Altamont, "that perhaps it would be worth
+while to make a journey to the centre of the world; has such an
+undertaking ever been thought of?"
+
+"Yes, and this is all I'm going to say about the Pole. There is no
+point in the world which has given rise to more chimeras and
+hypotheses. The ancients, in their ignorance, placed the garden of the
+Hesperides there. In the Middle Ages it was supposed that the earth
+was upheld on axles placed at the poles, on which it revolved; but
+when comets were seen moving freely, that idea had to be given up.
+Later, there was a French astronomer, Bailly, who said that the lost
+people mentioned by Plato, the Atlantides, lived here. Finally, it has
+been asserted in our own time that there was an immense opening at the
+poles, from which came the Northern Lights, and through which one
+could reach the inside of the earth; since in the hollow sphere two
+planets, Pluto and Proserpine, were said to move, and the air was
+luminous in consequence of the strong pressure it felt."
+
+"That has been maintained?" asked Altamont.
+
+"Yes, it has been written about seriously. Captain Symmes, a
+countryman of ours, proposed to Sir Humphry Davy, Humboldt, and Arago,
+to undertake the voyage! But they declined."
+
+"And they did well."
+
+"I think so. Whatever it may be, you see, my friends, that the
+imagination has busied itself about the Pole, and that sooner or later
+we must come to the reality."
+
+"At any rate, we shall see for ourselves," said Johnson, who clung to
+his idea.
+
+"Then, to-morrow we'll start," said the doctor, smiling at seeing the
+old sailor but half convinced; "and if there is any opening to the
+centre of the earth, we shall go there together."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+MOUNT HATTERAS.
+
+
+After this solid conversation every one made himself as comfortable as
+possible in the cavern, and soon fell asleep. Every one, that is,
+except Hatteras. Why did not this strange man sleep?
+
+Was not the object of his life attained? Had he not accomplished the
+bold projects which lay so near his heart? Why did not calmness
+succeed the agitation in his ardent mind? Would not one suppose that,
+when he had accomplished this end, Hatteras would fall into a sort of
+dejection, and that his over-stretched nerves would seek repose? After
+succeeding, it would seem natural that he should be seized with the
+feeling of sadness, which always follows satisfied desires.
+
+But no. He was only more excited. It was not, however, the thought of
+returning which agitated him so. Did he wish to go farther? Was there
+no limit to his ambition, and did he find the world too small, because
+he had been around it? However this may have been, he could not sleep.
+And yet this first night spent at the pole of the world was pleasant
+and quiet. The island was absolutely uninhabited. There was not a bird
+in its fire-impregnated atmosphere, not an animal on the soil of
+cinders, not a fish in its boiling waters. Only afar off the dull
+murmur of the mountain, from the summit of which arose puffs of hot
+smoke.
+
+When Bell, Johnson, Altamont, and the doctor awoke, Hatteras was not
+to be seen near them. Being anxious, they left the cave, and saw the
+captain standing on a rock. His eyes were fixed on the top of the
+volcano. He held his instruments in his hands, having evidently been
+calculating the exact height of the mountain. The doctor went up to
+him and spoke to him several times before he could rouse him from his
+revery. At last the captain seemed to understand him.
+
+[Illustration: "They saw the captain standing on a rock."]
+
+"Forward!" said the doctor, who was examining him
+attentively,--"forward! let us explore our island; we are all ready
+for our last excursion."
+
+"Our last," said Hatteras, with the intonation of people who are
+dreaming aloud; "yes, the last, indeed. But also," he continued with
+great animation, "the most wonderful!"
+
+He spoke in this way, rubbing his hands over his brow as if to allay
+its throbbing. At that moment, Altamont, Johnson, and Bell joined him;
+Hatteras appeared to awaken from his revery.
+
+[Illustration: "Hatteras appeared to wake from his revery."]
+
+"My friends," he said with emotion, "thanks for your courage, thanks
+for your perseverance, thanks for your superhuman efforts, which have
+allowed us to set foot on this land!"
+
+"Captain!" said Johnson, "we have only obeyed; all the honor is due to
+you alone!"
+
+"No, no!" resumed Hatteras with emotion; "to you as much as to me! to
+Altamont as well as to all of us! as to the doctor himself-- O, let my
+heart well over in your hands! It can no longer restrain its joy and
+gratitude!"
+
+Hatteras clasped the hands of his companions. He walked to and fro, no
+longer master of himself.
+
+"We have only done our duty as Englishmen," said Bell.
+
+"Our duty as friends," continued the doctor.
+
+"Yes," said Hatteras, "but all have not performed this duty. Some have
+given way! Still, they must be pardoned, both who were treacherous,
+and those who were led away to it! Poor men! I forgive them. You
+understand me, Doctor?"
+
+"Yes," answered the doctor, who was very uneasy at Hatteras's
+excitement.
+
+"So," went on the captain, "I don't want them to lose the money they
+came so far to seek. No, I shall not alter my plan; they shall be
+rich,--if they ever see England again!"
+
+Few could have withstood the tenderness with which Hatteras spoke
+these last words.
+
+"But, Captain," said Johnson, with an effort at pleasantry, "one would
+say you were making your will."
+
+"Perhaps I am," answered Hatteras, seriously.
+
+"Still you have before you a long and glorious life," continued the
+old sailor.
+
+"Who can say?" said Hatteras.
+
+A long silence followed these words. The doctor did not dare to try to
+interpret the last remark. But Hatteras soon expressed his meaning,
+for in a hasty, hardly restrained voice, he went on:--
+
+"My friends, listen to me. We have done a good deal so far, and yet
+there is a good deal to do."
+
+His companions gazed at him in astonishment.
+
+"Yes, we are on the land of the Pole, but we are not on the Pole
+itself!"
+
+"How so?" asked Altamont.
+
+"You don't mean it!" cried the doctor, anxiously.
+
+"Yes!" resumed Hatteras, earnestly, "I said that an Englishman should
+set foot on the Pole; I said it, and an Englishman shall do it."
+
+"What!" ejaculated the doctor.
+
+"We are now forty-five seconds from the unknown point," Hatteras went
+on, with increasing animation; "where it is, I am going!"
+
+"But that is the top of the volcano!" said the doctor.
+
+"I'm going!"
+
+"It's an inaccessible spot!"
+
+"I'm going!"
+
+"It's a fiery crater!"
+
+"I'm going!"
+
+The firmness with which Hatteras uttered these words cannot be given.
+His friends were stupefied; they gazed with horror at the volcano
+tipped with flame. Then the doctor began; he urged and besought
+Hatteras to give up his design; he said everything he could imagine,
+from entreaty to well-meant threats; but he obtained no concession
+from the nervous captain, who was possessed with a sort of madness
+which may be called polar madness. Only violent means could stop him,
+rushing to his ruin. But seeing that thereby they would produce
+serious results, the doctor wished to keep them for a last resource.
+He hoped, too, that some physical impossibility, some unsurmountable
+difficulty, would compel him to give up his plan.
+
+"Since it is so," he said, "we shall follow you."
+
+"Yes," answered the captain, "half-way up the mountain! No farther!
+Haven't you got to carry back to England the copy of the document
+which proves our discovery, in case--"
+
+"Still--"
+
+"It is settled," said Hatteras, in a tone of command; "and since my
+entreaties as a friend are not enough, I order it as captain."
+
+The doctor was unwilling to urge him any further, and a few moments
+later the little band, equipped for a hard climb, and preceded by
+Duke, set out. The sky was perfectly clear. The thermometer stood at
+52°. The air had all the brilliancy which is so marked at this high
+latitude. It was eight o'clock in the morning. Hatteras went ahead
+with his dog, the others followed close behind.
+
+"I'm anxious," said Johnson.
+
+"No, no, there's nothing to fear," answered the doctor; "we are here."
+
+It was a strange island, in appearance so new and singular! The
+volcano did not seem old, and geologists would have ascribed a recent
+date to its formation.
+
+The rocks were heaped upon one another, and only kept in place by
+almost miraculous balancing. The mountain, in fact, was composed of
+nothing but stones that had fallen from above. There was no soil, no
+moss, no lichen, no trace of vegetation. The carbonic acid from the
+crater had not yet had time to unite with the hydrogen of the water;
+nor the ammonia of the clouds, to form under the action of the light,
+organized matter. This island had arisen from successive volcanic
+eruptions, like many other mountains; what they have hurled forth has
+built them up. For instance, Etna has poured forth a volume of lava
+larger than itself; and the Monte Nuovo, near Naples, was formed by
+ashes in the short space of forty-eight hours. The heap of rocks
+composing Queen's Island had evidently come from the bowels of the
+earth. Formerly the sea covered it all; it had been formed long since
+by the condensation of the vapor on the cooling globe; but in
+proportion as the volcanoes of the Old and New World disappeared, they
+were replaced by new craters.
+
+In fact, the earth can be compared to a vast spheroidal boiler. Under
+the influence of the central fire an immense quantity of vapor is
+generated, which is exposed to a pressure of thousands of atmospheres,
+and which would blow up the globe, were it not for the safety-valves
+opening on the outside.
+
+These safety-valves are the volcanoes; when one closes, another opens;
+and at the poles, where, doubtless in consequence of the flattening of
+the earth's surface, the crust is thinner, it is not strange that a
+volcano should be suddenly formed by the upheaval of the bottom of the
+waves. The doctor noticed all this as he followed Hatteras; his foot
+sank into a volcanic tufa, and the deposits of ashes, volcanic stones,
+etc., like the syenite and granite of Iceland. But he attributed a
+comparatively recent origin to the island, on account of the fact that
+no sedimentary soil had yet formed upon it. Water, too, was lacking.
+If Queen's Island had existed for several years, there would have been
+springs upon it, as there are in the neighborhood of volcanoes. Now,
+not only was there no drop of water there, but the vapors which arose
+from the stream of lava seemed absolutely anhydrous.
+
+This island, then, was of recent formation; and since it appeared in
+one day, it might disappear in another and sink beneath the ocean.
+
+The ascent grew more difficult the higher they went; the sides of the
+mountain became nearly perpendicular, and they had to be very careful
+to avoid accident. Often columns of cinders were blown about them and
+threatened to choke them, or torrents of lava barred their path. On
+some such places these streams were hard on top, but the molten stream
+flowed beneath. Each one had to test it first to escape sinking into
+the glowing mass. From time to time the crater vomited forth huge
+red-hot rocks amid burning gases; some of these bodies burst in the
+air like shells, and the fragments were hurled far off in all
+directions. The innumerable dangers of this ascent may be readily
+perceived, as well as the foolhardiness of the attempt.
+
+Still, Hatteras climbed with wonderful agility, and while spurning the
+use of his iron-tipped staff, he ascended the steepest slopes. He soon
+reached a circular rock, which formed a sort of plateau about ten feet
+broad; a glowing stream surrounded it, which was divided at the corner
+by a higher rock, and left only a narrow passage through which
+Hatteras slipped boldly. There he stopped, and his companions were
+able to join him. Then he seemed to estimate the distance yet
+remaining; horizontally there were only about six hundred feet of the
+crater remaining, that is to say, from the mathematical point of the
+Pole; but vertically they had fifteen hundred feet yet to climb. The
+ascent had already taken three hours; Hatteras did not seem tired; his
+companions were exhausted.
+
+The top of the volcano seemed inaccessible. The doctor wished at any
+risk to keep Hatteras from going higher. At first he tried gentle
+means, but the captain's excitement amounted to delirium; on the way
+he had exhibited all the signs of growing madness, and whoever has
+known him in the different scenes of his life cannot be surprised. In
+proportion as Hatteras rose above the ocean his excitement increased;
+he lived no longer with men; he thought he was growing larger with the
+mountain itself.
+
+"Hatteras," said the doctor, "this is far enough! we can't go any
+farther!"
+
+"Stay where you are, then," answered the captain in a strange voice;
+"I shall go higher!"
+
+"No! that's useless! you are at the Pole here!"
+
+"No, no, higher!"
+
+"My friend, it's I who am speaking to you, Dr. Clawbonny! Don't you
+know me?"
+
+"Higher! higher!" repeated the madman.
+
+"Well, no, we sha'n't let--"
+
+The doctor had not finished the sentence before Hatteras, by a violent
+effort, sprang over the stream of lava and was out of their reach.
+They uttered a cry, thinking Hatteras was lost in the fiery abyss; but
+he had reached the other side, followed by Duke, who was unwilling to
+abandon him.
+
+He disappeared behind a puff of smoke, and his voice was heard growing
+fainter and fainter in the distance.
+
+"To the north!" he was shouting, "to the top of Mount Hatteras! Do you
+remember Mount Hatteras?"
+
+They could not think of getting up to him; there were twenty chances
+to one against their being able to cross the stream he had leaped over
+with the skill and luck of madmen. Nor could they get around it.
+Altamont in vain tried to pass; he was nearly lost in trying to cross
+the stream of lava; his companions were obliged to hold him by force.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Hatteras, Hatteras!" shouted the doctor.
+
+But the captain did not answer; Duke's barking alone was heard upon
+the mountain.
+
+Still, Hatteras could be seen at intervals through the column of smoke
+and the showers of cinders. Sometimes his arm or head would emerge
+from the whirlwind. Then he would disappear and be seen again higher
+up in the rocks. His height diminished with the fantastic swiftness of
+objects rising in the air. Half an hour later he seemed but a fraction
+of his usual size.
+
+The air was filled with the dull noises of the volcano; the mountain
+was roaring like a boiler, its sides were quivering. Hatteras kept on,
+and Duke followed. From time to time some enormous rock would give way
+beneath them and go crashing down to the sea. But Hatteras did not
+look back. He had made use of his staff as a pole on which to fasten
+the English flag. His companions observed every one of his movements.
+His dimensions became gradually smaller, and Duke seemed no larger
+than a rat. One moment the wind seemed to drive down upon them a great
+wave of flame. The doctor uttered a cry of anguish, but Hatteras
+reappeared, standing and brandishing the flag.
+
+[Illustration: "But Hatteras did not look back. He had made use of his
+staff as a pole on which to fasten the English flag."]
+
+This sight lasted for more than an hour,--an hour of struggle with the
+trembling rocks, with the beds of ashes into which this madman would
+sink up to the waist. Now he would be climbing on his knees and making
+use of every inequality in the mountain, and now he would hang by his
+hands at some sharp corner, swinging in the wind like a dry leaf.
+
+At last he reached the top, the yawning mouth of the crater. The
+doctor then hoped that the wretched man, having attained his object,
+would perhaps return and have only those dangers before him.
+
+He gave a last shout.
+
+"Hatteras, Hatteras!"
+
+The doctor's cry moved the American's heart so that he cried out,--
+
+"I will save him!"
+
+Then with one leap crossing the fiery torrent at the risk of falling
+in, he disappeared among the rocks. Clawbonny did not have time to
+stop him. Still, Hatteras, having reached the top, was climbing on top
+of a rock which overhung the abyss. The stones were raining about him.
+Duke was still following him. The poor beast seemed already dizzy at
+the sight beneath him. Hatteras was whirling about his head the flag,
+which was lighted with the brilliant reflection, and the red bunting
+could be seen above the crater. With one hand Hatteras was holding it;
+with the other he was pointing to the zenith, the celestial pole.
+Still he seemed to hesitate. He was seeking the mathematical point
+where all the meridians meet, and on which in his sublime obstinacy he
+wanted to set his foot.
+
+Suddenly the rock gave way beneath him. He disappeared. A terrible cry
+from his companions rose even to the summit of the mountain. A
+second--a century--passed! Clawbonny considered his friend lost and
+buried forever in the depths of the volcano. But Altamont was there,
+and Duke too. The man and the dog had seized him just when he was
+disappearing in the abyss. Hatteras was saved, saved in spite of
+himself, and half an hour later the captain of the _Forward_ lay
+unconscious in the arms of his despairing friends.
+
+When he came to himself, the doctor gave him a questioning glance in
+mute agony. But his vague look, like that of a blind man, made no
+reply.
+
+"Heavens!" said Johnson, "he is blind!"
+
+"No," answered Clawbonny,--"no! My poor friends, we have saved
+Hatteras's body! His mind is at the top of the volcano! He has lost
+his reason!"
+
+"Mad?" cried Johnson and Altamont in deep distress.
+
+"Mad!" answered the doctor.
+
+And he wept bitterly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+RETURN TO THE SOUTH.
+
+
+Three hours after this sad conclusion to the adventures of Captain
+Hatteras, Clawbonny, Altamont, and the two sailors were assembled in
+the cavern at the foot of the volcano. Then Clawbonny was asked to
+give his opinion on what was to be done.
+
+"My friends," he said, "we cannot prolong our stay at Queen's Island;
+the sea is open before us; our provisions are sufficient; we must set
+out and reach Fort Providence as soon as possible, and we can go into
+winter-quarters till next summer."
+
+"That is my opinion," said Altamont; "the wind is fair, and to-morrow
+we shall set sail."
+
+The day passed in great gloom. The captain's madness was a sad
+foreboding, and when Johnson, Bell, and Altamont thought of their
+return, they were afraid of their loneliness and remoteness. They felt
+the need of Hatteras's bold soul. Still, like energetic men they made
+ready for a new struggle with the elements, and with themselves, in
+case they should feel themselves growing faint-hearted.
+
+The next day, Saturday, July 13th, the camping materials were put on
+the boat, and soon everything was ready for their departure. But
+before leaving this rock forever, the doctor, following Hatteras's
+intentions, put up a cairn at the place where the captain reached the
+island; this cairn was built of large rocks laid on one another, so as
+to form a perfectly visible landmark, if it were not destroyed by the
+eruption.
+
+[Illustration: "The doctor put up a cairn."]
+
+On one of the lateral stones Bell carved with a chisel this simple
+inscription:--
+
+  JOHN HATTERAS
+      1861.
+
+A copy of the document was placed inside of the cairn in an
+hermetically sealed tin cylinder, and the proof of this great
+discovery was left here on these lonely rocks.
+
+Then the four men and the captain,--a poor body without a mind,--and
+his faithful Duke, sad and melancholy, got into the boat for the
+return voyage. It was ten o'clock in the morning. A new sail was set
+up with the canvas of the tent. The launch, sailing before the wind,
+left Queen's Island, and that evening the doctor, standing on his
+bench, waved a last farewell to Mount Hatteras, which was lighting up
+the horizon.
+
+Their voyage was very quick; the sea, which was always open, was easy
+sailing, and it seemed really easier to go away from the Pole than to
+approach it. But Hatteras was in no state to understand what was going
+on about him; he lay at full length in the launch, his mouth closed,
+his expression dull, and his arms folded. Duke lay at his feet. It was
+in vain that the doctor questioned him. Hatteras did not hear him.
+
+For forty-eight hours the breeze was fair and the sea smooth.
+Clawbonny and his companions rejoiced in the north-wind. July 15th,
+they made Altamont Harbor in the south; but since the Polar Ocean was
+open all along the coast, instead of crossing New America by sledge,
+they resolved to sail around it, and reach Victoria Bay by sea. This
+voyage was quicker and easier. In fact, the space which had taken them
+a fortnight on sledges took them hardly a week by sail; and after
+following the rugged outline of the coast, which was fringed with
+numerous fiords, and determining its shape, they reached Victoria Bay,
+Monday evening, July 23d.
+
+The launch was firmly anchored to the shore, and each one ran to Fort
+Providence. The Doctor's House, the stores, the magazine, the
+fortifications, all had melted in the sun, and the supplies had been
+devoured by hungry beasts.
+
+It was a sad sight.
+
+They were nearly at the end of their supplies, and they had intended
+to renew them at Fort Providence. The impossibility of passing the
+winter there was evident. Like people accustomed to decide rapidly,
+they determined to reach Baffin's Bay as soon as possible.
+
+"We have nothing else to do," said the doctor; "Baffin's Bay is not
+six hundred miles from here; we might sail as far as our launch would
+carry us, reach Jones's Sound, and from there the Danish settlements."
+
+"Yes," answered Altamont; "let us collect all the provisions we can,
+and leave."
+
+By strict search they found a few chests of pemmican here and there,
+and two barrels of preserved meat, which had escaped destruction. In
+short, they had a supply for six weeks, and powder enough. This was
+promptly collected. The day was devoted to calking the launch,
+repairing it, and the next day, July 24th, they put out to sea again.
+
+The continent towards latitude 83° inclined towards the east. It was
+possible that it joined the countries known under the name of Grinnell
+Land, Ellesmere, and North Lincoln, which form the coast-line of
+Baffin's Bay. They could then hold it for certain that Jones's Sound
+opened in the inner seas, like Lancaster Sound. The launch then sailed
+without much difficulty, easily avoiding the floating ice. The doctor,
+by way of precaution against possible delay, put them all on
+half-rations; but this did not trouble them much, and their health was
+unimpaired.
+
+Besides, they were able to shoot occasionally; they killed ducks,
+geese, and other game, which gave them fresh and wholesome food. As
+for their drink, they had a full supply from the floating ice, which
+they met on the way, for they took care not to go far from the coast,
+the launch being too small for the open sea.
+
+At this period of the year the thermometer was already, for the
+greater part of time, beneath the freezing-point; after a certain
+amount of rainy weather snow began to fall, with other signs of the
+end of summer; the sun sank nearer the horizon, and more and more of
+its disk sank beneath it every day. July 30th they saw it disappear
+for the first time, that is to say, they had a few minutes of night.
+
+Still, the launch sailed well, sometimes making from sixty to
+seventy-five miles a day; they did not stop a moment; they knew what
+fatigues to endure, what obstacles to surmount; the way by land was
+before them, if they had to take it, and these confined seas must soon
+be closed; indeed, the young ice was already forming here and there.
+Winter suddenly succeeds summer in these latitudes; there are no
+intermediate seasons; no spring, no autumn. So they had to hurry. July
+31st, the sky being clear at sunset, the first stars were seen in the
+constellations overhead. From this day on there was perpetual mist,
+which interfered very much with their sailing. The doctor, when he saw
+all the signs of winter's approach, became very uneasy; he knew the
+difficulties Sir John Ross had found in getting to Baffin's Bay, after
+leaving his ship; and indeed, having once tried to pass the ice, he
+was obliged to return to his ship, and go into winter-quarters for the
+fourth year; but he had at least a shelter against the weather, food,
+and fuel. If such a misfortune were to befall the survivors of the
+_Forward_, if they had to stop or put back, they were lost; the doctor
+did not express his uneasiness to his companions; but he urged them to
+get as far eastward as possible.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Finally, August 15th, after thirty days of rather good sailing, after
+struggling for forty-eight hours against the ice, which was
+accumulating, after having imperilled their little launch a hundred
+times, they saw themselves absolutely stopped, unable to go farther;
+the sea was all frozen, and the thermometer marked on an average +15°.
+Moreover, in all the north and east it was easy to detect the nearness
+of land, by the presence of pebbles; frozen fresh water was found more
+frequently. Altamont made an observation with great exactness, and
+found they were in latitude 77° 15', and longitude 85° 2'.
+
+"So, then," said the doctor, "this is our exact position; we have
+reached North Lincoln, exactly at Cape Eden; we are entering Jones's
+Sound; if we had been a little luckier, we should have found the sea
+open to Baffin's Bay. But we need not complain. If my poor Hatteras
+had at first found so open a sea, he would have soon reached the Pole,
+his companions would not have deserted him, and he would not have lost
+his reason under his terrible sufferings!"
+
+"Then," said Altamont, "we have only one course to follow; to abandon
+the launch, and get to the east coast of Lincoln by sledge."
+
+"Abandon the launch and take the sledge? Well," answered the doctor;
+"but instead of crossing Lincoln, I propose going through Jones's
+Sound on the ice, and reaching North Devon."
+
+"And why?" asked Altamont.
+
+"Because we should get nearer to Lancaster Sound, and have more chance
+of meeting whalers."
+
+"You are right, Doctor, but I am afraid the ice is not yet hard
+enough."
+
+"We can try," said Clawbonny.
+
+The launch was unloaded; Bell and Johnson put the sledge together; all
+its parts were in good condition. The next day the dogs were harnessed
+in, and they went along the coast to reach the ice-field.
+
+Then they began again the journey which has been so often described;
+it was tiresome and slow; Altamont was right in doubting the strength
+of the ice; they could not go through Jones's Sound, and they had to
+follow the coast of Lincoln.
+
+August 21st they turned to one side and reached the entrance of
+Glacier Sound; then they ventured upon the ice-field, and the next day
+they reached Cobourg Island, which they crossed in less than two days
+amid snow-squalls. They could advance more easily on the ice-fields,
+and at last, August 24th, they set foot on North Devon.
+
+"Now," said the doctor, "we have only to cross this, and reach Cape
+Warender, at the entrance of Lancaster Sound."
+
+But the weather became very cold and unpleasant; the snow-squalls
+became as violent as in winter; they all found themselves nearly
+exhausted. Their provisions were giving out, and each man had but a
+third of a ration, in order to allow to the dogs enough food in
+proportion to their work.
+
+The nature of the ground added much to the fatigue of the journey;
+North Devon was far from level; they had to cross the Trauter
+Mountains by almost impassable ravines, struggling against all the
+fury of the elements. The sledge, men, and dogs had to rest, and more
+than once despair seized the little band, hardened as it was to the
+fatigues of a polar journey. But, without their noticing it, these
+poor men were nearly worn out, physically and morally; they could not
+support such incessant fatigue for eighteen months with impunity, nor
+such a succession of hopes and despairs. Besides, it should be borne
+in mind that they went forward with enthusiasm and conviction, which
+they lacked when returning. So they with difficulty dragged on; they
+walked almost from habit, with the animal energy left almost
+independent of their will.
+
+It was not until August 30th that they at last left the chaos of
+mountains, of which one can form no idea from the mountains of lower
+zones, but they left it half dead. The doctor could no longer cheer up
+his companions, and he felt himself breaking down. The Trauter
+Mountains ended in a sort of rugged plain, heaped up at the time of
+the formation of the mountains. There they were compelled to take a
+few days of rest; the men could not set one foot before another; two
+of the dogs had died of exhaustion. They sheltered themselves behind a
+piece of ice, at a temperature of -2°; no one dared put up the tent.
+Their food had become very scanty, and, in spite of their extreme
+economy with their rations, they had a supply for but a week more;
+game became rarer, having left for a milder climate. Starvation
+threatened these exhausted men.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Altamont, who all along had shown great devotion and unselfishness,
+took advantage of the strength he had left, and resolved to procure by
+hunting some food for his companions. He took his gun, called Duke,
+and strode off for the plains to the north; the doctor, Johnson, and
+Bell saw him go away without much interest. For an hour they did not
+once hear his gun, and they saw him returning without firing a single
+shot; but he was running as if in great alarm.
+
+"What is the matter?" asked the doctor.
+
+"There! under the snow!" answered Altamont in great alarm, indicating
+a point in the horizon.
+
+"What?"
+
+"A whole band of men--"
+
+"Alive?"
+
+"Dead,--frozen,--and even--"
+
+[Illustration: "Dead--frozen."]
+
+The American durst not finish his sentence, but his face expressed
+clearly his horror. The doctor, Johnson, Bell, aroused by this
+incident, were able to rise, and drag themselves along in Altamont's
+footprints to the part of the plain to which he had pointed. They soon
+reached a narrow space, at the bottom of a deep ravine, and there a
+terrible sight met their eyes.
+
+Bodies were lying half buried beneath the snow; here an arm, there a
+leg, or clinched hands, and faces still preserving an expression of
+despair.
+
+The doctor drew near; then he stepped back, pale and agitated, while
+Duke barked mournfully.
+
+"Horror!" he said.
+
+"Well?" asked the boatswain.
+
+"Didn't you recognize them?" said the doctor in a strange voice.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Look!"
+
+This ravine had been the scene of the last struggle between the men
+and the climate, despair, and hunger, for from some horrible signs it
+was easy to see that they had been obliged to eat human flesh. Among
+them the doctor had recognized Shandon, Pen, and the wretched crew of
+the _Forward_; their strength and food had failed them; their launch
+had probably been crushed by an avalanche, or carried into some
+ravine, and they could not take to the open sea; probably they were
+lost among these unknown continents. Besides, men who had left in
+mutiny could not long be united with the closeness which is necessary
+for the accomplishment of great things. A ringleader of a revolt has
+never more than a doubtful authority in his hands. And, without doubt,
+Shandon was promptly deposed.
+
+However that may have been, the crew had evidently undergone a
+thousand tortures, a thousand despairs, to end with this terrible
+catastrophe; but the secret of their sufferings is forever buried
+beneath the arctic snows.
+
+"Let us flee!" cried the doctor.
+
+And he dragged his companions far from the scene of the disaster.
+Horror lent them momentary strength. They set out again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+CONCLUSION.
+
+
+Why linger over the perpetual sufferings of the survivors? They
+themselves could never recall to their memory a clear vision of what
+had happened in the week after their horrible discovery of the remains
+of the crew. However, September 9th, by a miracle of energy, they
+reached Cape Horsburgh, at the end of North Devon.
+
+They were dying of hunger; they had not eaten for forty-eight hours,
+and their last meal had been the flesh of their last Esquimaux dog.
+Bell could go no farther, and old Johnson felt ready to die. They were
+on the shore of Baffin's Bay, on the way to Europe. Three miles from
+land the waves were breaking on the edges of the ice-field. They had
+to await the uncertain passage of a whaler, and how many days yet?
+
+But Heaven took pity on them, for the next day Altamont clearly saw a
+sail. The anguish which follows such an appearance of a sail, the
+tortures of disappointment, are well known. The ship seemed to
+approach and then to recede. Terrible are the alternations of hope and
+despair, and too often at the moment the castaways consider themselves
+saved the sail sinks beneath the horizon.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The doctor and his companions went through all these emotions; they
+had reached the western limit of the ice-field, and yet they saw the
+ship disappear, taking no note of their presence. They shouted, but in
+vain.
+
+Then the doctor had a last inspiration of that busy mind which had
+served him in such good stead.
+
+A floe had drifted against the ice-field.
+
+"That floe!" he said, pointing to it.
+
+They did not catch his meaning.
+
+"Let us get on it!" he cried.
+
+They saw his plan at once.
+
+"Ah, Clawbonny, Dr. Clawbonny!" cried Johnson, kissing the doctor's
+hands.
+
+Bell, with Altamont's aid, ran to the sledge; he brought one of the
+uprights, stood it up on the floe for a mast, making it fast with
+ropes; the tent was torn up for a sail. The wind was fair; the poor
+castaways put out to sea on this frail raft.
+
+Two hours later, after unheard-of efforts, the last men of the
+_Forward_ were taken aboard the Danish whaler _Hans Christian_, which
+was sailing to Davis Strait. The captain received kindly these
+spectres who had lost their semblance to human beings; when he saw
+their sufferings he understood their history; he gave them every
+attention, and managed to save their lives. Ten days later, Clawbonny,
+Johnson, Bell, Altamont, and Captain Hatteras landed at Korsoeur, in
+Zeeland, in Denmark; a steamboat carried them to Kiel; thence, _via_
+Altona and Hamburg, they reached London the 13th of the same month,
+hardly recovered from their long sufferings.
+
+[Illustration: "Two hours later, after unheard-of efforts, the last
+men of the _Forward_ were taken aboard the Danish whaler _Hans
+Christian_."]
+
+[Illustration: "A steamboat carried them to Kiel."]
+
+The first thought of the doctor was to ask permission of the Royal
+Geographical Society of London to lay a communication before it; he
+was admitted to the meeting of July 15th. The astonishment of the
+learned assembly, and its enthusiastic cheers after reading Hatteras's
+document, may be imagined.
+
+This journey, the only one of its kind, went over all the discoveries
+that had been made in the regions about the Pole; it brought together
+the expeditions of Parry, Ross, Franklin, MacClure; it completed the
+chart between the one hundredth and one hundred and fifteenth
+meridians; and, finally, it ended with the point of the globe hitherto
+inaccessible, with the Pole itself.
+
+Never had news so unexpected burst upon astonished England.
+
+The English take great interest in geographical facts; they are proud
+of them, lord and cockney, from the merchant prince to the workman in
+the docks.
+
+The news of this great discovery was telegraphed over the United
+Kingdom with great rapidity; the papers printed the name of Hatteras
+at the head of their columns as that of a martyr, and England glowed
+with pride.
+
+The doctor and his companions were feasted everywhere; they were
+formally presented to her Majesty by the Lord High Chancellor.
+
+The government confirmed the name of Queen's Island for the rock at
+the North Pole, of Mount Hatteras for the mountain itself, and of
+Altamont Harbor for the port in New America.
+
+Altamont did not part from those whose misery and glory he had shared,
+and who were now his friends. He followed the doctor, Johnson, and
+Bell to Liverpool, where they were warmly received, after they had
+been thought to be long dead, and buried in the eternal ice.
+
+But Dr. Clawbonny always gave the glory to the man who most deserved
+it. In his account of the journey entitled "The English at the North
+Pole," published the next year by the Royal Geographical Society, he
+made John Hatteras equal to the greatest explorers, the rival of those
+bold men who sacrifice everything to science.
+
+But the sad victim of a lofty passion lived peacefully at the asylum
+of Starr Cottage near Liverpool, where the doctor had placed him. His
+madness was of a gentle kind, but he never spoke, he understood
+nothing, his power of speech seemed to have gone with his reason. A
+single feeling seemed to unite him to the outer world, his love for
+Duke, who was not separated from him.
+
+This disease, this "polar madness," pursued its course quietly,
+presenting no particular symptom, when Dr. Clawbonny, who often
+visited his poor patient, was struck by his singular manner.
+
+For some time Captain Hatteras, followed by his faithful dog, that
+used to gaze at him sadly, would walk for hours every day; but he
+always walked in one way, in the direction of a certain path. When he
+had reached the end, he would return, walking backwards. If any one
+stopped him, he would point his finger at a portion of the sky. If any
+one tried to make him turn round, he grew angry, and Duke would show
+his anger and bark furiously.
+
+The doctor observed carefully this odd mania; he understood the motive
+of this strange obstinacy; he guessed the reason of this walk always
+in the same direction, and, so to speak, under the influence of a
+magnetic force.
+
+Captain John Hatteras was always walking towards the north.
+
+
+FINIS.
+
+
+
+
+University Press, Cambridge: Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's notes on inconsistencies, errors and corrections.
+
+Table of Contents: Part II., Chapter X., "The Pleasure of
+Winter-Quarters" is corrected to "The Pleasures of Winter-Quarters" to
+match the chapter title.
+
+Part I.
+
+Chapter 2: The letter says the large Danish dog will arrive on the
+15th of February.  In chapter 3 the dog arrives on the 15th of March
+"as the captain's letter had said." Other versions have the same
+inconsistency.
+
+Chapter 5: In the discussion of steamers, the doctor observes of the
+_Fox_ that MacClintock "succeeded in making his way more easily and
+more directly than all his successors." Other translations say
+"predecessors" which makes more sense.
+
+Chapter 5: On April 14 the longitude given is 22 degrees 37 minutes.
+Other versions give 22 degrees 58 minutes. Other versions agree that
+the latitude is 51 degrees--which hardly seems possible for a ship
+leaving Ireland at nearly 56 degrees latitude and sailing northwest.
+57 degrees seems more likely. A few days later the latitude is further
+confused during the discussion of iceberg sightings. The doctor states
+that they are two degrees further north than a sighting of icebergs
+occurring at 42 degrees latitude, apparently confusing the _Forward's_
+latitude with that of the _Ann Poole_.
+
+Chapter 6: In the remembrance of Parry's expedition into Lancaster
+Sound, mention is made of the prize for crossing a meridian at higher
+than the seventy-seventh parallel. Here the specific meridian is left
+out, which is not very informative. In the French version, it is the
+170th meridian, which is clearly wrong. The Ward and Lock translation
+changes it to the 117th meridian. Historically, the prize was for the
+110th meridian.
+
+Chapter 8: On Saturday, the temperature is stated to have fallen to 8
+degrees above zero. The French and Routledge translation state 8
+degrees below zero. This makes more sense since the previous
+temperature cited, from which it had fallen, was 6 degrees above zero.
+
+Chapter 8: The block of ice which turns upside down is stated to be
+800 feet high. This appears to be a mistranslation of the French;
+other translations have it as at least a hundred feet high.
+
+Chapter 9: According to this translation, the _Forward_ crosses the
+62nd parallel on May 5. This is clearly incorrect since the ship is
+north of its May 1 latitude of 68 degrees. Other versions have this as
+the 72nd parallel. This agrees with the accompanying map.
+
+Chapter 10: Although "the Governor was born on the island of Disco,
+and he has never left the place," the landing party meets him at
+Upernavik which is well north of the island of Disco.
+
+Chapter 12: The captain declares their latitude to be at 72 degrees
+when they are actually at 74 degrees. The promise of 1000 pounds for
+each degree beyond 72 is continued throughout the book.
+
+Chapter 12: Names of several English explorers have been garbled in
+this translation:
+
+  "Stuart" = Charles Sturt
+  "McDougall Stuart" = John McDouall Stuart
+  "Wells" = William John Wills
+  "Havnoan" = ??--Haouran (French version) is a place in Syria.
+
+Chapter 15: "During the day two whalers were seen making toward the
+south;" should be "During the day two whales were seen" etc. to agree
+with other translations and the French version. Finding whalers in
+this area would contradict the spirit of the adventure.
+
+Chapter 16: "the barometer fell to 29°" should be "the barometer fell
+to 29 inches" to agree with the French version and the measurement
+scale of barometers.
+
+Chapter 16: "Friday, June 7th" should be "Friday, June 8th" to agree
+with the French version and the timing since the previous date of June
+6.
+
+Chapter 16: "found a declination of only 89 degrees 50 minutes,"
+should be "89 degrees 59 minutes'" to agree with other translations
+and the French version and to make sense of the following statement of
+being within a minute of the magnetic pole.
+
+Chapter 18: "'The way west is easier than the way north.'" agrees with
+the French, but has been changed to "'The way east'" in other
+translations. Baffin's Bay is, in fact, east of Melville Bay.
+
+Chapter 18: Clifton's counting of the crew at sixteen is faulty since
+Garry turned into Hatteras and would no longer be counted. The per
+degree rate should be 62 pounds not 72 pounds to agree with all other
+versions and actual calculation.
+
+Chapter 18: On June 19th, Point Minto is said by all versions to be at
+72 degrees latitude. It is actually at 73 degrees. The next paragraph
+immediately proceeds to 74 degrees latitude at Melville Bay.
+
+Chapter 20: Creswell's march to Beechey Island was 470 miles in the
+French version and in later discussions in Part II, Chapter 15.
+
+Chapter 21: The year of Lieutenant Bellot's first expedition in search
+of Franklin is corrected from "18 0" to "1850."
+
+Chapter 23: The large white masses gathering "indicated an approaching
+thaw" is translated in another version as "an approaching frost" which
+agrees with the French version and makes more sense.
+
+Chapter 25: Clifton's anticipated fortune is said to be
+"hardly-earned" when "hard-earned" would be more appropriate.
+
+Chapter 29: The temperature on January 15 of -22 should be -32 degrees
+to agree with the French version and the other translations.
+
+Chapter 31: The doctor's ophthalmia should not lead to "deafness" but
+to "blindness" as in other translations.
+
+Chapter 33: In the final sentence of the chapter the latitude of the
+_Forward_ should be "eightieth degree" not "eighty-fourth degree."
+Eighty-fourth is clearly wrong since in chapter 2 of part II, their
+latitude is stated as eighty degrees fifteen minutes.
+
+Part II.
+
+Chapter 1: The count of "eighteen men who had sailed in the brig"
+continues to ignore that there were only seventeen men and that
+Hatteras and Garry are one and the same person.
+
+Chapter 2: Johnson's question, "how far are we from the nearest sea to
+the west?" should be "how far are we from the nearest sea to the
+east?" The disorientation continues with Bell's suggestion to travel
+south or west. Baffin's Bay, the only place they can hope for rescue
+is south and east of their current position.
+
+Chapter 3: The date of the day the doctor killed the seal is stated as
+the 18th and should be the 15th. The date mentioned two paragraphs
+previously was the 14th, and the date mentioned as the next day in the
+next paragraph is the 16th.
+
+Chapter 5: "Hatteras loaded the gun with the last charge of powder"
+should be "the doctor loaded the gun with the last charge of powder"
+to agree with the French and the sense of the paragraph.
+
+Chapter 5: Altamont comments that his ship is less than four degrees
+from the Pole when it actually is not, but is within seven degrees.
+
+Chapter 9: The author's intention for the outside temperature here is
+uncertain. The -31 degrees of this translation does not agree with the
+French in which it is -73 degrees (-31 degrees Centigrade). The latter
+two are not equivalent temperatures. Later in this chapter it is
+stated that the outside temperature can never exist lower than -72
+degrees. If the author intended -31 degrees Centigrade, this would
+convert to -24 degrees Fahrenheit.
+
+Chapter 9: "The temperature of Englishmen is generally 101 degrees" is
+a incorrect conversion of the more accurate 37 degrees Celsius in the
+French version. The correct temperature should be 98.6 degrees.
+
+Chapter 9: The mention of "Hadley" concerning a comet collision should
+be "Halley" as in the French version.
+
+Chapter 19: "_Uredo vivalis_" should be "_Uredo nivalis_" as in the
+French version.
+
+Chapter 20: In this translation as in the French version, Altamont
+Harbor is said to be at longitude 118 degrees 35 minutes E. of
+Greenwich, whereas it should be W. of Greenwich.
+
+Chapter 22: The spelling of the name "Penn" is corrected to "Pen" as a
+typographical error.
+
+Chapter 23: "With a scrap of wood to hold him up," should be "without
+a scrap of wood to hold him up," as found in the French version and
+required by the sense of the sentence.
+
+Chapter 23: The doctor "uttered an explanation which it is impossible
+to render," should be "uttered an exclamation which it is impossible
+to render," as found in the French version and required by the sense
+of the sentence.
+
+Chapter 24: The doctors comparison "it would take seventy-five moons
+to make the sun," should be "it would take seventy-five moons to make
+the earth," as in the French version.
+
+Chapter 24: The motion of the Pole "describes a circle in about
+twenty-six years" should be "describes a circle in about twenty-six
+thousand years" as in the French version.
+
+Chapter 26: "The American durst not not finish his sentence," is
+corrected to "The American durst not finish his sentence," as a
+typographical error.
+
+Chapter 26: The spelling of the name "Penn" is corrected to "Pen" as a
+typographical error.
+
+Chapter 27: The timeline of the concluding chapter is odd. September
+9, 1861 the party is at the end of North Devon. The next day
+(September 10) they are picked up by the Danish whaler. Ten days later
+(September 20) they arrive in Denmark. The 13th of the same month
+(September 13? October 13?) they reach London. July 15 (1862?)
+Clawbonny attends the Royal Geographical Society of London meeting.
+For this to astonish the learned assembly it would need to be two days
+after their arrival in London rather than 9 months.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Voyages and Adventures of Captain
+Hatteras, by Jules Verne
+
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+
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+<head>
+	<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
+	<title>The Project Gutenberg e-Book of The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras, by Jules Verne</title>
+	<style type="text/css">
+		<!--
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+		h1   {text-align:center}
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Voyages and Adventures of Captain
+Hatteras, by Jules Verne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras
+
+Author: Jules Verne
+
+Illustrator: Édouard Riou
+
+Release Date: July 15, 2009 [EBook #29413]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VOYAGES OF CAPTAIN HATTERAS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ron Swanson (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
+Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<br>
+<h1>CAPTAIN HATTERAS.</h1>
+<br>
+<br>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="title picture">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="499">
+			<img src="images/001.jpg" alt="The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>JULES VERNE.</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<a name="ill12"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="Frontispiece">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="543">
+			<img src="images/002.jpg" alt="The brig was tossed about like a child's toy">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="543" align="center">
+			<small>"The brig was tossed about like a child's toy."&mdash;<a href="#chap19">Part I., Chapter 19</a>.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<center>THE</center>
+<br>
+<h1>VOYAGES AND ADVENTURES</h1>
+<br>
+<center><small>OF</small></center>
+<br><br>
+<h2>CAPTAIN HATTERAS.</h2>
+<br><br>
+<center>TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF</center>
+<h3>JULES VERNE.</h3>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<center><i>WITH TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS<br>
+BY RIOU</i>.</center>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="title page">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="136">
+			<img src="images/003.jpg" alt="Osgood Logo">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>BOSTON:<br>
+JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,</h4>
+<center><small>L<small>ATE</small> T<small>ICKNOR</small> &amp;
+F<small>IELDS, AND</small> F<small>IELDS</small>, O<small>SGOOD</small>,
+&amp; C<small>O</small>.</small></center>
+<h4>1876.</h4>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<center><small>C<small>OPYRIGHT</small>, 1874</small>.<br>
+B<small>Y</small> JAMES R. OSGOOD &amp; CO.</center>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<center><small>U<small>NIVERSITY</small> P<small>RESS</small>:
+W<small>ELCH</small>, B<small>IGELOW</small>, &amp; C<small>O</small>.,<br>
+C<small>AMBRIDGE</small></small>.</center><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<h3>PART I.</h3>
+<center>THE ENGLISH AT THE NORTH POLE.</center>
+<br>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="table of contents1">
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><small>C<small>HAPTER</small></small></td>
+		<td align="left">&nbsp;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap1">I.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> F<small>ORWARD</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap2">II.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">A<small>N</small> U<small>NEXPECTED</small> L<small>ETTER</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap3">III.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">D<small>R</small>. C<small>LAWBONNY</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap4">IV.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> D<small>OG</small>-C<small>APTAIN</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap5">V.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">A<small>T</small> S<small>EA</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap6">VI.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> G<small>REAT</small> P<small>OLAR</small> C<small>URRENT</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap7">VII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> E<small>NTRANCE OF</small> D<small>AVIS</small> S<small>TRAIT</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap8">VIII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> T<small>ALK OF THE</small> C<small>REW</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap9">IX.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">A<small>NOTHER</small> L<small>ETTER</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap10">X.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">D<small>ANGEROUS</small> S<small>AILING</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap11">XI.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> D<small>EVIL'S</small> T<small>HUMB</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap12">XII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">C<small>APTAIN</small> H<small>ATTERAS</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap13">XIII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> C<small>APTAIN'S</small> P<small>LANS</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap14">XIV.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> E<small>XPEDITIONS IN</small> S<small>EARCH OF</small> F<small>RANKLIN</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap15">XV.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> F<small>ORWARD DRIVEN</small> S<small>OUTHWARD</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap16">XVI.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> M<small>AGNETIC</small> P<small>OLE</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap17">XVII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> F<small>ATE OF</small> S<small>IR</small> J<small>OHN</small> F<small>RANKLIN</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap18">XVIII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> W<small>AY</small> N<small>ORTHWARD</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap19">XIX.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">A W<small>HALE IN</small> S<small>IGHT</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap20">XX.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">B<small>EECHEY</small> I<small>SLAND</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap21">XXI.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> D<small>EATH OF</small> B<small>ELLOT</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap22">XXII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> F<small>IRST</small> S<small>IGNS OF</small> M<small>UTINY</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap23">XXIII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">A<small>TTACKED BY THE</small> I<small>CE</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap24">XXIV.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">P<small>REPARATIONS FOR</small> W<small>INTERING</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap25">XXV.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">O<small>NE OF</small> J<small>AMES</small> R<small>OSS'S</small> F<small>OXES</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap26">XXVI.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> L<small>AST</small> P<small>IECE OF</small> C<small>OAL</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap27">XXVII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> G<small>REAT</small> C<small>OLD AT</small> C<small>HRISTMAS</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap28">XXVIII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">P<small>REPARATIONS FOR</small> D<small>EPARTURE</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap29">XXIX.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">A<small>CROSS THE</small> I<small>CE</small>-F<small>IELDS</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap30">XXX.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> C<small>AIRN</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap31">XXXI.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> D<small>EATH OF</small> S<small>IMPSON</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap32">XXXII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> R<small>ETURN TO THE</small> F<small>ORWARD</small></td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>PART II.</h3>
+<center>THE DESERT OF ICE.</center>
+<br>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="table of contents2">
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap33">I.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> D<small>OCTOR'S</small> I<small>NVENTORY</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap34">II.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">A<small>LTAMONT'S</small> F<small>IRST</small> W<small>ORDS</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap35">III.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">S<small>EVENTEEN</small> D<small>AYS OF</small> L<small>AND</small> J<small>OURNEY</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap36">IV.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> L<small>AST</small> C<small>HARGE OF</small> P<small>OWDER</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap37">V.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> S<small>EAL AND THE</small> B<small>EAR</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap38">VI.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> P<small>ORPOISE</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap39">VII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">A D<small>ISCUSSION ABOUT</small> C<small>HARTS</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap40">VIII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">E<small>XCURSION TO THE</small> N<small>ORTH OF</small> V<small>ICTORIA</small> B<small>AY</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap41">IX.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">C<small>OLD AND</small> H<small>EAT</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap42">X.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> P<small>LEASURES OF</small> W<small>INTER</small>-Q<small>UARTERS</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap43">XI.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">D<small>ISQUIETING</small> T<small>RACES</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap44">XII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> I<small>CE</small> P<small>RISON</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap45">XIII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> M<small>INE</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap46">XIV.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> P<small>OLAR</small> S<small>PRING</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap47">XV.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> N<small>ORTHWEST</small> P<small>ASSAGE</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap48">XVI.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">N<small>ORTHERN</small> A<small>RCADIA</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap49">XVII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">A<small>LTAMONT'S</small> R<small>EVENGE</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap50">XVIII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> L<small>AST</small> P<small>REPARATIONS</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap51">XIX.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> J<small>OURNEY</small> N<small>ORTHWARD</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap52">XX.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">F<small>OOTPRINTS ON THE</small> S<small>NOW</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap53">XXI.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> O<small>PEN</small> S<small>EA</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap54">XXII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> A<small>PPROACH TO THE</small> P<small>OLE</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap55">XXIII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE</small> E<small>NGLISH</small> F<small>LAG</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap56">XXIV.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">P<small>OLAR</small> C<small>OSMOGRAPHY</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap57">XXV.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">M<small>OUNT</small> H<small>ATTERAS</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap58">XXVI.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">R<small>ETURN TO THE</small> S<small>OUTH</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right"><a href="#chap59">XXVII.</a></td>
+		<td align="left">C<small>ONCLUSION</small></td>
+	</tr>
+</table><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.</h2>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="illustrations">
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill1">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"J<small>OHNSON KNEW ALL THE SAILORS IN</small> L<small>IVERPOOL, AND IMMEDIATELY SET
+		ABOUT ENGAGING A CREW</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill2">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"E<small>VERYTHING WAS ENVELOPED IN ONE OF THE ORDINARY FOGS OF THAT
+		REGION</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill3">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HIS SPACE OF SIX FEET SQUARE CONTAINED INCALCULABLE WEALTH</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill4">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE NEWS SPEAD IMMEDIATELY THROUGHOUT THE CITY, AND A GREAT
+		CONCOURSE OF SPECTATORS THRONGED THE PIERS</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill5">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>OWARDS EVENING THE BRIG DOUBLED THE</small> C<small>ALF OF</small> M<small>AN</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill6">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"W<small>OULD ONE NOT SAY IT WAS A FOREIGN CITY, AN</small> E<small>ASTERN CITY, WITH
+		MINARETS AND MOSQUES IN THE MOONLIGHT</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill7">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"F<small>ORTUNATELY THE OPENING OF THESE HUTS WAS TOO SMALL, AND THE
+		ENTHUSIASTIC DOCTOR COULD NOT GET THROUGH</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill8">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"A<small> STRANGE ANIMAL WAS BOUNDING ALONG WITHIN A CABLE'S LENGTH FROM
+		THE SHIP</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill9">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"J<small>OHN</small> H<small>ATTERAS</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill10">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"H<small>E CAUGHT A LARGE NUMBER OF WHITE FOXES; HE HAD PUT ON THEIR
+		NECKS COPPER COLLARS</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill11">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"A<small>LL THESE POOR FELLOWS HAD DIED OF MISERY, SUFFERING, AND
+		STARVATION</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill12">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE BRIG WAS TOSSED ABOUT LIKE A CHILD'S TOY</small>"
+		<small>(<i>Frontispiece</i>)</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill13">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE WHALE SWAM AWAY FROM THE BRIG AND HASTENED TOWARDS THE
+		MOVING ICEBERGS</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill14">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE</small> F<small>ORWARD IN</small> W<small>ELLINGTON</small> C<small>HANNEL</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill15">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">H<small>ATTERAS MADE USE OF A DEVICE WHICH WHALERS EMPLOY</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill16">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"A<small> CRASH WAS HEARD, AND AS IT CAME AGAINST THE STARBOARD-QUARTER,
+		PART OF THE RAIL HAD GIVEN WAY</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill17">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE MOON SHONE WITH INCOMPARABLE PURITY, GLISTENING ON THE LEAST
+		ROUGHNESS IN THE ICE</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill18">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"A<small>LMOST EVERY NIGHT THE DOCTOR COULD OBSERVE THE MAGNIFICENT
+		AURORAS</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill19">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"H<small>E WAS ARMED, AND HE KEPT CONSTANT GUARD, WITHOUT MINDING THE
+		COLD, THE SNOW, OR THE ICE</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill20">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE LITTLE BAND MADE THEIR WAY TOWARDS THE SOUTHEAST</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill21">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE DOCTOR HAD ENERGY ENOUGH TO ASCEND AN ICE-MOUNTAIN WHILE THE
+		SNOW-HUT WAS BUILDING</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill22">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"'F<small>IRE</small>!'<small> SHOUTED THE CAPTAIN, DISCHARGING HIS PIECE</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill23">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HEY COULD ONLY THINK OF THEIR PERILOUS POSITION</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill24">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"S<small>UDDENLY, WITH A LAST EFFORT, HE HALF ROSE</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill25">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HEN A TERRIBLE EXPLOSION WAS HEARD</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill26">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE LARGE PIECES OF THE ENGINE LAY HERE AND THERE, TWISTED OUT
+		OF SHAPE</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill27">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HEY HARNESSED THE TIRED DOGS</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill28">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">J<small>OHNSON'S STORY</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill29">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"'Y<small>ES</small>!'<small> SAID THE</small> A<small>MERICAN</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill30">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE DOCTOR WAS FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO FIND A SEAL</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill31">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"A<small>T THE END OF TWO HOURS THEY FELL, EXHAUSTED</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill32">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"H<small>E PLUNGED HIS KNIFE INTO THE BEAST'S THROAT</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill33">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HESE CASTAWAYS LOOKED AT THEMSELVES AS COLONISTS WHO HAD
+		REACHED THEIR DESTINATION</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill34">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE FORT WAS COMPLETED</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill35">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"I<small> AM NOT AWARE THAT IT BEARS ANY NAME ON THE MOST RECENT MAPS</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill36">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE DOCTOR REACHED THE SUMMIT WITH SOME LITTLE DIFFICULTY</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill37">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HEY ADVANCED IN FULL ILLUMINATION, AND THEIR SHARPLY CUT
+		SHADOWS RAN OUT BEHIND THEM OVER THE SNOW</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill38">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"H<small>E DID HIS BEST TO INSTRUCT AND INTEREST HIS COMPANIONS</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill39">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"H<small>ATTERAS COULD ONLY KEEP HIS DISTANCE FROM THE ANIMALS BY
+		THROWING AWAY HIS CAP, HATCHET, AND EVEN HIS GUN</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill40">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE BEARS HEAPED THE ICE IN SUCH A WAY AS TO RENDER FLIGHT
+		IMPOSSIBLE</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill41">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"A<small>N ENORMOUS BLACK BODY APPEARED IN THE GLOOM OF THE ROOM</small>.
+		A<small>LTAMONT RAISED HIS HAND TO STRIKE IT</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill42">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"A<small> LOUD EXPLOSION FOLLOWED</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill43">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE CARPENTER SET TO WORK AT ONCE</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill44">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"A<small> HARD STRUGGLE WITH THE ICEBERGS</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill45">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"M<small>AC</small>C<small>LURE SAW A MAN RUNNING AND GESTICULATING</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill46">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE DOCTOR</small>, J<small>OHNSON, AND</small> B<small>ELL INTERVENED</small>. I<small>T WAS TIME; THE TWO
+		ENEMIES WERE GAZING AT ONE ANOTHER</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill47">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HEY WERE A CURIOUS AND TOUCHING SIGHT, FLYING ABOUT WITHOUT
+		FEAR, RESTING ON</small> C<small>LAWBONNY'S SHOULDERS</small>,"<small> ETC.</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill48">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"G<small>AVE HIM A TERRIBLE BLOW WITH A HATCHET ON THE HEAD</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill49">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"W<small>ELL</small>, I'<small>VE BROUGHT BACK TWO BROTHERS</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill50">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE SEAL STRUGGLED FOR A FEW SECONDS, AND WAS THEN SUFFOCATED ON
+		THE BREAST OF HIS ADVERSARY</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill51">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HEY LEFT AT SIX O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill52">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"O<small>N THE</small> 29<small>TH</small> B<small>ELL SHOT A FOX, AND</small> A<small>LTAMONT A MEDIUM-SIZED
+		MUSK-OX</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill53">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE MASSES OF ICE TOOK THE FORMS OF HUMMOCKS AND ICEBERGS</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill54">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"O<small>N ALL SIDES RESOUNDED THE CRACKING OF THE ICE AMID THE ROAR OF
+		THE AVALANCHES</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill55">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"'W<small>E OUGHT</small>,'<small> ANSWERED</small> B<small>ELL</small>, '<small>TO LIGHT TORCHES, AS IS DONE AT</small>
+		L<small>ONDON AND</small> L<small>IVERPOOL</small>'"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill56">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">T<small>HE HUT WAS PITCHED IN A RAVINE FOR SHELTER</small></td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill57">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HEY CLIMBED A HILL WHICH COMMANDED A WIDE VIEW</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill58">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HREE HOURS LATER THEY REACHED THE COAST</small>. 'T<small>HE SEA</small>! <small>THE SEA</small>!'
+		<small>THEY ALL SHOUTED</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill59">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE LAUNCH WAS ROCKING GENTLY IN HER LITTLE HARBOR</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill60">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"A<small>QUATIC BIRDS OF ALL SORTS WERE THERE</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill61">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HEN THE EYE GLANCING DOWN INTO THE TRANSPARENT WATER, THE SIGHT
+		WAS EQUALLY STRANGE</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill62">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"'I<small>T'S A VOLCANO</small>!' <small>HE CRIED</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill63">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE LAUNCH TOSSED HELPLESSLY ABOUT</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill64">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE FOG, WITHOUT LIFTING, WAS VERY BRIGHT</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill65">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HIS DRIFTING FLOE WAS COVERED WITH WHITE BEARS, CROWDED
+		TOGETHER</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill66">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"H<small>ER SAIL FLEW AWAY LIKE A HUGE WHITE BIRD; A WHIRLPOOL, A NEW</small>
+		M<small>AELSTROM, FORMED AMONG THE WAVES</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill67">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE MOUNTAIN WAS IN FULL ERUPTION</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill68">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HEY NOTICED A LITTLE FIORD</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill69">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"A<small>LTAMONT SOON FOUND A GROTTO IN THE ROCKS</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill70">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HEY WERE ALL READY TO LISTEN TO THE DOCTOR</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill71">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HEY SAW THE CAPTAIN STANDING ON A ROCK</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill72">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"H<small>ATTERAS APPEARED TO WAKE FROM HIS REVERY</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill73">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"B<small>UT</small> H<small>ATTERAS DID NOT LOOK BACK</small>. H<small>E HAD MADE USE OF HIS STAFF AS
+		A POLE ON WHICH TO FASTEN THE</small> E<small>NGLISH FLAG</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill74">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>HE DOCTOR PUT UP A CAIRN</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill75">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"D<small>EAD&mdash;FROZEN</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill76">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"T<small>WO HOURS LATER, AFTER UNHEARD-OF EFFORTS, THE LAST MEN OF THE</small>
+		F<small>ORWARD WERE TAKEN ABOARD THE</small> D<small>ANISH WHALER</small> H<small>ANS</small> C<small>HRISTIAN</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td valign="top" align="right"><a href="#ill77">*</a></td>
+		<td align="left">"A<small> STEAMBOAT CARRIED THEM TO</small> K<small>IEL</small>"</td>
+	</tr>
+</table><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>PART I.</h4>
+<h2>THE ENGLISH AT THE NORTH POLE.</h2>
+<br><br><a name="chap1"></a>
+<br><br>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 4">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="613">
+			<img src="images/004.jpg" alt="AVENTURES DU CAPITAINE HATTERAS">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+<h4>THE FORWARD.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>"To-morrow, at the turn of the tide, the brig <i>Forward</i>, K. Z.,
+captain, Richard Shandon, mate, will clear from New Prince's Docks;
+destination unknown."</p>
+
+<p>This announcement appeared in the <i>Liverpool Herald</i> of April 5, 1860.</p>
+
+<p>The sailing of a brig is not a matter of great importance for the
+chief commercial city of England. Who would take notice of it in so
+great a throng of ships of all sizes and of every country, that
+dry-docks covering two leagues scarcely contain them?</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, from early morning on the 6th of April, a large crowd
+collected on the quays of the New Prince's Docks; all the sailors of
+the place seemed to have assembled there. The workingmen of the
+neighboring wharves had abandoned their tasks, tradesmen had left
+their gloomy shops, and the merchants their empty warehouses. The
+many-colored omnibuses which pass outside of the docks were
+discharging, every minute, their load of sight-seers; the whole city
+seemed to care for nothing except watching the departure of the
+<i>Forward</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Forward</i> was a vessel of one hundred and seventy tons, rigged as
+a brig, and carrying a screw and a steam-engine of one hundred and
+twenty horse-power. One would have very easily confounded it with the
+other brigs in the harbor. But if it presented no especial difference
+to the eye of the public, yet those who were familiar with ships
+noticed certain peculiarities which could not escape a sailor's keen
+glance.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, on the <i>Nautilus</i>, which was lying at anchor near her, a group
+of sailors were trying to make out the probable destination of the
+<i>Forward</i>.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 5">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="539">
+			<img src="images/005.jpg" alt="A sailor's keen glance">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"What do you say to her masts?" said one; "steamers don't usually
+carry so much sail."</p>
+
+<p>"It must be," answered a red-faced quartermaster, "that she relies
+more on her sails than on her engine; and if her topsails are of that
+size, it's probably because the lower sails are to be laid back. So
+I'm sure the <i>Forward</i> is going either to the Arctic or Antarctic
+Ocean, where the icebergs stop the wind more than suits a solid ship."</p>
+
+<p>"You must be right, Mr. Cornhill," said a third sailor. "Do you notice
+how straight her stem is?"</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," said Mr. Cornhill, "she carries a steel ram forward, as
+sharp as a razor; if the <i>Forward</i>, going at full speed, should run
+into a three-decker, she would cut her in two."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true," answered a Mersey pilot, "for that brig can easily run
+fourteen knots under steam. She was a sight to see on her trial trip.
+On my word, she's a swift boat."</p>
+
+<p>"And she goes well, too, under sail," continued the quartermaster;
+"close to the wind, and she's easily steered. Now that ship is going
+to the polar seas, or my name is not Cornhill. And then, see there! Do
+you notice that large helm-port over the head of her rudder?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's so," said some of the sailors; "but what does that prove?"</p>
+
+<p>"That proves, my men," replied the quartermaster with a scornful
+smile, "that you can neither see nor think; it proves that they wanted
+to leave the head of the rudder free, so that it might be unshipped
+and shipped again easily. Don't you know that's what they have to do
+very often in the ice?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are right," answered the sailors of the <i>Nautilus</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"And besides," said one, "the lading of the brig goes to prove what
+Mr. Cornhill has said. I heard it from Clifton, who has shipped on
+her. The <i>Forward</i> carries provisions for five or six years, and coal
+in proportion. Coal and provisions are all she carries, and a quantity
+of woollen and sealskin clothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Mr. Cornhill, "there's no doubt about it. But, my friend,
+since you know Clifton, hasn't he told you where she's bound?"</p>
+
+<p>"He couldn't tell me, for he didn't know; the whole crew was shipped
+in that way. Where is he going? He won't know till he gets there."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor yet if they are going to Davy Jones's locker," said one scoffer,
+"as it seems to me they are."</p>
+
+<p>"But then, their pay," continued the friend of Clifton
+enthusiastically,&mdash;"their pay! it's five times what a sailor usually
+gets. If it had not been for that, Richard Shandon would not have got
+a man. A strangely shaped boat, going no one knows where, and as if it
+never intended coming back! As for me, I should not have cared to ship
+in her."</p>
+
+<p>"Whether you would or not," answered Mr. Cornhill, "you could never
+have shipped in the <i>Forward</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because you would not have answered the conditions. I heard that
+married men were not taken. Now you belong to that class. So you need
+not say what you would or would not do, since it's all breath thrown
+away."</p>
+
+<p>The sailor who was thus snubbed burst out laughing, as did his
+companions, showing in this way that Mr. Cornhill's remarks were true.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 6">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="245">
+			<img src="images/006.jpg" alt="A young sailor">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"There's nothing but boldness about the ship," continued Cornhill,
+well pleased with himself. "The <i>Forward</i>,&mdash;forward to what? Without
+saying that nobody knows who her captain is."</p>
+
+<p>"O, yes, they do!" said a young sailor, evidently a green-hand.</p>
+
+<p>"What! They do know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course."</p>
+
+<p>"My young friend," said Cornhill, "do you think Shandon is the captain
+of the <i>Forward?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;" answered the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Shandon is only the mate, nothing else; he's a good and brave sailor,
+an old whaler, a good fellow, able to take command, but he's not the
+captain; he's no more captain than you or I. And who, under God, is
+going to have charge of the ship, he does not know in the least. At
+the proper time the captain will come aboard, I don't know how, and I
+don't know where; for Richard Shandon didn't tell me, nor has he leave
+to tell me in what direction he was first to sail."</p>
+
+<p>"Still, Mr. Cornhill," said the young sailor, "I can tell you that
+there's some one on board, some one who was spoken of in the letter in
+which Mr. Shandon was offered the place of mate."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" answered Cornhill, "do you mean to tell me that the <i>Forward</i>
+has a captain on board?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Cornhill."</p>
+
+<p>"You tell me that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, for I heard it from Johnson, the boatswain."</p>
+
+<p>"Boatswain Johnson?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he told me himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Johnson told you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not only did he tell me, but he showed him to me."</p>
+
+<p>"He showed him to you!" answered Cornhill in amazement.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 7">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="403">
+			<img src="images/007.jpg" alt="Nautilus sailors">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"He showed him to me."</p>
+
+<p>"And you saw him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw him with my own eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"And who is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a dog."</p>
+
+<p>"A dog?"</p>
+
+<p>"A four-footed dog?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>The surprise of the sailors of the <i>Nautilus</i> was great. Under any
+other circumstances they would have burst out laughing. A dog captain
+of a one hundred and seventy ton brig! It was certainly amusing
+enough. But the <i>Forward</i> was such an extraordinary ship, that one
+thought twice before laughing, and before contradicting it. Besides,
+Quartermaster Cornhill showed no signs of laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"And Johnson showed you that new sort of captain, a dog?" he said to
+the young sailor. "And you saw him?"</p>
+
+<p>"As plainly as I see you, with all respect."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what do you think of that?" asked the sailors, turning to
+Cornhill.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think anything," he answered curtly, "except that the
+<i>Forward</i> is a ship of the Devil, or of fools fit for Bedlam."</p>
+
+<p>Without saying more, the sailors continued to gaze at the <i>Forward</i>,
+which was now almost ready to depart; and there was no one of them who
+presumed to say that Johnson, the boatswain, had been making fun of
+the young sailor.</p>
+
+<p>This story of the dog had already spread through the city, and in the
+crowd of sight-seers there were many looking for the captain-dog, who
+were inclined to believe that he was some supernatural animal.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, for many months the <i>Forward</i> had been attracting the public
+attention; the singularity of its build, the mystery which enshrouded
+it, the incognito maintained by the captain, the manner in which
+Richard Shandon received the proposition of superintending its outfit,
+the careful selection of the crew, its unknown destination, scarcely
+conjectured by any,&mdash;all combined to give this brig a reputation of
+something more than strangeness.</p>
+
+<p>For a thoughtful, dreamy mind, for a philosopher, there is hardly
+anything more touching than the departure of a ship; the imagination
+is ready to follow her in her struggles with the waves, her contests
+with the winds, in her perilous course, which does not always end in
+port; and if only there is something unusual about her, the ship
+appears like something fantastic, even to the least imaginative minds.</p>
+
+<p>So it was with the <i>Forward</i>. And if most of the spectators were
+unable to make the ingenious remarks of Quartermaster Cornhill, the
+rumors which had been prevailing for three months were enough to keep
+all the tongues of Liverpool busy.</p>
+
+<p>The brig had been built at Birkenhead, a suburb of the city on the
+left bank of the Mersey, and connected with it by numerous
+ferry-boats.</p>
+
+<p>The builders, Scott &amp; Co., as skilful as any in England, had received
+from Richard Shandon careful plans and drawings, in which the tonnage,
+dimensions, and model of the brig were given with the utmost
+exactness. They bore proof of the work of an experienced sailor. Since
+Shandon had ample means at his command, the work began, and, in
+accordance with the orders of the unknown owner, proceeded rapidly.</p>
+
+<p>Every care was taken to have the brig made exceedingly strong; it was
+evidently intended to withstand enormous pressure, for its ribs of
+teak, an East Indian wood remarkable for its solidity, were further
+strengthened by thick iron braces. The sailors used to ask why the
+hull of a ship, which was intended to be so strong, was not made of
+iron like other steamers. But they were told that the mysterious
+designer had his own reasons for having it built in that way.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually the shape of the brig on the stocks could be clearly made
+out, and the strength and beauty of her model were clear to the eye of
+all competent judges. As the sailors of the <i>Nautilus</i> had said, her
+stem formed a right angle with the keel, and she carried, not a ram,
+but a steel cutter from the foundry of R. Hawthorn, of Newcastle. This
+metallic prow, glistening in the sun, gave a singular appearance to
+the brig, although there was nothing warlike about it. However, a
+sixteen-pound gun was placed on her forecastle; its carriage was so
+arranged that it could be pointed in any direction. The same thing can
+be said of the cannon as of her bows, neither were positively warlike.</p>
+
+<p>On the 5th of February, 1860, this strange vessel was successfully
+launched in the sight of an immense number of spectators.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 8">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="553">
+			<img src="images/008.jpg" alt="The Forward on the Mersey">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>But if the brig was not a man-of-war, nor a merchant-vessel, nor a
+pleasure-yacht, for no one takes a pleasure trip with provisions for
+six years in the hold, what could she be?</p>
+
+<p>A ship intended for the search of the <i>Erebus</i> and the <i>Terror</i>, and
+of Sir John Franklin? No; for in 1859, the previous year, Captain
+MacClintock had returned from the Arctic Ocean, with convincing proof
+of the loss of that ill-fated expedition.</p>
+
+<p>Did the <i>Forward</i> want to try again the famous Northwest Passage? What
+for? Captain MacClure had discovered it in 1853, and his lieutenant,
+Cresswell, had the honor of first skirting the American continent from
+Behring Strait to Davis Strait.</p>
+
+<p>It was nevertheless absolutely certain to all competent observers that
+the <i>Forward</i> was preparing for a voyage to icy regions. Was it going
+to push towards the South Pole, farther than the whaler Wedell,
+farther than Captain James Ross? But what was the use, and with what
+intention?</p>
+
+<p>It is easy to see that, although the field for conjecture was very
+limited, the imagination could easily lose itself.</p>
+
+<p>The day after the launching of the brig her machinery arrived from the
+foundry of R. Hawthorn at Newcastle.</p>
+
+<p>The engine, of one hundred and twenty horse-power, with oscillating
+cylinders, took up but little space; its force was large for a vessel
+of one hundred and seventy tons, which carried a great deal of sail,
+and was, besides, remarkably swift. Of her speed the trial trips left
+no doubt, and even the boatswain, Johnson, had seen fit to express his
+opinion to the friend of Clifton in these terms,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"When the <i>Forward</i> is under both steam and sail, she gets the most
+speed from her sails."</p>
+
+<p>Clifton's friend had not understood this proposition, but he
+considered anything possible in a ship commanded by a dog.</p>
+
+<p>After the engines had been placed on board, the stowage of provisions
+began; and that was no light task, for she carried enough for six
+years. They consisted of salted and dried meats, smoked fish, biscuit,
+and flour; mountains of coffee and tea were deposited in the
+store-room. Richard Shandon superintended the arrangement of this
+precious cargo with the air of a man who perfectly understood his
+business; everything was put in its place, labelled, and numbered with
+perfect precision; at the same time there was stowed away a large
+quantity of pemmican, an Indian preparation, which contains a great
+deal of nutriment in a small compass.</p>
+
+<p>This sort of supply left no doubt as to the length of the cruise; but
+an experienced observer would have known at once that the <i>Forward</i>
+was to sail in polar waters, from the barrels of lime-juice, of lime
+lozenges, of bundles of mustard, sorrel, and of cochlearia,&mdash;in a
+word, from the abundance of powerful antiscorbutics, which are so
+necessary in journeys in the regions of the far north and south.
+Shandon had doubtless received word to take particular care about this
+part of the cargo, for he gave to it especial attention, as well as to
+the ship's medicine-chest.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 9">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="273">
+			<img src="images/009.jpg" alt="Forecastle gun">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>If the armament of the vessel was small enough to calm the timid
+souls, on the other hand, the magazine was filled with enough powder
+to inspire some uneasiness. The single gun on the forecastle could not
+pretend to require so large a supply. This excited curiosity. There
+were, besides, enormous saws and strong machinery, such as levers,
+masses of lead, hand-saws, huge axes, etc., without counting a
+respectable number of blasting-cylinders, which might have blown up
+the Liverpool custom-house. All this was strange, if not alarming, not
+to mention the rockets, signals, lights, and lanterns of every sort.</p>
+
+<p>Then, too, the numerous spectators on the quays of the New Prince's
+Docks gazed with admiration at a long mahogany whale-boat, a tin canoe
+covered with gutta-percha, and a number of halkett-boats, which are a
+sort of india-rubber cloaks, which can be inflated and thereby turned
+into canoes. Every one felt more and more puzzled, and even excited,
+for with the turn of the tide the <i>Forward</i> was to set sail for its
+unknown destination.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap2"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+<h4>AN UNEXPECTED LETTER.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>This is a copy of the letter received by Richard Shandon eight months
+previously:&mdash;</p>
+<br>
+<div align="right"><small>A<small>BERDEEN</small>, A<small>ugust</small> 2, 1859</small>.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</div>
+
+M<small>R</small>. R<small>ICHARD</small> S<small>HANDON</small>, <i>Liverpool</i>.
+
+<p>S<small>IR</small>,&mdash;This letter is to advise you of a remittance of &pound;16,000,
+deposited with Messrs. Marcuart &amp; Co., bankers, at Liverpool. Enclosed
+you will find a series of drafts, signed by me, which will enable you
+to draw upon Messrs. Marcuart &amp; Co. to the amount mentioned above.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture10">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="263">
+			<img src="images/010.jpg" alt="Unexpected letter">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>You do not know me. No matter; I know you, and that is enough. I offer
+you the position of mate on board of the brig <i>Forward</i>, for a voyage
+which may be long and perilous.</p>
+
+<p>If you decline, well and good. If you accept, five hundred pounds will
+be assigned you as salary, and at the end of each year of the voyage
+your pay will be increased one tenth.</p>
+
+<p>The brig <i>Forward</i> does not exist. You will be obliged to have it
+built so that it will be possible to set to sea in the beginning of
+April, 1860, at the latest. Enclosed is a drawing with estimates. You
+will follow them exactly. The ship will be built in the stocks of
+Scott &amp; Co., who will arrange everything with you.</p>
+
+<p>I beg of you to be specially cautious in selecting the crew of the
+<i>Forward;</i> it will consist of a captain (myself), a mate (you), a
+second mate, a boatswain, two engineers, an ice-master, eight sailors,
+two stokers, in all eighteen men, including Dr. Clawbonny of this
+city, who will join you at the proper time.</p>
+
+<p>Those who are shipped on board of the <i>Forward</i> must be Englishmen,
+independent, with no family ties, single and temperate; for the use of
+spirits, and even of beer, will be strictly forbidden on shipboard:
+the men must be ready to undertake and endure everything.</p>
+
+<p>In your selection you will prefer those of a sanguine temperament, and
+so inclined to maintain a higher degree of animal heat.</p>
+
+<p>You will offer the crew five times their usual pay, to be increased
+one tenth at the end of each year. At the end of the voyage each one
+shall receive five hundred pounds, and you yourself two thousand. The
+requisite sum shall be deposited with the above-named Messrs. Marcuart
+&amp; Co.</p>
+
+<p>The voyage will be long and difficult, but one sure to bring renown.
+You need not hesitate, then, Mr. Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>Send your answer to the initials K. Z., at Gottenburg, Sweden, <i>poste
+restante</i>.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 11">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="549">
+			<img src="images/011.jpg" alt="Shandon reading the letter">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="note1"></a>
+<p>P. S. On the 15th of February<a href="#not1"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> next
+you will receive a large Danish
+dog, with hanging lips, of a dark tawny color, with black stripes
+running crosswise. You will find place for him on board, and you will
+feed him on barley bread mixed with a broth of lard. You will
+acknowledge the receipt of this dog by a letter to the same initials
+at Leghorn, Italy.</p>
+
+<p>The captain of the <i>Forward</i> will appear and make himself known at the
+proper time. As you are about setting sail you will receive new
+instructions.</p>
+
+<div align="right">K. Z.,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>
+<i>Captain of the Forward</i>.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</div>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap3"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+<h4>DR. CLAWBONNY.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Richard Shandon was a good sailor; for a long time he had commanded
+whalers in the Arctic seas, with a well-deserved reputation throughout
+all Lancaster. Such a letter was well calculated to astonish him; he
+was astonished, it is true, but with the calmness of a man who is
+accustomed to surprises.</p>
+
+<p>He suited all the required conditions; no wife, child, nor relatives.
+He was as independent as man could be. There being no one whose
+opinion he needed to consult, he betook himself to Messrs. Marcuart &amp;
+Co.</p>
+
+<p>"If the money is there," he said to himself, "the rest is all right."</p>
+
+<p>At the banking-house he was received with the respect due to a man who
+has sixteen thousand pounds deposited to his credit; having made that
+point sure, Shandon asked for a sheet of white paper, and in his large
+sailor's handwriting he sent his acceptance of the plan to the address
+given above.</p>
+
+<p>That very day he made the necessary arrangements with the builders at
+Birkenhead, and within twenty-four hours the keel of the <i>Forward</i> was
+laid on the stocks.</p>
+
+<p>Richard Shandon was a man about forty years old, strong, energetic,
+and fearless, three qualities most necessary for a sailor, for they
+give him confidence, vigor, and coolness. He was known to be severe
+and very hard to please; hence he was more feared than loved by his
+men. But this reputation was not calculated to interfere with his
+selection of a crew, for he was known to be skilful in avoiding
+trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Shandon feared that the mysterious nature of the expedition might
+stand in his way.</p>
+
+<p>"In that case," he said, "it's best not to say anything about it;
+there will always be plenty of men who will want to know the why and
+the wherefore of the whole matter, and, since I don't know anything
+about it myself, I should find it hard to answer them. This K. Z. is
+certainly an odd stick; but, after all, he knows me, he depends on me,
+and that is enough. As for his ship, it will be a good one, and if
+it's not going to the Arctic Ocean, my name is not Richard Shandon.
+But I shall keep that fact for myself and my officers."</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon Shandon began to choose his crew, bearing in mind the
+captain's wishes about the independence and health of the men.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 12">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="155">
+			<img src="images/012.jpg" alt="James Wall">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>He knew a very capital fellow, and a good sailor, James Wall by name.
+Wall might have been about thirty years old, and had already made some
+voyages in the northern seas. Shandon offered him the place of second
+mate, and Wall accepted it at once; all he cared for was to be at sea.
+Shandon confided all the details of the affair to him and to a certain
+Johnson, whom he took as boatswain.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," answered James Wall, "that's as good as anything. Even if
+it's to seek the Northwest Passage, some have come back from that."</p>
+
+<p>"Not all," said Johnson, "but that's no reason that we should not try
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Besides, if our guesses are right," said Shandon, "it must be said
+that we start with a fair chance of success. The <i>Forward</i> will be a
+stanch ship and she will carry good engines. She can go a great
+distance. We want a crew of only eighteen men."</p>
+
+<p>"Eighteen men," answered Johnson; "that's the number the American,
+Kane, took with him on his famous voyage towards the North Pole."</p>
+
+<p>"It's strange," said Wall, "that a private person should try to make
+his way from Davis Strait to Behring Strait. The expeditions in search
+of Sir John Franklin have already cost England more than seven hundred
+and sixty thousand pounds, without producing any practical good. Who
+in the world wants to throw away his money for such a purpose?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the first place, James," answered Shandon, "we are in the dark
+about it all. I don't know whether we are going to the northern or the
+southern seas. Perhaps there's some new discovery to be tried. At any
+rate, some day or other a Dr. Clawbonny is to come aboard who will
+probably know more about it and will be able to tell us. We shall
+see."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us wait, then," said Johnson; "as for me, I'm going to look after
+some good men, and I'll answer now for their animal heat, as the
+captain calls it. You can depend on me."</p>
+
+<p>Johnson was an invaluable man; he was familiar with high latitudes. He
+had been quartermaster aboard of the <i>Phoenix</i>, which belonged to one
+of the expeditions sent out in 1853 in search of Franklin; he had been
+an eye-witness of the death of the French lieutenant Bellot, whom he
+had accompanied in his expedition across the ice. Johnson knew all the
+sailors in Liverpool, and immediately set about engaging a crew.</p>
+
+<a name="ill1"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 13">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="559">
+			<img src="images/013.jpg" alt="Johnson knew all the sailors in Liverpool">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="559" align="center">
+			<small>"Johnson knew all the sailors in Liverpool, and
+			immediately set about engaging a crew."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Shandon, Wall, and he succeeded in filling the number by the middle of
+December, but they met with considerable difficulty; many who were
+attracted by the high pay were alarmed by the danger, and more than
+one who had boldly enlisted came later to say that he had changed his
+mind on account of the dissuasion of his friends. They all tried to
+pierce the mystery, and pursued Shandon with their questions. He used
+to refer them to Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"What can I say, my man?" the boatswain used to answer; "I don't know
+any more about it than you do. At any rate you will be in good
+company, with men who won't shirk their work; that's something! So
+don't be thinking about it all day: take it or leave it!" And the
+greater number took it.</p>
+
+<p>"You understand," added Johnson, sometimes, "my only trouble is in
+making my choice. High pay, such as no sailor ever had before, with
+the certainty of finding a round sum when we get back. That's very
+tempting."</p>
+
+<p>"The fact is," answered the sailors, "that it is hard to refuse. It
+will support a man all the rest of his life."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't hide from you," continued Johnson, "that the voyage will be
+long, difficult, and dangerous; that's all stated in our instructions;
+it's well to know beforehand what one undertakes to do; probably it's
+to try all that men can possibly do, and perhaps even more. So, if you
+haven't got a bold heart and a strong body, if you can't say you have
+more than twenty chances to one of staying there, if, in short, you
+are particular about leaving your body in one place more than another,
+here rather than there, get away from here and let some bolder man
+have your place!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, at least," said the confused sailor,&mdash;"at least, you know the
+captain?"</p>
+
+<p>"The captain is Richard Shandon, my friend, until we receive another."</p>
+
+<p>Now it must be said that was what the commander thought; he allowed
+himself to think that at the last moment he would receive definite
+instructions as to the object of the voyage, and that he would remain
+in command of the <i>Forward</i>. He was fond of spreading this opinion
+about, either in conversation with his officers or in superintending
+the building of the brig, of which the timbers were now rising in the
+Birkenhead ship-yard like the sides of a huge whale.</p>
+
+<p>Shandon and Johnson conformed strictly with the recommendation about
+the health of the crew; they all looked hardy and possessed enough
+animal heat to run the engines of the <i>Forward;</i> their elastic limbs,
+their clear and ruddy skin, showed that they were fit to encounter
+intense cold. They were bold, determined men, energetic and stoutly
+built; they were not all equally vigorous. Shandon had even hesitated
+about accepting some of them; for instance, the sailors Gripper and
+Garry, and the harpooner Simpson, who seemed to him too thin; but, on
+the other hand, they were well built, they were earnest about it, and
+they were shipped.</p>
+
+<p>All the crew were members of the same church; in their long voyage
+their prayers and the reading of the Bible would call them together
+and console them in the hours of depression; so that it was advisable
+that there should be no diversity on this score. Shandon knew from
+experience the usefulness of this practice and its good influence on
+the men, so valuable that it is never neglected on board of ships
+which winter in the polar seas.</p>
+
+<p>When all the crew had been engaged, Shandon and his two officers
+busied themselves with the provisions; they followed closely the
+captain's instructions, which were definite, precise, and detailed, in
+which the quality and quantity of the smallest articles were clearly
+set down. Thanks to the drafts placed at the commander's order, every
+article was paid for, cash down, with a discount of eight per cent,
+which Richard carefully placed to the credit of K. Z.</p>
+
+<p>Crew, provisions, and outfit were all ready in January, 1860; the
+<i>Forward</i> was approaching completion. Shandon never let a day pass
+without visiting Birkenhead.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of the 23d of January he was, as usual, on one of the
+double-ended ferry-boats which ply between the two shores of the
+Mersey; everything was enveloped in one of the ordinary fogs of that
+region, which compel the pilot to steer by compass, although the trip
+is one of but ten minutes.</p>
+
+<a name="ill2"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 14">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="558">
+			<img src="images/014.jpg" alt="The ordinary fog">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="558" align="center">
+			<small>"Everything was enveloped in one of the ordinary fogs
+			of that region."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>However, the thickness of the fog could not prevent Shandon from
+noticing a short, rather stout man, with a refined, agreeable face and
+pleasant expression, who came towards him, seized both his hands, and
+pressed them with a warmth and familiarity which a Frenchman would
+have said was "very southern."</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 15">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="209">
+			<img src="images/015.jpg" alt="Clawbonny and Shandon">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>But if this stranger was not from the South, he had escaped it
+narrowly; he spoke and gesticulated freely; his thoughts seemed
+determined to find expression, even if they had to burst out. His
+eyes, small like the eyes of witty men, his large and mobile mouth,
+were safety-valves which enabled him to rid himself of too strong a
+pressure on his feelings; he talked; and he talked so much and
+joyously, that, it must be said, Shandon could not make out what he
+was saying.</p>
+
+<p>Still the mate of the <i>Forward</i> was not slow in recognizing this short
+man whom he had never seen; it flashed into his mind, and the moment
+that the other stopped to take breath, Shandon uttered these words,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Clawbonny?"</p>
+
+<p>"The same, in person, Commander! For nearly a quarter of an hour I
+have been looking after you, asking for you of every one and
+everywhere. Imagine my impatience. Five minutes more and I should have
+lost my head! So this is you, officer Shandon? You really exist? You
+are not a myth? Your hand, your hand! Let me press it again in mine!
+Yes, that is indeed the hand of Richard Shandon. Now, if there is a
+commander Richard, there is a brig <i>Forward</i> which he commands; and if
+he commands it, it will sail; and if it sails, it will take Dr.
+Clawbonny on board."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, yes, Doctor, I am Richard Shandon, there is a brig <i>Forward</i>,
+and it will sail."</p>
+
+<p>"There's logic," answered the doctor, taking a long breath,&mdash;"there's
+logic. So I am delighted, enchanted! For a long time I've been waiting
+for something of this sort to turn up, and I've been wanting to try a
+voyage of this sort. Now, with you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me&mdash;" said Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>"With you," continued Clawbonny, paying him no attention, "we are sure
+of going far without turning round."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;" began Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>"For you have shown what stuff you are made of, and I know all you've
+done. Ah, you are a good sailor!"</p>
+
+<p>"If you please&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I sha'n't let your courage and skill be doubted for a moment,
+even by yourself. The captain who chose you for mate is a man who knew
+what he was about; I can tell you that."</p>
+
+<p>"But that is not the question," said Shandon, impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, then? Don't keep me anxious any longer."</p>
+
+<p>"But you won't let me say a word. Tell me, Doctor, if you please, how
+you came to join this expedition of the <i>Forward?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"By a letter, a capital letter; here it is,&mdash;the letter of a brave
+captain, very short, but very full."</p>
+
+<p>With these words he handed Shandon a letter running as follows:&mdash;</p>
+<br>
+<div align="right"><small>I<small>NVERNESS</small>, J<small>anuary</small> 22, 1860</small>.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</div>
+
+<p><i>To</i> D<small>R</small>. C<small>LAWBONNY</small>, <i>Liverpool</i>.</p>
+
+<p>If Dr. Clawbonny wishes to sail on the <i>Forward</i> for a long voyage, he
+can present himself to the mate, Richard Shandon, who has been advised
+concerning him.</p>
+
+<div align="right">K. Z.,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>
+<i>Captain of the Forward</i>.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</div>
+<br><br>
+<p>"The letter reached me this morning, and I'm now ready to go on board
+of the <i>Forward</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"But," continued Shandon, "I suppose you know whither we are bound."</p>
+
+<p>"Not the least idea in the world; but what difference does it make,
+provided I go somewhere? They say I'm a learned man; they are wrong; I
+don't know anything, and if I have published some books which have had
+a good sale, I was wrong; it was very kind of the public to buy them!
+I don't know anything, I tell you, except that I am very ignorant. Now
+I have a chance offered me to complete, or, rather, to make over my
+knowledge of medicine, surgery, history, geography, botany,
+mineralogy, conchology, geodesy, chemistry, physics, mechanics,
+hydrography; well, I accept it, and I assure you, I didn't have to be
+asked twice."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said Shandon in a tone of disappointment, "you don't know
+where the <i>Forward</i> is going."</p>
+
+<p>"O, but I do, commander; it's going where there is something to be
+learned, discovered; where one can instruct himself, make comparisons,
+see other customs, other countries, study the ways of other people; in
+a word, it's going where I have never been."</p>
+
+<p>"But more precisely?" cried Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>"More precisely," answered the doctor, "I have understood that it was
+bound for the Northern Ocean. Well, good for the North!"</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate," said Shandon, "you know the captain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all! But he's a good fellow, you may depend on it."</p>
+
+<p>The mate and the doctor stepped ashore at Birkenhead; Shandon gave his
+companion all the information he had, and the mystery which lay about
+it all excited highly the doctor's imagination. The sight of the
+<i>Forward</i> enchanted him. From that time he was always with Shandon,
+and he came every morning to inspect the hull of the <i>Forward</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In addition he was specially intrusted with the providing of the
+ship's medicine-chest.</p>
+
+<p>For Clawbonny was a physician, and a good one, although he had never
+practised much. At twenty-five he was an ordinary young doctor, at
+forty he was a learned man; being known throughout the whole city, he
+became a leading member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of
+Liverpool. His moderate fortune allowed him to give some advice which
+was no less valuable for being without charge; loved as a thoroughly
+kind-hearted man must be, he did no harm to any one else nor to
+himself; quick and garrulous, if you please, but with his heart in his
+hand, and his hand in that of all the world.</p>
+
+<p>When the news of his intended journey on board the <i>Forward</i> became
+known in the city, all his friends endeavored to dissuade him, but
+they only made him cling more obstinately to his intention; and when
+the doctor had absolutely determined on anything, he was a skilful man
+who could make him change.</p>
+
+<p>From that day the rumors, conjectures, and apprehensions steadily
+increased; but that did not interfere with the launching of the
+<i>Forward</i> on the 5th of February, 1860. Two months later she was ready
+for sea.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 16">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="127">
+			<img src="images/016.jpg" alt="Danish dog">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="note2"></a>
+<p>On the 15th of March, as the captain's letter had
+said,<a href="#not1"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> a Danish dog
+was sent by rail from Edinburgh to Liverpool, to the address of
+Richard Shandon. He seemed morose, timid, and almost wicked; his
+expression was very strange. The name of the <i>Forward</i> was engraved on
+his collar.</p>
+
+<p>The commander gave him quarters on board, and sent a letter, with the
+news of his arrival, to Leghorn.</p>
+
+<p>Hence, with the exception of the captain, the crew of the <i>Forward</i>
+was complete. It was composed as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>1. K. Z., captain; 2. Richard Shandon, first mate, in command; 3.
+James Wall, second mate; 4. Dr. Clawbonny; 5. Johnson, boatswain; 6.
+Simpson, harpooner; 7. Bell, carpenter; 8. Brunton, first engineer; 9.
+Plover, second engineer; 10. Strong (negro), cook; 11. Foker,
+ice-master; 12. Wolston, gunner; 13. Bolton, sailor; 14. Garry,
+sailor; 15. Clifton, sailor; 16. Gripper, sailor; 17. Pen, sailor; 18.
+Warren, stoker.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap4"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+<h4>THE DOG-CAPTAIN.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The 5th of April, the day of departure, came. The fact that the doctor
+had joined the expedition gave some comfort to those on board.
+Wherever he could go they could follow. Still, most of the sailors
+were very uneasy, and Shandon, fearing that their number might be
+diminished by desertion, was very anxious to get to sea. The land once
+out of sight, the men would soon be resigned.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Clawbonny's cabin was situated on the poop, occupying the extreme
+after-part of the ship. The cabins of the captain and mate opened on
+the deck. That of the captain was kept tightly closed, after it had
+been provided with various instruments, furniture, clothing, books,
+and utensils, all of which had been set down in detail in a letter. As
+he had asked, the key was sent to the captain at Lübeck; so he alone
+had admission into the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>This fact annoyed Shandon, and diminished his chances of having chief
+command. As for his own cabin, he had arranged it suitably for the
+presumed voyage, for he knew very well what was necessary for a polar
+expedition.</p>
+
+<p>The second mate's cabin was on the lower deck, where the sailors were
+domiciled; the crew had very comfortable quarters; they would hardly
+have had such accommodations in any other ship. They were treated as
+if they were a valuable cargo; a huge stove stood in the middle of
+their sleeping-room.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Clawbonny was very enthusiastic about it; he took possession of
+his cabin on the 6th of February, the day after the ship was launched.</p>
+
+<p>"The happiest animal in the world," he used to say, "would be a snail
+who could make himself just such a shell as he wanted; I shall try to
+be an intelligent snail."</p>
+
+<p>And, in fact, for a shell which he was not going to leave for some
+time, his cabin presented a very comfortable appearance; the doctor
+took a scientific or childlike pleasure in arranging his scientific
+paraphernalia. His books, his specimens, his cases, his instruments,
+his physical apparatus, his thermometers, barometers, field-glasses,
+compasses, sextants, charts, drawings, phials, powder, and
+medicine-bottles, all were classified in a way which would have done
+honor to the British Museum. This space of six feet square contained
+incalculable wealth; the doctor needed only to stretch out his hand
+without rising, to become at once a physician, a mathematician, an
+astronomer, a geographer, a botanist, or a conchologist.</p>
+
+<a name="ill3"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 17">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="542">
+			<img src="images/017.jpg" alt="Six feet square">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="542" align="center">
+			<small>"This space of six feet square contained incalculable wealth."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>To tell the truth, he was proud of his arrangements, and very
+contented in his floating sanctum, which three of his thinnest friends
+would have completely filled. They used to crowd there in great
+numbers, so that even so good-natured a man as the doctor was
+occasionally put out; and, like Socrates, he came at last to say,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My house is small, but may Heaven grant that it never be filled with
+friends!"</p>
+
+<p>To complete our account of the <i>Forward</i>, it is only necessary to add
+that a kennel for the huge Danish dog was built just beneath the
+window of the closed cabin; but he preferred to keep himself between
+decks and in the hold; it seemed impossible to tame him; no one ever
+conquered his shyness; he could be heard, at night especially, howling
+dismally in the ship's hold.</p>
+
+<p>Was it because he missed his master? Had he an instinctive dread of
+the dangers of the voyage? Had he a presentiment of the coming perils?
+The sailors were sure that he had, and more than one said the same in
+jest, who in his heart regarded the dog as a sort of diabolic animal.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 18">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="146">
+			<img src="images/018.jpg" alt="Pen">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="146" align="center">
+			<small>PEN.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Pen, a very brutal man, one day, while trying to kick him, slipped,
+and fell on the corner of the capstan in such a way that he cut his
+head badly. It is easy to see how the sailors put all the blame upon
+the dog.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 19">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="167">
+			<img src="images/019.jpg" alt="CLIFTON">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="167" align="center">
+			<small>CLIFTON.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Clifton, who was the most superstitious man in the crew, made, one
+day, the strange observation that the dog, when on the poop, would
+always walk on the windward side; and afterwards, when the brig was at
+sea and under sail, this singular animal would shift his position to
+the other side after every tack, so as to be windward, as the captain
+of the <i>Forward</i> would have done.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Clawbonny, who by his gentleness and caresses would have almost
+tamed the heart of a tiger, tried in vain to make friends with the
+dog; he met with no success.</p>
+
+<p>The dog, too, did not answer to any of the usual names of his kind. So
+the men used to call him "Captain," for he seemed perfectly familiar
+with all the ways on shipboard. He had evidently been to sea before.</p>
+
+<p>It is hence easy to understand the boatswain's answer to Clifton's
+friend, and how this idea found but few sceptics; more than one would
+repeat it jestingly, who was fully prepared to see the dog, some fine
+day, take human shape, and with a loud voice assume command.</p>
+
+<p>If Richard Shandon did not share such apprehensions, he was far from
+being undisturbed, and on the eve of departing, on the night of April
+5th, he was talking on this subject with the doctor, Wall, and
+Johnson, in the mess-room.</p>
+
+<p>These four persons were sipping their tenth grog, which was probably
+their last, too; for, in accordance with the letter from Aberdeen, all
+the crew, from the captain to the stoker, were teetotalers, never
+touching beer, wine, nor spirits, except in case of sickness, and by
+the advice of the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>For an hour past they had been talking about their departure. If the
+captain's instructions were to be completely carried out, Shandon
+would the next day receive a letter containing his last orders.</p>
+
+<p>"If that letter," said the mate, "doesn't tell me the captain's name,
+it must at least tell us whither we are bound. If not, in what
+direction shall we sail?"</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word," answered the impatient doctor, "if I were in your
+place, Shandon, I should set sail even without getting a letter; one
+will come after us, you may be sure."</p>
+
+<p>"You have a great deal of faith, Doctor. But, if you please, to what
+part of the world would you sail?"</p>
+
+<p>"Towards the North Pole, of course; there can be no doubt about that."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt indeed!" said Wall. "Why not towards the South Pole?"</p>
+
+<p>"The South Pole! Never!" cried the doctor. "Would the captain ever
+have thought of sending a brig across the whole Atlantic Ocean? Just
+think for a moment, my dear Wall."</p>
+
+<p>"The doctor has an answer for everything," was his only reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Granted it's northward," resumed Shandon. "But tell me, Doctor, is it
+to Spitzbergen, Greenland, or Labrador that we have to sail, or to
+Hudson's Bay? If all these routes come to the same end at last,&mdash;the
+impassable ice,&mdash;there is still a great number of them, and I should
+find it very hard to choose between them. Have any definite answer to
+that, Doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered the doctor, annoyed that he had nothing to say; "but if
+you get no letter, what shall you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall do nothing; I shall wait."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't set sail!" cried Clawbonny, twirling his glass in his
+despair.</p>
+
+<p>"No, certainly not."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the best course," said Johnson, mildly; while the doctor
+walked around the table, being unable to sit quiet any longer. "Yes,
+that's the best course; and still, too long a delay might have very
+disastrous consequences. In the first place, the season is a good one,
+and if it's north we are going, we ought to take advantage of the mild
+weather to get through Davis Straits; besides, the crew will get more
+and more impatient; the friends and companions of the men are urging
+them to leave the <i>Forward</i>, and they might succeed in playing us a
+very bad turn."</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 20">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="179">
+			<img src="images/020.jpg" alt="In the mess-room">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"And then, too," said James Wall, "if any panic should arise among the
+men, every one would desert us; and I don't know, Commander, how you
+could get together another crew."</p>
+
+<p>"But what is to be done?" cried Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>"What you said," answered the doctor: "wait; but wait till to-morrow
+before you despair. The captain's promises have all been fulfilled so
+far with such regularity that we may have the best hopes for the
+future; there's no reason to think that we shall not be told of our
+destination at the proper time. As for me, I don't doubt in the least
+that to-morrow we shall be sailing in the Irish Sea. So, my friends, I
+propose one last drink to a happy voyage; it begins in a mysterious
+way, but, with such sailors as you, there are a thousand chances of
+its ending well."</p>
+
+<p>And they all touched their glasses for the last time.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Commander," resumed Johnson, "I have one piece of advice to give
+you, and that is, to make everything ready for sailing. Let the crew
+think you are certain of what you are about. To-morrow, whether a
+letter comes or not, set sail; don't start your fires; the wind
+promises to hold; nothing will be easier than to get off; take a pilot
+on board; at the ebb of the tide leave the docks; then anchor beyond
+Birkenhead Point; the crew will have no more communication with the
+land; and if this devilish letter does come at last, it can find us
+there as well as anywhere."</p>
+
+<p>"Well said, Johnson!" exclaimed the doctor, reaching out his hand to
+the old sailor.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what we shall do," answered Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>Each one then withdrew to his cabin, and took what sleep he could get
+till morning.</p>
+
+<p>The next day the first distribution of letters took place in the city,
+but there was none for Commander Richard Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless he made his preparations for departure; the news spread
+immediately throughout the city, and, as we have seen, a great
+concourse of spectators thronged the piers of the New Prince's Docks.</p>
+
+<a name="ill4"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 21">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="547">
+			<img src="images/021.jpg" alt="Spectators">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="547" align="center">
+			<small>"The news spread immediately throughout the city, and a
+			great concourse of spectators thronged the piers."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>A great many people came on board the brig,&mdash;some to bid a friend good
+by, or to urge him to leave the ship, or to gaze at this strange
+vessel; others to ascertain the object of the voyage; and there were
+many murmurs at the unusual silence of the commander.</p>
+
+<p>For that he had his reasons.</p>
+
+<p>Ten o'clock struck. Eleven. The tide was to turn at half past twelve.
+Shandon, from the upper deck, gazed with anxious eyes at the crowd,
+trying in vain to read on some one's face the secret of his fate. But
+in vain. The sailors of the <i>Forward</i> obeyed his orders in silence,
+keeping their eyes fixed upon him, ever awaiting some information
+which he did not give.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson was finishing the preparations for setting sail. The day was
+overcast, and the sea, outside of the docks, rather high; a stiff
+southwest breeze was blowing, but they could easily leave the Mersey.</p>
+
+<p>At twelve o'clock still nothing. Dr. Clawbonny walked up and down
+uneasily, looking about, gesticulating, and "impatient for the sea,"
+as he said. In spite of all he could do, he felt excited. Shandon bit
+his lips till the blood came.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Johnson came up to him and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Commander, if we are going to take this tide, we must lose no time;
+it will be a good hour before we can get off from the docks."</p>
+
+<p>Shandon cast one last glance about him, and looked at his watch. It
+was after the time of the midday distribution of letters.</p>
+
+<p>"Cast off!" he said to his boatswain.</p>
+
+<p>"All ashore who are going!" cried the latter, ordering the spectators
+to leave the deck of the <i>Forward</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon the crowd, began to move toward the gangway and make its way
+on to the quay, while the crew began to cast off the last moorings.</p>
+
+<p>At once the inevitable confusion of the crowd, which was pushed about
+without much ceremony by the sailors, was increased by the barking of
+the dog. He suddenly sprang from the forecastle right through the mass
+of visitors, barking sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>All made way for him. He sprang on the poop-deck, and, incredible as
+it may seem, yet, as a thousand witnesses can testify, this
+dog-captain carried a letter in his mouth.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 22">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="545">
+			<img src="images/022.jpg" alt="The dog-captain carrying a letter">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"A letter!" cried Shandon; "but is <i>he</i> on board?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>He</i> was, without doubt, but he's not now," answered Johnson, showing
+the deck cleared of the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Captain! Captain!" shouted the doctor, trying to take the
+letter from the dog, who kept springing away from him. He seemed to
+want to give the letter to Shandon himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Captain!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>The dog went up to him; Shandon took the letter without difficulty,
+and then Captain barked sharply three times, amid the profound silence
+which prevailed on board the ship and along the quay.</p>
+
+<p>Shandon held the letter in his hand, without opening it.</p>
+
+<p>"Read it, read it!" cried the doctor. Shandon looked at it. The
+address, without date or place, ran simply,&mdash;"Commander Richard
+Shandon, on board the brig <i>Forward</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Shandon opened the letter and read:&mdash;</p>
+<br>
+<p>You will sail towards Cape Farewell. You will reach it April 20. If
+the captain does not appear on board, you will pass through Davis
+Strait and go up Baffin's Bay as far as Melville Sound.</p>
+
+<div align="right">K. Z.,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>
+<i>Captain of the Forward</i>.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</div>
+<br><br>
+<p>Shandon folded carefully this brief letter, put it in his pocket, and
+gave the order to cast off. His voice, which arose alone above the
+roaring of the wind, sounded very solemn.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the <i>Forward</i> had left the docks, and under the care of a pilot,
+whose boat followed at a distance, put out into the stream. The crowd
+hastened to the outer quay by the Victoria Docks to get a last look at
+the strange vessel. The two topsails, the foresail, and staysail were
+soon set, and under this canvas the <i>Forward</i>, which well deserved its
+name, after rounding Birkenhead Point, sailed away into the Irish Sea.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap5"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER V.</h3>
+<h4>AT SEA.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The wind, which was uncertain, although in general favorable, was
+blowing in genuine April squalls. The <i>Forward</i> sailed rapidly, and
+its screw, as yet unused, did not delay its progress. Towards three
+o'clock they met the steamer which plies between Liverpool and the
+Isle of Man, and which carries the three legs of Sicily on its
+paddle-boxes. Her captain hailed them, and this was the last good-by
+to the crew of the <i>Forward</i>.</p>
+
+<p>At five o'clock the pilot resigned the charge of the ship to Richard
+Shandon, and sailed away in his boat, which soon disappeared from
+sight in the southwest.</p>
+
+<p>Towards evening the brig doubled the Calf of Man, at the southern
+extremity of the island of that name. During the night the sea was
+very high; the <i>Forward</i> rode the waves very well, however, and
+leaving the Point of Ayr on the northwest, she ran towards the North
+Channel.</p>
+
+<a name="ill5"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 23">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="545">
+			<img src="images/023.jpg" alt="Doubled the Calf of Man">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="545" align="center">
+			<small>"Towards evening the brig doubled the Calf of Man."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Johnson was right; once at sea the sailors readily adapted themselves
+instinctively to the situation. They saw the excellence of their
+vessel and forgot the strangeness of their situation. The ship's
+routine was soon regularly established.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor inhaled with pleasure the sea-air; he paced up and down the
+deck in spite of the fresh wind, and showed that for a student he had
+very good sea-legs.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 24">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="540">
+			<img src="images/024.jpg" alt="Conversation on deck">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"The sea is a fine thing," he said to Johnson, as he went upon the
+bridge after breakfast; "I am a little late in making its
+acquaintance, but I shall make up for my delay."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Dr. Clawbonny; I would give all the land in the world
+for a bit of ocean. People say that sailors soon get tired of their
+business; but I've been sailing for forty years, and I like it as well
+as I did the first day."</p>
+
+<p>"What a pleasure it is to feel a stanch ship under one's feet! and, if
+I'm not mistaken, the <i>Forward</i> is a capital sea-boat."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Doctor," answered Shandon, who had joined the two
+speakers; "she's a good ship, and I must say that there was never a
+ship so well equipped for a voyage in the polar regions. That reminds
+me that, thirty years ago, Captain James Ross, going to seek the
+Northwest Passage&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Commanded the <i>Victory</i>," said the doctor, quickly, "a brig of about
+the tonnage of this one, and also carrying machinery."</p>
+
+<p>"What! did you know that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Say for yourself," retorted the doctor. "Steamers were then new
+inventions, and the machinery of the <i>Victory</i> was continually
+delaying him. Captain Ross, after in vain trying to patch up every
+piece, at last took it all out and left it at the first place he
+wintered at."</p>
+
+<p>"The deuce!" said Shandon. "You know all about it, I see."</p>
+<a name="note3"></a>
+<p>"More or less," answered the doctor. "In my reading I have come across
+the works of Parry, Ross, Franklin; the reports of MacClure, Kennedy,
+Kane, MacClintock; and some of it has stuck in my memory. I might add
+that MacClintock, on board of the <i>Fox</i>, a propeller like ours,
+succeeded in making his way more easily and more directly than all his
+successors."<a href="#not3"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a></p>
+
+<p>"That's perfectly true," answered Shandon; "that MacClintock is a good
+sailor; I have seen him at sea. You might also say that we shall be,
+like him, in Davis Strait in the month of April; and if we can get
+through the ice our voyage will be very much advanced."</p>
+
+<p>"Unless," said the doctor, "we should be as unlucky as the <i>Fox</i> in
+1857, and should be caught the first year by the ice in the north of
+Baffin's Bay, and we should have to winter among the icebergs."</p>
+
+<p>"We must hope to be luckier, Mr. Shandon," said Johnson; "and if, with
+a ship like the <i>Forward</i>, we can't go where we please, the attempt
+must be given up forever."</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," continued the doctor, "if the captain is on board he will
+know better than we what is to be done, and so much the better because
+we are perfectly ignorant; for his singularly brief letter gives us no
+clew to the probable aim of the voyage."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a great deal," answered Shandon, with some warmth, "to know what
+route we have to take; and now for a good month, I fancy, we shall be
+able to get along without his supernatural intervention and orders.
+Besides, you know what I think about him."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha, ha!" laughed the doctor; "I used to think as you did, that he was
+going to leave the command of the ship in your hands, and that he
+would never come on board; but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But what?" asked Shandon, with some ill-humor.</p>
+
+<p>"But since the arrival of the second letter, I have altered my views
+somewhat."</p>
+
+<p>"And why so, doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because, although this letter does tell you in which direction to go,
+it still does not inform you of the final aim of the voyage; and we
+have yet to know whither we are to go. I ask you how can a third
+letter reach us now that we are on the open sea. The postal service on
+the shore of Greenland is very defective. You see, Shandon, I fancy
+that he is waiting for us at some Danish settlement up there,&mdash;at
+Holsteinborg or Upernavik. We shall find that he has been completing
+the supply of seal-skins, buying sledges and dogs,&mdash;in a word,
+providing all the equipment for a journey in the arctic seas. So I
+shall not be in the least surprised to see him coming out of his cabin
+some fine morning and taking command in the least supernatural way in
+the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly," answered Shandon, dryly; "but meanwhile the wind's
+freshening, and there's no use risking our topsails in such weather."</p>
+
+<p>Shandon left the doctor, and ordered the topsails furled.</p>
+
+<p>"He still clings to that idea," said the doctor to the boatswain.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," was the answer, "and it's a pity; for you may very well be
+right, Dr. Clawbonny."</p>
+
+<p>Towards the evening of Saturday the <i>Forward</i> rounded the Mull of
+Galloway, on which the light could be seen in the northeast. During
+the night they left the Mull of Cantire to the north, and on the east
+Fair Head, on the Irish coast. Towards three o'clock in the morning,
+the brig, passing Rathlin Island on its starboard quarter, came out
+from the North Channel into the ocean.</p>
+
+<p>That was Sunday, April 8. The English, and especially sailors, are
+very observant of that day; hence the reading of the Bible, of which
+the doctor gladly took charge, occupied a good part of the morning.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 25">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="541">
+			<img src="images/025.jpg" alt="Reading of the Bible">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The wind rose to a gale, and threatened to drive the ship back upon
+the Irish coast. The waves ran very high; the vessel rolled a great
+deal. If the doctor was not sea-sick, it was because he was determined
+not to be, for nothing would have been easier. At midday Malin Head
+disappeared from their view in the south; it was the last sight these
+bold sailors were to have of Europe, and more than one gazed at it for
+a long time who was doubtless fated never to set eyes on it again.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 26">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="532">
+			<img src="images/026.jpg" alt="Last sight of Europe">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>By observation the latitude then was 55&deg; 57', and the longitude,
+according to the chronometer, 7&deg; 40'.*</p>
+
+<blockquote><small>* Meridian of Greenwich.</small></blockquote>
+
+<p>The gale abated towards nine o'clock of the evening; the <i>Forward</i>, a
+good sailer, kept on its route to the northwest. That day gave them
+all a good opportunity to judge of her sea-going qualities; as good
+judges had already said at Liverpool, she was well adapted for
+carrying sail.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 27">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="182">
+			<img src="images/027.jpg" alt="Dead puffin">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>During the following days, the <i>Forward</i> made very good progress; the
+wind veered to the south, and the sea ran high. The brig set every
+sail. A few petrels and puffins flew about the poop-deck; the doctor
+succeeded in shooting one of the latter, which fortunately fell on
+board.</p>
+
+<p>Simpson, the harpooner, seized it and carried it to the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"It's an ugly bird, Dr. Clawbonny," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"But then it will make a good meal, my friend."</p>
+
+<p>"What, are you going to eat it?"</p>
+
+<p>"And you shall have a taste of it," said the doctor, laughing.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 28">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="237">
+			<img src="images/028.jpg" alt="Simpson">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Never!" answered Simpson; "it's strong and oily, like all sea-birds."</p>
+
+<p>"True," said the doctor; "but I have a way of dressing such game, and
+if you recognize it to be a sea-bird, I'll promise never to kill
+another in all my life."</p>
+
+<p>"So you are a cook, too, Dr. Clawbonny?" asked Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"A learned man ought to know a little of everything."</p>
+
+<p>"Then take care, Simpson," said the boatswain; "the doctor is a clever
+man, and he'll make us take this puffin for a delicious grouse."</p>
+
+<p>In fact, the doctor was in the right about this bird; he removed
+skilfully the fat which lies beneath the whole surface of the skin,
+principally on its thighs, and with it disappeared all the rancid,
+fishy odor with which this bird can be justly charged. Thus prepared,
+the bird was called delicious, even by Simpson.</p>
+
+<p>During the recent storm, Richard Shandon had made up his mind about
+the qualities of his crew; he had tested his men one by one, as every
+officer should do who wishes to be prepared for future dangers; he
+knew on whom he could rely.</p>
+
+<p>James Wall, who was warmly attached to Richard, was intelligent and
+efficient, but he had very little originality; as second officer he
+was exactly in his place.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson, who was accustomed to the dangers of the sea, and an old
+sailor in arctic regions, lacked neither coolness nor courage.</p>
+
+<p>Simpson, the harpooner, and Bell, the carpenter, were steady men,
+obedient and well disciplined. The ice-master, Foker, an experienced
+sailor, who had sailed in northern waters, promised to be of the
+greatest service.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 29">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="143">
+			<img src="images/029.jpg" alt="Garry">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Of the other men, Garry and Bolton seemed to be the best; Bolton was a
+jolly fellow, always laughing and joking; Garry, a man about
+thirty-five years old, had an energetic, but rather pale and sad face.</p>
+
+<p>The three sailors, Clifton, Gripper, and Pen, seemed to be the least
+enthusiastic and determined; they were inclined to grumbling. Gripper
+had even wished to break his engagement when the time came for
+sailing, and only a feeling of shame prevented him. If things went
+well, if they encountered no excessive dangers, and their toil was not
+too severe, these three men could be counted on; but they were hard to
+please with their food, for they were inclined to gluttony. In spite
+of their having been forewarned, they were by no means pleased with
+being teetotalers, and at their meals they used to miss their brandy
+or gin; but they made up for it with the tea and coffee which were
+distributed with a lavish hand.</p>
+
+<p>As for the two engineers, Brunton and Plover, and the stoker, Warren,
+they had been so far well satisfied with having nothing to do.</p>
+
+<p>Shandon knew therefore what to expect from each man.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 30">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="263">
+			<img src="images/030.jpg" alt="Sailors">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="note4"></a>
+<p>On the 14th of April, the <i>Forward</i> crossed the Gulf Stream, which,
+after following the eastern coast of America as far as Newfoundland,
+turns to the northeast and moves towards the shore of Norway. They
+were then in latitude 51&deg; 37', and longitude 22&deg; 37',<a href="#not4"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a>
+two hundred miles from the end of Greenland. The weather grew colder; the
+thermometer fell to 32&deg;, the freezing-point.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, without yet putting on his arctic winter dress, was
+wearing a suit of sea-clothes, like all the officers and sailors; he
+was an amusing sight in his high boots, in which he could not bend his
+legs, his huge tarpaulin hat, his trousers and coat of the same
+material; in heavy rain, or when the brig was shipping seas, the
+doctor used to look like a sort of sea-monster, a comparison which
+always flattered him.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 31">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="165">
+			<img src="images/031.jpg" alt="The doctor">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>For two days the sea was very rough; the wind veered to the northwest,
+and delayed the <i>Forward</i>. From the 14th to the 16th of April there
+was still a high sea running; but on Monday there fell a heavy shower
+which almost immediately had the effect of calming the sea. Shandon
+called the doctor's attention to it.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the doctor, "that confirms the curious observations of
+the whaler Scoresby, who was a member of the Royal Society of
+Edinburgh, of which I have the honor to be a corresponding member. You
+see that while the rain is falling the waves are hardly to be noticed,
+even when the wind is strong. On the other hand, in dry weather the
+sea would be rougher even with a gentler wind."</p>
+
+<p>"But what is the explanation of it, Doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's very simple; there is no explanation."</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 32">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="338">
+			<img src="images/032.jpg" alt="An iceberg">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>At that moment the ice-master, who was on watch in the topmast
+cross-trees, cried out that there was a floating mass on the starboard
+quarter, about fifteen miles to windward.</p>
+
+<p>"An iceberg in these latitudes!" cried the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>Shandon turned his glass in that direction, and corroborated the
+lookout's words.</p>
+
+<p>"That's strange," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you surprised?" asked the commander, laughing. "What! are we
+lucky enough to find anything that will surprise you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am surprised without being surprised," answered the doctor,
+smiling, "since the brig <i>Ann Poole</i>, of Greenspond, was caught in the
+ice in the year 1813, in the forty-fourth degree of north latitude,
+and Dayement, her captain, saw hundreds of icebergs."</p>
+
+<p>"Good," said Shandon; "you can still teach us a great deal about
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"O, not so very much!" answered Clawbonny, modestly, "except that ice
+has been seen in very much lower latitudes."</p>
+
+<p>"That I know, my dear Doctor, for when I was a cabin-boy on the
+sloop-of-war, <i>Fly</i>&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"In 1818," continued the doctor, "at the end of March, or it might
+have been the beginning of April, you passed between two large fields
+of floating ice, in latitude forty-two."</p>
+
+<p>"That is too much!" exclaimed Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>"But it's true; so I have no need to be surprised, now that we are two
+degrees farther north, at our sighting an iceberg."<a href="#not4"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a></p>
+
+<p>"You are bottled full of information, Doctor," answered the commander;
+"one needs only draw the cork."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, I shall be exhausted sooner than you think; and now,
+Shandon, if we can get a nearer view of this phenomenon, I should be
+the gladdest of doctors."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly, Johnson," said Shandon, summoning the boatswain; "I think
+the wind is freshening."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Commander," answered Johnson, "we are making very little
+headway, and soon we shall feel the currents from Davis Strait."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Johnson, and if we mean to make Cape Farewell by the
+20th of April, we must go under steam, or we shall be cast on the
+coast of Labrador.&mdash;Mr. Wall, give the order to light the fires."</p>
+
+<p>The mate's orders were obeyed; an hour later the engines were in
+motion; the sails were furled; and the screw, turning through the
+waves, was driving the <i>Forward</i> rapidly in the teeth of the northwest
+wind.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap6"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER VI.</h3>
+<h4>THE GREAT POLAR CURRENT.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Soon more numerous flocks of birds, petrels, puffins, and others which
+inhabit those barren shores, gave token of their approach to
+Greenland. The <i>Forward</i> was moving rapidly northward, leaving behind
+her a long line of dark smoke.</p>
+
+<p>Tuesday, the 17th of April, the ice-master caught the first sight of
+the <i>blink</i>* of the ice. It was visible at least twenty miles off to
+the north-northwest. In spite of some tolerably thick clouds it
+lighted up brilliantly all the air near the horizon. No one of those
+on board who had ever seen this phenomenon before could fail to
+recognize it, and they felt assured from its whiteness that this blink
+was due to a vast field of ice lying about thirty miles farther than
+they could see, and that it came from the reflection of its luminous
+rays.</p>
+
+<blockquote><small>* A peculiar and brilliant color of the air above a large
+expanse of ice.</small></blockquote>
+
+<p>Towards evening the wind shifted to the south, and became favorable;
+Shandon was able to carry sail, and as a measure of economy they
+extinguished the furnace fires. The <i>Forward</i> under her topsails, jib,
+and foresail, sailed on towards Cape Farewell.</p>
+
+<p>At three o'clock on the 18th they made out an ice-stream, which, like
+a narrow but brilliant band, divided the lines of the water and sky.
+It was evidently descending rather from the coast of Greenland than
+from Davis Strait, for the ice tended to keep on the western side of
+Baffin's Bay. An hour later, and the <i>Forward</i> was passing through the
+detached fragments of the ice-stream, and in the thickest part the
+pieces of ice, although closely welded together, were rising and
+falling with the waves.</p>
+
+<p>At daybreak the next morning the watch saw a sail; it was the
+<i>Valkyria</i>, a Danish corvette, sailing towards the <i>Forward</i>, bound to
+Newfoundland. The current from the strait became perceptible, and
+Shandon had to set more sail to overcome it.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the commander, the doctor, James Wall, and Johnson were
+all together on the poop-deck, observing the force and direction of
+the current. The doctor asked if it were proved that this current was
+felt throughout Baffin's Bay.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no doubt of it," answered Shandon; "and sailing-vessels have
+hard work in making headway against it."</p>
+
+<p>"And it's so much the harder," added James Wall, "because it's met on
+the eastern coast of America, as well as on the western coast of
+Greenland."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the doctor, "that serves to confirm those who seek a
+Northwest Passage. The current moves at the rate of about five miles
+an hour, and it is hard to imagine that it rises at the bottom of a
+gulf."</p>
+
+<p>"That is very likely, Doctor," answered Shandon, "because, while this
+current flows from north to south, there is a contrary current in
+Behring Strait, which flows from south to north, and which must be the
+cause of this one."</p>
+
+<p>"Hence," said the doctor, "you must admit that America is completely
+separated from the polar regions, and that the water from the Pacific
+skirts its whole northern coast, until it reaches the Atlantic.
+Besides, the greater elevation of the water of the Pacific is another
+reason for its flowing towards the European seas."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Shandon, "there must be some facts which support this
+theory; and if there are," he added with gentle irony, "our learned
+friend must be familiar with them."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," answered the latter, complacently, "if it interests you at all
+I can tell you that whales, wounded in Davis Strait, have been found
+afterwards on the coast of Tartary, still carrying a European harpoon
+in their side."</p>
+
+<p>"And unless they doubled Cape Horn, or the Cape of Good Hope,"
+answered Shandon, "they must have gone around the northern coast of
+America. There can be no doubt of that, Doctor."</p>
+
+<p>"And if you were not convinced, my dear Shandon," said the doctor,
+smiling, "I could produce still other evidence, such as the floating
+wood with which Davis Strait is filled, larch, aspen, and other
+southern kinds. Now we know that the Gulf Stream could not carry them
+into the strait; and if they come out from it they must have got in
+through Behring Strait."</p>
+
+<p>"I am perfectly convinced, Doctor, and I must say it would be hard to
+maintain the other side against you."</p>
+
+<p>"See there," said Johnson, "there's something that will throw light on
+this discussion. It's a large piece of wood floating on the water; if
+the commander will give us leave, we can put a rope about it, hoist it
+on board, and ask it the name of its country."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the way!" said the doctor; "after the rule we have the
+example."</p>
+
+<p>Shandon gave the necessary orders; the brig was turned towards the
+piece of wood, and soon the crew were hoisting it aboard, although not
+without considerable trouble.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 33">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="538">
+			<img src="images/033.jpg" alt="Hoisting the wood aboard">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>It was the trunk of a mahogany-tree, eaten to its centre by worms,
+which fact alone made it light enough to float.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a real triumph," exclaimed the doctor, enthusiastically,
+"for, since the Atlantic currents could not have brought it into Davis
+Strait, since it could not have reached the polar waters from the
+rivers of North America, as the tree grows under the equator, it is
+evident that it must have come direct from Behring Strait. And
+besides, see those sea-worms which have eaten it; they belong to warm
+latitudes."</p>
+
+<p>"It certainly gives the lie to those who deny the existence of a
+Northwest Passage."</p>
+
+<p>"It fairly kills them," answered the doctor. "See here, I'll give you
+the route of this mahogany-tree: it was carried to the Pacific Ocean
+by some river of the Isthmus of Panama or of Guatemala; thence the
+current carried it along the coast of America as far as Behring
+Strait, and so it was forced into the polar waters; it is neither so
+old nor so completely water-logged that we cannot set its departure at
+some recent date; it escaped all the obstacles of the many straits
+coming into Baffin's Bay, and being quickly seized by the arctic
+current it came through Davis Strait to be hoisted on board the
+<i>Forward</i> for the great joy of Dr. Clawbonny, who asks the commander's
+permission to keep a piece as a memorial."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," answered Shandon; "but let me tell you in my turn that
+you will not be the only possessor of such a waif. The Danish governor
+of the island of Disco&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"On the coast of Greenland," continued the doctor, "has a mahogany
+table, made from a tree found in the same way; I know it, my dear
+Shandon. Very well; I don't grudge him his table, for if there were
+room enough on board, I could easily make a sleeping-room out of
+this."</p>
+
+<p>On the night of Wednesday the wind blew with extreme violence;
+drift-wood was frequently seen; the approach to the coast became more
+dangerous at a time when icebergs are numerous; hence the commander
+ordered sail to be shortened, and the <i>Forward</i> went on under merely
+her foresail and forestay-sail.</p>
+
+<p>The thermometer fell below the freezing-point. Shandon distributed
+among the crew suitable clothing, woollen trousers and jackets,
+flannel shirts, and thick woollen stockings, such as are worn by
+Norwegian peasants. Every man received in addition a pair of
+water-proof boots.</p>
+
+<p>As for Captain, he seemed contented with his fur; he appeared
+indifferent to the changes of temperature, as if he were thoroughly
+accustomed to such a life; and besides, a Danish dog was unlikely to
+be very tender. The men seldom laid eyes on him, for he generally kept
+himself concealed in the darkest parts of the vessel.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 34">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="375">
+			<img src="images/034.jpg" alt="The coast of Greenland">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Towards evening, through a rift in the fog, the coast of Greenland
+could be seen in longitude 37&deg; 2' 7". Through his glass the doctor was
+able to distinguish mountains separated by huge glaciers; but the fog
+soon cut out this view, like the curtain of a theatre falling at the
+most interesting part of a play.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of the 20th of April, the <i>Forward</i> found itself in
+sight of an iceberg one hundred and fifty feet high, aground in this
+place from time immemorial; the thaws have had no effect upon it, and
+leave its strange shape unaltered. Snow saw it; in 1829 James Ross
+took an exact drawing of it; and in 1851 the French lieutenant,
+Bellot, on board of the <i>Prince Albert</i>, observed it. Naturally the
+doctor wanted to preserve a memorial of the famous mountain, and he
+made a very successful sketch of it.</p>
+
+<p>It is not strange that such masses should run aground, and in
+consequence become immovably fixed to the spot; as for every foot
+above the surface of the water they have nearly two beneath, which
+would give to this one a total height of about four hundred feet.</p>
+
+<p>At last with a temperature at noon as low as 12&deg;, under a snowy, misty
+sky, they sighted Cape Farewell. The <i>Forward</i> arrived at the
+appointed day; the unknown captain, if he cared to assume his place in
+such gloomy weather, would have no need to complain.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said the doctor to himself, "there is this famous cape, with
+its appropriate name! Many have passed it, as we do, who were destined
+never to see it again! Is it an eternal farewell to one's friends in
+Europe? You have all passed it, Frobisher, Knight, Barlow, Vaughan,
+Scroggs, Barentz, Hudson, Blosseville, Franklin, Crozier, Bellot,
+destined never to return home; and for you this cape was well named
+Cape Farewell!"</p>
+
+<p>It was towards the year 970 that voyagers, setting out from Iceland,
+discovered Greenland. Sebastian Cabot, in 1498, went as high as
+latitude 56&deg;; Gaspard and Michel Cotréal, from 1500 to 1502, reached
+latitude 60&deg;; and in 1576 Martin Frobisher reached the inlet which
+bears his name.</p>
+
+<p>To John Davis belongs the honor of having discovered the strait, in
+1585; and two years later in a third voyage this hardy sailor, this
+great whaler, reached the sixty-third parallel, twenty-seven degrees
+from the Pole.</p>
+
+<p>Barentz in 1596, Weymouth in 1602, James Hall in 1605 and 1607,
+Hudson, whose name was given to the large bay which runs so far back
+into the continent of America, James Poole in 1611, went more or less
+far into the straits, seeking the Northwest Passage, the discovery of
+which would have greatly shortened the route between the two worlds.</p>
+
+<p>Baffin, in 1616, found in the bay of that name Lancaster Sound; he was
+followed in 1619 by James Monk, and in 1719 by Knight, Barlow,
+Vaughan, and Scroggs, who were never heard of again.</p>
+
+<p>In 1776, Lieutenant Pickersgill, sent to meet Captain Cook, who tried
+to make his way through Behring Strait, reached latitude 68&deg;; the next
+year, Young, on the same errand, went as far as Woman's Island.</p>
+
+<p>Then came James Ross, who in 1818 sailed all around the shores of
+Baffin's Bay, and corrected the errors on the charts of his
+predecessors.</p>
+<a name="note5"></a>
+<p>Finally, in 1819 and 1820, the famous Parry made his way into
+Lancaster Sound. In spite of numberless difficulties he reached
+Melville Island, and won the prize of five thousand pounds offered by
+act of Parliament to the English sailors who should cross the meridian
+at a latitude higher than the seventy-seventh parallel.<a href="#not5"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a></p>
+
+<p>In 1826, Beechey touched at Chamisso Island; James Ross wintered, from
+1829 to 1833, in Prince Regent's Inlet, and, among other important
+services, discovered the magnetic pole.</p>
+
+<p>During this time Franklin, by a land-journey, defined the northern
+coast of America, from Mackenzie River to Turnagain Point; Captain
+Back followed the same route from 1823 to 1835; and these explorations
+were completed in 1839 by Dease, Simpson, and Dr. Rae.</p>
+
+<p>At last, Sir John Franklin, anxious to discover the Northwest Passage,
+left England in 1845, with the <i>Erebus</i> and the <i>Terror;</i> he entered
+Baffin's Bay, and since his leaving Disco Island there has been no
+news of his expedition.</p>
+
+<p>His disappearance started numerous search-expeditions, which have
+effected the discovery of the passage, and given the world definite
+information about the rugged coasts of the polar lands. The boldest
+sailors of England, France, and the United States hastened to these
+terrible latitudes; and, thanks to their exertions, the tortuous,
+complicated map of these regions has at last been placed in the
+archives of the Royal Geographical Society of London.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 35">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="543">
+			<img src="images/035.jpg" alt="The boldest sailors">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The strange history of these lands crowded on the imagination of the
+doctor, as he stood leaning on the rail, and gazing on the long track
+of the brig. The names of those bold sailors thronged into his memory,
+and it seemed to him that beneath the frozen arches of the ice he
+could see the pale ghosts of those who never returned.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap7"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER VII.</h3>
+<h4>THE ENTRANCE OF DAVIS STRAIT.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>During that day the <i>Forward</i> made easy progress through the loose
+ice; the breeze was in a good quarter, but the temperature was very
+low; the wind coming across the ice-fields was thoroughly chilled.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 36">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="296">
+			<img src="images/036.jpg" alt="The crow's-nest">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>At night the strictest care was necessary; the icebergs crowded
+together in this narrow passage; often they could be counted by the
+hundred on the horizon; they had been loosened from the lofty coasts
+by the incessant beating of the waves and the warmth of the spring
+month, and they were floating down to melt away in the depths of the
+ocean. Often, too, they came across large masses of floating wood,
+which they were obliged to avoid, so that the crow's-nest was placed
+in position on the top of the foremast; it consisted of a sort of tub,
+in which the ice-master, partly sheltered from the wind, scanned the
+sea, giving notice of the ice in sight, and even, if necessary,
+directing the ship's course.</p>
+
+<p>The nights were short; since the 31st of January the sun had
+reappeared in refraction, and was every day rising higher and higher
+above the horizon. But it was hid by the snow, which, if it did not
+produce utter darkness, rendered navigation difficult.</p>
+
+<p>April 21st, Cape Desolation appeared through the mist; hard work was
+wearying the crew; since the brig had entered the ice, the sailors had
+had no rest; it was now necessary to have recourse to steam to force a
+way through the accumulated masses.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor and Johnson were talking together on the after-deck, while
+Shandon was snatching a few hours of sleep in his cabin. Clawbonny was
+very fond of talking with the old sailor, whose numerous voyages had
+given him a valuable education. The two had made great friends of one
+another.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, Dr. Clawbonny," said Johnson, "this country is not like any
+other; its name is Greenland, but there are very few weeks of the year
+in which it deserves this name."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Johnson," answered the doctor, "who can say whether in the tenth
+century this name did not suit it? More than one change of this sort
+has taken place on the globe, and I should astonish you much more by
+saying that, according to Icelandic chroniclers, two hundred villages
+flourished on this continent eight or nine hundred years ago."</p>
+
+<p>"You astonish me so much, Dr. Clawbonny, that I can't believe you; for
+it's a sterile country."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sterile as it is, it supports a good many inhabitants, and
+among them are some civilized Europeans."</p>
+
+<p>"Without doubt; at Disco and at Upernavik we shall find men who are
+willing to live in such a climate; but I always supposed they stayed
+there from necessity, and not because they liked it."</p>
+
+<p>"I think you are right; still, men get accustomed to everything, and
+these Greenlanders appear to me better off than the workingmen of our
+large cities; they may be unfortunate, but they are not miserable. I
+say unfortunate, but that is not exactly what I mean; in fact, if they
+are not quite as comfortable as those who live in temperate regions,
+they, nevertheless, are accustomed to the severity of the climate, and
+find in it an enjoyment which we should never imagine."</p>
+
+<p>"We have to think so, Dr. Clawbonny, because Heaven is just; but I
+have often visited these coasts, and I am always saddened at the sight
+of its gloomy loneliness; the capes, promontories, and bays ought to
+have more attractive names, for Cape Farewell and Cape Desolation are
+not of a sort to cheer sailors."</p>
+
+<p>"I have often made the same remark," answered the doctor; "but these
+names have a geographical value which is not to be forgotten; they
+describe the adventures of those who gave them; along with the names
+of Davis, Baffin, Hudson, Ross, Parry, Franklin, Bellot, if I find
+Cape Desolation, I also find soon Mercy Bay; Cape Providence makes up
+for Port Anxiety, Repulse Bay brings me to Cape Eden, and after
+leaving Point Turnagain I rest in Refuge Bay; in that way I have under
+my eyes the whole succession of dangers, checks, obstacles, successes,
+despairs, and victories connected with the great names of my country;
+and, like a series of antique medals, this nomenclature gives me the
+whole history of these seas."</p>
+
+<p>"Well reasoned, Doctor; and may we find more bays of Success in our
+journey than capes of Despair!"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so, Johnson; but, tell me, have the crew got over their
+fears?"</p>
+
+<p>"Somewhat, sir; and yet, to tell the truth, since we entered these
+straits, they have begun to be very uneasy about the unknown captain;
+more than one expected to see him appear at the end of Greenland; and
+so far no news of him. Between ourselves, Doctor, don't you think that
+is a little strange!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Johnson, I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you believe the captain exists?"</p>
+
+<p>"Without any doubt."</p>
+
+<p>"But what reason can he have had for acting in this way?"</p>
+
+<p>"To speak frankly, Johnson, I imagine that he wants to get the crew so
+far away that it will be impossible for them to turn back. Now, if he
+had appeared on board when we set sail, and every one had known where
+we were going, he might have been embarrassed."</p>
+
+<p>"How so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, if he wants to try any superhuman enterprise, if he wants to go
+where so many have failed, do you think he would have succeeded in
+shipping a crew? But, once on the way, it is easy to go so far that to
+go farther becomes an absolute necessity."</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly, Doctor; I have known more than one bold explorer, whose
+name alone would have frightened every one, and who would have found
+no one to accompany him on his perilous expeditions&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Except me," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"And me," continued Johnson. "I tell you our captain is probably one
+of those men. At any rate, we shall know sooner or later; I suppose
+that at Upernavik or Melville Bay he will come quietly on board, and
+let us know whither he intends to take the ship."</p>
+
+<p>"Very likely, Johnson; but the difficulty will be to get to Melville
+Bay; see how thick the ice is about us! The <i>Forward</i> can hardly make
+her way through it. See there, that huge expanse!"</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 37">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="532">
+			<img src="images/037.jpg" alt="An ice-field">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"We whalers call that an ice-field, that is to say, an unbroken
+surface of ice, the limits of which cannot be seen."</p>
+
+<p>"And what do you call this broken field of long pieces more or less
+closely connected?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is a pack; if it's round we call it a patch, and a stream if it
+is long."</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 38">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="223">
+			<img src="images/038.jpg" alt="Hummock and drift-ice">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"And that floating ice?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is drift-ice; if a little higher it would be icebergs; they are
+very dangerous to ships, and they have to be carefully avoided. See,
+down there on the ice-field, that protuberance caused by the pressure
+of the ice; we call that a hummock; if the base were under water, we
+should call it a cake; we have to give names to them all to
+distinguish them."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, it is a strange sight," exclaimed the doctor, as he gazed at the
+wonders of the northern seas; "one's imagination is touched by all
+these different shapes!"</p>
+
+<p>"True," answered Johnson, "the ice takes sometimes such curious
+shapes; and we men never fail to explain them in our own way."</p>
+
+<p>"See there, Johnson; see that singular collection of blocks of ice!
+Would one not say it was a foreign city, an Eastern city, with minarets
+and mosques in the moonlight? Farther off is a long row of Gothic
+arches, which remind us of the chapel of Henry VII., or the Houses of
+Parliament."</p>
+
+<a name="ill6"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 39">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="544">
+			<img src="images/039.jpg" alt="An Eastern city, with minarets and mosques">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="544" align="center">
+			<small>"Would one not say it was a foreign city, an Eastern
+			city, with minarets and mosques in the moonlight?"</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Everything can be found there; but those cities or churches are very
+dangerous, and we must not go too near them. Some of those minarets
+are tottering, and the smallest of them would crush a ship like the
+<i>Forward</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet men have dared to come into these seas under sail alone! How
+could a ship be trusted in such perils without the aid of steam?"</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 40">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="202">
+			<img src="images/040.jpg" alt="Johnson">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Still it has been done; when the wind is unfavorable, and I have
+known that happen more than once, it is usual to anchor to one of
+these blocks of ice; we should float more or less around with them,
+but we would wait for a fair wind; it is true that, travelling in that
+way, months would be sometimes wasted where we shall need only a few
+days."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me," said the doctor, "that the temperature is falling."</p>
+
+<p>"That would be a pity," answered Johnson, "for there will have to be a
+thaw before these masses separate, and float away into the Atlantic;
+besides, they are more numerous in Davis Strait, because the two
+stretches of land approach one another between Cape Walsingham and
+Holsteinborg; but above latitude 67&deg; we shall find in May and June
+more navigable seas."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but we must get through this first."</p>
+
+<p>"We must get through, Doctor; in June and July we should have found
+the passage free, as do the whalers; but our orders were strict; we
+had to be here in April. If I'm not very much mistaken, our captain is
+a sound fellow with an idea firm in his head; his only reason for
+leaving so early was to go far. Whoever survives will see."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was right about the falling of the temperature; at noon the
+thermometer stood at 6&deg;, and a breeze was blowing from the northwest,
+which, while it cleared the sky, aided the current in accumulating the
+floating ice in the path of the <i>Forward</i>. It did not all follow the
+same course; often some pieces, and very high ones, too, floated in
+the opposite direction under the influence of a submarine current.</p>
+
+<p>The difficulties of this navigation may be readily understood; the
+engineers had no repose; the engines were controlled from the bridge
+by means of levers, which started, stopped, and reversed them
+instantly, at the orders of the officer in command. Sometimes it was
+necessary to hasten forward to enter an opening in the ice, again to
+race with a mass of ice which threatened to block up their only
+egress, or some piece, suddenly upsetting, obliged the brig to back
+quickly, in order to escape destruction. This mass of ice, carried and
+accumulated by the great polar current, was hurried through the
+strait, and if the frost should unite it, it would present an
+impassable barrier to the <i>Forward</i>.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 41">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="545">
+			<img src="images/041.jpg" alt="Numberless birds">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>In these latitudes numberless birds were to be found; petrels and
+contremaitres were flying here and there, with deafening cries; there
+were also many gulls, with their large heads, short necks, and small
+beaks, which were extending their long wings and braving the snow
+which the storm was whirling about. This profusion of winged beings
+enlivened the scene.</p>
+
+<p>Numerous pieces of wood were drifting along, clashing continually into
+one another; a few whales with large heads approached the ship; but
+they could not think of chasing them, although Simpson, the harpooner,
+earnestly desired it. Towards evening several seals were seen, which,
+with their noses just above the water, were swimming among the great
+pieces of ice.</p>
+
+<p>On the 22d the temperature was still falling; the <i>Forward</i> carried a
+great deal of steam to reach an easier sailing-place; the wind blew
+steadily from the northwest; the sails were furled.</p>
+
+<p>During Sunday the sailors had little to do. After divine service,
+which was read by Shandon, the crew betook themselves to chasing wild
+birds, of which they caught a great many. These birds, prepared
+according to Dr. Clawbonny's method, were an agreeable addition to the
+messes of the officers and crew.</p>
+
+<p>At three o'clock in the afternoon, the <i>Forward</i> sighted the Kin of
+Sael, which lay east one quarter northeast, and the Mount Sukkertop,
+southeast one quarter east half-east; the sea was very high; from time
+to time a dense fog descended suddenly from the gray sky.
+Notwithstanding, at noon they were able to take an observation. The
+ship was found to be in latitude 65&deg; 20' and longitude 54&deg; 22'. They
+would have to go two degrees farther north before they would find
+clearer sailing.</p>
+
+<p>During the three following days, the 24th, 25th, and 26th of April,
+they had uninterruptedly to fight with the ice; the management of the
+engines became very tedious; every minute steam was shut off or
+reversed, and escaped from the safety-valve.</p>
+
+<p>In the dense mist their approach to the icebergs could be known only
+by the dull roar of the avalanches; then the vessel would shift its
+course at once; then there was the danger of running into the masses
+of frozen fresh water, which were as clear as crystal and as hard as
+stone. Richard Shandon used to take aboard a quantity of this ice
+every day to supply the ship with fresh water.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor could not accustom himself to the optical illusions
+produced by refraction; indeed, an iceberg ten or twelve miles distant
+used to seem to him to be a small piece of ice close by; he tried to
+get used to this strange phenomenon, in order to be able by and by to
+overcome the mistakes of his eyesight.</p>
+
+<p>At last, both by towing the brig along the fields of ice and by
+pushing off threatening blocks with poles, the crew was thoroughly
+exhausted; and yet, on the 27th of April, the <i>Forward</i> was still
+detained on the impassable Polar Circle.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 42">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="541">
+			<img src="images/042.jpg" alt="Pushing off blocks with poles">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table><br>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap8"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII.</h3>
+<h4>THE TALK OF THE CREW.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, by taking advantages of such openings as there were, the
+<i>Forward</i> succeeded in getting a few minutes farther north; but,
+instead of escaping the enemy, it would soon be necessary to attack
+it; ice-fields of many miles in extent were drawing together, and as
+these moving masses often represent a pressure of ten millions of
+tons, they were obliged to take every precaution against being crushed
+by them. Ice-saws were placed outside the vessel, where they could be
+used without delay.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the crew endured their hard toil without a murmur, but others
+complained or even refused to obey orders. While they were putting the
+saws in place, Garry, Bolton, Pen, and Gripper exchanged their diverse
+opinions as follows.</p>
+
+<p>"Deuce take it," said Bolton, cheerfully; "I don't know why it just
+occurs to me that in Water Street there's a comfortable tavern, where
+one might be very well off between a glass of gin and a bottle of
+porter. Can you see it from here, Gripper?"</p>
+
+<p>"To tell the truth," answered the sailor who had been addressed, and
+who generally pretended to be very sullen, "I must say I can't see it
+from here."</p>
+
+<p>"That's merely your way of talking, Gripper; it is evident that, in
+those snow towns which Dr. Clawbonny is always admiring, there's no
+tavern where a poor sailor can moisten his throat with a drink or two
+of brandy."</p>
+
+<p>"You may be sure of that, Bolton; and you might add that on board of
+this ship there's no way of getting properly refreshed. A strange
+idea, sending people into the northern seas, and giving them nothing
+to drink!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," answered Garry, "have you forgotten, Gripper, what the doctor
+said? One must go without spirits if he expects to escape the scurvy,
+remain in good health, and sail far."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care to sail far, Garry; and I think it's enough to have come
+as far as this, and to try to get through here where the Devil doesn't
+mean to let us through."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we sha'n't get through," retorted Pen. "O, when I think I have
+already forgotten how gin tastes!"</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Bolton, "remember what the doctor said."</p>
+
+<p>"O," answered Pen, with his rough voice, "that's all very well to say!
+I fancy that they are economizing it under the pretext of saving our
+health."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps that devil Pen is right," said Gripper.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come!" replied Bolton, "his nose is too red for that; and if a
+little abstinence should make it a trifle paler, Pen won't need to be
+pitied."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't trouble yourself about my nose," was the answer, for Pen was
+rather vexed. "My nose doesn't need your advice; it doesn't ask for
+it; you'd better mind your own business."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, don't be angry, Pen; I didn't think your nose was so tender. I
+should be as glad as any one else to have a glass of whiskey,
+especially on such a cold day; but if in the long run it does more
+harm than good, why, I'm very willing to get along without it."</p>
+
+<p>"You may get along without it," said Warren, the stoker, who had
+joined them, "but it's not everybody on board who gets along without
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, Warren?" asked Garry, looking at him intently.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that for one purpose or another there is liquor aboard, and I
+fancy that aft they don't get on without it."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you know about it?" asked Garry.</p>
+
+<p>Warren could not answer; he spoke for the sake of speaking.</p>
+
+<p>"You see, Garry," continued Bolton, "that Warren knows nothing about
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Pen, "we'll ask the commander for a ration of gin; we
+deserve it, and we'll see what he'll say."</p>
+
+<p>"I advise you not to," said Garry.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" cried Pen and Gripper.</p>
+
+<p>"Because the commander will refuse it. You knew what the conditions
+were when you shipped; you ought to think of that now."</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," said Bolton, who was not averse to taking Garry's side, for
+he liked him, "Richard Shandon is not master; he's under orders like
+the rest of us."</p>
+
+<p>"Whose orders?" asked Pen.</p>
+
+<p>"The captain's."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, that ridiculous captain's!" cried Pen. "Don't you know there's no
+more captain than there is tavern on the ice? That's a mean way of
+refusing politely what we ask for."</p>
+
+<p>"But there is a captain," persisted Bolton; "and I'll wager two
+months' pay that we shall see him before long."</p>
+
+<p>"All right!" said Pen; "I should like to give him a piece of my mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's talking about the captain?" said a new speaker.</p>
+
+<p>It was Clifton, who was inclined to be superstitious and envious at
+the same time.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there any news about the captain?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No," a single voice answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I expect to find him settled in his cabin some fine morning,
+and without any one's knowing how or whence he came aboard."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" answered Bolton; "you imagine, Clifton, that he's an imp,
+a hobgoblin such as are seen in the Scotch Highlands."</p>
+
+<p>"Laugh if you want to, Bolton; that won't alter my opinion. Every day
+as I pass the cabin I peep in through the keyhole, and one of these
+days I'll tell you what he looks like, and how he's made."</p>
+
+<p>"O, the devil!" said Pen; "he'll look like everybody else. And if he
+wants to lead us where we don't want to go, we'll let him know what we
+think about it."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said Bolton; "Pen doesn't know him, and wants to quarrel
+with him already."</p>
+
+<p>"Who doesn't know all about him?" asked Clifton, with the air of a man
+who has the whole story at his tongue's end; "I should like to know
+who doesn't."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" asked Gripper.</p>
+
+<p>"I know very well what I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"But we don't."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Pen has already had trouble with him."</p>
+
+<p>"With the captain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the dog-captain; for it's the same thing precisely."</p>
+
+<p>The sailors gazed at one another, incapable of replying.</p>
+
+<p>"Dog or man," muttered Pen, between his teeth, "I'll bet he'll get his
+account settled one of these days."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Clifton," asked Bolton, seriously, "do you imagine, as Johnson
+said in joke, that that dog is the real captain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, I do," answered Clifton, with some warmth; "and if you had
+watched him as carefully as I have, you'd have noticed his strange
+ways."</p>
+
+<p>"What ways? Tell us."</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you noticed the way he walks up and down the poop-deck as if
+he commanded the ship, keeping his eye on the sails as if he were on
+watch?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's so," said Gripper; "and one evening I found him with his paws
+on the wheel."</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 43">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="657">
+			<img src="images/043.jpg" alt="With his paws on the wheel">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Impossible!" said Bolton.</p>
+
+<p>"And then," continued Clifton, "doesn't he run out at night on the
+ice-fields without caring for the bears or the cold?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's true," said Bolton.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever see him making up to the men like an honest dog, or
+hanging around the kitchen, and following the cook when he's carrying
+a savory dish to the officers? Haven't you all heard him at night,
+when he's run two or three miles away from the vessel, howling so that
+he makes your blood run cold, and that's not easy in weather like
+this? Did you ever seen him eat anything? He never takes a morsel from
+any one; he never touches the food that's given him, and, unless some
+one on board feeds him secretly, I can say he lives without eating.
+Now, if that's not strange, I'm no better than a beast myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word," answered Bell, the carpenter, who had heard all of
+Clifton's speech, "it may be so."</p>
+
+<p>But all the other sailors were silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as for me," continued Clifton, "I can say that if you don't
+believe, there are wiser people on board who don't seem so sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean the mate?" asked Bolton.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the mate and the doctor."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think they fancy the same thing?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard them talking about it, and they could make no more out
+of it than we can; they imagined a thousand things which did not
+satisfy them in the least."</p>
+
+<p>"Did they say the same things about the dog that you did, Clifton?"
+asked the carpenter.</p>
+
+<p>"If they were not talking about the dog," answered Clifton, who was
+fairly cornered, "they were talking about the captain; it's exactly
+the same thing, and they confessed it was all very strange."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my friends," said Bell, "do you want to hear my opinion?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it!" they all cried.</p>
+
+<p>"It is that there is not, and there will not be, any other captain
+than Richard Shandon."</p>
+
+<p>"And the letter?" said Clifton.</p>
+
+<p>"The letter was genuine," answered Bell; "it is perfectly true that
+some unknown person has equipped the <i>Forward</i> for an expedition in
+the ice; but the ship once off, no one will come on board."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," asked Bolton, "where is the ship going to?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; at the right time, Richard Shandon will get the rest of
+the instructions."</p>
+
+<p>"But from whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"From whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, in what way?" asked Bolton, who was becoming persistent.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Bell, an answer," said the other sailors.</p>
+
+<p>"From whom? in what way? O, I'm sure I don't know!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, from the dog!" cried Clifton. "He has already written once, and
+he can again. O, if I only knew half as much as he does, I might be
+First Lord of the Admiralty!"</p>
+
+<p>"So," added Bolton, in conclusion, "you persist in saying that dog is
+the captain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Pen, gruffly, "if that beast doesn't want to die in a
+dog's skin, he'd better hurry and turn into a man; for, on my word,
+I'll finish him."</p>
+
+<p>"Why so?" asked Garry.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I want to," answered Pen, brutally; "and I don't care what
+any one says."</p>
+
+<p>"You have been talking long enough, men," shouted the boatswain,
+advancing at the moment when the conversation threatened to become
+dangerous; "to work, and have the saws put in quicker! We must get
+through the ice."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! on Friday too," answered Clifton, shrugging his shoulders. "You
+won't find it so easy to cross the Polar Circle."</p>
+
+<p>Whatever the reason may have been, the exertions of the crew on that
+day were nearly fruitless. The <i>Forward</i>, plunging, under a full head
+of steam, against the floes, could not separate them; they were
+obliged to lie at anchor that night.</p>
+<a name="note6"></a>
+<p>On Saturday, the temperature fell still lower under the influence of
+an east-wind; the sky cleared up, and they all had a wide view over
+the white expense, which shone brilliantly beneath the bright rays of
+the sun. At seven o'clock in the morning, the thermometer stood at 8&deg;
+above zero.<a href="#not6"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a></p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 44">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="160">
+			<img src="images/044.jpg" alt="He looked strange with his green glasses">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The doctor was tempted to remain quietly in his cabin, or read over
+the accounts of arctic journeys; but he asked himself, following his
+usual habit, what would be the most disagreeable thing he could do at
+that moment. He thought that to go on deck on such a cold day and help
+the men would not be attractive. So, faithful to his line of conduct,
+he left his well-warmed cabin, and went out to help tow the ship. He
+looked strange with his green glasses, which he wore to protect his
+eyes against the brilliancy of the sun, and after that he always took
+good care to wear snow-spectacles as a security against the
+inflammation of the eyes, which is so common in these latitudes.</p>
+
+<p>By evening the <i>Forward</i> had got several miles farther north, thanks
+to the energy of the men and the intelligence of Shandon, who was
+quick at utilizing every favorable circumstance; at midnight they
+crossed the sixty-sixth parallel, and the lead announcing a depth of
+twenty-three fathoms, Shandon knew that he was in the neighborhood of
+the shoal on which her Majesty's ship <i>Victory</i> grounded. Land lay
+thirty miles to the east.</p>
+
+<p>But then the mass of ice, which had hitherto been stationary,
+separated, and began to move; icebergs seemed to rise in all points of
+the horizon; the brig was caught in a number of whirlpools of
+irresistible force; controlling her became so hard, that Garry, the
+best steersman, took the helm; the masses began to close behind the
+brig, hence it was necessary to cut through the ice; both prudence and
+duty commanded them to go forward. The difficulties were enhanced by
+the impossibility of Shandon's fixing the direction of the brig among
+all the changing points, which were continually shifting and
+presenting no definite point to be aimed at.</p>
+
+<p>The crew were divided into two forces, and one stationed on the
+starboard, the other on the larboard side; every man was given a long
+iron-headed pole, with which to ward off threatening pieces of ice.
+Soon the <i>Forward</i> entered such a narrow passage between two lofty
+pieces, that the ends of the yards touched its solid walls; gradually
+it penetrated farther into a winding valley filled with a whirlwind of
+snow, while the floating ice was crashing ominously all about.</p>
+
+<p>But soon it was evident that there was no outlet to this gorge; a huge
+block, caught in the channel, was floating swiftly down to the
+<i>Forward;</i> it seemed impossible to escape it, and equally impossible
+to return through an already closed path.</p>
+
+<p>Shandon and Johnson, standing on the forward deck, were viewing their
+position. Shandon with his right hand signalled to the man at the
+wheel what direction he was to take, and with his left hand he
+indicated to James Wall the orders for the engines.</p>
+
+<p>"What will be the end of this?" asked the doctor of Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"What pleases God," answered the boatswain.</p>
+<a name="note7"></a>
+<p>The block of ice, eight hundred feet high,<a href="#not7"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> was hardly more than a
+cable's length from the <i>Forward</i>, and threatened to crush it.</p>
+
+<p>Pen broke out with a fearful oath.</p>
+
+<p>"Silence!" cried a voice which it was impossible to recognize in the
+roar of the hurricane.</p>
+
+<p>The mass appeared to be falling upon the brig, and there was an
+indefinable moment of terror; the men, dropping their poles, ran aft
+in spite of Shandon's orders.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, a terrible noise was heard; a real water-spout fell on the
+deck of the brig, which was lifted in the air by a huge wave. The crew
+uttered a cry of terror, while Garry, still firm at the wheel, kept
+the course of the <i>Forward</i> steady, in spite of the fearful lurch.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 45">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="538">
+			<img src="images/045.jpg" alt="A real water-spout fell on the deck of the brig">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>And when they looked for the mountain of ice, it had disappeared; the
+passage was free, and beyond, a long channel, lit up by the sun,
+allowed the brig to continue her advance.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Dr. Clawbonny," said Johnson, "can you explain that?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's very simple, my friend," answered the doctor. "It happens very
+often; when these floating masses get detached in a thaw, they float
+away in perfect equilibrium; but as they get towards the south, where
+the water is relatively warmer, their base, eaten away by running into
+other pieces, begins to melt, and be undermined; then comes a moment
+when the centre of gravity is displaced, and they turn upside down.
+Only, if this had happened two minutes later, it would have fallen on
+the brig and crushed us beneath it."</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 46">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="535">
+			<img src="images/046.jpg" alt="Seals on the ice">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table><br>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap9"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER IX.</h3>
+<h4>ANOTHER LETTER.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The Polar Circle was crossed at last; on the 30th of April, at midday,
+the <i>Forward</i> passed by Holsteinborg; picturesque mountains arose in
+the east. The sea appeared almost free of ice, or, more exactly, the
+ice could be avoided. The wind was from the southeast, and the brig,
+under foresail, staysail, and topsails, sailed up Baffin's Bay.</p>
+
+<p>That day was exceptionally calm and the crew was able to get some
+rest; numerous birds were swimming and flying about the ship; among
+others, the doctor noticed some wild birds which were very like teal,
+with black neck, wings, and back, and a white breast; they were
+continually diving, and often remained more than forty seconds under
+water.</p>
+
+<p>This day would not have been marked by any new incident, if the
+following extraordinary fact had not taken place.</p>
+
+<p>At six o'clock in the morning, on returning to his cabin after his
+watch was over, Richard Shandon found on his table a letter, addressed
+as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>To</i> C<small>OMMANDER</small> R<small>ICHARD</small> S<small>HANDON</small>,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;On
+board the <i>Forward</i>,<br>
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+B<small>AFFIN'S</small> B<small>AY</small>.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 47">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="367">
+			<img src="images/047.jpg" alt="Another letter">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Shandon could not believe his eyes; but before reading it, he summoned
+the doctor, James Wall, and the boatswain, and showed them the letter.</p>
+
+<p>"It's getting interesting," said Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"It's delightful," thought the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," cried Shandon, "at last we shall know his secret."</p>
+
+<p>He tore open the envelope rapidly, and read the following:&mdash;</p>
+<br>
+<p>C<small>OMMANDER</small>: The captain of the <i>Forward</i> is satisfied with the
+coolness, skill, and courage which the crew, officers, and you,
+yourself, have shown of late; he begs of you to express his thanks to
+the crew.</p>
+
+<p>Be good enough to sail due north towards Melville Bay, and thence try
+to penetrate into Smith's Sound.</p>
+
+<div align="right">K. Z.,&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>
+<i>Captain of the Forward</i>.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<small>Monday, April 30, O<small>FF</small>
+C<small>APE</small> W<small>ALSINGHAM</small></small>.</p>
+<br>
+<p>"And is that all?" cried the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all," answered Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>The letter fell from his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Wall, "this imaginary captain says nothing about coming
+on board. I don't believe he ever will."</p>
+
+<p>"But how did this letter get here?" asked Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>Shandon was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Wall is right," answered the doctor, who had picked up the
+letter, and who was turning it over with hands as well as in his mind.
+"The captain won't come on board, and for an excellent reason."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked Shandon, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Because he's on board now," answered the doctor, simply.</p>
+
+<p>"Now!" exclaimed Shandon, "what do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"How else can you explain the arrival of this letter?"</p>
+
+<p>Johnson nodded approvingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible!" said Shandon, warmly. "I know all the men in the crew;
+can he have smuggled himself into their number since we left? It's
+impossible, I tell you. For more than two years I've seen every one of
+them more than a hundred times in Liverpool; so your conjecture,
+Doctor, is untenable."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what do you admit, Shandon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everything, except that. I admit that the captain or some tool of
+his, for all I know, may have taken advantage of the darkness, the
+mist, or whatever you please, to slip on board; we are not far from
+shore; there are the kayaks of the Esquimaux which could get through
+the ice without our seeing them; so some one may have come on board
+the ship, left the letter,&mdash;the fog was thick enough to make this
+possible."</p>
+
+<p>"And to prevent them from seeing the brig," answered the doctor; "if
+we didn't see the intruder slip aboard the <i>Forward</i>, how could he see
+the <i>Forward</i> in the fog?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's true," said Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"So I return to my explanation," said the doctor; "what do you think
+of it, Shandon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever you please," answered Shandon, hotly, "except that the man
+is on board."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," added Wall, "there is some man in the crew who is acting
+under his instructions."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"But who can it be?" asked Shandon. "I've known all my men for a long
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate," resumed Johnson, "if this captain presents himself,
+whether as man or devil, we shall receive him; but there's something
+else to be drawn from this letter."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?" asked Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>"It is that we must go not only into Melville Bay, but also into
+Smith's Sound."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Smith's Sound," repeated Shandon, mechanically.</p>
+
+<p>"So it's very plain," continued Johnson, "that the <i>Forward</i> is not
+intended to seek the Northwest Passage, since we leave to the left,
+the only way towards it, that is to say, Lancaster Sound. This would
+seem to promise a difficult journey in unknown seas."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Smith's Sound," replied Shandon; "that's the route Kane, the
+American, took in 1853, and it was full of dangers. For a long time he
+was given up for lost. Well, if we must go, we'll go. But how far? To
+the Pole?"</p>
+
+<p>"And why not?" cried the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>The mention of such a foolhardy attempt made the boatswain shrug his
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said James Wall, "to come back to the captain, if he exists. I
+don't see that there are any places on the coast of Greenland except
+Disco and Upernavik, where he can be waiting for us; in a few days
+that question will be settled."</p>
+
+<p>"But," asked the doctor of Shandon, "are you not going to tell the
+crew about this letter?"</p>
+
+<p>"With the commander's permission," answered Johnson, "I should not do
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"And why not?" asked Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>"Because everything mysterious and extraordinary tends to discourage
+the men; they are already very much troubled, as it is, about the
+nature of the journey. Now, if any supernatural circumstances should
+become known, it might be harmful, and perhaps at a critical moment we
+should not be able to count on them. What do you think, Commander?"</p>
+
+<p>"And what do you think, Doctor?" asked Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>"Boatswain Johnson seems to me to reason well," answered the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"And you, James?"</p>
+
+<p>"Having no better opinion, I agree with these gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>Shandon reflected for a few minutes; he reread the letter attentively.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," said he, "your opinion is certainly worthy of respect,
+but I cannot adopt it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not, Shandon?" asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Because the instructions in this letter are formal; it tells me to
+give the captain's thanks to the crew; now, hitherto I have strictly
+obeyed his orders, in whatever way they have been given to me, and I
+cannot&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Still&mdash;" interposed Johnson, who had a warrantable dread of the
+effect of such communications on the men's spirits.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Johnson," said Shandon, "I understand your objection; your
+reasons are very good, but read that:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"He begs of you to express his thanks to the crew."</p>
+
+<p>"Do as he bids," replied Johnson, who was always a strict
+disciplinarian. "Shall I assemble the crew on deck?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>The news of a message from the captain was immediately whispered
+throughout the ship. The sailors took their station without delay, and
+the commander read aloud the mysterious letter.</p>
+
+<p>It was received with dead silence; the crew separated under the
+influence of a thousand suppositions; Clifton had plenty of material
+for any superstitious vagaries; a great deal was ascribed by him to
+the dog-captain, and he never failed to salute him every time he met
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't I tell you," he used to say to the sailors, "that he knew how
+to write?"</p>
+
+<p>No one made any answer, and even Bell, the carpenter, would have found
+it hard to reply.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, it was plain to every one, that if the captain was not
+on board, his shade or spirit was watching them; henceforth, the
+wisest kept their opinions to themselves.</p>
+
+<p>At midday of May 1st, their observation showed them that they were in
+latitude 68&deg; and longitude 56&deg; 32'. The temperature had risen, the
+thermometer standing at 25&deg; above zero.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor amused himself with watching the gambols of a she-bear and
+two cubs on some pack-ice near the shore. Accompanied by Wall and
+Simpson, he tried to chase them in a canoe; but she was in a very
+peaceful mood, and ran away with her young, so that the doctor had to
+give up his attempt.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 48">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="537">
+			<img src="images/048.jpg" alt="She-bear and two cubs">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>During the night a favorable breeze carried them well to the north,
+and soon the lofty mountains of Disco were peering above the horizon;
+Godharn Bay, where the governor of the Danish settlements lived, was
+left on the right. Shandon did not consider it necessary to land, and
+he soon passed by the canoes of the Esquimaux, who had put out to meet
+him.</p>
+
+<p>The island of Disco is also called Whale Island; it is from here that,
+on the 12th of July, 1845, Sir John Franklin wrote to the Admiralty
+for the last time, and it was also here that Captain MacClintock
+stopped on his way back, bringing too sure proofs of the loss of that
+expedition.</p>
+
+<p>This coincidence was not unknown to the doctor; the place was one of
+sad memories, but soon the heights of Disco were lost to view.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 49">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="384">
+			<img src="images/049.jpg" alt="Fin-backs playing">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>There were many icebergs on its shores, which no thaws ever melt away;
+this gives the island a singular appearance from the sea.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, at about three o'clock, Sanderson's Hope appeared in the
+northeast; land lay about fifteen miles to starboard; the mountains
+appeared of a dusky red hue. During the evening many fin-backs were
+seen playing in the ice, and occasionally blowing.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the night of May 3d, that the doctor for the first time saw
+the sun touch the horizon without setting; since January 31st its
+orbit had been getting longer every day, and now there was unbroken
+daylight.</p>
+
+<p>For those who were unaccustomed to it, this continuance of the day is
+a cause of perpetual surprise, and even of weariness; it is difficult
+to believe how necessary the darkness of the night is for the eyes;
+the doctor actually suffered from the continual brilliancy, which was
+increased by the reflection from the ice.</p>
+<a name="note8"></a>
+<p>May 5th the <i>Forward</i> passed the sixty-second parallel.<a href="#not8"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> Two months
+later they would have met numerous whalers in these latitudes; but the
+straits were not yet free enough to allow easy ingress into Baffin's
+Bay.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, the brig, after passing Woman's Island, came in sight of
+Upernavik, the northernmost station of Denmark in these lands.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 50">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="539">
+			<img src="images/050.jpg" alt="Upernavik">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table><br>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap10"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER X.</h3>
+<h4>DANGEROUS SAILING.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Shandon, Dr. Clawbonny, Johnson, Foker, and Strong, the cook, got into
+one of the boats and made their way to shore.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 51">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="383">
+			<img src="images/051.jpg" alt="The Governor and his family">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The Governor, his wife and five children, all Esquimaux, received
+their visitors kindly. The doctor, who was the philologist of the
+party, knew enough Danish to establish friendly relations; moreover,
+Foker, the interpreter of the party as well as ice-master, knew a
+dozen or two words of the language of the Greenlanders, and with that
+number of words one can express a great deal, if he is not too
+ambitious.</p>
+<a name="note9"></a>
+<p>The Governor was born on the island of Disco, and he has never left
+the place;<a href="#not9"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> he did the honors of his capital, which consisted of three
+wooden houses, for himself and the Lutheran minister, of a school, and
+shops which were supplied by what was cast upon the shore from wrecked
+ships. The rest of the town consisted of snow huts, into which the
+Esquimaux crawl through a single opening.</p>
+
+<p>A great part of the population came out to meet the <i>Forward</i>, and
+more than one of them went as far as the middle of the bay in his
+kayak, fifteen feet long and two broad at the widest part.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor knew that the word Esquimaux meant "eater of raw fish"; but
+he knew too that this name is considered an insult in this country, so
+he forbore giving it to the inhabitants of Greenland.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, from the oily sealskin clothes and boots, from their squat,
+fat figures, which make it hard to distinguish the men from the women,
+it was easy to declare the nature of their food; besides, like all
+fish-eating people, they were somewhat troubled by leprosy, but their
+general health was not impaired by it.</p>
+
+<p>The Lutheran minister and his wife, with whom the doctor had promised
+himself an interesting talk, happened to be away on the shore of
+Proven, south of Upernavik; hence he was compelled to seek the company
+of the Governor. The chief magistrate did not appear to be very well
+informed: a little less, he would have been a fool; a little more, and
+he would have known how to read.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of that, the doctor questioned him about the commerce,
+habits, and manners of the Esquimaux; and he learned, by means of
+gestures, that the seals were worth about forty pounds when delivered
+at Copenhagen; a bear-skin brought forty Danish dollars, the skin of a
+blue fox four, and of a white fox two or three dollars.</p>
+
+<p>In order to make his knowledge complete, the doctor wanted to visit an
+Esquimaux hut; a man who seeks information is capable of enduring
+anything; fortunately the opening of these huts was too small, and the
+enthusiastic doctor could not get through. It was fortunate for him,
+for there is nothing more repulsive than the sight of that crowd of
+living and dead objects, of seal's bodies and Esquimaux-flesh, decayed
+fish and unclean clothing, which fill a Greenland hut; there is no
+window to renew that suffocating air; there is only a hole at the top
+of the cabin which lets the smoke out, but gives no relief to the
+stench.</p>
+
+<a name="ill7"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 52">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="542">
+			<img src="images/052.jpg" alt="The doctor could not get through">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="542" align="center">
+			<small>"Fortunately the opening of these huts was too small,
+			and the enthusiastic doctor could not get through."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Foker gave all these details to the doctor, but he none the less
+bewailed his portliness. He wanted to judge for himself these
+emanations <i>sui generis</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure," said he, "that one could get used to it in time." <i>In
+time</i> shows clearly the doctor's character.</p>
+
+<p>During these ethnographic studies on his part, Shandon was busying
+himself, according to his instructions, with procuring means of travel
+on the ice; he was obliged to pay four pounds for a sledge and six
+dogs, and the natives were reluctant to sell even at this price.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 53">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="541">
+			<img src="images/053.jpg" alt="Procuring means of travel">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Shandon would have liked to engage Hans Christian, the skilful driver
+of the dogs, who accompanied Captain MacClintock, but Hans was then in
+Southern Greenland.</p>
+
+<p>Then came up the great question of the day; was there at Upernavik a
+European awaiting the arrival of the <i>Forward?</i> Did the Governor know
+of any stranger, probably an Englishman, who had come into these
+latitudes? How recently had they seen any whalers or other ships?</p>
+
+<p>To these questions the Governor answered that no stranger had landed
+on that part of the coast for more than ten months.</p>
+
+<p>Shandon asked the names of the whalers which had last arrived; he
+recognized none. He was in despair.</p>
+
+<p>"You must confess, Doctor, that it passes all comprehension," he said
+to his companion. "Nothing at Cape Farewell! nothing at Disco! nothing
+at Upernavik!"</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me in a few days from now, nothing at Melville Bay, my dear
+Shandon, and I will salute you as sole captain of the <i>Forward</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The boat returned to the brig towards evening, bringing back the
+visitors to the shore; Strong had bought several dozen eider-duck's
+eggs, which were twice as large as hen's eggs, and of a greenish
+color. It was not much, but it was very refreshing for a crew
+accustomed to little but salt meat.</p>
+
+<p>The next day the wind was fair, but yet Shandon did not set sail; he
+wanted to wait another day, and, to satisfy his conscience, to give
+time for any member of the human race to rejoin the <i>Forward;</i> he even
+fired off, every hour, the ship's gun, which re-echoed among the
+icebergs; but he only succeeded in frightening the flocks of
+molly-mokes* and rotches.* During the night many rockets were set
+off; but in vain. He had to give the order to set sail.</p>
+
+<blockquote><small>* Sea-birds common in these latitudes.</small></blockquote>
+
+<p>The 8th of May, at six o'clock in the morning, the <i>Forward</i>, under
+her topsails, foresail, and main-top-gallant-sail, soon lost sight of
+the station of Upernavik, and hideous long poles on which were hanging
+along the shore the seals' entrails and deers' stomachs.</p>
+
+<p>The wind was southeast, the thermometer stood at 32&deg;. The sun pierced
+through the fog and the ice melted a little.</p>
+
+<p>The reflection, however, injured the sight of many of the crew.
+Wolston, the armorer, Gripper, Clifton, and Bell were attacked by
+snow-blindness, which is very common in the spring, and which totally
+blinds many of the Esquimaux. The doctor advised all, the unharmed as
+well as the suffering, to cover their faces with a green veil, and he
+was the first to follow his own recommendation.</p>
+
+<p>The dogs bought by Shandon at Upernavik were rather wild; but they
+soon got used to their new quarters, and Captain showed no dislike of
+his new companions; he seemed to know their ways. Clifton was not the
+last to remark that Captain seemed to be familiar with the dogs of
+Greenland. And they, always half starved on shore, only thought of
+making up for it when at sea.</p>
+
+<p>The 9th of May the <i>Forward</i> passed within a few cable-lengths of the
+westernmost of the Baffin Islands. The doctor noticed many rocks
+between the islands and the mainland which were what are called
+crimson cliffs; they were covered with snow as red as carmine, which
+Dr. Kane says is of purely vegetable origin; Clawbonny wanted to
+examine this singular phenomenon, but the ice forbade their
+approaching them; although the temperature was rising, it was easy to
+see that the icebergs and ice-streams were accumulating toward the
+north of Baffin's Bay.</p>
+<a name="note11"></a>
+<p>After leaving Upernavik the land presented a different appearance, and
+huge glaciers were sharply defined against the gray horizon. On the
+10th the <i>Forward</i> left on its right Kingston Bay, near the
+seventy-fourth degree of latitude; Lancaster Sound opened into the sea
+many hundred miles to the west.</p>
+
+<p>But then this vast expanse of water was hidden beneath enormous fields
+of ice, in which arose the hummocks, uniform as a homogeneous
+crystallization. Shandon had the furnace-fires lighted, and until the
+11th of May the <i>Forward</i> advanced by a tortuous course, tracing with
+her smoke against the sky the path she was following through the
+water.</p>
+
+<p>But new obstacles soon presented themselves; the passages were closing
+in consequence of the incessant crowding of the floating masses; every
+moment threatened to close up the clear water before the <i>Forward</i>,
+and if she were nipped, it would be hard to get her out. Every one
+knew it and was thinking about it.</p>
+
+<p>Hence, on board of this ship without any definite aim, any known
+destination, which was blindly pushing on northward, some symptoms of
+hesitation began to appear; among these men accustomed to dangers,
+many, forgetting the advantages which were promised them, regretted
+having ventured so far. A certain demoralization became common, which
+was further increased by the fears of Clifton and the talk of two or
+three ringleaders, such as Pen, Gripper, Warren, and Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>Exhausting fatigue was added to the moral disquiet of the crew, for,
+on the 12th of May, the brig was caught fast; the steam was of no
+avail. A path had to be cut through the ice. It was no easy task to
+manage the saws in the floes which were six or seven feet thick; when
+two parallel grooves had divided the ice for a hundred feet, it was
+necessary to break the part that lay between with axes and bars; next
+they had to fasten anchors in a hole made by a huge auger; then the
+crew would turn the capstan and haul the ship along by the force of
+their arms; the greatest difficulty consisted in driving the detached
+pieces beneath the floes, so as to give space for the vessel, and they
+had to be pushed under by means of long iron-headed poles.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 54">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="536">
+			<img src="images/054.jpg" alt="Cutting through the ice">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Moreover, this continued toil with saws, capstan, and poles, all of
+which was persistent, compulsory, and dangerous, amid the dense fog or
+snow, while the air was so cold, and their eyes so exposed, their
+doubt so great, did much to weaken the crew of the <i>Forward</i> and to
+act on their imagination.</p>
+
+<p>When sailors have to deal with a man who is energetic, bold, and
+determined, who knows what he wants, whither he is going, what aim he
+has in view, confidence animates them all in spite of themselves; they
+are firmly united to their leader, strong with his force and calm with
+his calmness. But on board of the brig they were aware of the
+commander's uncertainty, they knew that he hesitated before the
+unknown aim and destination. In spite of the energy of his character,
+his uncertainty was clearly to be seen by his uncertain orders,
+incomplete manoeuvres, his sudden outbursts, and a thousand petty
+details which could not escape the sharp eyes of the crew.</p>
+
+<p>And then, Shandon was not the captain of the ship, the master under
+God, which was enough to encourage the discussion of his orders; and
+from discussion to disobedience is but a short step.</p>
+
+<p>The malcontents soon brought over to their number the first engineer,
+who, hitherto, had been a slave to his duty.</p>
+
+<p>The 16th of May, six days after the <i>Forward</i> had reached the ice,
+Shandon had not made two miles to northward. They were threatened with
+being detained in the ice until the next season. Matters had a serious
+look.</p>
+
+<p>Towards eight o'clock of the evening, Shandon and the doctor,
+accompanied by Garry, went out to reconnoitre the vast plains; they
+took care not to go too far from the ship, for it was hard to find any
+fixed points in this white solitude, which was ever changing in
+appearance. Refraction kept producing strange effects, much to the
+doctor's astonishment; at one place, where he thought he had but an
+easy jump before him, he had to leap some five or six feet; or else
+the contrary happened, and in either case the result was a tumble,
+which if not dangerous was at any rate painful, for the ice was as
+hard and slippery as glass.</p>
+
+<p>Shandon and his two companions went out to seek a possible passage;
+three miles from the ship, they succeeded with some difficulty in
+ascending an iceberg about three hundred feet high. From that point
+nothing met their eyes but a confused mass, like the ruins of a vast
+city, with shattered monuments, overthrown towers, and prostrate
+palaces,&mdash;a real chaos. The sun was just peering above the jagged
+horizon, and sent forth long, oblique rays of light, but not of heat,
+as if something impassable for heat lay between it and this wild
+country.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 55">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="534">
+			<img src="images/055.jpg" alt="Nothing met their eyes but a confused mass">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The sea appeared perfectly covered as far as eye could reach.</p>
+
+<p>"How shall we get through?" asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," answered Shandon; "but we shall get through, if we
+have to blow our way through with powder. I certainly sha'n't stay in
+the ice till next spring."</p>
+
+<p>"But that happened to the <i>Fox</i>, and not far from here. Bah!" said the
+doctor; "we shall get through with a little philosophy. You will see
+that is worth all the machinery in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"I must say," answered Shandon, "this year does not begin very well."</p>
+
+<p>"True, Shandon, and I notice also that Baffin's Bay seems to be
+returning to the state it was in before 1817."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think, Doctor, it has always been as it is now?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, my dear Shandon, from time to time there have been great
+breakings of the ice which no one can explain; so, up to 1817 this sea
+was continually full, when an enormous sort of inundation took place,
+which cast the icebergs into the ocean, most of which reached the
+banks of Newfoundland. From that day Baffin's Bay was nearly free, and
+was visited by whalers."</p>
+
+<p>"So," asked Shandon, "from that time voyages to the North became
+easier?"</p>
+
+<p>"Incomparably; but for some years it has been noticed that the bay
+seems to be resuming its old ways and threatens to become closed,
+possibly for a long time, to sailors. An additional reason, by the
+way, for pushing on as far as possible. And yet it must be said, we
+look like people who are pushing on in unknown ways, with the doors
+forever closing behind us."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you advise me to go back?" asked Shandon, trying to read into
+the depths of the doctor's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I! I have never retreated yet, and, even if we should never get back,
+I say go on. Still, I want to make it clear that if we act
+imprudently, we do it with our eyes open."</p>
+
+<p>"And you, Garry, what do you think about it?" asked Shandon of the
+sailor.</p>
+
+<p>"I, Commander, should go straight on; I agree with Dr. Clawbonny; but
+do as you please; command, we shall obey."</p>
+
+<p>"They don't all talk as you do, Garry," resumed Shandon; "they are not
+all ready to obey. And if they refuse to obey my orders?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have given you my opinion, Commander," answered Garry, coldly,
+"because you asked for it; but you are not obliged to follow it."</p>
+
+<p>Shandon did not answer; he scanned the horizon closely, and then
+descended with his companions to the ice-fields.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap11"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XI.</h3>
+<h4>THE DEVIL'S THUMB.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>During the commander's absence the men had been variously busied in
+attempts to relieve the ship from the pressure of the ice. Pen,
+Clifton, Bolton, Gripper, and Simpson had this in charge; the fireman
+and the two engineers came to the aid of their comrades, for, as soon
+as the engines did not require their attention, they became sailors,
+and as such could be employed in all that was going on aboard the
+ship.</p>
+
+<p>But there was a great deal of discontent among them.</p>
+
+<p>"I declare I've had enough," said Pen; "and if we are not free in
+three days, I swear I sha'n't stir a finger to get the ship out."</p>
+
+<p>"Not stir a finger!" answered Plover; "you'd better use them in
+getting back. Do you think we want to stay here till next year?"</p>
+
+<p>"It certainly would be a hard winter," said Pen, "for we are exposed
+on all sides."</p>
+
+<p>"And who knows," said Brunton, "whether next spring the sea will be
+any freer than it is now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind about next spring," answered Pen; "to-day is Thursday; if
+the way is not clear Sunday morning, we shall turn back to the south."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" cried Clifton.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you agree with me?" asked Pen.</p>
+
+<p>"We do," cried his companions.</p>
+
+<p>"That's so," said Warren; "for if we have to work in this way and haul
+the ship along with our own arms, I think it would be as well to haul
+her backwards."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall do that on Sunday," said Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>"Only give me the order," resumed Brunton, "and my fires shall be
+lighted."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," remarked Clifton, "we shall light them ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"If any officer," said Pen, "is anxious to spend the winter here, he
+can; we can leave him here contentedly; he'll find it easy to build a
+hut like the Esquimaux."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, Pen," retorted Brunton, quickly; "we sha'n't abandon any
+one here; do you understand that, all of you? I think it won't be hard
+to persuade the commander; he seems to me to be very much discouraged,
+and if we propose it to him gently&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But," interrupted Plover, "Richard Shandon is often very obstinate;
+we shall have to sound him cautiously."</p>
+
+<p>"When I think," said Bolton, with a sigh of longing, "that in a month
+we might be back in Liverpool! We can easily pass the line of ice at
+the south! Davis Strait will be open by the beginning of June, and
+then we shall have nothing but the free Atlantic before us."</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," said the cautious Clifton, "if we take the commander back
+with us, and act under his commands, we shall have earned our pay; but
+if we go back without him, it's not so sure."</p>
+
+<p>"True," said Plover; "Clifton talks sense. Let's try not to get into
+any trouble with the Admiralty, that's safer, and don't let us leave
+any one behind."</p>
+
+<p>"But if they refuse to come with us?" continued Pen, who wished to
+compel his companions to stand by him.</p>
+
+<p>They found it hard to answer the question thus squarely put them.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall see about that when the time comes," replied Bolton; "it
+will be enough to bring Richard Shandon over to our side, and I fancy
+that won't be hard."</p>
+
+<p>"There's one I shall leave here," exclaimed Pen with fierce oaths,
+"even if he should bite my arm off."</p>
+
+<p>"O, the dog!" said Plover.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that dog! I shall soon settle accounts with him."</p>
+
+<p>"So much the better," retorted Clifton, returning to his favorite
+theory; "he is the cause of all our troubles."</p>
+
+<p>"He has thrown an evil spell upon us," said Plover.</p>
+
+<p>"He led us into the ice," remarked Gripper.</p>
+
+<p>"He brought more ice in our way," said Wolston, "than was ever seen at
+this season."</p>
+
+<p>"He made my eyes sore," said Brunton.</p>
+
+<p>"He shut off the gin and brandy," cried Pen.</p>
+
+<p>"He's the cause of everything," they all exclaimed excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>"And then," added Clifton, "he's the captain."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you unlucky Captain," cried Pen, whose unreasonable fury grew
+with the sound of his own words, "you wanted to come here, and here
+you shall stay!"</p>
+
+<p>"But how shall we get hold of him?" said Plover.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now is a good time," answered Clifton. "The commander is away;
+the second mate is asleep in his cabin; the fog is so thick that
+Johnson can't see us&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But the dog?" said Pen.</p>
+
+<p>"He's asleep in the coal," answered Clifton, "and if any one wants&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll see to it," replied Pen, angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Take care, Pen; his teeth would go through a bar of iron."</p>
+
+<p>"If he stirs, I'll rip him open," answered Pen, drawing his knife.</p>
+
+<p>And he ran down between decks, followed by Warren, who was anxious to
+help him.</p>
+
+<p>Soon they both returned, carrying the dog in their arms; his mouth and
+paws were securely tied; they had caught him asleep, and the poor dog
+could not escape them.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah for Pen!" cried Plover.</p>
+
+<p>"And what are you going to do with him now?" asked Clifton.</p>
+
+<p>"Drown him, and if he ever comes back&mdash;" answered Pen with a smile of
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>Two hundred feet from the vessel there was a hole in the ice, a sort
+of circular crevasse, made by the seals with their teeth, and always
+dug out from the inside to the outside; it was there that the seals
+used to come to breathe on the surface of the ice; but they were
+compelled to take care to prevent the aperture from closing, for the
+shape of their jaws did not permit them to make the hole from the
+outside, and in any danger they would not be able to escape from their
+enemies.</p>
+
+<p>Pen and Warren hastened to this crevasse, and then, in spite of his
+obstinate struggles, the dog was pitilessly cast into the sea; a huge
+cake of ice they then rolled over the aperture, closing all means of
+escape for the poor dog, thus locked in a watery prison.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 56">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="540">
+			<img src="images/056.jpg" alt="The dog was cast into the sea">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"A pleasant journey, Captain!" cried the brutal sailor.</p>
+
+<p>Soon they returned on board; Johnson had seen nothing of it all; the
+fog was growing thick about the ship, and the snow was beginning to
+fall with violence.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later, Richard Shandon, the doctor, and Garry regained the
+<i>Forward</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Shandon had observed in the northeast a passage, which he determined
+to try. He gave his orders to that effect; the crew obeyed with a
+certain activity; they wanted to convince Shandon of the impossibility
+of a farther advance, and besides, they had before them three days of
+obedience.</p>
+
+<p>During a part of the following night and day the sawing and towing
+went on busily; the <i>Forward</i> made about two miles of progress. On the
+18th they were in sight of land, five or six cable-lengths from a
+strange peak, to which its singular shape had given the name of the
+Devil's Thumb.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 57">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="545">
+			<img src="images/057.jpg" alt="The Devil's Thumb">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>At this very place the <i>Prince Albert</i>, in 1851, the <i>Advance</i>, with
+Kane, in 1853, had been caught in the ice for many weeks.</p>
+
+<p>The odd shape of the Devil's Thumb, the barren and desolate
+surroundings, which consisted of huge icebergs often more than three
+hundred feet high, the cracking of the ice, repeated indefinitely by
+the echo, made the position of the <i>Forward</i> a very gloomy one.
+Shandon saw that it was necessary to get away from there; within
+twenty-four hours, he calculated he would be able to get two miles
+from the spot. But that was not enough. Shandon felt himself
+embarrassed by fear, and the false position in which he was placed
+benumbed his energy; to obey his instructions in order to advance, he
+had brought his ship into a dangerous position; the towing wore out
+his men; more than three hours were necessary to cut a canal twenty
+feet in length through ice which was generally four or five feet
+thick; the health of the crew gave signs of failing. Shandon was
+astonished at the silence of the men, and their unaccustomed
+obedience; but he feared it was only the calm that foreboded a storm.</p>
+
+<p>We can, then, easily judge of the painful surprise, disappointment,
+and even despair which seized upon him, when he noticed that by means
+of an imperceptible movement in the ice, the <i>Forward</i> lost in the
+night of the 18th all that had been gained by such toilsome efforts;
+on Saturday morning he was opposite the Devil's Thumb, in a still more
+critical position; the icebergs increased in number and passed by in
+the mist like phantoms.</p>
+
+<p>Shandon was thoroughly demoralized; it must be said that fear seized
+both this bold man and all his crew. Shandon had heard of the
+disappearance of the dog; but he did not dare to punish the guilty
+persons; he feared exciting a mutiny.</p>
+
+<p>The weather during that day was horrible; the snow, caught up in dense
+whirls, covered the brig with an impenetrable veil; at times, under
+the influence of the hurricane, the fog would rise, and their
+terror-stricken eyes beheld the Devil's Thumb rising on the shore like
+a spectre.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Forward</i> was anchored to a large piece of ice; there was nothing
+to be done, nothing to be tried; darkness was spreading about them,
+and the man at the helm could not see James Wall, who was on watch
+forward.</p>
+
+<p>Shandon withdrew to his cabin, a prey to perpetual disquiet; the
+doctor was arranging his notes of the expedition; some of the crew
+were on the deck, others in the common room.</p>
+
+<p>At a moment when the violence of the storm was redoubling, the Devil's
+Thumb seemed to rise immoderately from the mist.</p>
+
+<p>"Great God!" exclaimed Simpson, recoiling with terror.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" asked Foker.</p>
+
+<p>Soon shouts were heard on all sides.</p>
+
+<p>"It's going to crush us!"</p>
+
+<p>"We are lost!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Wall, Mr. Wall!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's all over!"</p>
+
+<p>"Commander, Commander!"</p>
+
+<p>All these cries were uttered by the men on watch.</p>
+
+<p>Wall hastened to the after-deck; Shandon, followed by the doctor, flew
+to the deck and looked out.</p>
+
+<p>Through a rift in the mist, the Devil's Thumb appeared to have
+suddenly come near the brig; it seemed to have grown enormously in
+size; on its summit was balanced a second cone, upside down, and
+revolving on its point; it threatened to crush the ship with its
+enormous mass; it wavered, ready to fall down. It was an alarming
+sight. Every one drew back instinctively, and many of the men, jumping
+upon the ice, abandoned the ship.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 58">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="383">
+			<img src="images/058.jpg" alt="It wavered, ready to fall down">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Let no one move!" cried the commander with a loud voice; "every one
+to his place!"</p>
+
+<p>"My friends, don't be frightened," said the doctor, "there is no
+danger! See, Commander, see, Mr. Wall, that's the mirage and nothing
+else."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Dr. Clawbonny," replied Johnson; "they've all been
+frightened by a shadow."</p>
+
+<p>When they had heard what the doctor said, most of the sailors drew
+near him, and from terror they turned to admiration of this wonderful
+phenomenon, which soon passed from their view.</p>
+
+<p>"They call that a mirage," said Clifton; "the Devil's at the bottom of
+it, I'm sure."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true," growled Gripper.</p>
+
+<p>But the break in the fog had given the commander a glimpse of a broad
+passage which he had not expected to find; it promised to lead him
+away from the shore; he resolved to make use of it at once; men were
+sent out on each side of the canal; hawsers were given them, and they
+began to tow the ship northward.</p>
+
+<p>During long hours this work was prosecuted busily but silently;
+Shandon had the furnace-fires lighted to help him through this passage
+so providentially discovered.</p>
+
+<p>"That's great luck," he said to Johnson, "and if we can only get on a
+few miles, we may be free. Make a hot fire, Mr. Brunton, and let me
+know as soon as you get steam on. Meanwhile, men, the farther on we
+get, the more gained! You want to get away from the Devil's Thumb;
+well, now is your chance!"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the brig stopped. "What's the matter?" shouted Shandon.
+"Wall, have the tow-ropes broken?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered Wall, leaning over the railing. "See, there are the men
+running back; they are climbing on board; they seem very much
+frightened."</p>
+
+<p>"What's happened?" cried Shandon, running forward.</p>
+
+<p>"On board, on board!" cried the sailors, evidently exceedingly
+terrified.</p>
+
+<p>Shandon looked towards the north, and shuddered in spite of himself.</p>
+
+<p>A strange animal, with alarming motions, whose steaming tongue hung
+from huge jaws, was bounding along within a cable's length from the
+ship; it seemed more than twenty feet high; its hair stood on end; it
+was chasing the sailors as if about to seize them, while its tail,
+which was at least ten feet long, lashed the snow and tossed it about
+in dense gusts. The sight of the monster froze the blood in the veins
+of the boldest.</p>
+
+<a name="ill8"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 59">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="540">
+			<img src="images/059.jpg" alt="A strange animal was bounding">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="540" align="center">
+			<small>"A strange animal was bounding along within a cable's
+			length from the ship."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"It's an enormous bear," said one.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the beast of Gévaudan!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's the lion of the Apocalypse!"</p>
+
+<p>Shandon ran to his cabin to get a gun which he kept always loaded; the
+doctor seized his arms, and made ready to fire at the beast, which by
+its size, recalled antediluvian monsters.</p>
+
+<p>It drew near with long leaps; Shandon and the doctor fired at the same
+time, and suddenly the report of the pieces agitated the air and
+produced an unlooked-for effect.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor gazed attentively, and could not help bursting out
+laughing. "It's refraction!" said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Refraction!" cried Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>But a terrible cry from the crew interrupted them.</p>
+
+<p>"The dog!" shouted Clifton.</p>
+
+<p>"The dog-captain!" repeated his companions.</p>
+
+<p>"It's he!" cried Pen.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, it was the dog who had burst his bonds and had made his way
+to the surface of the ice through another hole. At that moment the
+refraction, by a phenomenon common in these latitudes, exaggerated his
+size, and this had only been broken by the report of the guns; but,
+notwithstanding, a disastrous impression had been produced upon the
+minds of the sailors, who were not very much inclined to admit any
+explanation of the fact from physical causes. The adventure of the
+Devil's Thumb, the reappearance of the dog under such peculiar
+circumstances, completely upset them, and murmurs arose on all sides.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap12"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XII.</h3>
+<h4>CAPTAIN HATTERAS.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The <i>Forward</i> was advancing rapidly under steam between the ice-fields
+and the mountains of ice. Johnson was at the helm. Shandon was
+examining the horizon with his snow-spectacles; but his joy was brief,
+for he soon saw that the passage was blocked up by a circle of
+mountains.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, he preferred to take his chances with pushing on, to
+returning.</p>
+
+<p>The dog followed the brig on the ice, but he kept at a respectful
+distance. Only, if he lagged too far, there was to be heard a singular
+whistle which at once brought him on.</p>
+
+<p>The first time that this whistle was heard, the sailors looked around;
+they were alone on the deck, talking together; there was no unknown
+person there; and yet this whistle was often repeated.</p>
+
+<p>Clifton was the first to take alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you hear that?" he said; "and do you see how the dog starts as
+soon as he hears it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's past belief," said Gripper.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well!" cried Pen; "I'm not going any farther."</p>
+
+<p>"Pen is right," said Brunton; "it's tempting Providence."</p>
+
+<p>"Tempting the Devil," answered Clifton. "I should rather give up all
+my share of the pay than go on."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall never get back," said Bolton, dejectedly.</p>
+
+<p>The crew was exceedingly demoralized.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a foot farther!" cried Wolston; "is that your opinion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes!" answered the sailors.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Bolton, "let's go find the commander; I'll undertake to
+tell him."</p>
+
+<p>The sailors in a dense group made their way to the quarter-deck.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 60">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="547">
+			<img src="images/060.jpg" alt="The sailors made their way to the quarter-deck">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The <i>Forward</i> was then advancing into a large arena, which had a
+diameter of about eight hundred feet; it was completely closed, with
+the exception of one place through which the ship entered.</p>
+
+<p>Shandon saw that he was locking himself in. But what was to be done?
+How could he retreat? He felt all the responsibility, and his hand
+nervously grasped his glass.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor looked on in silence, with folded arms; he gazed at the
+walls of ice, the average height of which was about three hundred
+feet. A cloud of fog lay like a dome above the gulf.</p>
+
+<p>Then it was that Bolton spoke to the commander.</p>
+
+<p>"Commander," said he in a broken voice, "we can't go any farther."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that you are saying?" said Shandon, who felt enraged at the
+slight given to his authority.</p>
+
+<p>"We have come to say, Commander," resumed Bolton, "that we have done
+enough for this invisible captain, and that we have made up our minds
+not to go on any farther."</p>
+
+<p>"Made up your minds?" cried Shandon. "Is that the way you talk to me,
+Bolton? Take care."</p>
+
+<p>"You need not threaten," retorted Pen, brutally, "we are not going any
+farther."</p>
+
+<p>Shandon stepped towards the mutinous sailors, when the boatswain said
+to him in a low voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Commander, if we want to get out of this place, we have not a moment
+to lose. There's an iceberg crowding towards the entrance; it may
+prevent our getting out and imprison us here."</p>
+
+<p>Shandon returned to look at the state of affairs.</p>
+
+<p>"You will account for this afterwards," he said to the mutineers.
+"Now, go about!"</p>
+
+<p>The sailors hastened to their places. The <i>Forward</i> went about
+rapidly; coal was heaped on the fires; it was necessary to beat the
+iceberg. There was a race between them; the brig stood towards the
+south, the berg was drifting northward, threatening to bar the way.</p>
+
+<p>"Put on all the steam, Brunton, do you hear?" said Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Forward</i> glided like a bird through the broken ice, which her
+prow cut through easily; the ship shook with the motion of the screw,
+and the gauge indicated a full pressure of steam, the deafening roar
+of which resounded above everything.</p>
+
+<p>"Load the safety-valve!" cried Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>The engineer obeyed at the risk of bursting the boilers.</p>
+
+<p>But these desperate efforts were vain; the iceberg, driven by a
+submarine current, moved rapidly towards the exit; the brig was still
+three cable-lengths distant, when the mountain, entering the vacant
+space like a wedge, joined itself to its companions, and closed the
+means of escape.</p>
+
+<p>"We are lost!" cried Shandon, who was unable to restrain that unwise
+speech.</p>
+
+<p>"Lost!" repeated the crew.</p>
+
+<p>"Lower the boats!" cried many.</p>
+
+<p>"To the steward's pantry!" cried Pen and some of his set; "if we must
+drown, let us drown in gin!"</p>
+
+<p>The wildest confusion raged among these half-wild men. Shandon felt
+unable to assert his authority; he wanted to give some orders; he
+hesitated, he stammered; his thoughts could find no words. The doctor
+walked up and down nervously. Johnson folded his arms stoically, and
+said not a word.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a strong, energetic, commanding voice was heard above the
+din, uttering these words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Every man to his place! Prepare to go about!"</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 61">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="536">
+			<img src="images/061.jpg" alt="Every man to his place!">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Johnson shuddered, and, without knowing what he did, turned the wheel
+rapidly.</p>
+
+<p>It was time; the brig, going under full steam, was about crashing
+against the walls of its prison.</p>
+
+<p>But while Johnson instinctively obeyed, Shandon, Clawbonny, the crew,
+all, even down to Warren the fireman, who had abandoned his fires, and
+Strong the cook, who had fled from his galley, were collected on the
+deck, and all saw issuing from the cabin, the key of which he alone
+possessed, a man.</p>
+
+<p>This man was the sailor Garry.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir!" cried Shandon, turning pale, "Garry&mdash;by what right do you give
+orders here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Duke!" said Garry, repeating the whistle which had so surprised the
+crew.</p>
+
+<p>The dog, on hearing his real name, sprang on the quarter-deck, and lay
+down quietly at his master's feet.</p>
+
+<p>The crew did not utter a word. The key which the captain alone should
+possess, the dog which he had sent and which had identified him, so to
+speak, the tone of command which it was impossible to mistake,&mdash;all
+this had a strong influence on the minds of the sailors, and was
+enough to establish firmly Garry's authority.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, Garry was hardly to be recognized; he had removed the thick
+whiskers which had surrounded his face, thereby giving it a more
+impassible, energetic, and commanding expression; he stood before them
+clothed in a captain's uniform, which he had had placed in his cabin.</p>
+
+<p>So the crew of the <i>Forward</i>, animated in spite of themselves,
+shouted,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah for the captain!"</p>
+
+<p>"Shandon," he said to his first officer, "have the crew put in line; I
+want to inspect them."</p>
+
+<p>Shandon obeyed, and gave the requisite orders with an agitated voice.</p>
+
+<p>The captain walked in front of the officers and men, saying a word to
+each, and treating him according to his past conduct.</p>
+
+<p>When he had finished his inspection, he went back to the quarter-deck,
+and calmly uttered these words:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Officers and sailors, I am an Englishman like you all, and my motto
+is that of Lord Nelson,&mdash;'England expects every man to do his duty.'</p>
+<a name="note10"></a>
+<p>"As Englishmen, I am unwilling, we are unwilling, that others should
+go where we have not been. As Englishmen, I shall not endure, we shall
+not endure, that others should have the glory of going farther north
+than we. If human foot is ever to reach the Pole, it must be the foot
+of an Englishman! Here is the flag of our country. I have equipped
+this ship, I have devoted my fortune to this undertaking, I shall
+devote to it my life and yours, but this flag shall float over the
+North Pole. Fear not. You shall receive a thousand pounds sterling for
+every degree that we get farther north after this day. Now we are at
+the seventy-second,<a href="#not10"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> and there are ninety in all. Figure it out. My
+name will be proof enough. It means energy and patriotism. I am
+Captain Hatteras."</p>
+
+<p>"Captain Hatteras!" cried Shandon. And this name, familiar to them
+all, soon spread among all the crew.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," resumed Hatteras, "let us anchor the brig to the ice; let the
+fires be put out, and every one return to his usual occupation.
+Shandon, I want to speak with you about the ship. You will join me in
+my cabin with the doctor, Wall, and the boatswain. Johnson, dismiss
+the men."</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras, calm and cold, quietly left the poop-deck, while Shandon had
+the brig made fast to the ice.</p>
+
+<p>Who was this Hatteras, and why did his name make so deep an impression
+upon the crew?</p>
+
+<p>John Hatteras, the only son of a London brewer, who died in 1852,
+worth six million pounds, took to the sea at an early age, unmindful
+of the large fortune which was to come to him. Not that he had any
+commercial designs, but a longing for geographical discovery possessed
+him; he was continually dreaming of setting foot on some spot
+untrodden of man.</p>
+
+<p>When twenty years old, he had the vigorous constitution of thin,
+sanguine men; an energetic face, with well-marked lines, a high
+forehead, rising straight from the eyes, which were handsome but cold,
+thin lips, indicating a mouth chary of words, medium height, well-knit
+muscular limbs, indicated a man ready for any experience. Any one who
+saw him would have called him bold, and any one who heard him would
+have called him coldly passionate; he was a man who would never
+retreat, and who would risk the lives of others as coldly as his own.
+One would hence think twice before following him in his expeditions.</p>
+
+<p>John Hatteras had a great deal of English pride, and it was he who
+once made this haughty reply to a Frenchman.</p>
+
+<p>The Frenchman said with what he considered politeness, and even
+kindness,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If I were not a Frenchman, I should like to be an Englishman."</p>
+
+<p>"If I were not an Englishman, I should like to be an Englishman!"</p>
+
+<p>That retort points the nature of the man.</p>
+
+<p>He would have liked to reserve for his fellow-countrymen the monopoly
+of geographical discovery; but much to his chagrin, during previous
+centuries, they had done but little in the way of discovery.</p>
+
+<p>America was discovered by the Genoese, Christopher Columbus; the East
+Indies by the Portuguese, Vasco de Gama; China by the Portuguese,
+Fernao d'Andrada; Terra del Fuego by the Portuguese, Magellan; Canada
+by the Frenchman, Jacques Cartier; the islands of Sumatra, Java, etc.,
+Labrador, Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, the Azores, Madeira,
+Newfoundland, Guinea, Congo, Mexico, White Cape, Greenland, Iceland,
+the South Pacific Ocean, California, Japan, Cambodia, Peru,
+Kamschatka, the Philippine Islands, Spitzbergen, Cape Horn, Behring
+Strait, New Zealand, Van Diemen's Land, New Britain, New Holland, the
+Louisiana, Island of Jan-Mayen, by Icelanders, Scandinavians,
+Frenchmen, Russians, Portuguese, Danes, Spaniards, Genoese, and
+Dutchmen; but no Englishmen figured among them, and it was a constant
+source of grief to Hatteras to see his fellow-countrymen excluded from
+the glorious band of sailors who made the great discoveries of the
+fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.</p>
+<a name="note12"></a>
+<p>Hatteras consoled himself somewhat when he considered modern times:
+the English took their revenge with Stuart, McDougall Stuart, Burke,
+Wells, King, Gray, in Australia; with Palliser in America; with
+Havnoan in Syria; with Cyril Graham, Waddington, Cunningham, in India;
+and with Barth, Burton, Speke, Grant, and Livingstone in Africa.<a href="#not12"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a></p>
+
+<p>But this was not enough; for Hatteras these men were rather finishers
+than discoverers; something better was to be done, so he invented a
+country in order to have the honor of discovering it.</p>
+
+<p>Now he had noticed that if the English were in a minority with regard
+to the early discoveries, that if it was necessary to go back to Cook
+to make sure of New Caledonia in 1774, and of the Sandwich Islands
+where he was killed in 1778, there was nevertheless one corner of the
+globe on which they had centred all their efforts.</p>
+
+<p>This was the northern seas and lands of North America.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, the list of polar discoveries runs as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="discoveries">
+	<tr>
+		<td>
+			Nova Zembla, discovered by Willoughby in 1553.<br>
+			Island of Wiegehts, discovered by Barrow in 1556.<br>
+			West Coast of Greenland, discovered by Davis in 1585.<br>
+			Davis Strait, discovered by Davis in 1587.<br>
+			Spitzbergen, discovered by Willoughby in 1596.<br>
+			Hudson's Bay, discovered by Hudson in 1610.<br>
+			Baffin's Bay, discovered by Baffin in 1616.<br>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>During recent years Hearne, Mackenzie, John Ross, Parry, Franklin,
+Richardson, Beechey, James Ross, Back, Dease, Simpson, Rae,
+Inglefield, Belcher, Austin, Kellet, Moore, MacClure, Kennedy,
+MacClintock, were incessantly exploring these unknown regions.</p>
+
+<p>The northern coast of America had been accurately made out, the
+Northwest Passage nearly discovered, but that was not enough; there
+was something greater to be done, and this John Hatteras had twice
+tried, fitting out ships at his own expense; he wanted to reach the
+Pole itself, and thus to crown the list of English discoveries by a
+glorious success.</p>
+
+<p>To reach the Pole itself was the aim of his life.</p>
+
+<p>After many successful voyages in the southern seas, Hatteras tried for
+the first time in 1846 to reach the North through Baffin's Bay, but he
+could get no farther than latitude 74&deg;; he sailed in the sloop
+<i>Halifax</i>; his crew suffered terribly, and John Hatteras carried his
+temerity so far that henceforth sailors were averse to undertaking a
+similar expedition under such a leader.</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding, in 1850, Hatteras succeeded in obtaining for the
+schooner <i>Farewell</i> about twenty determined men, but who were
+persuaded especially by the high pay offered their boldness. It was
+then that Dr. Clawbonny began to correspond with John Hatteras, whom
+he did not know, about accompanying him; but the post of surgeon was
+filled, fortunately for the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Farewell</i>, following the route taken by the <i>Neptune</i> of Aberdeen
+in 1817, went to the north of Spitzbergen, as far as latitude 76&deg;.
+There they were obliged to winter; but their sufferings were such, and
+the cold so intense, that of all on board, Hatteras alone returned to
+England. He was picked up by a Danish whaler after he had walked more
+than two hundred miles across the ice.</p>
+
+<p>The excitement produced by the return of this man alone was intense;
+who, after this, would accompany Hatteras in his bold attempts? Still
+he did not abandon the hope of trying again. His father, the brewer,
+died, and he came into possession of an enormous fortune.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile something had happened which cut John Hatteras to the heart.</p>
+
+<p>A brig, the <i>Advance</i>, carrying seventeen men, equipped by Mr.
+Grinnell, a merchant, commanded by Dr. Kane, and sent out in search of
+Franklin, went as far north, through Baffin's Bay and Smith's Sound,
+as latitude 82&deg;, nearer to the Pole than any of his predecessors had
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>Now this was an American ship. Grinnell was an American, Kane was an
+American!</p>
+
+<p>It is easy to understand how the customary disdain of the Englishman
+for the Yankee turned to hatred in the heart of Hatteras; he made up
+his mind, at any price, to beat his bold rival, and to reach the Pole
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>For two years he lived at Liverpool incognito. He was taken for a
+sailor. He saw in Richard Shandon the man he wanted; he presented his
+plans by an anonymous letter to him and to Dr. Clawbonny. The
+<i>Forward</i> was built and equipped. Hatteras kept his name a secret;
+otherwise no one would have gone with him. He resolved only to take
+command of the brig at some critical juncture, and when his crew had
+gone too far to be able to retreat; he kept in reserve, as we have
+seen, the power of making generous offers to the men, so that they
+would follow him to the end of the world.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, it was to the end of the world that he wanted to go.</p>
+
+<p>Now matters looked very serious, and John Hatteras made himself known.</p>
+
+<p>His dog, the faithful Duke, the companion of his expeditions, was the
+first to recognize him, and fortunately for the bold, and
+unfortunately for the timid, it was firmly established that the
+captain of the <i>Forward</i> was John Hatteras.</p>
+
+<a name="ill9"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 62">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="534">
+			<img src="images/062.jpg" alt="John Hatteras">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="534" align="center">
+			<small>"John Hatteras."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table><br>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap13"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII.</h3>
+<h4>THE CAPTAIN'S PLANS.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The appearance of this famous person was variously received by the
+different members of the crew: some allied themselves strongly with
+him, moved both by boldness and by avarice; others took renewed
+interest in the expedition, but they reserved to themselves the right
+of protesting later; besides, at that time, it was hard to make any
+resistance to such a man. Hence every man went back to his place. The
+20th of May was Sunday, and consequently a day of rest for the crew.</p>
+
+<p>The officers took counsel together in the doctor's cabin; there were
+present Hatteras, Shandon, Wall, Johnson, and the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," said the captain, with his peculiarly gentle but
+impressive voice, "you know my project of going to the Pole; I want to
+get your opinion of the undertaking. What do you think about it,
+Shandon?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have not to think, Captain," answered Shandon, coldly; "I have only
+to obey."</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras was not surprised at this answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Richard Shandon," he resumed with equal coldness, "I ask your opinion
+about our probable chance of success."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Captain," answered Shandon, "facts must answer for me; all
+attempts hitherto have failed; I hope we may be more fortunate."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall be. And, gentlemen, what do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"As for me," replied the doctor, "I consider your design practicable,
+Captain; and since there is no doubt but that at some time or other
+explorers will reach the Pole, I don't see why we should not do it."</p>
+
+<p>"There are very good reasons why we should," answered Hatteras, "for
+we have taken measures to make it possible, and we shall profit by the
+experience of others. And, Shandon, you must accept my thanks for the
+care you have given to the equipment of the brig; there are some
+ill-disposed men in the crew, whom I shall soon bring to reason; but
+on the whole, I can give nothing but praise."</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 63">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="540">
+			<img src="images/063.jpg" alt="The Captain's plans">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Shandon bowed coldly. His position on the <i>Forward</i>, of which he had
+thought himself commander, was a false one. Hatteras understood this,
+and said nothing more about it.</p>
+
+<p>"As for you, gentlemen," he resumed, addressing Wall and Johnson, "I
+could not myself have chosen officers more skilled and intrepid."</p>
+
+<p>"On my word, Captain, I am your man," answered Johnson; "and although
+I think your plan a very bold one, you can count on me to the end."</p>
+
+<p>"And on me too," said Wall.</p>
+
+<p>"As for you, Doctor, I know your worth&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you know then a great deal more than I do," answered the
+doctor, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, gentlemen," said Hatteras, "it is well that you should know on
+what good grounds I have made up my mind about the accessibility of
+the Pole. In 1817 the <i>Neptune</i>, of Aberdeen, went to the north of
+Spitzbergen, as far as latitude 82&deg;. In 1826 the celebrated Parry,
+after his third voyage in polar seas, started also from the extremity
+of Spitzbergen, and on sledges went one hundred and fifty miles
+farther north. In 1852, Captain Inglefield reached, through Smith's
+Sound, latitude 78&deg; 35'. All these were English ships, and were
+commanded by Englishmen, our fellow-countrymen."</p>
+
+<p>Here Hatteras paused.</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to add," he resumed with some formality, and as if he could
+hardly bring himself to utter the words,&mdash;"I ought to add that in 1854
+the American, Captain Kane, in the brig <i>Advance</i>, went still farther
+north, and that his lieutenant, Morton, journeying over the ice,
+hoisted the United States flag beyond the eighty-second degree. Having
+once said this, I shall not return to it. Now the main point is that
+the captains of the <i>Neptune</i>, the <i>Enterprise</i>, the <i>Isabella</i>, and
+the <i>Advance</i> agree in the statement that beyond these high latitudes
+there is an open polar sea, entirely free from ice."</p>
+
+<p>"Free from ice!" cried Shandon, interrupting the captain, "it's
+impossible!"</p>
+
+<p>"You will notice, Shandon," observed Hatteras, quietly, while his eye
+lighted up for an instant, "that I quote both facts and authorities. I
+must add that in 1851, when Penny was stationed by the side of
+Wellington Channel, his lieutenant, Stewart, found himself in the
+presence of an open sea, and that his report was confirmed when, in
+1853, Sir Edward Belcher wintered in Northumberland Bay, in latitude
+76&deg; 52', and longitude 99&deg; 20'; these reports are indisputable, and
+one must be very incredulous not to admit them."</p>
+
+<p>"Still, Captain," persisted Shandon, "facts are as contradictory&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You're wrong, Shandon, you're wrong!" cried Dr. Clawbonny; "facts
+never contradict a scientific statement; the captain will, I trust,
+excuse me."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, Doctor!" said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, listen to this, Shandon; it results very clearly from
+geographical facts, and from the study of isothermal lines, that the
+coldest spot on the globe is not on the Pole itself; like the magnetic
+pole, it lies a few degrees distant. So the calculations of Brewster,
+Berghaus, and other physicists prove that in our hemisphere there are
+two poles of extreme cold: one in Asia in latitude 79&deg; 30' N., and
+longitude 120&deg; E.; the other is in America, in latitude 78&deg; N., and
+longitude 97&deg; W. This last alone concerns us, and you see, Shandon,
+that it is more than twelve degrees below the Pole. Well, I ask you
+why, then, the sea should not be as free from ice as it often is in
+summer in latitude 66&deg;, that is to say, at the southern end of
+Baffin's Bay?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well put," answered Johnson; "Dr. Clawbonny talks of those things
+like a man who understands them."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems possible," said James Wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Mere conjectures! nothing but hypotheses!" answered Shandon,
+obstinately.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Shandon," said Hatteras, "let us consider the two cases; either
+the sea is free from ice, or it is not, and in neither case will it be
+impossible to reach the Pole. If it is free, the <i>Forward</i> will take
+us there without difficulty; if it is frozen, we must try to reach it
+over the ice by our sledges. You will confess that it is not
+impracticable; having once come with our brig to latitude 83&deg;, we
+shall have only about six hundred miles between us and the Pole."</p>
+
+<p>"And what are six hundred miles," said the doctor, briskly, "when it
+is proved that a Cossack, Alexis Markoff, went along the frozen sea,
+north of Russia, on sledges drawn by dogs, for a distance of eight
+hundred miles, in twenty-four days?"</p>
+
+<p>"You hear him, Shandon," answered Hatteras, "and will you say that an
+Englishman cannot do as much as a Cossack?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never!" cried the enthusiastic doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Never!" repeated the boatswain.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Shandon?" asked the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain," answered Shandon, coldly, "I can only repeat what I have
+said,&mdash;I shall obey you."</p>
+
+<p>"Well. Now," continued Hatteras, "let us consider our present
+situation; we are caught in the ice, and it seems to me impossible for
+us to reach Smith's Sound this year. This is what we must do."</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras unfolded on the table one of the excellent charts published
+in 1859 by the order of the Admiralty.</p>
+
+<p>"Be good enough to look here. If Smith's Sound is closed, Lancaster
+Sound is not, to the west of Baffin's Bay; in my opinion, we ought to
+go up this sound as far as Barrow Strait, and thence to Beechey
+Island. This has been done a hundred times by sailing-vessels; we
+shall have no difficulty, going under steam. Once at Beechey Island,
+we shall follow Wellington Sound as far northward as possible, to
+where it meets the channel, connecting it with Queen's Sound, at the
+place where the open sea was seen. It is now only the 20th of May; if
+nothing happens, we shall be there in a month, and from there we shall
+start for the Pole. What do you say to that, gentlemen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently," said Johnson, "it's the only way open to us."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we shall take it, and to-morrow. Let Sunday be a day of rest;
+you will see, Shandon, that the Bible is read as usual; the religious
+exercises do the men good, and a sailor more than any one ought to put
+his trust in God."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, Captain," answered Shandon, who went away with the second
+officer and the boatswain.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor," said Hatteras, pointing at Shandon, "there's an offended
+man, whose pride has ruined him; I can no longer depend upon him."</p>
+
+<p>Early the next day the captain had the launch lowered; he went to
+reconnoitre the icebergs about the basin, of which the diameter was
+hardly more than two hundred yards. He noticed that by the gradual
+pressure of the ice, this space threatened to grow smaller; hence it
+became necessary to make a breach somewhere, to save the ship from
+being crushed; by the means he employed, it was easy to see that John
+Hatteras was an energetic man.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 64">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="228">
+			<img src="images/064.jpg" alt="He climbed to the top of an iceberg">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>In the first place he had steps cut, by which he climbed to the top of
+an iceberg; from that point he saw it would be easy to open a path to
+the southwest; by his orders an opening was made in the middle of an
+iceberg, a task which was completed by Monday evening.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras could not depend on his blasting-cylinders of eight or ten
+pounds of powder, whose action would have been insignificant against
+such large masses; they were only of use to break the field-ice; hence
+he placed in the opening a thousand pounds of powder, carefully laying
+it where it should be of the utmost service. This chamber, to which
+ran a long fuse, surrounded by gutta-percha, opened on the outside.
+The gallery, leading thereto, was filled with snow and lumps of ice,
+to which the cold of the next night gave the consistency of granite.
+In fact, the temperature, under the influence of the east-wind, fell
+to 12&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>The next day at seven o'clock the <i>Forward</i> was under steam, ready to
+seize any chance of escape. Johnson was charged with lighting the
+mine; the fuse was calculated to burn half an hour before exploding
+the powder. Hence Johnson had plenty of time to get back to the ship;
+indeed, within ten minutes he was at his post.</p>
+
+<p>The crew were all on deck; the day was dry and tolerably clear; the
+snow was no longer falling; Hatteras, standing on the deck with
+Shandon and the doctor, counted the minutes on his watch.</p>
+
+<p>At thirty-five minutes after eight a dull explosion was heard, much
+less deafening than had been anticipated. The outline of the mountains
+was suddenly changed, as by an earthquake; a dense white smoke rose
+high in the air, and long cracks appeared in the side of the iceberg,
+of which the upper part was hurled to a great distance, and fell in
+fragments about the <i>Forward</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But the way was by no means free yet; huge lumps of ice were suspended
+upon the neighboring icebergs, and their fall threatened to close the
+exit.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras saw their situation in a flash of the eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Wolston!" he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>The gunner hastened to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Put a triple charge in the forward gun, and ram it in as hard as
+possible!"</p>
+
+<p>"Are we going to batter the iceberg down with cannon-balls?" asked the
+doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered Hatteras. "That would do no good. No balls, Wolston,
+but a triple charge of powder. Be quick!"</p>
+
+<p>In a few moments the gun was loaded.</p>
+
+<p>"What is he going to do without a ball?" muttered Shandon between his
+teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll soon see," answered the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"We are all ready, Captain," cried Wolston.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," answered Hatteras. "Brunton!" he shouted to the engineer,
+"make ready! Forward a little!"</p>
+
+<p>Brunton opened the valves, and the screw began to move; the <i>Forward</i>
+drew near the blown-up iceberg.</p>
+
+<p>"Aim carefully at the passage!" cried the captain to the gunner.</p>
+
+<p>He obeyed; when the brig was only half a cable-length distant,
+Hatteras gave the order,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Fire!"</p>
+
+<p>A loud report followed, and the fragments of ice, detached by the
+commotion of the air, fell suddenly into the sea. The simple
+concussion had been enough.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 65">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="535">
+			<img src="images/065.jpg" alt="The fragments of ice fell into the sea">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Put on full steam, Brunton!" shouted Hatteras. "Straight for the
+passage, Johnson!"</p>
+
+<p>Johnson was at the helm; the brig, driven by the screw, which tossed
+the water freely, entered easily the open passage. It was time. The
+<i>Forward</i> had hardly passed through the opening, before it closed
+behind it.</p>
+
+<p>It was an exciting moment, and the only calm and collected man on
+board was the captain. So the crew, amazed at the success of this
+device, could not help shouting,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah for John Hatteras!"</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap14"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XIV.</h3>
+<h4>THE EXPEDITIONS IN SEARCH OF FRANKLIN.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Wednesday, the 21st of May, the <i>Forward</i> resumed her perilous voyage,
+making her way dexterously through the packs and icebergs, thanks to
+steam, which is seldom used by explorers in polar seas; she seemed to
+sport among the moving masses; one would have said she felt the hand
+of a skilled master, and that, like a horse under a skilful rider, she
+obeyed the thought of her captain.</p>
+
+<p>The weather grew warmer. At six o'clock in the morning the thermometer
+stood at 26&deg;, at six in the evening at 29&deg;, and at midnight at 25&deg;;
+the wind was light from the southeast.</p>
+
+<p>Thursday, at about three o'clock in the morning, the <i>Forward</i> arrived
+in sight of Possession Bay, on the American shore, at the entrance of
+Lancaster Sound; soon Cape Burney came into sight. A few Esquimaux
+came out to the ship; but Hatteras could not stop to speak with them.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 66">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="540">
+			<img src="images/066.jpg" alt="A few Esquimaux came out to the ship">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The peaks of Byam Martin, which rise above Cape Liverpool, were passed
+on the left, and they soon disappeared in the evening mist; this hid
+from them Cape Hay, which has a very slight elevation, and so is
+frequently confounded with ice about the shore, a circumstance which
+very often renders the determination of the coast-line in polar
+regions very difficult.</p>
+
+<p>Puffins, ducks, and white gulls appeared in great numbers. By
+observation the latitude was 74&deg; 1', and the longitude, according to
+the chronometer, 77&deg; 15'.</p>
+
+<p>The two mountains, Catherine and Elizabeth, raised their snowy heads
+above the clouds.</p>
+
+<p>At ten o'clock on Friday Cape Warrender was passed on the right side
+of the sound, and on the left Admiralty Inlet, a bay which has never
+been fully explored by navigators, who are always hastening westward.
+The sea ran rather high, and the waves often broke over the bows,
+covering the deck with small fragments of ice. The land on the north
+coast presented a strange appearance with its high, flat table-lands
+sparkling beneath the sun's rays.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras would have liked to skirt these northern lands, in order to
+reach the sooner Beechey Island and the entrance of Wellington
+Channel; but, much to his chagrin, the bank-ice obliged him to take
+only the passes to the south.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 67">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="284">
+			<img src="images/067.jpg" alt="In the midst of fog and a snow-storm">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Hence, on the 26th of May, in the midst of a fog and a snow-storm, the
+<i>Forward</i> found herself off Cape York; a lofty, steep mountain was
+soon recognized; the weather got a little clearer, and at midday the
+sun appeared long enough to permit an observation to be taken:
+latitude 74&deg; 4', and longitude 84&deg; 23'. The <i>Forward</i> was at the end
+of Lancaster Sound.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras showed the doctor on the chart the route he had taken and
+that which he was to follow. At that time the position of the brig was
+interesting.</p>
+
+<p>"I should have liked to be farther north," he said, "but it was
+impossible; see, here is our exact position."</p>
+
+<p>The captain pointed to a spot near Cape York.</p>
+
+<p>"We are in the middle of this open space, exposed to every wind; into
+it open Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, Wellington Channel, and
+Regent's Inlet; here, of necessity, come all northern explorers."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," answered the doctor, "so much the worse for them; it is indeed
+an open space, where four roads meet, and I don't see any sign-post to
+point out the right way! What did Parry, Ross, and Franklin do?"</p>
+
+<p>"They didn't do anything in particular; they let themselves be
+governed by circumstances; they had no choice, I can assure you; at
+one time Barrow Strait would be closed against one, and the next year
+it would be open for another; again the ship would be irresistibly
+driven towards Regent's Inlet. In this way we have at last been able
+to learn the geography of these confused seas."</p>
+
+<p>"What a strange region!" said the doctor, gazing at the chart. "How
+everything is divided and cut up, without order or reason! It seems as
+if all the land near the Pole were divided in this way in order to
+make the approach harder, while in the other hemisphere it ends in
+smooth, regular points, like Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, and
+the Indian peninsula! Is it the greater rapidity at the equator which
+has thus modified things, while the land lying at the extremity, which
+was fluid at the beginning of the world, could not condense and unite
+as elsewhere, on account of slower rotation?"</p>
+
+<p>"That may be, for there is a reason for everything, and nothing
+happens without a cause, which God sometimes lets students find out;
+so, Doctor, find it out if you can."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not waste too much time over it, Captain. But what is this
+fierce wind?" added the doctor, wrapping himself up well.</p>
+
+<p>"The north-wind is the common one, and delays our progress."</p>
+
+<p>"Still it ought to blow the ice toward the south, and leave our way
+free."</p>
+
+<p>"It ought to, Doctor, but the wind doesn't always do what it ought to.
+See, that ice looks impenetrable. We shall try to reach Griffith
+Island, then to get around Cornwallis Island to reach Queen's Channel,
+without going through Wellington Channel. And yet I am anxious to
+touch at Beechey Island to get some more coal."</p>
+
+<p>"How will you do that?" asked the astonished doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Easily; by order of the Admiralty, a great amount has been placed on
+this island, to supply future expeditions, and although Captain
+MacClintock took some in 1859, I can assure you there is still some
+left for us."</p>
+
+<p>"In fact, these regions have been explored for fifteen years, and
+until certain proof of Franklin's death was received, the Admiralty
+always kept five or six ships cruising in these waters. If I'm not
+mistaken, Griffith Island, which I see in the middle of the open
+space, has become a general rendezvous for explorers."</p>
+
+<p>"True, Doctor, and Franklin's ill-fated expedition has been the means
+of our learning so much about these parts."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly; for there have been a great many expeditions since 1845. It
+was not till 1848 that there was any alarm about the continued
+non-appearance of the <i>Erebus</i> and the <i>Terror</i>, Franklin's two ships.
+Then the admiral's old friend, Dr. Richardson, seventy years of age,
+went through Canada, and descended Coppermine River to the Polar Sea;
+on the other side, James Ross, in command of the <i>Enterprise</i> and the
+<i>Investigator</i>, sailed from Upernavik in 1848, and reached Cape York,
+where we are now. Every day he threw overboard a cask containing
+papers telling where he was; during fogs he fired cannon; at night he
+burned signal-fires and sent off rockets, carrying always but little
+sail; finally, he wintered at Leopold's Harbor in 1848-49; there he
+caught a large number of white foxes; he had put on their necks copper
+collars on which was engraved a statement of the position of the ship
+and where supplies had been left, and he drove them away in every
+direction; then, in the spring, he explored the coast of North
+Somerset on sledges, amid dangers and privations which disabled nearly
+all his men. He built cairns, enclosing copper cylinders with
+instructions to the absent expedition; during his absence, Lieutenant
+MacClure explored fruitlessly the northern coast of Barrow Strait. It
+is noteworthy, Captain, that James Ross had among his officers two men
+who afterwards became celebrated,&mdash;MacClure, who found the Northwest
+Passage, and MacClintock, who found the last remains of the Franklin
+expedition."</p>
+
+<a name="ill10"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 68">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="534">
+			<img src="images/068.jpg" alt="A large number of white foxes">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="534" align="center">
+			<small>"He caught a large number of white foxes; he had put on
+			their necks copper collars."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Two good and brave captains, two brave Englishmen; go on, Doctor,
+with this account which you know so well; there is always something to
+be learned from the account of bold adventurers."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, to conclude with James Ross, I have only to add that he tried
+to go farther west from Melville Island; but he nearly lost his ships,
+and being caught in the ice he was carried, against his will, to
+Baffin's Bay."</p>
+
+<p>"Carried," said Hatteras, frowning,&mdash;"carried against his will!"</p>
+
+<p>"He had discovered nothing," resumed the doctor; "it was only after
+1850 that English ships were always exploring there, when a reward of
+twenty thousand pounds was offered to any one who should discover the
+crews of the <i>Erebus</i> and <i>Terror</i>. Already, in 1848, Captains Kellet
+and Moore, in command of the <i>Herald</i> and the <i>Plover</i>, tried to make
+their way through by Behring Strait. I ought to say that the winter of
+1850-51, Captain Austin passed at Cornwallis Island; Captain Penny,
+with the <i>Assistance</i> and <i>Resolute</i>, explored Wellington Channel; old
+John Ross, who discovered the magnetic pole, started in his yacht, the
+<i>Felix</i>, in search of his friend; the brig <i>Prince Albert</i> made her
+first voyage at the expense of Lady Franklin; and, finally, two
+American ships, sent out by Grinnell, under Captain Haven, carried
+beyond Wellington Channel, were cast into Lancaster Sound. It was
+during this year that MacClintock, Austin's lieutenant, pushed on to
+Melville Island and to Cape Dundas, the extreme points reached by
+Parry in 1819, and on Beechey Island were found traces of Franklin's
+wintering there in 1845."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Hatteras, "three of his sailors were buried there,
+three fortunate men!"</p>
+
+<p>"From 1851 to 1852," continued the doctor, with a gesture of
+agreement, "we find the <i>Prince Albert</i> making a second attempt with
+the French lieutenant, Bellot; he winters at Batty Bay in Prince
+Regent's Sound, explores the southwest of Somerset, and reconnoitres
+the coast as far as Cape Walker. Meanwhile, the <i>Enterprise</i> and
+<i>Investigator</i>, having returned to England, came under the command of
+Collinson and MacClure, and they rejoined Kellet and Moore at Behring
+Strait; while Collinson returned to winter at Hong-Kong, MacClure went
+on, and after three winters, 1850-51, 1851-52, and 1852-53, he
+discovered the Northwest Passage without finding any traces of
+Franklin. From 1852 to 1853, a new expedition, consisting of three
+sailing-vessels, the <i>Assistance</i>, the <i>Resolute</i>, the <i>North Star</i>,
+and two steam-vessels, the <i>Pioneer</i> and the <i>Intrepid</i>, started out
+under the orders of Sir Edward Belcher, with Captain Kellet second in
+command; Sir Edward visited Wellington Channel, wintered in
+Northumberland Bay, and explored the coast, while Kellet, pushing on
+as far as Brideport on Melville Island, explored that region without
+success. But then it was rumored in England that two ships, abandoned
+in the ice, had been seen not far from New Caledonia. At once Lady
+Franklin fitted out the little screw-steamer <i>Isabella</i>, and Captain
+Inglefield, after ascending Baffin's Bay to Victoria Point, at the
+eightieth parallel, returned to Beechey Island with equal unsuccess.
+At the beginning of 1855 the American Grinnell defrays the expense of
+a new expedition, and Dr. Kane, trying to reach the Pole&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But he did not succeed," cried Hatteras with violence, "and thank God
+he did not! What he did not do, we shall!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know it, Captain," answered the doctor, "and I only speak of it on
+account of its connection with the search for Franklin. Besides, it
+accomplished nothing. I nearly forgot to say that the Admiralty,
+regarding Beechey Island as a general rendezvous, ordered the steamer
+<i>Phoenix</i>, Captain Inglefield, in 1853, to carry provisions there; he
+sailed with Lieutenant Bellot, who for the second, and last, time
+offered his services to England; we can get full details about the
+catastrophe, for Johnson, our boatswain, was eye-witness of this sad
+affair."</p>
+
+<p>"Lieutenant Bellot was a brave Frenchman," said Hatteras, "and his
+memory is honored in England."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," resumed the doctor, "the ships of Belcher's squadron began to
+return one by one; not all, for Sir Edward had to abandon the
+<i>Assistance</i> in 1854, as McClure had the <i>Investigator</i> in 1853.
+Meanwhile Dr. Rae, in a letter dated July 29, 1854, written from
+Repulse Bay, gave information that the Esquimaux of King William's
+Land had in their possession different objects belonging to the
+<i>Erebus</i> and <i>Terror;</i> then there was no doubt possible about the fate
+of the expedition; the <i>Phoenix</i>, the <i>North Star</i>, and the ship of
+Collinson returned to England; there was then no English ship in these
+waters. But if the government seemed to have lost all hope, Lady
+Franklin did not despair, and with what was left of her fortune she
+fitted out the <i>Fox</i>, commanded by MacClintock; he set sail in 1857,
+wintered about where you made yourself known to us, Captain; he came
+to Beechey Island, August 11, 1858; the next winter he passed at
+Bellot Sound; in February, 1859, he began his explorations anew; on
+the 6th of May he found the document which left no further doubt as to
+the fate of the <i>Erebus</i> and <i>Terror</i>, and returned to England at the
+end of the same year. That is a complete account of all that has been
+done in these regions during the last fifteen years; and since the
+return of the <i>Fox</i>, no ship has ventured among these dangerous
+waters!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we shall try it!" said Hatteras.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap15"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XV.</h3>
+<h4>THE FORWARD DRIVEN SOUTHWARD.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Towards evening the weather cleared up, and land was clearly to be
+seen between Cape Sepping and Cape Clarence, which juts out to the
+east, then to the south, and is connected to the mainland on the west
+by a low tongue of land. There was no ice at the entrance of Regent's
+Sound; but it was densely massed beyond Leopold Harbor, as if to form
+an impassable barrier to the northward progress of the <i>Forward</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras, who, although he carefully concealed his feelings, was
+exceedingly annoyed, had to blow out a way with powder in order to
+enter Leopold Harbor; he reached it at midday, on Sunday, May 27th;
+the brig was securely anchored to the large icebergs, which were as
+firm, solid, and hard as rock.</p>
+
+<p>At once the captain, followed by the doctor, Johnson, and his dog
+Duke, leaped out upon the ice and soon reached the land. Duke leaped
+about with joy; besides, since the captain had made himself known, he
+had become very sociable and very gentle, preserving his ill-temper
+for some of the crew, whom his master disliked as much as he did.</p>
+
+<p>The harbor was free from the ice which is generally forced there by
+the east-wind; the sharp peaks, covered with snow, looked like a
+number of white waves. The house and lantern, built by James Ross,
+were still in a tolerable state of preservation; but the provisions
+appeared to have been eaten by foxes, and even by bears, of which
+fresh traces were to be seen; part of the devastation was probably due
+to the hand of man, for some ruins of Esquimaux huts were to be seen
+on the shores of the bay.</p>
+
+<p>The six tombs, enclosing six sailors of the <i>Enterprise</i> and the
+<i>Investigator</i>, were recognizable by little mounds of earth; they had
+been respected by all, by both men and beasts.</p>
+
+<p>On first setting his foot on this northern earth, the doctor was
+really agitated; it would not be easy to describe the emotions one
+feels at the sight of these ruined houses, tents, huts, supplies,
+which nature preserves so perfectly in cold countries.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 69">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="532">
+			<img src="images/069.jpg" alt="These ruined houses, tents, huts, etc.">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"There," said he to his companions,&mdash;"there is the spot which James
+Ross himself named Camp Refuge! If Franklin's expedition had reached
+this spot, it would have been saved. Here is the engine which was
+taken out and left here, and the furnace which warmed the crew of the
+<i>Prince Albert</i> in 1851; everything remains as it was left, and one
+might fancy that Kennedy, her captain, had sailed away from here
+yesterday. This is the launch that sheltered them for some days, for
+Kennedy was separated from his ship, and only saved by Lieutenant
+Bellot, who braved the cold of October to join him."</p>
+
+<p>"A brave and excellent officer he was," said Johnson. "I knew him."</p>
+
+<p>While the doctor eagerly sought for traces of previous winterings
+there, Hatteras busied himself with collecting the scanty fragments of
+fuel and provisions which lay there. The next day was devoted to
+carrying them on board ship. The doctor explored the whole
+neighborhood, never going too far from the brig, and sketched the most
+remarkable views. The weather gradually grew milder; the snow-drifts
+began to melt. The doctor made a tolerably large collection of
+northern birds, such as gulls, divers, molly-nochtes, and eider-ducks,
+which resemble ordinary ducks, with a white back and breast, a blue
+belly, the top of the head blue, the rest of the plumage white, shaded
+with different tints of green; many of them had already plucked from
+their bellies the eider-down, which both the male and the female
+devote to lining their nests. The doctor also saw great seals
+breathing at the surface of the water, but he was unable to draw one.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 70">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="533">
+			<img src="images/070.jpg" alt="A large collection of northern birds">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>In his wanderings he discovered the stone on which is engraved the
+following inscription:&mdash;</p>
+
+<center>[E I]<br>
+1849,</center>
+
+<p>which marks the passage of the <i>Enterprise</i> and <i>Investigator;</i> he
+pushed on to Cape Clarence, to the spot where, in 1833, John and James
+Ross waited so impatiently for the ice to thaw. The earth was covered
+with the skulls and bones of animals, and traces of the dwellings of
+Esquimaux were to be seen.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 71">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="537">
+			<img src="images/071.jpg" alt="He discovered the stone">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The doctor thought of erecting a cairn at Leopold Harbor, and of
+leaving a letter there to indicate the passage of the <i>Forward</i> and
+the aim of the expedition. But Hatteras formally objected; he did not
+wish to leave behind him any traces which might be of use to a rival.
+In spite of all he could say, the doctor was obliged to yield to the
+captain's will. Shandon was ready enough to blame this obstinacy, for,
+in case of accident, no ship could have put out to the aid of the
+<i>Forward</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras refused to comply. Having completed his preparations on
+Monday, he tried once more to go to the north through the ice, but,
+after dangerous efforts, he was obliged to descend again Regent's
+Channel; he was utterly averse to remaining at Leopold's Harbor, which
+is open one day and closed the next by the unheralded motion of the
+ice,&mdash;a frequent phenomenon in these seas, and one against which
+navigators have to be ever on their guard.</p>
+
+<p>If Hatteras kept his anxiety from the others, he was at heart very
+anxious; he wanted to go northward, and he was obliged to retreat to
+the south! Where would that bring him? Was he going as far back as
+Victoria Harbor in the Gulf of Boothia, where Sir John Ross wintered
+in 1833? Should he find Bellot Sound free at this time, and, by going
+around North Somerset, could he ascend through Peel Sound? Or should
+he, like his predecessors, be caught for many winters, and be obliged
+to consume all his supplies and provisions?</p>
+
+<p>These fears tormented him; but he had to decide; he put about and
+started for the south.</p>
+
+<p>Prince Regent's Channel is of nearly uniform width from Leopold's
+Harbor to Adelaide Bay. The <i>Forward</i> went rapidly through the ice,
+with better fortune than many other ships, most of which required a
+month to descend the channel, even in a better season; it is true that
+none of these ships, except the <i>Fox</i>, had steam at their command, and
+were obliged to do their best against frequent unfavorable winds.</p>
+
+<p>The crew seemed overjoyed at leaving the northern regions; they had
+but a slight desire to reach the Pole; they were alarmed at Hatteras's
+plans, for his reputation as a fearless man inspired them with but
+little confidence. Hatteras tried to make use of every opportunity to
+go forward, whatever the consequences might be. And yet in these
+parts, to advance is all very well, but one must also maintain his
+position and not run the risk of losing it.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Forward</i> went on under full steam; the black smoke whirled in
+spirals about the sparkling summits of the icebergs; the weather was
+changeable, turning from a dry cold to a snowstorm with inconceivable
+rapidity. Since the brig drew but little water, Hatteras hugged the
+west shore; he did not want to miss the entrance of Bellot Sound, for
+the Gulf of Boothia has no other entrance towards the south than the
+slightly known sound of the <i>Fury</i> and the <i>Hecla;</i> hence the gulf
+would be impassable, if Bellot Sound were missed or found
+impracticable.</p>
+
+<p>By evening the <i>Forward</i> was in sight of Elwin Bay, which was
+recognized by its high, steep cliffs; Tuesday morning Batty Bay was
+seen, where, on the 10th of September, 1851, the <i>Prince Albert</i>
+anchored for the winter. The doctor examined the coast with interest
+through his glass. From this point started the expeditions which
+determined the shape of North Somerset. The weather was clear enough
+for them to see the deep ravines surrounding the bay.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor and Johnson were probably the only ones who took any
+interest in these deserted countries. Hatteras, always studying his
+charts, talked little; his silence increased as the ship drew
+southward; he often went upon the quarter-deck, and there he would
+remain for hours, with folded arms, gazing absently at the horizon.
+His orders, when he gave any, were short and quick. Shandon maintained
+a cold silence, and drawing more and more into himself, he had nothing
+more to do with Hatteras than was officially required; James Wall
+remained devoted to Shandon, and modelled his conduct after that of
+his friend. The rest of the crew waited for whatever might turn up,
+ready to make the best use of it for their own profit. On board there
+was none of the unanimity which is so necessary for the accomplishment
+of great things. Hatteras knew this well.</p>
+<a name="note13"></a>
+<p>During the day two whalers<a href="#not13"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> were seen making toward the south; a white
+bear, too, was saluted with a few rifle-shots, but apparently without
+success. The captain knew the worth of an hour at that time, and
+refused permission to chase the animal.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 72">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="533">
+			<img src="images/072.jpg" alt="A white bear">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Wednesday morning the end of Regent Channel was passed; the angle of
+the west coast was followed by a deep curve in the land. On examining
+his chart, the doctor recognized Somerset-House Point, or Point Fury.</p>
+
+<p>"There," he said to his usual companion,&mdash;"there is where the first
+English ship was lost that was sent to these seas in 1815, in Parry's
+third voyage; the <i>Fury</i> was so much injured by the ice in her second
+winter, that the crew were obliged to abandon her and to return to
+England in her companion, the <i>Hecla</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"A good reason for having another ship," answered Johnson; "that is a
+precaution which polar explorers should not neglect; but Captain
+Hatteras was not the man to burden himself with a companion!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you consider him rash, Johnson?" asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"I? O, I don't say anything of the sort, Dr. Clawbonny! But see those
+piles there, with fragments of a tent hanging to them."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Johnson, it is there Parry unloaded all his ship's supplies,
+and, if my memory serves me right, the roof of the hut he built was
+made out of a mainsail covered by the running-rigging of the <i>Fury</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"That must have changed a good deal since 1825."</p>
+
+<p>"Not so very much. In 1829, John Ross kept his crew safe and sound in
+this light building. In 1851, when Prince Albert sent out an
+expedition, this hut was still standing; Captain Kennedy repaired it
+nine years ago. It would be interesting to visit it, but Hatteras is
+unwilling to stop."</p>
+
+<p>"And he is probably right, Dr. Clawbonny; if in England time is money,
+here it is safety, and for the delay of a day, of an hour even, the
+whole voyage might be rendered useless. We must let him do as he
+pleases."</p>
+
+<p>On Thursday, June 1st, the <i>Forward</i> sailed diagonally across Creswell
+Bay; from Point Fury the coast rises in steep rocks three hundred feet
+high; towards the south, it is lower; a few snowy summits are to be
+seen, of a regular shape, while others, more fantastic, were hidden in
+the clouds.</p>
+
+<p>During that day the weather grew milder, but cloudier; they lost sight
+of land; the thermometer rose to 32&deg;; a few water-quail were to be
+seen, and flocks of wild geese flew toward the north; the crew laid
+aside some of their thick clothes; they began to be aware of the
+approach of summer in the arctic regions.</p>
+
+<p>Toward evening the <i>Forward</i> doubled Cape Garry, a quarter of a mile
+from the shore. The lead marked ten to twelve fathoms, and they bore
+along the shore to Brentford Bay. In this latitude they were to find
+Bellot Sound, a sound which entirely escaped the notice of Sir John
+Ross in his expedition of 1828; his charts indicated an unbroken
+coast-line, with the least irregularities indicated with the utmost
+care; hence it is to be supposed that when he passed by the entrance
+of the sound, it was completely closed with ice and so could not be
+distinguished from the land.</p>
+
+<p>This sound was really discovered by Captain Kennedy in an excursion
+made in April, 1852; he named it after Lieutenant Bellot, as "a just
+tribute," as he said, "to the important services rendered to our
+expedition by the French officer."</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap16"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XVI.</h3>
+<h4>THE MAGNETIC POLE.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>As Hatteras drew near this sound he felt his anxiety redoubling; in
+fact, the success of his expedition was at stake; so far he had done
+nothing more than his predecessors, the most successful of whom,
+MacClintock, had consumed fifteen months in reaching this spot; but
+that was little, indeed nothing, if he could not make Bellot Sound;
+being unable to return, he would be kept a prisoner until the next
+year.</p>
+
+<p>Hence he took upon himself the care of examining the coast; he went up
+to the lookout, and on Saturday passed many hours there.</p>
+
+<p>The crew were all acquainted with the situation of the ship; an
+unbroken silence reigned on board; the engine was slackened; the
+<i>Forward</i> ran as near shore as possible; the coast was lined with ice
+which the warmest summers could not melt; a practised eye was needed
+to make out an entrance through them.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras was comparing his charts with the coast-line. The sun having
+appeared for a moment at noon, Shandon and Wall took an observation,
+the result of which was at once told him.</p>
+
+<p>There was half a day of anxiety for all. But suddenly, at about two
+o'clock, these words were shouted from aloft,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Head to the west, and put on all steam."</p>
+
+<p>The brig obeyed at once, turning to the point directed; the screw
+churned the water, and the <i>Forward</i> plunged under a full head of
+steam between two swiftly running ice-streams.</p>
+
+<p>The path was found; Hatteras came down to the quarter-deck, and the
+ice-master went aloft.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Captain," said the doctor, "we have entered this famous sound
+at last!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Hatteras; "but entering is not all, we have got to get
+out of it too."</p>
+
+<p>And with these words he went to his cabin.</p>
+
+<p>"He is right," thought the doctor; "we are in a sort of trap, without
+much space to turn about in, and if we had to winter here!&mdash;well, we
+shouldn't be the first to do it, and where others lived through it,
+there is no reason why we should not!"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was right. It was at this very place, in a little sheltered
+harbor called Port Kennedy by MacClintock himself, that the <i>Fox</i>
+wintered in 1858. At that moment it was easy to recognize the lofty
+granite chains, and the steep beaches on each side.</p>
+<a name="note14"></a>
+<p>Bellot Sound, a mile broad and seventeen long, with a current running
+six or seven knots, is enclosed by mountains of an estimated height of
+sixteen hundred feet; it separates North Somerset from Boothia; it is
+easy to see that there is not too much sailing room there. The
+<i>Forward</i> advanced carefully, but still she advanced; tempests are
+frequent in this narrow pass, and the brig did not escape their usual
+violence; by Hatteras's orders, all the topsail-yards were lowered,
+and the topmasts also; in spite of everything the ship labored
+fearfully; the heavy seas kept the deck continually deluged with
+water; the smoke flew eastward with inconceivable rapidity; they went
+on almost at haphazard through the floating ice; the barometer fell to
+29°;<a href="#not14"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> it was hard to stay on deck, so most of the men were kept below
+to spare them unnecessary exposure.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras, Johnson, and Shandon remained on the quarter-deck, in spite
+of the whirlwinds of snow and rain; and the doctor, who had just asked
+himself what was the most disagreeable thing to be done at that time,
+soon joined them there; they could not hear, and hardly could they
+see, one another; so he kept his thoughts to himself.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 73">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="376">
+			<img src="images/073.jpg" alt="On the quarter-deck">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Hatteras tried to pierce the dense cloud of mist, for, according to
+his calculation, they should be through the strait at six o'clock of
+the evening. At that time exit seemed closed, and Hatteras was obliged
+to stop and anchor to an iceberg; but steam was kept up all night.</p>
+
+<p>The weather was terrible. Every moment the <i>Forward</i> threatened to
+snap her cables; there was danger, too, lest the mountain should be
+driven by the wind and crush the brig. The officers kept on the alert,
+owing to their extreme anxiety; besides the snow, large lumps of
+frozen spray were blown about by the hurricane like sharp arrows.</p>
+
+<p>The temperature arose strangely in that terrible night; the
+thermometer marked 57&deg;; and the doctor, to his great surprise, thought
+he noticed some flashes of lightning followed by distant thunder. This
+seemed to corroborate the testimony of Scoresby, who noticed the same
+phenomenon above latitude 65&deg;. Captain Parry also observed it in 1821.</p>
+
+<p>Towards five o'clock in the morning the weather changed with singular
+rapidity; the temperature fell to the freezing-point; the wind shifted
+to the north and grew quiet. The western opening of the strait could
+be seen, but it was entirely closed. Hatteras gazed anxiously at the
+coast, asking himself if there really were any exit.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, the brig put out slowly into the ice-streams, while the
+ice crushed noisily against her bows; the packs at this time were six
+or seven feet thick; it was necessary carefully to avoid them, for if
+the ship should try to withstand them, it ran the risk of being lifted
+half out of the water and cast on her beam-ends.</p>
+
+<p>At noon, for the first time, a magnificent solar phenomenon could be
+observed, a halo with two parhelions; the doctor observed it, and took
+its exact dimensions; the exterior arc was only visible for about
+thirty degrees each side of the horizontal diameter; the two images of
+the sun were remarkably clear; the colors within the luminous area
+were, going toward the outside, red, yellow, green, faint blue, and
+last of all white, gently fading away, without any sharp line of
+termination.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 74">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="542">
+			<img src="images/074.jpg" alt="A halo with two parhelions">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The doctor remembered Thomas Young's ingenious theory about these
+meteors; he supposed that certain clouds composed of prisms of ice are
+hanging in the air; the sun's rays falling on these prisms are
+refracted at angles of sixty and ninety degrees. The halos can only be
+formed in a clear sky. The doctor thought this an ingenious
+explanation.</p>
+
+<p>Sailors, who are familiar with northern seas, consider this phenomenon
+a forerunner of heavy snow. If this should be the case, the position
+of the <i>Forward</i> was very critical. Hence Hatteras resolved to push
+on; during the rest of that day and the next night he took no rest,
+but examined the horizon through his glass, entering every inlet, and
+losing no opportunity to get out of the strait.</p>
+
+<p>But in the morning he was compelled to stop before the impenetrable
+ice. The doctor joined him on the quarter-deck. Hatteras led him clear
+aft where they could talk without fear of being overheard.</p>
+
+<p>"We are caught," said Hatteras. "It's impossible to go on."</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible?" said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible! All the powder on board the <i>Forward</i> would not open a
+quarter of a mile to us."</p>
+
+<p>"What are we to do?" asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. Curse this unlucky year!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Captain, if we must go into winter-quarters, we'll do it. As
+well here as anywhere else!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said Hatteras in a low voice, "but we ought not to be
+going into winter-quarters, especially in the month of June. It is
+demoralizing, and bad for the health. The spirits of the crew are soon
+cast down during this long rest among real sufferings. So I had made
+up my mind to winter at a latitude nearer the Pole."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but, unluckily, Baffin's Bay was closed."</p>
+
+<p>"Any one else would have found it open," cried Hatteras; "that
+American, that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Hatteras," said the doctor, purposely interrupting him, "it's
+now only the 5th of June; we should not despair; a path may open
+before us suddenly; you know the ice often breaks into separate
+pieces, even when the weather is calm, as if it were driven apart by
+some force of repulsion; at any moment we may find the sea free."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if that happens, we shall take advantage of it. It is not
+impossible that beyond Bellot Strait we might get northward through
+Peel Sound or MacClintock Channel, and then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Captain," said James Wall, approaching, "the ice threatens to tear
+away the rudder."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," answered Hatteras, "never mind; I sha'n't unship it; I want to
+be ready at any hour, day or night. Take every precaution, Mr. Wall,
+and keep the ice off; but don't unship it, you understand."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;" began Wall.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care to hear any remarks, sir," said Hatteras, severely.
+"Go!"</p>
+
+<p>Wall returned to his post.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Hatteras, angrily, "I would give five years of my life to
+be farther north! I don't know any more dangerous place; and besides,
+we are so near the magnetic pole that the compass is of no use; the
+needle is inactive, or always shifting its direction."</p>
+
+<p>"I confess," said the doctor, "that it is not plain sailing; but
+still, those who undertook it were prepared for such dangers, and
+there is no need to be surprised."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Doctor! the crew has changed very much, and you have seen that
+the officers have begun to make remarks. The high pay offered the
+sailors induced them to ship; but they have their bad side, for as
+soon as they are off they are anxious to get back. Doctor, I have no
+encouragement in my undertaking, and if I fail, it won't be the fault
+of such or such a sailor, but of the ill-will of certain officers. Ah,
+they'll pay dearly for it!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are exaggerating, Hatteras."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all! Do you fancy the crew are sorry for the obstacles we are
+meeting? On the contrary, they hope I shall be compelled to abandon my
+plans. So they do not murmur, and when the <i>Forward</i> is headed for the
+south, it will be the same thing. Fools! They imagine they are
+returning to England! But when I'm turned towards the north, you will
+see a difference! I swear solemnly that no living being shall make me
+swerve from my course! Give me a passage, an opening through which my
+brig can go, and I shall take it, if I have to leave half her
+sheathing behind!"</p>
+
+<p>The desires of the captain were destined to be satisfied in a measure.
+As the doctor had foretold, there was a sudden change in the evening;
+under some influence of the wind, the ice-fields separated; the
+<i>Forward</i> pushed on boldly, breaking the ice with her steel prow; all
+the night they advanced, and towards six o'clock they were clear of
+Bellot Strait.</p>
+
+<p>But great was Hatteras's anger at finding the way to the north closed!
+He was able to hide his despair; and as if the only open path were the
+one of his choice, he turned the <i>Forward</i> towards Franklin Sound.
+Being unable to go up Peel Sound, he determined to go around Prince of
+Wales Land, to reach MacClintock Channel. But he knew that Shandon and
+Wall could not be deceived, and were conscious of the failure of his
+hopes.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing especial happened on the 6th of June; snow fell, and the
+prophecy of the halo came true.</p>
+
+<p>For thirty-six hours the <i>Forward</i> followed the sinuosities of the
+coast of Boothia, without reaching Prince of Wales Land. Hatteras put
+on all steam, burning his coal extravagantly; he still intended to get
+further supplies on Beechey Island; on Thursday he arrived at Franklin
+Sound, and he still found the way northward impassable.</p>
+
+<p>His position was a desperate one; he could not return; the ice pushed
+him onward, and he saw his path forever closing behind him, as if
+there were no open sea where he had passed but an hour before.</p>
+
+<p>Hence, not only was the <i>Forward</i> unable to go toward the north, but
+she could not stop for a moment lest she should be imprisoned, and she
+fled before the ice like a ship before a storm.</p>
+<a name="note15"></a>
+<p>Friday, June 7th,<a href="#not15"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> she arrived near the coast of Boothia, at the
+entrance of James Ross Sound, which had to be avoided because its only
+exit is to the west, close to the shore of America.</p>
+
+<p>The observations taken at noon showed them to be in latitude 70&deg; 5'
+17", and longitude 96&deg; 46' 45"; when the doctor heard this he examined
+his chart, and found that they were at the magnetic pole, at the very
+point where James Ross, the nephew of Sir John, came to determine its
+situation.</p>
+
+<p>The land was low near the coast, and it rose only about sixty feet at
+the distance of a mile from the sea.</p>
+
+<p>The boiler of the <i>Forward</i> needed cleaning; the captain anchored his
+ship to a field of ice, and gave the doctor leave to go ashore with
+the boatswain. For himself, being indifferent to everything outside of
+his own plans, he shut himself up in his cabin, and studied the chart
+of the Pole.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor and his companion easily reached land; the first-named
+carried a compass for his experiments; he wanted to test the work of
+James Ross; he easily made out the mound of stones erected by him; he
+ran towards it; an opening in the cairn let him see a tin box in which
+James Ross had placed an account of his discovery. No living being had
+visited this lonely spot for thirty years.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 75">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="348">
+			<img src="images/075.jpg" alt="He found a declination of 90 degrees">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>At this place a needle suspended as delicately as possible assumed a
+nearly vertical position under the magnetic influence; hence the
+centre of attraction was near, if not immediately beneath, the needle.</p>
+<a name="note16"></a>
+<p>The doctor made the experiment with all care. But if James Ross, owing
+to the imperfection of his instruments, found a declination of only
+89&deg; 50', the real magnetic point is found within a minute of this
+spot.<a href="#not16"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> Dr. Clawbonny was more fortunate, and at a little distance from
+there he found a declination of 90&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>"This is exactly the magnetic pole of the earth!" he cried, stamping
+on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Just here?" asked Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely here, my friend!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then," resumed the boatswain, "we must give up all the stories
+of a magnetic mountain or large mass."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Johnson," answered the doctor, laughing, "those are empty
+hypotheses! As you see, there is no mountain capable of attracting
+ships, of drawing their iron from them anchor after anchor, bolt after
+bolt! and your shoes here are as light as anywhere in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"But how do you explain&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no explanation, Johnson; we are not wise enough for that.
+But what is mathematically certain is that the magnetic pole is at
+this very spot!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Dr. Clawbonny, how glad the captain would be to say as much of
+the North Pole!"</p>
+
+<p>"He'll say it, Johnson; he'll say it!"</p>
+
+<p>"God grant it!" was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor and his companion raised a cairn at the spot where they
+tried their experiment, and the signal for their return being made,
+they returned to the ship at five o'clock of the evening.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap17"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XVII.</h3>
+<h4>THE FATE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The <i>Forward</i> succeeded, though not without difficulty, in getting by
+James Ross Sound, by frequent use of the ice-saws and gunpowder; the
+crew was very much fatigued. Fortunately the temperature was
+agreeable, and even thirty degrees above what James Ross found at the
+same time of year. The thermometer marked 34&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>Saturday they doubled Cape Felix at the northern end of King William's
+Land, one of the smaller islands of northern seas.</p>
+
+<p>At that time the crew became very much depressed; they gazed wistfully
+and sadly at its far-stretching shores.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, they were gazing at King William's Land, the scene of one of
+the saddest tragedies of modern times! Only a few miles to the west
+the <i>Erebus</i> and <i>Terror</i> were lost.</p>
+
+<p>The sailors of the <i>Forward</i> were familiar with the attempts made to
+find Franklin, and the result they had obtained, but they did not know
+all the sad details. Now, while the doctor was following on his chart
+the course of the ship, many of them, Bell, Bolton, and Simpson, drew
+near him and began to talk with him. Soon the others followed to
+satisfy their curiosity; meanwhile the brig was advancing rapidly, and
+the bays, capes, and promontories of the coast passed before their
+gaze like a gigantic panorama.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 76">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="544">
+			<img src="images/076.jpg" alt="Many of them drew near him">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Hatteras was pacing nervously to and fro on the quarter-deck; the
+doctor found himself on the bridge, surrounded by the men of the crew;
+he readily understood the interest of the situation, and the
+impression that would be made by an account given under those
+circumstances, hence he resumed the talk he had begun with Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, my friends, how Franklin began: like Cook and Nelson, he
+was first a cabin-boy; after spending his youth in long sea-voyages,
+he made up his mind, in 1845, to seek the Northwest Passage; he
+commanded the <i>Erebus</i> and the <i>Terror</i>, two stanch vessels, which had
+visited the antarctic seas in 1840, under the command of James Ross.
+The <i>Erebus</i>, in which Franklin sailed, carried a crew of seventy men,
+all told, with Fitz-James as captain; Gore and Le Vesconte,
+lieutenants; Des Voeux, Sargent, and Couch, boatswains; and Stanley,
+surgeon. The <i>Terror</i> carried sixty-eight men. Crozier was the
+captain; the lieutenants were Little, Hodgson, and Irving; boatswains,
+Horesby and Thomas; the surgeon, Peddie. In the names of the bays,
+capes, straits, promontories, channels, and islands of these latitudes
+you find memorials of most of these unlucky men, of whom not one has
+ever again seen his home! In all one hundred and thirty-eight men! We
+know that the last of Franklin's letters were written from Disco
+Island, and dated July 12, 1845. He said, 'I hope to set sail to-night
+for Lancaster Sound.' What followed his departure from Disco Bay? The
+captains of the whalers, the <i>Prince of Wales</i> and the <i>Enterprise</i>,
+saw these two ships for the last time in Melville Bay, and nothing
+more was heard of them. Still we can follow Franklin in his course
+westward; he went through Lancaster and Barrow Sounds and reached
+Beechey Island, where he passed the winter of 1845-46."</p>
+
+<p>"But how is this known?" asked Bell, the carpenter.</p>
+
+<p>"By three tombs which the Austin expedition found there in 1850. Three
+of Franklin's sailors had been buried there; and, moreover, by a paper
+found by Lieutenant Hobson of the <i>Fox</i>, dated April 25, 1848. We know
+also that, after leaving winter-quarters, the <i>Erebus</i> and <i>Terror</i>
+ascended Wellington Channel as far as latitude 77&deg;; but instead of
+pushing to the north, which they doubtless found impossible, they
+returned towards the south&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And that was a fatal mistake!" uttered a grave voice. "Safety lay to
+the north."</p>
+
+<p>Every one turned round. It was Hatteras, who, leaning on the rail of
+the quarter-deck, had just made that solemn remark.</p>
+
+<p>"Without doubt," resumed the doctor, "Franklin intended to make his
+way to the American shore; but tempests beset him, and September 12,
+1846, the two ships were caught in the ice, a few miles from here, to
+the northwest of Cape Felix; they were carried to the north-northwest
+of Point Victory; there," said the doctor, pointing out to the sea.
+"Now," he added, "the ships were not abandoned till April 22, 1848.
+What happened during these nineteen months? What did these poor men
+do? Doubtless they explored the surrounding lands, made every effort
+to escape, for the admiral was an energetic man; and if he did not
+succeed&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It's because his men betrayed him," said Hatteras in a deep voice.</p>
+
+<p>The sailors did not dare to lift their eyes; these words made them
+feel abashed.</p>
+
+<p>"To be brief, this paper, of which I spoke, tells us, besides, that
+Sir John Franklin died, worn out by his sufferings, June 11, 1847. All
+honor to his memory!" said the doctor, removing his hat.</p>
+
+<p>The men did the same in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"What became of these poor men, deprived of their leader, during the
+next ten months? They remained on board of their ships, and it was not
+till April, 1848, that they made up their mind to abandon them; one
+hundred and five men survived out of the hundred and thirty-eight.
+Thirty-three had died! Then Captains Crozier and Fitz-James erected a
+cairn at Point Victory, and left their last paper there. See, my
+friends, we are passing by that point. You can see traces of the
+cairn, placed, so to speak, at the farthest point reached by John Ross
+in 1831! There is Cape Jane Franklin! There Point Franklin! There
+Point Le Vesconte! There Erebus Bay, where the launch, made of pieces
+of one of the ships, was found on a sledge! There were found silver
+spoons, plenty of food, chocolate, tea, and religious books. The
+hundred and five survivors, under the command of Captain Crozier, set
+out for Great Fish River. How far did they get? Did they reach
+Hudson's Bay? Have any survived? What became of them after that?&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you what became of them," said John Hatteras in an
+energetic voice. "Yes, they tried to reach Hudson's Bay, and separated
+into several parties. They took the road to the south. In 1854 a
+letter from Dr. Rae states that in 1850 the Esquimaux had met in King
+William's Land a detachment of forty men, chasing sea-cows, travelling
+on the ice, dragging a boat along with them, thin, pale, and worn out
+with suffering and fatigue. Later, they discovered thirty corpses on
+the mainland and five on a neighboring island, some half buried,
+others left without burial; some lying beneath an overturned boat,
+others under the ruins of a tent; here lay an officer with his glass
+swung around his shoulder, and his loaded gun near him; farther on
+were kettles with the remains of a horrible meal. At this news, the
+Admiralty urged the Hudson's Bay Company to send its most skilful
+agents to this place. They descended Black River to its mouth. They
+visited Montreal and Maconochie Islands, and Point Ogle. In vain! All
+these poor fellows had died of misery, suffering, and starvation,
+after trying to prolong their lives by having recourse to cannibalism.
+That is what became of them along their way towards the south, which
+was lined with their mutilated bodies. Well, do you want to follow
+their path?"</p>
+
+<a name="ill11"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 77">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="537">
+			<img src="images/077.jpg" alt="All these poor fellows had died">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="537" align="center">
+			<small>"All these poor fellows had died of misery, suffering,
+			and starvation."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Hatteras's ringing voice, passionate gestures, and glowing face
+produced an indescribable effect. The crew, moved by the sight of
+these ill-omened lands, cried with one voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"To the north! to the north!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, to the north! Safety and glory await us there at the north!
+Heaven is declaring for us! The wind is changing! The passage is free!
+Prepare to go about!"</p>
+
+<p>The sailors hastened to their places; the ice-streams grew slowly
+free; the <i>Forward</i> went about rapidly, and ran under full steam
+towards MacClintock's Channel.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras was justified in counting on a freer sea; on his way he
+retraced the probable path of Franklin; he went along the eastern side
+of Prince of Wales Land, which is clearly defined, while the other
+shore is still unknown. Evidently the clearing away of the ice towards
+the south took place through the eastern strait, for it appeared
+perfectly clear; so the <i>Forward</i> was able to make up for lost time;
+she was put under full steam, so that the 14th they passed Osborne
+Bay, and the farthest points reached by the expeditions of 1851. There
+was still a great deal of ice about them, but there was every
+indication that the <i>Forward</i> would have clear sailing-way before her.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap18"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XVIII.</h3>
+<h4>THE WAY NORTHWARD.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The crew seemed to have returned to their habits of discipline and
+obedience. Their duties were slight and infrequent, so that they had
+plenty of leisure. The temperature never fell below the
+freezing-point, and the thaw removed the greatest obstacles from their
+path.</p>
+
+<p>Duke had made friends with Dr. Clawbonny. They got on admirably
+together. But as in friendship one friend is always sacrificed to the
+other, it must be said that the doctor was not the other. Duke did
+with him whatever he pleased. The doctor obeyed him as a dog obeys his
+master. Moreover, Duke conducted himself very amicably with most of
+the officers and sailors; only, instinctively doubtless, he avoided
+Shandon; he had, too, a grudge against Pen and Foker; his hatred for
+them manifested itself in low growls when they came near him. They,
+for their part, did not dare attack the captain's dog, "his familiar
+spirit," as Clifton called him.</p>
+
+<p>In a word, the crew had taken courage again.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 78">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="557">
+			<img src="images/078.jpg" alt="Sailing to the north">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"It seems to me," said James Wall one day to Richard Shandon, "that
+the men took the captain's words for earnest; they seem to be sure of
+success."</p>
+
+<p>"They are mistaken," answered Shandon; "if they would only reflect,
+and consider our condition, they would see we are simply going from
+one imprudence to another."</p>
+
+<p>"Still," resumed Wall, "we are in a more open sea; we are going along
+a well-known route; don't you exaggerate somewhat, Shandon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit, Wall; the hate and jealousy, if you please, with which
+Hatteras inspires me, don't blind my eyes. Say, have you seen the
+coal-bunkers lately?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered Wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Well! go below, and you'll see how near we are to the end of our
+supply. By right, we ought to be going under sail, and only starting
+our engine to make headway against currents or contrary winds; our
+fuel ought to be burned only with the strictest economy, for who can
+say where and for how long we may be detained? But Hatteras is pushed
+by this mania of going forward, of reaching the inaccessible Pole, and
+he doesn't care for such a detail. Whether the wind is fair or foul,
+he goes on under steam; and if he goes on we run a risk of being very
+much embarrassed, if not lost."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that so, Shandon? That is serious!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Wall, it is; not only would the engine be of no use to
+us if we got into a tight place, but what are we to do in the winter?
+We ought to take some precautions against the cold in a country where
+the mercury often freezes in the thermometer."</p>
+
+<p>"But if I'm not mistaken, Shandon, the captain intends getting a new
+supply at Beechey Island; they say there is a great quantity there."</p>
+
+<p>"Can any one choose where he'll go in these seas, Wall? Can one count
+on finding such or such a channel free of ice? And if he misses
+Beechey Island, or can't reach it, what is to become of us?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Shandon; Hatteras seems to me unwise; but why don't
+you say something of this sort to him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Wall," answered Shandon, with ill-disguised bitterness, "I have
+made up my mind not to say a word; I am not responsible any longer for
+the ship; I shall await events; if I receive any commands, I obey, and
+I don't proclaim my opinions."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me tell you you are wrong, Shandon; for the well-being of all is
+at stake, and the captain's imprudence may cost us all dear."</p>
+
+<p>"And if I were to speak, Wall, would he listen to me?"</p>
+
+<p>Wall did not dare say he would.</p>
+
+<p>"But," he added, "he would perhaps listen to remonstrances of the
+crew."</p>
+
+<p>"The crew," said Shandon, shrugging his shoulders; "but, my dear Wall,
+haven't you noticed that they care for everything else more than for
+their safety? They know they're getting near latitude 72&deg;, and that a
+thousand pounds is paid for every degree of latitude beyond which is
+reached."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Shandon," answered Wall, "and the captain has taken
+the surest means of securing his men."</p>
+
+<p>"Without doubt," answered Shandon; "for the present, at least."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that all will go very well in the absence of all dangers and
+fatigues, in an open sea; Hatteras has caught them by his money; but
+what is done for pay is ill done. But once let hardships, dangers,
+discomfort, sickness, melancholy, and fierce cold stare them in the
+face,&mdash;and we are flying towards them now,&mdash;and you will see whether
+they remember the pay they are to get."</p>
+
+<p>"So, in your opinion, Shandon, Hatteras will fail?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly; he will fail. In such an enterprise, there should be an
+identity of interests among the leaders, a sympathy which is lacking
+here. Besides, Hatteras is mad; his whole past proves it! But we shall
+see! Circumstances may arise in which the command of the ship will
+have to be given to a less foolhardy captain&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Still," said Wall, shaking his head doubtfully, "Hatteras will always
+have on his side&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He will have," interrupted Shandon,&mdash;"he will have that Dr.
+Clawbonny, who only cares to study; Johnson, who is a slave to
+discipline, and who never takes the trouble to reason; perhaps one or
+two besides, like Bell, the carpenter,&mdash;four at the most, and there
+are eighteen on board! No, Wall, Hatteras has not the confidence of
+the crew; he knows it well, and he tries to make up for it by bribery;
+he made a good use of the account of Franklin's catastrophe to create
+a different feeling in their excited minds; but that won't last, I
+tell you; and if he don't reach Beechey Island, he is lost!"</p>
+
+<p>"If the crew suspected&mdash;"</p>
+<a name="note17"></a>
+<p>"I beg of you," said Shandon, quickly, "not to say a word about this
+to the crew; they'll find it out for themselves. Now, at any rate, it
+is well to go on towards the north. But who can say whether what
+Hatteras takes for a step towards the Pole may not be really retracing
+our steps? At the end of MacClintock Channel is Melville Bay, and
+thence open the straits which lead back to Baffin's Bay. Hatteras had
+better take care! The way west is easier than the way north."<a href="#not17"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a></p>
+
+<p>From these words Shandon's state of mind may be judged, and how
+justified the captain was in suspecting a treacherous disposition in
+him.</p>
+<a name="note18"></a>
+<p>Shandon, moreover, was right when he ascribed the present satisfaction
+of the crew to the prospect they had of passing latitude 72&deg;. This
+greed of gold seized the least audacious. Clifton had made out every
+one's share with great exactness. Leaving out the captain and the
+doctor, who could not be admitted to the division, there were sixteen
+men on board the <i>Forward</i>. The amount was a thousand pounds, that was
+&pound;72 10<i>s</i>. for each man, for every degree.<a href="#not18"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> If they should ever reach
+the Pole the eighteen degrees to be crossed would give each one a sum
+of £1,125, a fair fortune. This whim would cost the captain &pound;18,000;
+but he was rich enough to pay for such a costly trip to the Pole.</p>
+
+<p>These calculations aroused wonderfully the avarice of the crew, as can
+be readily believed, and more than one longed to pass latitude 72&deg;,
+who, a fortnight before, rejoiced to be sailing southward.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Forward</i> sailed by Cape Alworth June 16th. Mount Rawlinson raised
+its white peaks towards the sky; the snow and mist exaggerated its
+size so that it appeared colossal; the temperature remained a few
+degrees above the freezing-point; cascades and cataracts appeared on
+the sides of the mountain; avalanches kept falling with a roar like
+that of artillery. The long stretches of glaciers made a loud echo.
+The contrast between this wintry scene and the thaw made a wonderful
+sight. The brig sailed along very near the coast; they were able to
+see on some sheltered rocks a few bushes bearing modest little roses,
+some reddish moss, and a budding dwarf willow barely rising above the
+ground.</p>
+<a name="note19"></a>
+<p>At last, June 19th, in latitude 72&deg;,<a href="#not19"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> they doubled Point Minto, which
+forms one of the extremities of Ommanney Bay; the brig entered
+Melville Bay, called "the Sea of Money" by Bolton; this good-natured
+fellow used to be always jesting on this subject, much to Clawbonny's
+amusement.</p>
+
+<p>The obstacles to their course were but few, for June 23d, in the teeth
+of a strong northeasterly breeze, they passed latitude 74&deg;. This was
+at the middle of Melville Bay, one of the largest seas of this region.
+It was first crossed by Captain Parry, in his great expedition of
+1819, and there it was that his crew won the £5,000 promised by act of
+Parliament.</p>
+
+<p>Clifton contented himself with remarking that there were two degrees
+between latitude 72&deg; and latitude 74&deg;: that was £125 to his credit.
+But they told him that a fortune did not amount to much up there, and
+that a man could be called rich only when he could have a chance to
+drink to his wealth; it seemed better to wait for the moment when they
+could meet at some tavern in Liverpool before rejoicing and rubbing
+their hands.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap19"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XIX.</h3>
+<h4>A WHALE IN SIGHT.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Melville Bay, although perfectly navigable, was not wholly free of
+ice; immense ice-fields could be seen stretching to the horizon; here
+and there appeared a few icebergs, but they stood motionless as if
+anchored in the ice. The <i>Forward</i> went under full steam through broad
+passes where she had plenty of sailing-room. The wind shifted
+frequently from one point of the compass to another.</p>
+
+<p>The variability of the wind in the arctic seas is a remarkable fact,
+and very often only a few minutes intervene between a calm and a
+frightful tempest. This was Hatteras's experience on the 23d of June,
+in the middle of this huge bay.</p>
+
+<p>The steadiest winds blow generally from the ice to the open sea, and
+are very cold. On that day the thermometer fell several degrees; the
+wind shifted to the southward, and the heavy gusts, having passed over
+the ice, discharged themselves of their dampness under the form of a
+thick snow. Hatteras immediately ordered the sails which were aiding
+the engine to be reefed; but before this could be done his
+main-topsail was carried away.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras gave his orders with the utmost coolness, and did not leave
+the deck during the storm; he was obliged to run before the gale. The
+wind raised very heavy waves which hurled about pieces of ice of every
+shape, torn from the neighboring ice-fields; the brig was tossed about
+like a child's toy, and ice was dashed against its hull; at one moment
+it rose perpendicularly to the top of a mountain of water; its steel
+prow shone like molten metal; then it sank into an abyss, sending
+forth great whirls of smoke, while the screw revolved out the water
+with a fearful clatter. Rain and snow fell in torrents.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 79">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="217">
+			<img src="images/079.jpg" alt="He remained on deck">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The doctor could not miss such a chance to get wet to the skin; he
+remained on deck, gazing at the storm with all the admiration such a
+spectacle cannot fail to draw forth. One standing next to him could
+not have heard his voice; so he said nothing, but looked, and soon he
+saw a singular phenomenon, one peculiar to the northern seas.</p>
+
+<p>The tempest was confined to a small space of about three or four
+miles; in fact, the wind loses much of its force in passing over the
+ice, and cannot carry its violence very far; every now and then the
+doctor would see, through some rift in the storm, a clear sky and a
+quiet sea beyond the ice-fields; hence the <i>Forward</i> had only to make
+her way through the passes to find smooth sailing; but she ran a risk
+of being dashed against the moving masses which obeyed the motion of
+the waves. Notwithstanding, Hatteras succeeded in a few hours in
+carrying his vessel into smooth water, while the violence of the
+storm, now at its worst at the horizon, was dying away within a few
+cable-lengths from the <i>Forward</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Melville Bay then looked very different; by the influence of the winds
+and waves a large number of icebergs had been detached from the shores
+and were now floating northward, continually crashing against one
+another. They could be counted by hundreds; but the bay is very broad,
+and the brig avoided them without difficulty. The sight of these
+floating masses, which seemed to be racing together, was indeed
+magnificent.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was wild with enthusiasm about it, when Simpson, the
+harpooner, came up to him and asked him to notice the changing tints
+of the sea, which varied from deep blue to olive green; long bands ran
+from north to south with edges so sharply cut that the line of
+division could be seen as far as the horizon. Sometimes a transparent
+sheet would stretch out from an opaque one.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Dr. Clawbonny, what do you think of that?" said Simpson.</p>
+
+<p>"I agree, my friend, with what Scoresby said about these differently
+colored waters," answered the doctor, "namely, that the blue water
+does not contain the millions of animalcules and medusæ which the
+green water contains; he made a great many experiments to test it, and
+I am ready to agree with him."</p>
+
+<p>"O, but there's something else it shows!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if the <i>Forward</i> were only a whaler, I believe we should have
+some sport."</p>
+
+<p>"But," answered the doctor, "I don't see any whales."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall very soon, though, I promise you. It's great luck for a
+whaler to see those green patches in these latitudes."</p>
+
+<p>"Why so?" asked the doctor, whose curiosity was aroused by these
+remarks of a man who had had experience in what he was talking about.</p>
+
+<p>"Because," answered Simpson, "it is in that green water that most of
+the whales are caught."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the reason, Simpson?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because they get more food there."</p>
+
+<p>"You are sure of that?"</p>
+
+<p>"O, I have seen it a hundred times in Baffin's Bay! I don't see why
+the same shouldn't be the case in Melville Bay."</p>
+
+<p>"You must be right, Simpson."</p>
+
+<p>"And see," Simpson continued as he leaned over the rail,&mdash;"see there,
+Doctor."</p>
+
+<p>"One would say it was the track of a ship."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Simpson, "it's an oily substance that the whale leaves
+behind it. Really, the whale itself can't be far off."</p>
+
+<p>In fact, the atmosphere was filled with a strong fishy smell. The
+doctor began to examine the surface of the sea, and the harpooner's
+prediction was soon verified. Foker was heard shouting from aloft,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"A whale to leeward!"</p>
+
+<p>All turned their eyes in that direction; a low spout was seen rising
+from the sea about a mile from the brig.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 80">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="368">
+			<img src="images/080.jpg" alt="'There she spouts!'">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"There she spouts!" shouted Simpson, whose experienced eye soon
+detected it.</p>
+
+<p>"It's gone," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"We could soon find it again, if it were necessary," said Simpson,
+regretfully.</p>
+
+<p>But to his great surprise, although no one had dared to ask it,
+Hatteras gave the order to lower and man the whale-boat; he was glad
+to give the men some distraction, and also to get a few barrels of
+oil. They heard the order with great satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>Four sailors took their places in the whale-boat; Johnson took the
+helm; Simpson stood in the bow, harpoon in hand. The doctor insisted
+on joining the party. The sea was quite smooth. The whale-boat went
+very fast, and in about ten minutes she was a mile from the brig.</p>
+
+<p>The whale, having taken another breath, had dived again; but soon it
+came up and projected fifteen feet into the air that combination of
+gases and mucous fluid which escapes from its vent-holes.</p>
+
+<p>"There, there!" cried Simpson, pointing to a place about eight hundred
+yards from the boat.</p>
+
+<p>They approached it rapidly; and the brig, having also seen it, drew
+near slowly.</p>
+
+<p>The huge monster kept appearing above the waves, showing its black
+back, which resembled a great rock in the sea; a whale never swims
+rapidly unless pursued, and this one was letting itself be rocked by
+the waves.</p>
+
+<p>The hunters approached in silence, choosing the green water, which was
+so opaque as to prevent the whale from seeing them. It is always
+exciting to watch a frail boat attacking one of these monsters; this
+one was about one hundred and thirty feet long, and often between
+latitude 72&deg; and 80&deg; whales are found more than one hundred and
+twenty-four feet long; ancient writers have often spoken of some
+longer than seven hundred feet, but they are imaginary animals.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the boat was very near the whale. Simpson made a sign, the men
+stopped rowing, and, brandishing his harpoon, he hurled it skilfully;
+this, with sharp barbs, sank into the thick layers of fat. The wounded
+whale dived rapidly. At once the four oars were unshipped; the rope
+which was attached to the harpoon ran out rapidly, and the boat was
+dragged along while Johnson steered it skilfully.</p>
+
+<p>The whale swam away from the brig and hastened towards the moving
+icebergs; for half an hour it went on in this way; the cord had to be
+kept wet to prevent its taking fire from friction. When the animal
+seemed to go more slowly, the rope was dragged back and carefully
+coiled; the whale rose again to the surface, lashing violently with
+its tail; huge spouts of water were dashed up by it and fell in
+torrents on the boat, which now approached rapidly; Simpson had taken
+a long lance and was prepared to meet the whale face to face.</p>
+
+<a name="ill13"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 81">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="551">
+			<img src="images/081.jpg" alt="Johnson cut the line">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="551" align="center">
+			<small>"The whale swam away from the brig and hastened towards
+			the moving icebergs."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>But it plunged rapidly into a pass between two icebergs. Further
+pursuit seemed dangerous.</p>
+
+<p>"The devil!" said Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"Forward, forward, my friends," shouted Simpson, eager for the chase;
+"the whale is ours."</p>
+
+<p>"But we can't follow it among the icebergs," answered Johnson, turning
+the boat away.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes!" cried Simpson.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" said some of the sailors.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" cried others.</p>
+
+<p>During this discussion the whale had got between two icebergs which
+the wind and waves were driving together.</p>
+
+<p>The whale-boat was in danger of being dragged into this dangerous
+pass, when Johnson sprang forward, axe in hand, and cut the line.</p>
+
+<p>It was time; the two icebergs met with irresistible force, crushing
+the whale between them.</p>
+
+<p>"Lost!" cried Simpson.</p>
+
+<p>"Saved!" said Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word," said the doctor, who had not flinched, "that was well
+worth seeing!"</p>
+
+<p>The crushing power of these mountains is enormous. The whale was the
+victim of an accident that is very frequent in these waters. Scoresby
+tells us that in the course of a single summer thirty whalers have
+been lost in this way in Baffin's Bay; he saw a three-master crushed
+in one minute between two walls of ice, which drew together with
+fearful rapidity and sank the ship with all on board. Two other ships
+he himself saw cut through, as if by a long lance, by huge pieces of
+ice more than a hundred feet long.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later the whale-boat returned to the brig, and was
+hauled up to its usual place on deck.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a lesson," said Shandon, aloud, "for those who are foolhardy
+enough to venture into the passes!"</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap20"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XX.</h3>
+<h4>BEECHEY ISLAND.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>June 25th the <i>Forward</i> sighted Cape Dundas, at the northwest
+extremity of Prince of Wales Land. There they found more serious
+difficulties amid thicker ice. The channel here grows narrower, and
+the line of Crozier, Young, Day, and Lowther Islands ranged in a line,
+like forts in a harbor, drive the ice-streams nearer together. What
+would otherwise have taken the brig a day now detained her from June
+25th to the end of the month; she was continually obliged to stop, to
+retreat, and to wait for a favorable chance to reach Beechey Island.
+Meanwhile a great deal of coal was consumed; though during the
+frequent halts only small fires were kept burning, sufficient to keep
+steam up day and night.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras knew as well as Shandon the reduced state of their supply;
+but feeling sure that he would find fuel at Beechey Island, he did not
+wish to lose a minute for the sake of economy; he had been very much
+delayed by running south; and, although he had taken the precaution of
+leaving England in April, he now found himself no farther advanced
+than previous expeditions had been at that time of year.</p>
+
+<p>The 30th they passed Cape Walker at the northeast extremity of Prince
+of Wales Land; this is the farthest point seen by Kennedy and Bellot,
+May 3d, 1852, after an expedition across North Somerset. In 1851,
+Captain Ommaney of the Austin expedition had been fortunate enough to
+get fresh supplies there for his detachment.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 82">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="551">
+			<img src="images/082.jpg" alt="Cape Walker">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>This cape, which is very lofty, is remarkable for its reddish-brown
+color; in clear weather one can see as far as the entrance of
+Wellington Channel. Towards evening they saw Cape Bellot, separated
+from Cape Walker by MacLeon's Bay. Cape Bellot was so named in
+presence of that young French officer to whom the English expedition
+gave three cheers. At this place the coast consists of a yellowish
+limestone, very rough in appearance; it is protected by huge masses of
+ice which the north-wind collects there in the most imposing way. It
+was soon no longer to be seen from the <i>Forward's</i> deck, as she was
+making her way amid the loose ice towards Beechey Island through
+Barrow Strait.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras, having resolved to go on in a straight line, in order not to
+be carried past the island, hardly left the deck during the subsequent
+days; he would go aloft to the cross-trees in order to pick out the
+most favorable path for the brig. All that skill, coolness, boldness,
+and even maritime genius could do, was done by him while sailing
+through the strait. It is true that fortune did not favor him, for at
+that season he ought to have found the sea nearly open. But by dint of
+sparing neither steam, his men, nor himself, he succeeded in his aim.</p>
+<a name="note20"></a>
+<p>July 3d, at eleven o'clock in the morning, the ice-master saw land to
+the north; Hatteras soon made it out as Beechey Island, the general
+rendezvous for arctic explorers. Almost all the ships which sail in
+these latitudes touch here. Here Franklin passed his first winter
+before advancing into Wellington Channel. Here Creswell, MacClure's
+lieutenant, after a march of four hundred and sixty miles on the ice,<a href="#not20"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a>
+rejoined the <i>Phoenix</i> and returned to England. The last ship which
+anchored at Beechey Island before the <i>Forward</i> was the <i>Fox;</i>
+MacClintock took in supplies there, August 11, 1855, and repaired the
+dwellings and storehouses; that was but a short time previous.
+Hatteras knew all these details.</p>
+
+<p>The boatswain's heart beat strongly at the sight of this island; when
+he had last seen it he had been quartermaster on the <i>Phoenix;</i>
+Hatteras asked him about the coast, the place for anchoring, the
+possible change of the bottom. The weather was perfect; the
+thermometer marked 57&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Johnson," said the captain, "do you recognize this place?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Captain, it's Beechey Island! Only we ought to bear a little
+farther north; the coast is more easily approached there."</p>
+
+<p>"But the buildings, the stores?" said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"O, you can't see them till you get ashore; they are hidden behind
+those hillocks you see there!"</p>
+
+<p>"And did you carry large supplies there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they were large. The Admiralty sent us here in 1853, under the
+command of Captain Inglefield, with the steamer <i>Phoenix</i> and a
+transport, the <i>Breadalbane</i>, loaded with supplies; we carried enough
+to revictual a whole expedition."</p>
+
+<p>"But did not the commander of the <i>Fox</i> take a great deal away in
+1855?" said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"O, don't be anxious, Captain!" answered Johnson; "there will be
+enough left for you; the cold keeps everything wonderfully, and we
+shall find everything as fresh and in as good condition as on the
+first day."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not so anxious about the provisions," answered Hatteras; "I have
+enough for several years; what I stand in need of is coal."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Captain, we left more than a thousand tons there; so you can
+feel easy about that."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us stand nearer," resumed Hatteras, who, glass in hand, kept
+examining the shore.</p>
+
+<p>"You see that point," said Johnson; "when we've doubled it, we shall
+be near our anchorage. Yes, it's from there we started for England
+with Lieutenant Creswell and twelve sick men of the <i>Investigator</i>.
+But if we were fortunate enough to be of service to Captain MacClure's
+lieutenant, Bellot, the officer who accompanied us on the <i>Phoenix</i>,
+never saw his home again! Ah, that's a sad memory! But, Captain, I
+think it's here we ought to anchor."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," answered Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>And he gave the proper orders. The <i>Forward</i> lay in a little harbor
+sheltered from the north, east, and south winds, about a cable-length
+from the shore.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Wall," said Hatteras, "you will lower the launch and send six men
+to bring coal aboard."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," answered Wall.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going ashore in the gig with the doctor and the boatswain; Mr.
+Shandon, will you go with us?"</p>
+
+<p>"At your orders," answered Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later the doctor, with gun and baskets for any specimens
+he might find, took his place in the gig with his companions; ten
+minutes later they stepped out on a low, rocky shore.</p>
+
+<p>"Lead the way, Johnson," said Hatteras; "do you remember it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly, Captain; only here is a monument which I did not expect to
+find here."</p>
+
+<p>"That," shouted the doctor, "I know what it is; let's go look at it;
+it will tell us of itself why it was put here."</p>
+
+<p>The four men went up to it, and the doctor, baring his head, said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"This, my friends, is a monument raised to the memory of Franklin and
+his companions."</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 83">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="543">
+			<img src="images/083.jpg" alt="Monument to the memory of Franklin and his companions">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>In fact, Lady Franklin having, in 1855, sent a tablet of black marble
+to Dr. Kane, gave another in 1858 to MacClintock to be placed on
+Beechey Island. MacClintock discharged his duty, and placed this
+tablet near a funeral pile raised to the memory of Bellot by Sir John
+Barrow.</p>
+
+<p>This tablet bore the following inscription:&mdash;</p>
+<br>
+<center><small>TO THE MEMORY OF</small><br><br>
+<big>FRANKLIN, CROZIER, FITZ-JAMES,</big><br><br>
+<small>AND ALL THEIR GALLANT BROTHER OFFICERS AND FAITHFUL COMPANIONS</small><br><br>
+Who have suffered and perished<br>
+in the cause of science and the service of their country.<br><br>
+<b>THIS TABLET</b><br><br>
+Is erected near the spot where they passed their first arctic Winter,<br>
+and whence they issued forth to conquer difficulties or<br><br>
+TO DIE.<br><br>
+It commemorates the grief of their Admiring Countrymen and Friends,<br>
+and the anguish, subdued by Faith,<br>
+of her who has lost, in the heroic Leader of the Expedition, the Most Devoted<br>
+and Affectionate of Husbands.</center>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+
+<center>"<i>And so he bringeth them unto the Haven where they would be.</i>"<br>
+1855.</center>
+<br>
+<p>This stone, on a lonely shore of these remote regions, touched every
+one's heart; the doctor felt the tears rising in his eyes. On the very
+spot whence Franklin and his men sailed, full of hope and strength,
+there was now merely a slab of marble to commemorate them; and in
+spite of this solemn warning of fate, the <i>Forward</i> was about to
+follow the path of the <i>Erebus</i> and <i>Terror</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras was the first to rouse himself; he ascended quickly a rather
+high hillock, which was almost entirely bare of snow.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain," said Johnson, following him, "from there we ought to see
+the stores."</p>
+
+<p>Shandon and the doctor joined them just as they reached the top of the
+hill.</p>
+
+<p>But their eyes saw nothing but large plains with no trace of a
+building.</p>
+
+<p>"This is very strange," said the boatswain.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, these stores?" said Hatteras, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know,&mdash;I don't see&mdash;" stammered Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"You must have mistaken the path," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Still it seems to me," resumed Johnson after a moment's reflection,
+"that at this very spot&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Hatteras, impatiently, "where shall we go?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go down again," said the boatswain, "for it's possible I've
+lost my way! In seven years I may have forgotten the place."</p>
+
+<p>"Especially," said the doctor, "when the country is so monotonous."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet&mdash;" muttered Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>Shandon said not a word. After walking a few minutes, Johnson stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, "I'm not mistaken."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Hatteras, looking around.</p>
+
+<p>"What makes you say so, Johnson?" asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see this little rise in the earth?" asked the boatswain,
+pointing downwards to a mound in which three elevations could be
+clearly seen.</p>
+
+<p>"What does that mean?" asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"There," answered Johnson, "are the three tombs of Franklin's sailors.
+I'm sure of it! I'm not mistaken, and the stores must be within a
+hundred paces of us, and if they're not there,&mdash;it's because&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He durst not finish his sentence; Hatteras ran forward, and terrible
+despair seized him. There ought to stand those much-needed
+storehouses, with supplies of all sorts on which he had been counting;
+but ruin, pillage, and destruction had passed over that place where
+civilized hands had accumulated resources for battered sailors. Who
+had committed these depredations? Wild animals, wolves, foxes, bears?
+No, for they would have destroyed only the provisions; and there was
+left no shred of a tent, not a piece of wood, not a scrap of iron, no
+bit of any metal, nor&mdash;what was more serious for the men of the
+<i>Forward</i>&mdash;a single lump of coal.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently the Esquimaux, who have often had much to do with European
+ships, had finally learned the value of these objects; since the visit
+of the <i>Fox</i> they had come frequently to this great storehouse, and
+had pillaged incessantly, with the intention of leaving no trace of
+what had been there; and now a long drift of half-melted snow covered
+the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras was baffled. The doctor gazed and shook his head. Shandon
+said nothing, but an attentive observer would have noticed a wicked
+smile about his lips.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment the men sent by Wall arrived. They took it all in at a
+glance. Shandon went up to the captain and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Hatteras, we need not despair; fortunately we are near the
+entrance to Barrow Strait, which will carry us back to Baffin's Bay."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Shandon," answered Hatteras, "we are fortunately near the
+entrance of Wellington Channel, and it will lead us to the north."</p>
+
+<p>"And how shall we go, Captain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Under sail, sir. We have two months' fuel left, and that is more than
+we shall need for next winter."</p>
+
+<p>"Permit me to say," began Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>"I permit you to follow me to the ship, sir," was Hatteras's answer.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 84">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="279">
+			<img src="images/084.jpg" alt="He collected a few plants">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>And turning his back on his first officer, he returned to the brig and
+locked himself in his cabin.</p>
+
+<p>For two days the wind was unfavorable; the captain did not come on
+deck. The doctor profited by this forced delay to examine Beechey
+Island; he collected a few plants which a comparatively high
+temperature let grow here and there on some rocks which projected from
+the snow, such as heather, a few lichens, a sort of yellow ranunculus,
+a plant like sorrel with leaves a trifle larger, and some sturdy
+saxifrages.</p>
+
+<p>The fauna of this country was much richer; the doctor saw large flocks
+of geese and cranes flying northward; partridges, eider-ducks,
+northern divers, numerous ptarmigans, which are delicious eating,
+noisy flocks of kittiwakes, and great white-bellied loons represented
+the winged tribe. The doctor was lucky enough to kill some gray hares,
+which had not yet put on their white winter coat of fur, and a blue
+fox, which Duke skilfully caught. A few bears, evidently accustomed to
+fear men, could not be approached, and the seals were very timid,
+probably for the same reason. The harbor was full of a very good
+tasting shellfish. The genus <i>articulata</i>, order <i>diptera</i>, family
+<i>culicides</i>, division <i>nemocera</i>, was represented by a simple
+mosquito, a single one, which the doctor, though much bitten, had the
+pleasure of catching. As a conchologist, he was less fortunate, and he
+was obliged to content himself with a sort of mussel and some
+bivalves.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 85">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="553">
+			<img src="images/085.jpg" alt="The doctor hunting with Duke">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table><br>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap21"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXI.</h3>
+<h4>THE DEATH OF BELLOT.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The temperature remained at 57&deg; during July 3d and 4th; this was the
+highest temperature observed. But on Thursday, the 5th, the wind
+shifted to the southeast, with violent snow-squalls. The thermometer
+fell twenty-three degrees in the preceding night. Hatteras,
+indifferent to the hostility of the crew, gave the order to set sail.
+For thirteen days, ever since passing Cape Dundas, the <i>Forward</i> had
+not gone a single degree farther north; hence the party represented by
+Clifton was dissatisfied; their wishes, it is true, coincided with
+those of the captain, namely, that they should make their way through
+Wellington Channel, and they were all glad to be off once more.</p>
+
+<p>It was with difficulty that sail was set; but having in the course of
+the night run up the mainsail and topsails, Hatteras plunged boldly
+into the ice, which the current was driving towards the south. The
+crew became very tired of this tortuous navigation, which kept them
+very busy with the sails.</p>
+
+<p>Wellington Channel is not very broad; it lies between North Devon on
+the east and Cornwallis Island on the west; for a long time this
+island was considered a peninsula. It was Sir John Franklin who
+circumnavigated it, in 1846, from the western side, going about its
+northern coast.</p>
+
+<a name="ill14"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 86">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="548">
+			<img src="images/086.jpg" alt="The Forward in Wellington Channel">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="548" align="center">
+			<small>"The <i>Forward</i> in Wellington Channel."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The exploration of Wellington Channel was made in 1851, by Captain
+Penny, in the whale-ships <i>Lady Franklin</i> and <i>Sophia;</i> one of his
+lieutenants, Stewart, who reached Cape Beechey, latitude 76&deg; 20',
+discovered the open sea. The open sea! It was for that Hatteras
+longed.</p>
+
+<p>"What Stewart found, I shall find," he said to the doctor; "and I
+shall be able to get to the Pole under sail."</p>
+
+<p>"But," answered the doctor, "don't you fear lest the crew&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The crew!" said Hatteras, coldly.</p>
+
+<p>Then in a lower tone he murmured,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Poor men!" much to the doctor's surprise.</p>
+
+<p>It was the first sentiment of this sort which he had ever noticed in
+the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he went on warmly, "they must follow me, and they shall."</p>
+
+<p>Still, if the <i>Forward</i> need not fear collision with the ice-streams,
+she made but little way northward, being much delayed by contrary
+winds. With some difficulty they got by Capes Spencer and Innis, and
+Tuesday, the 10th, latitude 75&deg; was at last reached, much to Clifton's
+joy.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Forward</i> was now at the very spot where the American ships, the
+<i>Rescue</i> and the <i>Advance</i>, commanded by Captain Haven, ran such
+terrible dangers. Dr. Kane accompanied this expedition; towards the
+end of September, 1850, these ships were caught in the ice, and
+carried with irresistible force into Lancaster Sound.</p>
+
+<p>Shandon told James Wall about it in the presence of some of the men.</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>Advance</i> and the <i>Rescue</i>," he said, "were so tossed about by
+ice, that they could keep no fires on board; and yet the thermometer
+stood at 18&deg; below zero. During the whole winter the crews were kept
+imprisoned, ready to abandon their ships, and for three weeks they did
+not take off their clothes! It was a terrible situation; after
+drifting a thousand miles, they were driven to the middle of Baffin's
+Bay!"</p>
+
+<p>One may easily judge of the effect of such a narration on a crew
+already discontented.</p>
+
+<p>While this conversation was going on, Johnson was talking with the
+doctor about an event which had taken place here; the doctor, at his
+request, told him the exact moment when the brig reached latitude 75&deg;
+30'.</p>
+
+<p>"There it is! there it is!" said Johnson, "there is that unlucky
+land!"</p>
+
+<p>And so speaking, tears came into the boatswain's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean Lieutenant Bellot's death," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, of that brave, good man!"</p>
+
+<p>"And it was here, you say, that it took place?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just here, on this part of the coast of North Devon. It was very
+great ill-luck, and this would not have happened if Captain Pullen had
+come on board sooner."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, Johnson?"</p>
+<a name="note21"></a>
+<p>"Listen, Doctor, and you will see by how slight a thread life is held.
+You know that Lieutenant Bellot had already made an expedition in
+search of Franklin, in 1850?"<a href="#not21"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a></p>
+
+<p>"Yes; in the <i>Prince Albert</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, in 1853, having returned to France, he got permission to sail
+in the <i>Phoenix</i>, in which I was a sailor, under Captain Inglefield.
+We came with the <i>Breadalbane</i> to carry supplies to Beechey Island."</p>
+
+<p>"Those which we did not find!"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly, Doctor. We arrived at Beechey Island at the beginning of
+August; the 10th of that month, Captain Inglefield left the <i>Phoenix</i>
+to rejoin Captain Pullen, who had been away for a month from his ship,
+the <i>North Star</i>. He intended on his return to send the Admiralty
+despatches to Sir Edward Belcher, who was wintering in Wellington
+Channel. Now, shortly after our captain's departure, Captain Pullen
+reached his ship. If he had only come back before Captain Inglefield
+had left! Lieutenant Bellot, fearing that our captain's absence might
+be a long one, and knowing that the Admiralty despatches were
+important, offered to carry them himself. He left the two ships under
+Captain Pullen's charge, and left August 12, with a sledge and an
+india-rubber canoe. He took with him Harvey, quartermaster of the
+<i>North Star</i>, and three sailors, Madden, David Hook, and me. We
+thought that Sir Edward Belcher would be somewhere near Cape Beecher,
+at the northern part of the channel; hence we made for that part in
+our sledge, keeping on the east bank. The first day we encamped three
+miles from Cape Innis; the next day we stopped on the ice nearly three
+miles from Cape Bowden. During the night, which was as bright as day,
+land being only three miles distant, Lieutenant Bellot determined to
+go and camp there; he tried to reach it in the canoe; a violent
+southeast breeze drove him back twice; Harvey and Madden tried in
+their turn, and with success; they carried a rope, and with it they
+established communication with the shore; three objects were carried
+across by it; but at the fourth attempt, we felt the ice moving away
+from us; Mr. Bellot shouted to his companions to loosen the rope, and
+we (the lieutenant, David Hook, and I) were carried to a great
+distance from the shore. Then a strong southeaster was blowing, and
+snow was falling. But we were not in any great danger, and he might
+have been saved, since the rest of us were saved."</p>
+
+<p>Johnson stopped for a moment, and gazed at the ill-fated shore, then
+he went on:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"After losing sight of our companions, we tried at first to shelter
+ourselves under the cover of our sledge, but in vain; then with our
+knives we began to cut a house in the ice. Mr. Bellot sat down for
+half an hour, and talked with us about the danger of our situation; I
+told him I was not afraid. 'With God's protection,' he said, 'not a
+hair of our heads shall be hurt.' I then asked him what time it was.
+He answered, 'About quarter past six.' It was quarter past six in the
+morning of Thursday, August 18th. Then Mr. Bellot bound on his books,
+and said he wanted to go and see how the ice was moving; he was gone
+only four minutes, when I went to seek him behind the floe which
+sheltered us; but I did not find him, and, returning to our retreat, I
+saw his stick on the opposite side of a crevasse about three fathoms
+wide, where the ice was all broken. I shouted, but there was no
+answer. At that time the wind was blowing very hard. I searched all
+around, but I could find no trace of the poor lieutenant."</p>
+
+<p>"And what do you suppose became of him?" asked the doctor, who was
+much moved by this account.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 87">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="554">
+			<img src="images/087.jpg" alt="What happened to Bellot">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"I suppose that when he left the shelter, the wind drove him into the
+crevasse, and that, being thickly clad, he could not swim to the
+surface. O Dr. Clawbonny, I never felt worse in my life! I could not
+believe it! That brave officer fell a victim to his sense of duty! For
+you know that it was in order to obey Captain Pullen's instructions
+that he was trying to reach the land before the ice began to break! He
+was a brave man, liked by every one, faithful, courageous! All England
+mourned him, and even the Esquimaux, when they heard of his death from
+Captain Inglefield, when he returned from Pound Bay, did nothing but
+weep and repeat, 'Poor Bellot! Poor Bellot!'"</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 88">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="537">
+			<img src="images/088.jpg" alt="Bellot's stick">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"But you and your companions, Johnson," asked the doctor, much moved
+by this touching account,&mdash;"how did you manage to get to shore?"</p>
+
+<p>"O, it was very simple! We remained twenty-four hours on the ice
+without food or fire, but finally we reached a firmly fastened
+ice-field; we sprang upon it, and with an oar we got near a floe
+capable of supporting us, and being controlled like a boat. In that
+way we reached the shore, but alone, without our brave officer."</p>
+
+<p>At the end of this account the <i>Forward</i> had passed by this fatal
+shore, and Johnson soon lost sight of the scene of this terrible
+catastrophe. The next day they left Griffin's Bay on the starboard,
+and two days later, Capes Grinnell and Helpman; finally, July 14th,
+they doubled Osborne Point, and the 15th the brig anchored in Baring
+Bay at the end of the channel. The navigation had not been very
+difficult; Hatteras found a sea nearly as free as that by which
+Belcher profited to go and winter with the <i>Pioneer</i> and <i>Assistance</i>
+in latitude 77&deg;. That was his first winter, 1852-53, for the next he
+spent in Baring Bay, where the <i>Forward</i> now lay at anchor.</p>
+
+<p>It was in consequence of the most terrible dangers and trials that he
+was obliged to abandon the <i>Assistance</i> in the midst of the eternal
+ice.</p>
+
+<p>Shandon gave a full account of this catastrophe to the demoralized
+sailors. Was Hatteras aware of the treachery of his first officer? It
+is impossible to say, but, at any rate, he said nothing about it.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of Baring Bay is a narrow canal uniting Wellington Channel
+with Queen's Strait. There the ice had accumulated very closely.
+Hatteras made vain efforts to get through the passages to the north of
+Hamilton Island; the wind was unfavorable; hence it was necessary to
+go between Hamilton and Cornwallis Islands; five precious days were
+lost in vain attempts. The air grew colder, and, July 19th, fell as
+low as 26&deg;; the next day was warmer, but this harbinger of the arctic
+winter warned Hatteras not to linger longer. The wind seemed to blow
+steadily from the west and delayed his progress. And yet he was in
+haste to reach the point whence Stewart saw an open sea. The 19th he
+resolved to enter the channel at any price; the wind blew dead against
+the brig, which, with her screw, could have made headway against the
+violent snow-squalls, but Hatteras had before all to be economical
+with the fuel; on the other hand, the channel was too broad to permit
+of the brig being towed. Hatteras, without taking into account the
+fatigue of his crew, made use of a device which whalers often employ
+under similar circumstances. He lowered the small boats to the surface
+of the water, not letting them free from their tackle; then they were
+made fast, fore and aft; oars were put out, to starboard on one side
+and to port on the other; the men sat on the thwarts and rowed
+vigorously, so as to propel the brig against the wind.</p>
+
+<a name="ill15"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 89">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="544">
+			<img src="images/089.jpg" alt="Hatteras made use of a device which whalers employ">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="544" align="center">
+			<small>Hatteras made use of a device which whalers employ.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The <i>Forward</i> made slight headway; this method of working was very
+fatiguing; the men began to murmur. For four days they advanced in
+that way, until July 23d, when they reached Baring Island, in Queen's
+Channel.</p>
+
+<p>The wind was still unfavorable. The crew could go no farther. The
+doctor found the strength of the crew much pulled down, and he thought
+he detected the first symptoms of scurvy; he used every precaution
+against this terrible disease, having abundant supplies of lime-juice
+and chalk-pastilles.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras soon saw there was nothing more to be got from his crew;
+kindness and persuasion were fruitless; he resolved to employ
+severity, and, if need be, to be pitiless; he distrusted especially
+Richard Shandon, and even James Wall, who, however, never dared to
+speak too loud. Hatteras had on his side the doctor, Johnson, Bell,
+and Simpson; these were all devoted to him body and soul. Among the
+uncertain were Foker, Bolton, Wolston, the gunner, Brunton, the first
+engineer, who might at any moment declare against him. As to the
+others, Pen, Gripper, Clifton, and Warren, they openly meditated
+mutiny; they wanted to bring their companions over and compel the
+<i>Forward</i> to return to England.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras soon saw that he could get no more work from his dispirited
+crew, who now were worn out with fatigue from their hard work. For
+twenty-four hours they remained in sight of Baring Island without
+getting a foot forward. Still the weather grew colder, and in these
+high latitudes even July felt the influence of the approaching winter.
+The 24th, the thermometer fell to 22&deg;. The young ice formed during the
+night to a depth of about half an inch; if snow should fall on it, it
+would soon be strong enough to bear the weight of a man. The sea soon
+acquired the turbid tint which indicates the formation of the first
+crystals.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras read aright these alarming signs; if the passes should close,
+he would be obliged to winter here, far from the aim of his voyage,
+and without even having seen that open sea which he must have got very
+near, according to the accounts of his predecessors. Hence he resolved
+to get on at any price a few degrees farther north; seeing that he
+could neither try rowing with his crew exhausted, nor going under sail
+with the wind always unfavorable, he ordered the fires to be lighted.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap22"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXII.</h3>
+<h4>THE FIRST SIGNS OF MUTINY.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>At this unexpected command, the surprise on board of the <i>Forward</i> was
+very great.</p>
+
+<p>"Light the fires!" said some.</p>
+
+<p>"With what?" said others.</p>
+
+<p>"When we have only two months' supply in the hold!" cried Pen.</p>
+
+<p>"And how are we to keep warm in the winter?" asked Clifton.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall have to burn the ship down to the water-line, I suppose,"
+said Gripper.</p>
+
+<p>"And cram all the masts into the stove," answered Warren, "from the
+foretopmast to the jib-boom."</p>
+
+<p>Shandon gazed intently at Wall. The surprised engineers hesitated to
+go down into the engine-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you hear what I said?" shouted the captain, angrily.</p>
+
+<p>Brunton walked toward the hatchway; but he stopped before going down.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go, Brunton," some one said.</p>
+
+<p>"Who spoke then?" shouted Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"I did," said Pen, approaching the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"And what is it you're saying?" asked the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"I say&mdash;I say," answered Pen with many oaths,&mdash;"I say that we have had
+enough of this, that we are not going any farther, that we don't want
+to wear ourselves out with fatigue and cold during the winter, and
+that the fires shall not be lighted."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Shandon," answered Hatteras, coldly, "have this man put in
+irons."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Captain," said Shandon, "what this man said&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If you repeat what this man said," retorted Hatteras, "I shall order
+you to your cabin and confine you there. Seize that man! Do you hear?"</p>
+
+<p>Johnson, Bell, and Simpson stepped towards the sailor, who was beside
+himself with wrath.</p>
+
+<p>"The first man who lays a finger on me&mdash;" he cried, seizing a
+handspike, which he flourished about his head.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras walked towards him.</p>
+
+<p>"Pen," he said very quietly, "if you move hand or foot, I shall blow
+your brains out!"</p>
+
+<p>With these words he drew a revolver and aimed it at the sailor.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 90">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="547">
+			<img src="images/090.jpg" alt="He drew a revolver and aimed it">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>A murmur arose from the crew.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a word from any of you," said Hatteras, "or he's a dead man."</p>
+
+<p>At that moment Johnson and Bell disarmed Pen, who no longer resisted,
+and suffered himself to be led to the bottom of the hold.</p>
+
+<p>"Now go below, Brunton," said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>The engineer, followed by Plover and Warren, went below. Hatteras
+returned to the quarter-deck.</p>
+
+<p>"That Pen is a worthless fellow," the doctor said to him.</p>
+
+<p>"No man was ever nearer death," answered the captain, simply.</p>
+
+<p>Soon there was enough steam on; the anchors of the <i>Forward</i> were
+raised; and the brig started eastward, heading for Point Beecher, and
+cutting through the newly formed ice.</p>
+
+<p>A great number of islands lie between Baring Island and Point Beecher,
+scattered in the midst of the ice-fields; the ice-streams crowd in
+great numbers in the little straits into which they divide the sea;
+when the weather is cold they have a tendency to accumulate; here and
+there hummocks were forming, and it was easy to see that the floes,
+already harder and more crowded, would, under the influence of the
+first frosts, soon form an impenetrable mass.</p>
+
+<p>It was with great difficulty that the <i>Forward</i> made her way through
+the whirling snow. Still, with the variability which is a peculiarity
+of these regions, the sun would appear from time to time; the air grew
+much milder; the ice melted as if by enchantment, and a clear expanse
+of water, a most welcome sight to the eyes of the crew, spread out
+before them where a few moments before the ice had blocked their
+progress. All over the horizon there spread magnificent orange tints,
+which rested their eyes, weary with gazing at the eternal snow.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 91">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="388">
+			<img src="images/091.jpg" alt="Steaming northward">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Thursday, July 26th, the <i>Forward</i> coasted along Dundas Island, and
+then stood more northward; but there she found herself face to face
+with a thick mass of ice, eight or nine feet high, consisting of
+little icebergs washed away from the shore; they had to prolong the
+curve they were making to the west. The continual cracking of the ice,
+joining with the creaking of the rolling ship, sounded like a gloomy
+lamentation. At last the brig found a passage and advanced through it
+slowly; often a huge floe delayed her for hours; the fog embarrassed
+the steersman; at one moment he could see a mile ahead, and it was
+easy to avoid all obstacles; but again the snow-squalls would hide
+everything from their sight at the distance of a cable's length. The
+sea ran very high.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the smooth clouds assumed a strange appearance, as if they
+were reflecting the ice-banks; there were days when the sun could not
+pierce the dense mist.</p>
+
+<p>The birds were still very numerous, and their cries were deafening;
+the seals, lying lazily on the drifting ice, raised their heads
+without being frightened, and turned their long necks to watch the
+ship go by. Often, too, the brig would leave bits of sheathing on the
+ice against which she grazed.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 92">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="543">
+			<img src="images/092.jpg" alt="Seals lying on the drifting ice">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Finally, after six days of this slow sailing, August 1st, Point
+Beecher was made, sighted in the north; Hatteras passed the last hours
+in the lookout; the open sea, which Stewart had seen May 30, 1851,
+towards latitude 76&deg; 20', could not be far off, and yet, as far as
+Hatteras could see, he could make out no sign of an open polar sea. He
+came down without saying a word.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you believe in an open sea?" asked Shandon of the second mate.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm beginning to have my doubts," answered James Wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Wasn't I right in considering this pretended discovery as a mere
+hypothesis? No one agreed with me, and you too, Wall,&mdash;you sided
+against me."</p>
+
+<p>"They'll believe you next time, Shandon."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered, "when it's too late."</p>
+
+<p>And he returned to his cabin, where he had kept himself almost
+exclusively since his discussion with the captain.</p>
+
+<p>Towards evening the wind shifted to the south. Hatteras then set his
+sails and had the fires put out; for many days the crew were kept hard
+at work; every few minutes they had to tack or bear away, or to
+shorten sail quickly to stop the course of the brig; the braces could
+not run easily through the choked-up pulleys, and added to the fatigue
+of the crew; more than a week was required for them to reach Point
+Barrow. The <i>Forward</i> had not made thirty miles in ten days.</p>
+
+<p>Then the wind flew around to the north, and the engine was started
+once more. Hatteras still hoped to find an open sea beyond latitude
+77&deg;, such as Edward Belcher had seen.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, if he believed in Penny's account, the part of the sea which
+he was now crossing ought to have been open; for Penny, having reached
+the limit of the ice, saw in a canoe the shores of Queen's Channel at
+latitude 77&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>Must he regard their reports as apochryphal, or had an unusually early
+winter fallen upon these regions?</p>
+
+<p>August 15th, Mount Percy reared into the mist its peaks covered with
+eternal snow; a violent wind was hurling in their teeth a fierce
+shower of hail. The next day the sun set for the first time,
+terminating at last the long series of days twenty-four hours long.
+The men had finally accustomed themselves to this perpetual daylight;
+but the animals minded it very little; the Greenland dogs used to go
+to sleep at the usual hour, and even Duke lay down at the same hour
+every evening, as if the night were dark.</p>
+
+<p>Still, during the nights following August 16th the darkness was never
+very marked; the sun, although it had set, still gave light enough by
+refraction.</p>
+
+<p>August 19th, after taking a satisfactory observation, Cape Franklin
+was seen on the eastern side, and opposite it Cape Lady Franklin; at
+what was probably the farthest point reached by this bold explorer,
+his fellow-countrymen wanted the name of his devoted wife should be
+remembered along with his own, as an emblem of the sympathy which
+always united them. The doctor was much moved by this sight in this
+distant country.</p>
+
+<p>In accordance with Johnson's advice, he began to accustom himself to
+enduring low temperature; he kept almost all the time on deck, braving
+the cold, wind, and snow. Although he had grown a little thinner, he
+did not suffer from the severity of the climate. Besides, he expected
+other dangers, and he rejoiced, almost, as he saw the winter
+approaching.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 93">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="377">
+			<img src="images/093.jpg" alt="'See those flocks of birds flying south!'">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"See," said he one day to Johnson,&mdash;"see those flocks of birds flying
+south! How they fly and cry adieu!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Dr. Clawbonny," answered Johnson, "something has told them it
+was time to go, and they are off."</p>
+
+<p>"More than one of our men, Johnson, would be glad to imitate them, I
+fancy."</p>
+
+<p>"They are timid fellows, Doctor; what a bird can't do, a man ought to
+try! Those birds have no supply of food, as we have, and they must
+support themselves elsewhere. But sailors, with a good deck under the
+feet, ought to go to the end of the world."</p>
+
+<p>"You hope, then, that Hatteras will succeed in his projects?"</p>
+
+<p>"He will succeed, Doctor."</p>
+
+<p>"I agree with you, Johnson, even if only one faithful man accompanies
+him&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There will be two of us!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Johnson," the doctor answered, pressing the brave sailor's hand.</p>
+
+<p>Prince Albert's Land, along which the <i>Forward</i> was now coasting, is
+also called Grinnell's Land; and although Hatteras, from his dislike
+to Americans, never was willing to give it this name, nevertheless, it
+is the one by which it is generally known. This is the reason of this
+double title: at the same time that the Englishman Penny gave it the
+name of Prince Albert, the captain of the <i>Rescue</i>, Lieutenant
+DeHaven, named it Grinnell's Land, in honor of the American merchant
+who had fitted out the expedition in New York.</p>
+
+<p>As the brig followed the coast it met with serious difficulties, going
+sometimes under sail, sometimes under steam. August 18th, Mount
+Britannia was sighted through the mist, and the next day the <i>Forward</i>
+cast anchor in Northumberland Bay. The ship was completely protected.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap23"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIII.</h3>
+<h4>ATTACKED BY THE ICE.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Hatteras, after seeing to the anchorage of the ship, returned to his
+cabin, took out his chart, and marked his position on it very
+carefully; he found himself in latitude 76&deg; 57', and longitude 99&deg;
+20', that is to say, only three minutes from latitude 77&deg;. It was here
+that Sir Edward Belcher passed his first winter with the <i>Pioneer</i> and
+<i>Assistance</i>. It was from here that he organized his sledge and canoe
+expeditions; he discovered Table Island, North Cornwall, Victoria
+Archipelago, and Belcher Channel. Having gone beyond latitude 78&deg;, he
+saw the coast inclining towards the southeast. It seemed as if it
+ought to connect with Jones's Strait, which opens into Baffin's Bay.
+But, says the report, an open sea, in the northwest, "stretched as far
+as the eye could reach."</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras gazed with emotion at that portion of the charts where a
+large white space marked unknown regions, and his eyes always returned
+to the open polar sea.</p>
+
+<p>"After so many statements," he said to himself,&mdash;"after the accounts
+of Stewart, Penny, and Belcher, doubt is impossible! These bold
+sailors saw, and with their own eyes! Can I doubt their word? No! But
+yet if this sea is closed by an early winter&mdash; But no, these
+discoveries have been made at intervals of several years; this sea
+exists, and I shall find it! I shall see it!"</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 94">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="548">
+			<img src="images/094.jpg" alt="The Forward at anchor">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Hatteras went upon the quarter-deck. A dense mist enveloped the
+<i>Forward;</i> from the deck one could hardly see the top of the mast.
+Nevertheless, Hatteras ordered the ice-master below, and took his
+place; he wanted to make use of the first break in the fog to look at
+the horizon in the northwest.</p>
+
+<p>Shandon took occasion to say to the second mate,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Wall, and the open sea?"</p>
+
+<p>"You were right, Shandon," answered Wall, "and we have only six weeks'
+coal in the bunkers."</p>
+
+<p>"The doctor will invent some scientific way," continued Shandon, "of
+heating us without fuel. I've heard of making ice with fire; perhaps
+he will make fire with ice."</p>
+
+<p>Shandon returned to his cabin, shrugging his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, August 20th, the fog lifted for a few minutes. From the
+deck they saw Hatteras in his lofty perch gazing intently towards the
+horizon; then he came down without saying a word and ordered them to
+set sail; but it was easy to see that his hopes had been once more
+deceived.</p>
+<a name="note22"></a>
+<p>The <i>Forward</i> heaved anchor and resumed her uncertain path northward.
+So wearisome was it that the main-topsail and fore-topsail yards were
+lowered with all their rigging; the masts were also lowered, and it
+was no longer possible to place any reliance on the varying wind,
+which, moreover, the winding nature of the passes made almost useless;
+large white masses were gathering here and there in the sea, like
+spots of oil; they indicated an approaching thaw;<a href="#not22"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> as soon as the wind
+began to slacken, the sea began to freeze again, but when the wind
+arose this young ice would break and disperse. Towards evening the
+thermometer fell to 17&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>When the brig arrived at the end of a closed pass, it rushed on at
+full steam against the opposing obstacle. Sometimes they thought her
+fairly stopped; but some unexpected motion of the ice-streams would
+open a new passage into which she would plunge boldly; during these
+stoppages the steam would escape from the safety-valves and fall on
+the deck in the form of snow. There was another obstacle to the
+progress of the brig; the ice would get caught in the screw, and it
+was so hard that the engine could not break it; it was then necessary
+to reverse the engines, turn the brig back, and send some men to free
+the snow with axes and levers; hence arose many difficulties,
+fatigues, and delays.</p>
+
+<p>It went on in this way for thirteen days; the <i>Forward</i> advanced
+slowly through Penny Strait. The crew murmured, but obeyed; they knew
+that retreat was now impossible. The advance towards the north was
+less perilous than a return to the south; it was time to think of
+going into winter-quarters.</p>
+
+<p>The sailors talked together about their condition, and one day they
+even began to talk with Shandon, who, they knew, was on their side. He
+so far forgot his duty as an officer as to allow them to discuss in
+his presence the authority of his captain.</p>
+
+<p>"So you say, Mr. Shandon," asked Gripper, "that we can't go back now?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, it's too late," answered Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said another sailor, "we need only look forward to going into
+winter-quarters?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's our only resource! No one would believe me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The next time," said Pen, who had returned to duty, "they will
+believe you."</p>
+
+<p>"Since I sha'n't be in command&mdash;" answered Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>"Who can tell?" remarked Pen. "John Hatteras is free to go as far as
+he chooses, but no one is obliged to follow him."</p>
+
+<p>"Just remember," resumed Gripper, "his first voyage to Baffin's Bay
+and what came of it!"</p>
+
+<p>"And the voyage of the <i>Farewell</i>," said Clifton, "which was lost in
+the Spitzenberg seas under his command."</p>
+
+<p>"And from which he came back alone," added Gripper.</p>
+
+<p>"Alone, but with his dog," said Clifton.</p>
+
+<p>"We don't care to sacrifice ourselves for the whims of that man,"
+continued Pen.</p>
+
+<p>"Nor to lose all the wages we've earned so hard."</p>
+
+<p>They all recognized Clifton by those words.</p>
+
+<p>"When we pass latitude 78&deg;," he added, "and we are not far from it,
+that will make just three hundred and seventy-five pounds for each
+man, six times eight degrees."</p>
+
+<p>"But," asked Gripper, "sha'n't we lose them if we go back without the
+captain?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered Clifton, "if we can prove that it was absolutely
+necessary to return."</p>
+
+<p>"But the captain&mdash;still&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be uneasy, Gripper," answered Pen; "we shall have a captain,
+and a good one, whom Mr. Shandon knows. When a captain goes mad, he is
+dismissed and another appointed. Isn't that so, Mr. Shandon?"</p>
+
+<p>"My friends," answered Shandon, evasively, "you will always find me
+devoted to you. But let us wait and see what turns up."</p>
+
+<p>The storm, as may be seen, was gathering over Hatteras's head; but he
+pushed on boldly, firm, energetic, and confident. In fact, if he had
+not always managed the brig as he wanted to, and carried her where he
+was anxious to go, he had still been very successful; the distance
+passed over in five months was as great as what it had taken other
+explorers two or three years to make. Hatteras was now obliged to go
+into winter-quarters, but this would not alarm men of courage,
+experience, and confidence. Had not Sir John Ross and MacClure spent
+three successive winters in the arctic regions? Could not he do what
+they had done?</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course," Hatteras used to say, "and more too, if need be.
+Ah!" he said regretfully to the doctor, "why was I unable to get
+through Smith's Sound, at the north of Baffin's Bay? I should be at
+the Pole now!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," the doctor used invariably to answer,&mdash;if necessary he could
+have invented confidence,&mdash;"we shall get there, Captain, but, it is
+true, at the ninety-ninth meridian instead of the seventy-fifth; but
+what difference does that make? If every road leads to Rome, it is
+even surer that every meridian leads to the Pole."</p>
+
+<p>August 31st, the thermometer fell to 13&deg;. The end of the summer was
+evidently near; the <i>Forward</i> left Exmouth Island to starboard, and
+three days afterward she passed Table Island, lying in the middle of
+Belcher Channel. Earlier in the season it would have been possible to
+reach Baffin's Bay through this channel, but at this time it was
+impossible to think of it. This arm of the sea was completely filled
+with ice, and would not have offered a drop of open water to the prow
+of the <i>Forward;</i> for the next eight months their eyes would see
+nothing but boundless, motionless ice-fields.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, they could still get a few minutes farther north, but
+only by breaking the new ice with huge beams, or by blowing it up with
+charges of powder. They especially had cause to fear calm weather
+while the temperature was so low, for the passes closed quickly, and
+they rejoiced even at contrary winds. A calm night, and everything was
+frozen!</p>
+
+<p>Now the <i>Forward</i> could not winter where she was, exposed to the wind,
+icebergs, and the drift of the channel; a safe protection was the
+first thing to be found; Hatteras hoped to gain the coast of New
+Cornwall, and to find, beyond Point Albert, a bay sufficiently
+sheltered. Hence he persisted in crowding northward.</p>
+
+<p>But, September 8, an impenetrable, continuous mass of ice lay between
+him and the north; the temperature fell to 10&deg;. Hatteras, with an
+anxious heart, in vain sought for a passage, risking his ship a
+hundred times and escaping from his perils with wonderful skill. He
+might have been accused of imprudence, recklessness, folly, blindness,
+but he was one of the best of sailors.</p>
+
+<p>The situation of the <i>Forward</i> became really dangerous; in fact, the
+sea was closing behind her, and in a few hours the ice grew so hard
+that men could run upon it and tow the brig in perfect safety.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras, not being able to get around this obstacle, determined to
+attack it boldly in front. He made use of his strongest blasting
+cylinders, containing eight or ten pounds of powder. The men would dig
+a hole in the broadest part of the ice, close the orifice with snow,
+after having placed the cylinder in a horizontal position, so that a
+greater extent of ice might be exposed to the explosion; then a fuse
+was lighted, which was protected by a gutta-percha tube.</p>
+
+<p>In this way they tried to break the ice; it was impossible to saw it,
+for the fissures would close immediately. Still, Hatteras was hoping
+to get through the next day.</p>
+
+<p>But during the night the wind blew a gale; the sea raised the crust of
+ice, and the terrified pilot was heard shouting,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Look out there aft, look out there aft!"</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras turned his eyes in that direction, and what he saw in the dim
+light was indeed alarming.</p>
+
+<p>A great mass of ice, drifting northward with the tide, was rushing
+towards the brig with the speed of an avalanche.</p>
+
+<p>"All hands on deck!" shouted the captain.</p>
+
+<p>This floating mountain was hardly half a mile away; the ice was all in
+confusion and crashing together like huge grains of sand before a
+violent tempest; the air was filled with a terrible noise.</p>
+
+<p>"That, Doctor," said Johnson, "is one of the greatest perils we have
+yet met with."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered the doctor, quietly; "it is terrible enough."</p>
+
+<p>"A real attack which we must repel," resumed the boatswain.</p>
+
+<p>"In fact, one might well think it was an immense crowd of antediluvian
+animals, such as might have lived near the Pole. How they hurry on, as
+if they were racing!"</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," added Johnson, "some carry sharp lances, of which you had
+better take care, Doctor."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a real siege," shouted the doctor. "Well, let us run to the
+ramparts!"</p>
+
+<p>He ran aft where the crew, provided with beams and bars, were standing
+ready to repel this formidable assault.</p>
+
+<p>The avalanche came on, growing larger at every moment as it caught up
+the floating ice in its eddy; by Hatteras's orders the cannon was
+loaded with ball to break the threatening line. But it came on and ran
+towards the brig; a crash was heard, and as it came against the
+starboard-quarter, part of the rail had given way.</p>
+
+<a name="ill16"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 95">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="548">
+			<img src="images/095.jpg" alt="A crash was heard">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="548" align="center">
+			<small>"A crash was heard, and as it came against the
+			starboard-quarter, part of the rail had given way."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Let no one stir!" shouted Hatteras. "Look out for the ice!"</p>
+
+<p>They swarmed on board the ship with an irresistible force; lumps of
+ice, weighing many hundredweight, scaled the sides of the ship; the
+smallest, hurled as high as the yards, fell back in sharp arrows,
+breaking the shrouds and cutting the rigging. The men were overcome by
+numberless enemies, who were heavy enough to crush a hundred ships
+like the <i>Forward</i>. Every one tried to drive away these lumps, and
+more than one sailor was wounded by their sharp ends; among others,
+Bolton, who had his left shoulder badly torn. The noise increased
+immensely. Duke barked angrily at these new enemies. The darkness of
+the night added to the horrors of the situation, without hiding the
+ice which glowed in the last light of the evening.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras's orders sounded above all this strange, impossible,
+supernatural conflict of the men with the ice. The ship, yielding to
+this enormous pressure, inclined to larboard, and the end of the
+main-yard was already touching the ice, at the risk of breaking the
+mast.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras saw the danger; it was a terrible moment; the brig seemed
+about to be overturned, and the masts might be easily carried away.</p>
+
+<p>A large block, as large as the ship, appeared to be passing along the
+keel; it arose with irresistible power; it came on past the
+quarter-deck; if it fell on the <i>Forward</i>, all was over; soon it rose
+even above the topmasts, and began to totter.</p>
+
+<p>A cry of terror escaped from every one's lips. Every one ran back to
+starboard.</p>
+
+<p>But at that moment the ship was relieved. They felt her lifted up, and
+for an instant she hung in the air, then she leaned over and fell back
+on the ice, and then she rolled so heavily that her planks cracked.
+What had happened?</p>
+
+<p>Raised by this rising tide, driven by the ice which attacked her aft,
+she was getting across this impenetrable ice. After a minute of this
+strange sailing, which seemed as long as a century, she fell back on
+the other side of the obstacle on a field of ice; she broke it with
+her weight, and fell back into her natural element.</p>
+
+<p>"We have got by the thick ice!" shouted Johnson, who had run forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God!" said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 96">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="552">
+			<img src="images/096.jpg" alt="The Forward in the centre of a basin of ice">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>In fact, the brig lay in the centre of a basin of ice, which entirely
+surrounded her, and although her keel lay under water she could not
+stir; but if she were motionless, the field was drifting along.</p>
+
+<p>"We are drifting, Captain!" shouted Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," answered Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, how was it possible to resist it?</p>
+
+<p>Day broke, and it was evident that under the influence of a submarine
+current the bank of ice was floating northward with great rapidity.
+This floating mass carried the <i>Forward</i> with it, in the midst of the
+ice-field, the edge of which could not be seen; to provide for any
+accident that might happen, Hatteras had a large supply of provisions
+carried on deck, as well as materials for camping, clothing, and
+cover; as MacClure had done under similar circumstances, he surrounded
+the ship with hammocks filled with air to protect her from damage.
+Soon it was so cold (7&deg;), that the ship was surrounded by a wall from
+which only the masts issued.</p>
+
+<p>For seven days they sailed in this way; Point Albert, which forms the
+western extremity of New Cornwall, was seen September 10th, and soon
+disappeared; the ice-field was seen to be drifting eastward from that
+time. Where was it going? Where would it stop? Who could say?</p>
+
+<p>The crew waited with folded arms. At last, September 15th, towards
+three o'clock in the afternoon, the ice-field, having probably run
+against another one, stopped suddenly; the ship was jarred violently;
+Hatteras, who had kept his reckoning all along, looked at his chart;
+he found himself in the north, with no land in sight, in longitude 95&deg;
+35', and latitude 78&deg; 15', in the centre of the region of the unknown
+sea, which geographers have considered the place of greatest cold.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap24"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIV.</h3>
+<h4>PREPARATIONS FOR WINTERING.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The same latitude is colder in the southern than in the northern
+hemisphere; but the temperature of the New World is fifteen degrees
+beneath that of the other parts of the world; and in America these
+countries, known under the name of the region of greatest cold, are
+the most inclement.</p>
+
+<p>The mean temperature for the whole year is two degrees below zero.
+Physicists have explained this fact in the following way, and Dr.
+Clawbonny shared their opinion.</p>
+
+<p>According to them, the most constant winds in the northern regions of
+America are from the southwest; they come from the Pacific Ocean, with
+an equal and agreeable temperature; but before they reach the arctic
+seas they are obliged to cross the great American continent, which is
+covered with snow; the contact chills them, and communicates to these
+regions their intense cold.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras found himself at the pole of cold, beyond the countries seen
+by his predecessors; he consequently expected a terrible winter, on a
+ship lost amid the ice, with a turbulent crew. He resolved to meet
+these dangers with his usual energy. He faced what awaited him without
+flinching.</p>
+
+<p>He began, with Johnson's aid and experience, to take all the measures
+necessary for going into winter-quarters. According to his calculation
+the <i>Forward</i> had been carried two hundred and fifty miles from any
+known land, that is to say, from North Cornwall; she was firmly fixed
+in a field of ice, as in a bed of granite, and no human power could
+extricate her.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 97">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="553">
+			<img src="images/097.jpg" alt="At the pole of cold">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>There was not a drop of open water in these vast seas chained by the
+fierce arctic winter. The ice-fields stretched away out of sight, but
+without presenting a smooth surface. Far from it. Numerous icebergs
+stood up in the icy plain, and the <i>Forward</i> was sheltered by the
+highest of them on three points of the compass; the southeast wind
+alone reached them. Let one imagine rock instead of ice, verdure
+instead of snow, and the sea again liquid, and the brig would have
+quietly cast anchor in a pretty bay, sheltered from the fiercest
+blasts. But what desolation here! What a gloomy prospect! What a
+melancholy view!</p>
+
+<p>The brig, although motionless, nevertheless had to be fastened
+securely by means of anchors; this was a necessary precaution against
+possible thaws and submarine upheavals. Johnson, on hearing that the
+<i>Forward</i> was at the pole of cold, took even greater precautions for
+securing warmth.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall have it severe enough," he had said to the doctor; "that's
+just the captain's luck, to go and get caught at the most disagreeable
+spot on the globe! Bah! you will see that we shall get out of it."</p>
+
+<p>As to the doctor, at the bottom of his heart he was simply delighted.
+He would not have changed it for any other. Winter at the pole of
+cold! What good luck!</p>
+
+<p>At first, work on the outside occupied the crew; the sails were kept
+furled on the yards instead of being placed at the bottom of the hold,
+as the earlier explorers did; they were merely bound up in a case, and
+soon the frost covered them with a dense envelope; the topmasts were
+not unshipped, and the crow's-nest remained in its place. It was a
+natural observatory; the running-rigging alone was taken down.</p>
+
+<p>It became necessary to cut away the ice from the ship to relieve the
+pressure. That which had accumulated outside was quite heavy, and the
+ship did not lie as deep as usual. This was a long and laborious task.
+At the end of some days the ship's bottom was freed, and could be
+inspected; it had not suffered, thanks to its solidity; only its
+copper sheathing was nearly torn away. The ship, having grown lighter,
+drew about nine inches less than she did earlier; the ice was cut away
+in a slope, following the make of the hull; in this way the ice formed
+beneath the brig's keel and so resisted all pressure.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor took part in this work; he managed the ice-cutter well; he
+encouraged the sailors by his good-humor. He instructed them and
+himself. He approved of this arrangement of the ice beneath the ship.</p>
+
+<p>"That is a good precaution," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Without that, Dr. Clawbonny," answered Johnson, "resistance would be
+impossible. Now we can boldly raise a wall of snow as high as the
+gunwale; and, if we want to, we can make it ten feet thick, for there
+is no lack of material."</p>
+
+<p>"A capital idea," resumed the doctor; "the snow is a bad conductor of
+heat; it reflects instead of absorbing, and the inside temperature
+cannot escape."</p>
+
+<p>"True," answered Johnson; "we are building a fortification against the
+cold, and also against the animals, if they care to visit us; when
+that is finished, it will look well, you may be sure; in this snow we
+shall cut two staircases, one fore, the other aft; when the steps are
+cut in the snow, we shall pour water on them; this will freeze as hard
+as stone, and we shall have a royal staircase."</p>
+
+<p>"Precisely," answered the doctor; "and it must be said it is fortunate
+that cold produces both snow and ice, by which to protect one's self
+against it. Without that, one would be very much embarrassed."</p>
+
+<p>In fact, the ship was destined to disappear beneath a thick casing of
+ice, which was needed to preserve its inside temperature; a roof made
+of thick tarred canvas and covered with snow was built above the deck
+over its whole length; the canvas was low enough to cover the sides of
+the ship. The deck, being protected from all outside impressions,
+became their walk; it was covered with two and a half feet of snow;
+this snow was crowded and beaten down so as to become very hard; so it
+resisted the radiation of the internal heat; above it was placed a
+layer of sand, which as it solidified became a sort of macadamized
+cover of great hardness.</p>
+
+<p>"A little more," said the doctor, "and with a few trees I might
+imagine myself at Hyde Park, or even in the hanging-gardens at
+Babylon."</p>
+
+<p>A trench was dug tolerably near the brig; this was a circular space in
+the ice, a real pit, which had to be kept always open. Every morning
+the ice formed overnight was broken; this was to secure water in case
+of fire or for the baths which were ordered the crew by the doctor; in
+order to spare the fuel, the water was drawn from some distance below
+the ice, where it was less cold. This was done by means of an
+instrument devised by a French physicist (François Arago); this
+apparatus, lowered for some distance into the water, brought it up to
+the surface through a cylinder.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 98">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="554">
+			<img src="images/098.jpg" alt="The water pump">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Generally in winter everything which encumbers the ship is removed,
+and stored on land. But what was practicable near land is impossible
+for a ship anchored on the ice.</p>
+
+<p>Every preparation was made to fight the two great enemies of this
+latitude, cold and dampness; the first produces the second, which is
+far more dangerous. The cold may be resisted by one who succumbs to
+dampness; hence it was necessary to guard against it.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Forward</i>, being destined to a journey in arctic seas, contained
+the best arrangements for winter-quarters: the large room for the crew
+was well provided for; the corners, where dampness first forms, were
+shut off; in fact, when the temperature is very low, a film of ice
+forms on the walls, especially in the corners, and when it melts it
+keeps up a perpetual dampness. If it had been round, the room would
+have been more convenient; but, being heated by a large stove, and
+properly ventilated, it was very comfortable; the walls were lined
+with deerskins, not with wool, for wool absorbs the condensed moisture
+and keeps the air full of dampness.</p>
+
+<p>Farther aft the walls of the quarter were taken down, and the officers
+had a larger common-room, better ventilated, and heated by a stove.
+This room, like that of the crew, had a sort of antechamber, which cut
+off all communication with the outside. In this way, the heat could
+not be lost, and one passed gradually from one temperature to the
+other. In the anterooms were left the snow-covered clothes; the shoes
+were cleansed on the scrapers, so as to prevent the introduction of
+any unwholesomeness with one into the room.</p>
+
+<p>Canvas hose served to introduce air for the draught of the stoves;
+other pieces of hose permitted the steam to escape. In addition two
+condensers were placed in the two rooms, and collected this vapor
+instead of letting it form into water; twice a week they were emptied,
+and often they contained several bushels of ice. It was so much taken
+from the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>The fire was perfectly and easily controlled, by means of the canvas
+hose; by use of merely a small quantity of coal it was easy to keep
+the temperature of 50&deg;. Still, Hatteras, having examined the bunkers,
+soon saw that the greatest economy was necessary, for there was not
+two months' fuel on board.</p>
+
+<p>A drying-room was set apart for the clothes which were to be washed;
+they could not be dried in the open air, for they would freeze and
+tear.</p>
+
+<p>The delicate pieces of the machinery were carefully taken down, and
+the room which contained them was hermetically closed.</p>
+
+<p>The life on board became the object of serious meditation; Hatteras
+regulated it with the utmost caution, and the order of the day was
+posted up in the common-room. The men arose at six o'clock in the
+morning; three times a week the hammocks were aired; every morning the
+floors were scoured with hot sand; tea was served at every meal, and
+the bill of fare varied as much as possible for every day of the week;
+it consisted of bread, farina, suet and raisins for puddings, sugar,
+cocoa, tea, rice, lemon-juice, potted meats, salt beef and pork,
+cabbages, and vegetables in vinegar; the kitchen lay outside of the
+living-rooms; its heat was consequently lost; but cooking is a
+perpetual source of evaporation and dampness.</p>
+
+<p>The health of the men depends a great deal on the sort of food they
+get; in high latitudes, the greatest amount of animal food ought to be
+eaten. The doctor had supervised the sort of food to be given.</p>
+
+<p>"We ought to follow the Esquimaux," he used to say; "they have
+received their lessons from nature, and are our masters in that; if
+the Arabs and Africans can content themselves with a few dates and a
+handful of rice, here it is important to eat, and to eat a good deal.
+The Esquimaux take from ten to fifteen pounds of oil a day. If that
+fare does not please you, we must try food rich in sugar and fat. In a
+word, we need carbon, so let us manufacture carbon! It is well to put
+coal in the stove, but don't let us forget to fill that precious stove
+we carry about with us."</p>
+
+<p>With this bill of fare, strict cleanliness was enforced; every other
+day each man was obliged to bathe in the half-frozen water which the
+iron pump brought up, and this was an excellent way of preserving
+their health. The doctor set the example; he did it at first as a
+thing which ought to be very disagreeable; but this pretext was
+quickly forgotten, for he soon took real pleasure in this healthy
+bath.</p>
+
+<p>When work or hunting or distant expeditions took the men off in the
+severe cold, they had to take special care not to be frost-bitten; if
+they were, rubbing with snow would restore the circulation. Moreover,
+the men, who all wore woollen clothes, put on coats of deerskin and
+trousers of sealskin, which perfectly resist the wind.</p>
+
+<p>The different arrangements of the ship, the getting-to-rights on
+board, took about three weeks, and they reached October 10th without
+any special incident.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap25"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXV.</h3>
+<h4>ONE OF JAMES ROSS'S FOXES.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>On that day the thermometer fell to three degrees below zero. The day
+was calm; the cold was very endurable in the absence of wind. Hatteras
+took advantage of the clearness of the air to reconnoitre the
+surrounding plains; he ascended one of the highest icebergs to the
+north, but even with his glass he could make out nothing but a series
+of ice-mountains and ice-fields. There was no land in sight, nothing
+but gloomy confusion. He returned, and tried to calculate the probable
+length of their imprisonment.</p>
+
+<p>The hunters, and among them the doctor, James Wall, Simpson, Johnson,
+and Bell, kept them supplied with fresh meat. The birds had
+disappeared, seeking a milder climate in the south. The ptarmigans
+alone, a sort of rock-partridge peculiar to this latitude, did not
+flee the winter; it was easy to kill them, and there were enough to
+promise a perpetual supply of game.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 99">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="548">
+			<img src="images/099.jpg" alt="The hunters">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Hares, foxes, wolves, ermines, and bears were plentiful; a French,
+English, or Norwegian hunter would have had no right to complain; but
+they were so shy that it was hard to approach them; besides, it was
+hard to distinguish them on the white plain, they being white
+themselves, for in winter they acquire that colored fur. In opposition
+to the opinions of some naturalists, the doctor held that this change
+was not due to the lowering of the temperature, since it took place
+before October; hence it was not due to any physical cause, but rather
+providential foresight, to secure these animals against the severity
+of an arctic winter.</p>
+
+<p>Often, too, they saw sea-cows and sea-dogs, animals included under the
+name of seals; all the hunters were specially recommended to shoot
+them, as much for their skins as for their fat, which was very good
+fuel. Besides, their liver made a very good article of food; they
+could be counted by hundreds, and two or three miles north of the ship
+the ice was continually perforated by these huge animals; only they
+avoided the hunter with remarkable instinct, and many were wounded who
+easily escaped by diving under the ice.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 100">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="555">
+			<img src="images/100.jpg" alt="Seals on the ice">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Still, on the 19th, Simpson succeeded in getting one four hundred
+yards distant from the ship; he had taken the precaution to close its
+hole in the ice, so that it could not escape from its pursuers. He
+fought for a long time, and died only after receiving many bullets. He
+was nine feet long; his bull-dog head, the sixteen teeth in his jaw,
+his large pectoral fins shaped like little wings, his little tail with
+another pair of fins, made him an excellent specimen. The doctor
+wished to preserve his head for his collection of natural history, and
+his skin for future contingences, hence he prepared both by a rapid
+and economical process. He plunged the body in the hole, and thousands
+of little prawns removed the flesh in small pieces; at the end of half
+a day the work was half finished, and the most skilful of the
+honorable corporation of tanners at Liverpool could not have done
+better.</p>
+
+<p>When the sun had passed the autumn equinox, that is to say, September
+23d, the winter fairly begins in the arctic regions. The sun, having
+gradually sunk to the horizon, disappeared at last, October 23d,
+lighting up merely the tops of the mountains with its oblique rays.
+The doctor gave it his last farewell. He could not see it again till
+the month of February.</p>
+
+<p>Still the darkness was not complete during this long absence of the
+sun; the moon did its best to replace it; the stars were exceedingly
+brilliant, the auroras were very frequent, and the refractions
+peculiar to the snowy horizons; besides, the sun at the time of its
+greatest southern declension, December 21st, approaches within
+thirteen degrees of the polar horizon; hence, every day there was a
+certain twilight for a few hours. Only the mist and snow-storms often
+plunged these regions in the deepest obscurity.</p>
+
+<p>Still, up to this time the weather was very favorable; the partridges
+and hares alone had reason to complain, for the hunters gave them no
+rest; a great many traps were set for foxes, but these crafty animals
+could not be caught; very often they scraped the snow away beneath the
+trap and took the bait without running any risk; the doctor cursed
+them, being very averse to making them such a present.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 101">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="552">
+			<img src="images/101.jpg" alt="Bell and Simpson wrapped in their furs">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>October 25th, the thermometer fell as low as -4&deg;. A violent hurricane
+raged; the air was filled with thick snow, which permitted no ray of
+light to reach the <i>Forward</i>. For several hours there was some anxiety
+about the fate of Bell and Simpson, who had gone some distance away
+hunting; they did not reach the ship till the next day, having rested
+for a whole day wrapped up in their furs, while the hurricane swept
+over them and buried them under five feet of snow. They were nearly
+frozen, and the doctor found it very hard to restore their
+circulation.</p>
+
+<p>The tempest lasted eight days without interruption. No one could set
+foot outside. In a single day there were variations in the temperature
+of fifteen or twenty degrees.</p>
+
+<p>During this enforced leisure every one kept to himself, some sleeping,
+others smoking, others again talking in a low tone and stopping at the
+approach of Johnson or the doctor; there was no moral tie between the
+men of the crew; they only met at evening prayers and at Sunday
+services.</p>
+<a name="note23"></a>
+<p>Clifton knew perfectly well that when the seventy-eighth parallel was
+passed, his share of the pay would amount to three hundred and
+seventy-five pounds; he thought it a good round sum, and his ambition
+did not go any further. His opinion was generally shared, and all
+looked forward to the day when they should enjoy this hardly-earned
+fortune.<a href="#not23"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a></p>
+
+<p>Hatteras kept almost entirely out of sight. He never took part in the
+hunts or the walks from the ship. He took no interest in the
+meteorological phenomena which kept the doctor in a constant state of
+admiration. He lived with but a single idea; it consisted of three
+words,&mdash;The North Pole. He only thought of when the <i>Forward</i>, free at
+last, should resume her bold course.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, the general feeling on board was one of gloom. Nothing was so
+sad as the sight of this captive vessel, no longer resting in its
+natural element, but with its shape hidden beneath thick layers of
+ice; it looks like nothing; it cannot stir, though made for motion; it
+is turned into a wooden storehouse, a sedentary dwelling, this ship
+which knows how to breast the wind and the storms. This anomaly, this
+false situation, filled their hearts with an indefinable feeling of
+disquiet and regret.</p>
+
+<p>During these idle hours the doctor arranged the notes he had taken,
+from which this book is made up; he was never out of spirits, and
+never lost his cheerfulness. Yet he was glad to see the end of the
+storm, and prepared to resume his hunting.</p>
+
+<p>November 3d, at six o'clock in the morning, with a temperature of -5&deg;,
+he set off in company with Johnson and Bell; the expanse of ice was
+unbroken; all the snow which had fallen so abundantly during the
+preceding days was hardened by the frost, and made good walking; the
+air was keen and piercing; the moon shone with incomparable purity,
+glistening on the least roughness in the ice; their footprints glowed
+like an illuminated trail, and their long shadows stood out almost
+black against the brilliant ice.</p>
+
+<a name="ill17"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 102">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="548">
+			<img src="images/102.jpg" alt="The moon shone with incomparable purity">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="548" align="center">
+			<small>"The moon shone with incomparable purity, glistening on
+			the least roughness in the ice."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The doctor had taken Duke with him; he preferred him to the Greenland
+dogs to hunt game, and he was right; for they are of very little use
+under such circumstances, and they did not appear to possess the
+sacred fire of the race of the temperate zone. Duke ran along with his
+nose on the ground, and he often stopped on the recent marks of bears.
+Still, in spite of his skill, the hunters did not find even a hare in
+two hours' walking.</p>
+
+<p>"Has all the game felt it necessary to go south?" said the doctor,
+stopping at the foot of a hummock.</p>
+
+<p>"I should fancy it must be so, Doctor," answered the carpenter.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so," said Johnson; "the hares, foxes, and bears are
+accustomed to this climate; I think this last storm must have driven
+them away; but they will come back with the south-winds. Ah, if you
+were to talk about reindeer and musk-deer, that might be different!"</p>
+
+<p>"And yet at Melville Island numberless animals of this sort are
+found," resumed the doctor; "it lies farther south, it is true, and
+during the winters he spent there Parry always had plenty of this
+magnificent game."</p>
+
+<p>"We have much poorer luck," answered Bell; "if we could only get
+enough bear's meat, we would do very well."</p>
+
+<p>"The difficulty is," said the doctor, "the bears seem to me very rare
+and very wild; they are not civilized enough to come within gun-shot."</p>
+
+<p>"Bell is talking about the flesh of the bear," said Johnson, "but his
+grease is more useful than his flesh or his fur."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Johnson," answered Bell; "you are always thinking of
+the fuel."</p>
+
+<p>"How can I help it? Even with the strictest economy, we have only
+enough for three weeks!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," resumed the doctor, "that is the real danger, for we are now
+only at the beginning of November, and February is the coldest month
+in the frigid zone; still, if we can't get bear's grease, there's no
+lack of seal's grease."</p>
+
+<p>"But not for a very long time, Doctor," answered Johnson; "they will
+soon leave us; whether from cold or fright, soon they won't come upon
+the ice any more."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," continued the doctor, "we shall have to fall back on the bear,
+and I confess the bear is the most useful animal to be found in these
+countries, for he furnishes food, clothing, light, and fuel to men. Do
+you hear, Duke?" he said, patting the dog's head, "we want some bears,
+my friend, bears! bears!"</p>
+
+<p>Duke, who was sniffing at the ice at that time, aroused by the voices,
+and caresses of the doctor, started off suddenly with the speed of an
+arrow. He barked violently and, far off as he was, his loud barks
+reached the hunters' ears.</p>
+
+<p>The extreme distance to which sound is carried when the temperature is
+low is an astonishing fact; it is only equalled by the brilliancy of
+the constellations in the northern skies; the waves of light and sound
+are transmitted to great distances, especially in the dry cold of the
+nights.</p>
+
+<p>The hunters, guided by his distant barking, hastened after him; they
+had to run a mile, and they got there all out of breath, which happens
+very soon in such an atmosphere. Duke stood pointing about fifty feet
+from an enormous mass which was rolling about on the top of a small
+iceberg.</p>
+
+<p>"Just what we wanted!" shouted the doctor, cocking his gun.</p>
+
+<p>"A fine bear!" said Bell, following the doctor's example.</p>
+
+<p>"A curious bear!" said Johnson, who intended to fire after his
+companions.</p>
+
+<p>Duke barked furiously. Bell advanced about twenty feet, and fired; but
+the animal seemed untouched, for he continued rolling his head slowly.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson came forward, and, after taking careful aim, he pulled the
+trigger.</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" said the doctor; "nothing yet! Ah, this cursed refraction! We
+are too far off; we shall never get used to it! That bear is more than
+a mile away."</p>
+
+<p>"Come on!" answered Bell.</p>
+
+<p>The three companions hastened toward the animal, which had not been
+alarmed by the firing; he seemed to be very large, but, without
+weighing the danger, they gave themselves up already to the joy of
+victory. Having got within a reasonable distance, they fired; the bear
+leaped into the air and fell, mortally wounded, on the level ice
+below.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 103">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="560">
+			<img src="images/103.jpg" alt="They fired">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Duke rushed towards him.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a bear," said the doctor, "which was easily conquered."</p>
+
+<p>"Only three shots," said Bell with some scorn, "and he's down!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's odd," remarked Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless we got here just as he was going to die of old age," continued
+the doctor, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, young or old," added Bell, "he's a good capture."</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 104">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="388">
+			<img src="images/104.jpg" alt="They found Duke growling">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Talking in this way they reached the small iceberg, and, to their
+great surprise, they found Duke growling over the body of a white fox.</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word," said Bell, "that's too much!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the doctor, "we've fired at a bear, and killed a fox!"</p>
+
+<p>Johnson did not know what to say.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the doctor with a burst of laughter in which there was a
+trace of disappointment, "that refraction again! It's always deceiving
+us."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, Doctor?" asked the carpenter.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my friend; it deceived us with respect to its size as well as
+the distance! It made us see a bear in a fox's skin! Such a mistake is
+not uncommon under similar circumstances! Well, our imagination alone
+was wrong!"</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate," answered Johnson, "bear or fox, he's good eating. Let's
+carry him off."</p>
+
+<p>But as the boatswain was lifting him to his shoulders:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"That's odd," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"See there, Doctor, he's got a collar around his neck."</p>
+
+<p>"A collar?" asked the doctor again, examining the fox.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, a half-worn-out copper collar appeared under his white fur;
+the doctor thought he saw letters engraved upon it; he unfastened it
+from the animal's neck, about which it seemed to have been for a long
+time.</p>
+
+<p>"What does that mean?" asked Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"That means," said the doctor, "that we have just killed a fox more
+than twelve years old,&mdash;a fox who was caught by James Ross in 1848."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible?" said Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no doubt about it. I'm sorry we killed him! While he was in
+winter-quarters, James Ross thought of trapping a large number of
+white foxes; he fastened on their necks copper collars on which was
+engraved the position of his ships, the <i>Enterprise</i> and
+<i>Investigator</i>, as well as where the supplies were left. These animals
+run over immense distances in search of food, and James Ross hoped
+that one of them might fall into the hands of one of the men of the
+Franklin expedition. That's the simple explanation; and this poor
+beast, who might have saved the life of two crews, has fallen
+uselessly beneath our guns."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we won't eat it," said Johnson, "especially if it's twelve
+years old. But we shall keep the skin as a memento."</p>
+
+<p>Johnson raised it to his shoulders. The hunters made their way to the
+ship, guiding themselves by the stars; their expedition was not wholly
+without result; they were able to bring back several ptarmigans.</p>
+
+<p>An hour before reaching the <i>Forward</i>, there was a singular phenomenon
+which greatly interested the doctor. It was a real shower of
+shooting-stars; they could be counted by thousands, flying over the
+heavens like rockets; they dimmed the light of the moon. For hours
+they could have stood gazing at this beautiful sight. A similar
+phenomenon was observed in Greenland in 1799, by the Moravians. It
+looked like an exhibition of fireworks. The doctor after his return
+to the ship spent the whole night gazing at the sight, which lasted
+till seven o'clock in the morning, while the air was perfectly silent.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 105">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="552">
+			<img src="images/105.jpg" alt="A shower of shooting-stars">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table><br>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap26"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVI.</h3>
+<h4>THE LAST PIECE OF COAL.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The bears, it seemed, could not be caught; a few seals were killed on
+the 4th, 5th, and 6th of November, and the wind shifted and the
+weather grew much milder; but the snow-drifts began again with
+incomparable severity. It became impossible to leave the ship, and it
+was hard to subdue the dampness. At the end of the week the condensers
+contained several bushels of ice.</p>
+
+<p>The weather changed again November 15th, and the thermometer, under
+the influence of certain atmospheric conditions, sank to -24&deg;. That
+was the lowest temperature they had yet observed. This cold would have
+been endurable in calm weather; but the wind was blowing at that time,
+and it seemed as if the air was filled with sharp needles.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor regretted his captivity, for the snow was hardened by the
+wind, so as to make good walking, and he might have gone very far from
+the ship.</p>
+
+<p>Still, it should be said that the slightest exercise in so low a
+temperature is very exhausting. A man can perform hardly more than a
+quarter of his usual work; iron utensils cannot be touched; if the
+hand seizes them, it feels as if it were burned, and shreds of skin
+cleave to the object which had been incautiously seized.</p>
+
+<p>The crew, being confined to the ship, were obliged to walk on the
+covered deck for two hours a day, where they had leave to smoke, which
+was forbidden in the common-room.</p>
+
+<p>There, when the fire got low, the ice used to cover the walls and the
+intervals between the planks; every nail and bolt and piece of metal
+was immediately covered with a film of ice.</p>
+
+<p>The celerity of its formation astonished the doctor. The breath of the
+men condensed in the air, and, changing from a fluid to a solid form,
+it fell about them in the form of snow. A few feet from the stove it
+was very cold, and the men stood grouped around the fire.</p>
+
+<p>Still, the doctor advised them to harden themselves, and to accustom
+themselves to the cold, which was not so severe as what yet awaited
+them; he advised them to expose their skin gradually to this intense
+temperature, and he himself set the example; but idleness or numbness
+nailed most of them to their place; they refused to stir, and
+preferred sleeping in that unhealthy heat.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, according to the doctor, there was no danger in exposing one's
+self to great cold after leaving a heated room; these sudden changes
+only inconvenience those who are in a perspiration; the doctor quoted
+examples in support of his opinion, but his lessons were for the most
+part thrown away.</p>
+
+<p>As for John Hatteras, he did not seem to mind the inclement cold. He
+walked to and fro silently, never faster or slower. Did not the cold
+affect his powerful frame? Did he possess to a very great degree the
+principle of natural heat which he wanted his men to possess? Was he
+so bound up in his meditations that he was indifferent to outside
+impressions? His men saw him with great astonishment braving a
+temperature of -24&deg;; he would leave the ship for hours, and come back
+without appearing to suffer from the cold.</p>
+
+<p>"He's a singular man," said the doctor to Johnson; "he astonishes me!
+He carries a glowing furnace within him! He is one of the strongest
+natures I ever saw!"</p>
+
+<p>"The fact is," answered Johnson, "he goes and comes and circulates in
+the open air, without dressing any more thickly than in the month of
+June."</p>
+
+<p>"O, it doesn't make much difference what one wears!" answered the
+doctor; "what is the use of dressing warmly if one can't produce heat
+within himself? It's like trying to heat ice by wrapping it up in
+wool! But Hatteras doesn't need it; he's built that way, and I should
+not be surprised if his side was as warm as the neighborhood of a
+glowing coal."</p>
+
+<p>Johnson, who was charged with clearing away the water-hole every
+morning, noticed that the ice was ten feet thick.</p>
+
+<p>Almost every night the doctor could observe the magnificent auroras;
+from four o'clock till eight of the evening, the sky in the north was
+slightly lighted up; then this took a regular shape, with a rim of
+light yellow, the ends of which seemed to touch the field of ice.
+Gradually the brilliancy arose in the heavens, following the magnetic
+meridian, and appeared striped with black bands; jets of luminosity
+shot with varying brightness here and there; when it reached the
+zenith it was often composed of several arcs bathed in waves of red,
+yellow, or green light. It was a dazzling sight. Soon the different
+curves met in a single point, and formed crowns of celestial richness.
+Finally the arcs all crowded together, the splendid aurora grew dim,
+the intense colors faded away into pale, vague, uncertain tints, and
+this wonderful phenomenon vanished gradually, insensibly, in the dark
+clouds of the south.</p>
+
+<a name="ill18"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 106">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="548">
+			<img src="images/106.jpg" alt="Almost every night the doctor could observe the magnificent auroras">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="548" align="center">
+			<small>"Almost every night the doctor could observe the
+			magnificent auroras."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>It is difficult to realize the wonderful, magical beauty of such a
+spectacle in high latitudes, less than eight degrees from the pole;
+the auroras which are seen in the temperate zone give no idea of it;
+it seems as if Providence wished to reserve the greatest wonders for
+these regions.</p>
+
+<p>Numerous mock-moons appeared also while the moon was shining, and a
+great many would appear in the sky, adding to the general brilliancy;
+often, too, simple lunar halos surrounded the moon with a circle of
+splendid lustre.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 107">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="563">
+			<img src="images/107.jpg" alt="Simple lunar halos">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>November 26th the tide rose very high, and the water came through the
+hole with great violence; the thick crust of ice seemed pushed up by
+the force of the sea, and the frequent cracking of the ice proclaimed
+the conflict that was going on beneath; fortunately the ship remained
+firm in her bed, but her chains worked noisily; it was as a precaution
+against just such an event, that Hatteras had made the brig fast.</p>
+
+<p>The following days were still colder; a dense fog hid the sky; the
+wind tossed the snow about; it was hard to determine whether it came
+from the clouds or from the ice-fields; everything was in confusion.</p>
+
+<p>The crew kept busy with various interior occupations, the principal
+one being the preparation of the grease and oil from the seal; it was
+frozen into blocks of ice, which had to be cut with a hatchet; it was
+broken into small fragments, which were as hard as marble; ten barrels
+full were collected. As may be seen, every vessel became nearly
+useless, besides the risk of its breaking when the contents froze.</p>
+
+<p>The 28th the thermometer fell to -32&deg;; there was only ten days' coal
+on board, and every one awaited with horror the moment when it should
+come to an end.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras, for the sake of economy, had the fire in the stove in the
+after-room put out; and from that time Shandon, the doctor, and he
+were compelled to betake themselves to the common-room of the crew.
+Hatteras was hence brought into constant communication with his men,
+who gazed at him with surly, dejected glances. He heard their
+fault-finding, their reproaches, even their threats, without being
+able to punish them. However, he seemed deaf to every remark. He never
+went near the fire. He remained in a corner, with folded arms, without
+saying a word.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 108">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="562">
+			<img src="images/108.jpg" alt="With folded arms, without saying a word">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>In spite of the doctor's recommendations, Pen and his friends refused
+to take the slightest exercise; they passed whole days crouching about
+the stove or under their bedclothes; hence their health began to
+suffer; they could not react against the rigor of the climate, and
+scurvy soon made its appearance on board.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor had long since begun to distribute, every morning,
+lemon-juice and lime pastilles; but these precautions, which were
+generally so efficacious, did very little good to the sick; and the
+disease, following its usual course, soon showed its most horrible
+symptoms.</p>
+
+<p>Terrible indeed it was to see those wretches with their nerves and
+muscles contracted with pain! Their legs were fearfully swollen, and
+were covered with large bluish-black patches; their bleeding gums,
+their swollen lips, permitted them to utter only inarticulate sounds;
+their blood was poisoned, deprived of fibrine, and no longer carried
+life to the extremities.</p>
+
+<p>Clifton was the first to be attacked by this cruel malady; soon
+Gripper, Brunton, and Strong had to keep to their hammocks. Those whom
+the illness spared could not avoid the sight of the sufferings of
+their friends; the common-room was the only place where they could
+stay; so it was soon transformed into a hospital, for of the eighteen
+sailors of the <i>Forward</i>, thirteen were soon down with scurvy. It
+seemed as if Pen would escape the contagion; his strong constitution
+preserved him; Shandon felt the first symptoms, but it went no further
+with him, and plenty of exercise soon restored him to good health.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor tended his patients with the greatest devotion, and his
+heart would bleed at the sight of the sufferings he could not assuage.
+Still, he inspired as much cheerfulness as he could in the lonely
+crew; his words, his consolations, his philosophical reflections, his
+fortunate inventions, broke the monotony of those long days of
+suffering; he would read aloud to them; his wonderful memory kept him
+supplied with amusing anecdotes, while the men who were well stood
+pressing closely around the stove; but the groans of the sick, their
+complaints, and their cries of despair would continually interrupt
+him, and, breaking off in the middle of a story, he would become the
+devoted and attentive physician.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, his health remained good; he did not grow thin; his
+corpulence stood him in better stead than the thickest raiment, and he
+used to say he was as well clad as a seal or a whale, who, thanks to
+their thick layers of fat, easily support the rigors of the winter.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras did not suffer physically or morally. The sufferings of the
+crew did not seem to depress him. Perhaps he would not let his
+emotions appear on his face, while an acute observer would have
+detected the heart of a man beneath this mask of iron.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor analyzed him, studied him, and could not classify this
+strange organization, this unnatural temperament.</p>
+
+<p>The thermometer fell still lower; the deck was entirely deserted; the
+Esquimaux dogs alone walked up and down it, barking dismally.</p>
+
+<p>There was always a man on guard near the stove, who superintended
+putting on the coal; it was important not to let it go out; when the
+fire got low the cold crept into the room, formed on the walls, and
+the moisture suddenly condensed and fell in the form of snow on the
+unfortunate occupants of the brig.</p>
+
+<p>It was among these terrible sufferings that they reached December 8th;
+that morning the doctor went as usual to look at the thermometer. He
+found the mercury entirely frozen in the bulb.</p>
+
+<p>"Forty-four degrees below zero!" he said with terror.</p>
+
+<p>And on that day the last piece of coal on board was thrown into the
+stove.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap27"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVII.</h3>
+<h4>THE GREAT COLD AT CHRISTMAS.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>For a moment he had a feeling of despair. The thought of death, and
+death by cold, appeared in all its horror; this last piece of coal
+burned with an ominous splutter; the fire seemed about to go out, and
+the temperature of the room fell noticeably. But Johnson went to get
+some of the new fuel which the marine animals had furnished to them,
+and with it he filled the stove; he added to it some tow filled with
+frozen oil, and soon obtained sufficient heat. The odor was almost
+unendurable; but how get rid of it? They had to get used to it.
+Johnson agreed that his plan was defective, and that it would not be
+considered a success in Liverpool.</p>
+
+<p>"And yet," he added, "this unpleasant smell will, perhaps, produce
+good results."</p>
+
+<p>"What are they?" asked the carpenter.</p>
+
+<p>"It will doubtless attract the bears this way, for they are fond of
+the smell."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," continued Bell, "what is the need of having bears?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bell," replied Johnson, "we can't count on seals any longer; they're
+gone away, and for a long time; if bears don't come in their place to
+supply us with their share of fuel, I don't know what is to become of
+us."</p>
+
+<p>"True, Johnson, our fate is very uncertain; our position is a most
+alarming one. And if this sort of fuel gives out, I don't see how&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There might be another&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Another?" asked Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Bell! in despair on account of&mdash;but the captain would never&mdash;but
+yet we shall perhaps have to come to it."</p>
+
+<p>And Johnson shook his head sadly, and fell to thinking gloomily. Bell
+did not interrupt him. He knew that the supply of fat, which it had
+been so hard to acquire, would only last a week, even with the
+strictest economy.</p>
+
+<p>The boatswain was right. A great many bears, attracted by the scent,
+were seen to leeward of the <i>Forward;</i> the healthy men gave chase; but
+these animals are very swift of foot, and crafty enough to escape most
+stratagems; it was impossible to get near them, and the most skilful
+gunners could not hit them.</p>
+
+<p>The crew of the brig was in great danger of dying from the cold; it
+could not withstand, for forty-eight hours, such a temperature as
+would exist in the common-room. Every one looked forward with terror
+to getting to the end of the fuel.</p>
+
+<p>Now this happened December 20th, at three o'clock in the afternoon;
+the fire went out; the sailors, grouped about the empty stove, gazed
+at one another with haggard eyes. Hatteras remained without moving in
+his corner; the doctor, as usual, paced up and down excitedly; he did
+not know what was to be done.</p>
+
+<p>The temperature in the room fell at once to -7&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>But if the doctor was baffled and did not know what they should turn
+their hands to, others knew very well. So Shandon, cold and resolute,
+Pen, with wrath in his eyes, and two or three of his companions, such
+as he could induce to accompany him, walked towards Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain!" said Shandon.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras, absorbed in his thoughts, did not hear him.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain!" repeated Shandon, touching him with his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras arose.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain, the fire is out."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" continued Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"If you intend that we shall freeze to death," Shandon went on with
+grim irony, "we should be glad if you would tell us."</p>
+
+<p>"My intention," answered Hatteras with a deep voice, "is that every
+man shall do his duty to the end."</p>
+
+<p>"There's something superior to duty, Captain," answered his first
+officer, "and that is the right of self-preservation. I repeat it, we
+have no fire; and if this goes on, in two days not one of us will be
+alive."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no wood," answered Hatteras, gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," shouted Pen, violently, "when the wood gives out, we must go
+cut it where it grows!"</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras grew pale with anger.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is that?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"On board," answered the sailor, insolently.</p>
+
+<p>"On board!" repeated the captain, with clinched fists and sparkling
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," answered Pen, "when the ship can't carry the crew, the
+ship ought to be burned."</p>
+
+<p>At the beginning of this sentence Hatteras had grasped an axe; at its
+end, this axe was raised above Pen's head.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 109">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="560">
+			<img src="images/109.jpg" alt="This axe was raised above Pen's head">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Wretch!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor sprang in front of Pen, and thrust him back; the axe fell
+on the floor, making a deep gash. Johnson, Bell, and Simpson gathered
+around Hatteras, and seemed determined to support him. But plaintive,
+grievous cries arose from the berths, transformed into death-beds.</p>
+
+<p>"Fire, fire!" they cried, shivering beneath their now insufficient
+covering.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras by a violent effort controlled himself, and after a few
+moments of silence, he said calmly,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If we destroy the ship, how shall we get back to England?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," answered Johnson, "perhaps we can without doing any material
+damage burn the less important parts, the bulwarks, the nettings&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The small boats will be left," said Shandon; "and besides, why might
+we not make a smaller vessel out of what is left of the old one?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never!" answered Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;" interposed many of the men, shouting together.</p>
+
+<p>"We have a large quantity of spirits of wine," suggested Hatteras;
+"burn all of that."</p>
+
+<p>"All right; we'll take the spirits of wine!" answered Johnson,
+assuming an air of confidence which he was far from feeling.</p>
+
+<p>And with the aid of long wicks, dipped into this liquid of which the
+pale flame licked the walls of the stove, he was able to raise the
+temperature of the room a few degrees.</p>
+
+<p>In the following days the wind came from the south again and the
+thermometer rose; the snow, however, kept falling. Some of the men
+were able to leave the ship for the driest hours of the day; but
+ophthalmia and scurvy kept most of them on board; besides, neither
+hunting nor fishing was possible.</p>
+
+<p>But this was only a respite in the fearful severity of the cold, and
+on the 25th, after a sudden change of wind, the frozen mercury
+disappeared again in the bulb of the instrument; then they had to
+consult the spirit-thermometer, which does not freeze even in the most
+intense colds.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, to his great surprise, found it marking -66&deg;. Seldom has
+man been called upon to endure so low a temperature.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 110">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="402">
+			<img src="images/110.jpg" alt="The dampness fell in the form of thick snow">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The ice stretched in long, dark lines upon the floor; a dense mist
+filled the room; the dampness fell in the form of thick snow; the men
+could not see one another; their extremities grew cold and blue; their
+heads felt as if they wore an iron band; and their thoughts grew
+confused and dull, as if they were half delirious. A terrible symptom
+was that their tongues refused to articulate a sound.</p>
+
+<p>From the day the men threatened to burn the ship, Hatteras would walk
+for hours upon the deck, keeping watch. This wood was flesh and blood
+to him. Cutting a piece from it would have been like cutting off a
+limb. He was armed, and he kept constant guard, without minding the
+cold, the snow, or the ice, which stiffened his clothing as if it
+covered it with a granite cuirass. Duke understood him, and followed
+him, barking and howling.</p>
+
+<a name="ill19"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 111">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="582">
+			<img src="images/111.jpg" alt="He was armed, and he kept constant guard">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="582" align="center">
+			<small>"He was armed, and he kept constant guard, without
+			minding the cold, the snow, or the ice."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, December 25th he went down into the common-room. The
+doctor, with all the energy he had left, went up to him and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hatteras, we are going to die from want of fire!"</p>
+
+<p>"Never!" said Hatteras, knowing very well what request he was
+refusing.</p>
+
+<p>"We must," continued the doctor, mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"Never!" repeated Hatteras more firmly; "I shall never give my
+consent! Whoever wishes, may disobey me."</p>
+
+<p>Thus was permission given them. Johnson and Bell hastened to the deck.
+Hatteras heard the wood of the brig crashing under the axe, and wept.</p>
+
+<p>That was Christmas Day, the great family festival in England, one
+specially devoted to the amusement of the children. What a painful
+recollection was that of the happy children gathered about the green
+Christmas tree! Every one recalled the huge pieces of roast meat, cut
+from the fattened ox, and the tarts, the mince-pies, and other
+luxuries so dear to the English heart! But here was nothing but
+suffering, despair, and wretchedness, and for the Christmas log, these
+pieces of a ship lost in the middle of the frigid zone!</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, under the genial influence of the fire, the spirits and
+strength of the men returned; the hot tea and coffee brought great and
+immediate consolation, and hope is so firm a friend of man, that they
+even began to hope for some luckier fate. It was thus that the year
+1860 passed away, the early winter of which had so interfered with
+Hatteras's plans.</p>
+
+<p>Now it happened that this very New Year's Day was marked by an
+unexpected discovery. It was a little milder than the previous days
+had been; the doctor had resumed his studies; he was reading Sir
+Edward Belcher's account of his expedition in the polar regions.
+Suddenly, a passage which he had never noticed before filled him with
+astonishment; he read it over again; doubt was no longer possible.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Edward Belcher states that, having come to the end of Queen's
+Channel, he found there many traces of the presence of men. He says:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"There are remains of dwellings far superior to what can be attributed
+to the savage habits of the wandering tribes of Esquimaux. The walls
+are firmly placed on deep-dug foundations; the inside, covered with a
+thick layer of gravel, has been paved. Skeletons of moose, reindeer,
+and seals abound. We found coal there."</p>
+
+<p>At these last words an idea occurred to the doctor; he took his book
+and ran to tell Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"Coal!" shouted the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Hatteras, coal; that is to say, our preservation!"</p>
+
+<p>"Coal, on this lonely shore!" continued Hatteras; "no, that's
+impossible!"</p>
+
+<p>"How can you doubt it, Hatteras? Belcher would not have mentioned it
+if he had not been sure, without having seen it with his own eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what then, Doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"We are not a hundred miles from the place where Belcher saw this
+coal! What is a journey of a hundred miles? Nothing. Longer
+expeditions have often been made on the ice, and with the cold as
+intense. Let us go after it, Captain!"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll go!" said Hatteras, who had made up his mind quickly; and with
+his active imagination he saw the chance of safety.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson was informed of the plan, of which he approved highly; he told
+his companions; some rejoiced, others heard of it with indifference.</p>
+
+<p>"Coal on these shores!" said Wall from his sick-bed.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll let them go," answered Shandon, mysteriously.</p>
+
+<p>But before they had begun to make preparations for the trip, Hatteras
+wanted to fix the position of the <i>Forward</i> with the utmost
+exactitude. The importance of this calculation it is easy to see. Once
+away from the ship, it could not be found again without knowing its
+position precisely.</p>
+
+<p>So Hatteras went up on deck; he took observations at different moments
+of several lunar distances, and the altitude of the principal stars.
+He found, however, much difficulty in doing this, for when the
+temperature was so low, the glass and the mirrors of the instrument
+were covered with a crust of ice from Hatteras's breath; more than
+once his eyelids were burned by touching the copper eye-pieces. Still,
+he was able to get very exact bases for his calculations, and he
+returned to the common-room to work them out. When he had finished, he
+raised his head with stupefaction, took his chart, marked it, and
+looked at the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" asked the latter.</p>
+
+<p>"What was our latitude when we went into winter-quarters?"</p>
+
+<p>"Our latitude was 78&deg; 15', and the longitude 95&deg; 35', exactly the pole
+of cold."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," added Hatteras in a low voice, "our ice-field is drifting! We
+are two degrees farther north and farther west,&mdash;at least three
+hundred miles from your coal-supply!"</p>
+
+<p>"And these poor men who know nothing about it!" cried the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a word!" said Hatteras, raising his finger to his lips.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap28"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h3>
+<h4>PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Hatteras did not wish to let his crew know about this new condition of
+affairs. He was right. If they had known that they were being driven
+towards the north with irresistible force, they would have given way
+to despair. The doctor knew this, and approved of the captain's
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras had kept to himself the impressions which this discovery had
+caused within him. It was his first moment of joy during these long
+months of struggle with the hostile elements. He was one hundred and
+fifty miles farther north; hardly eight degrees from the Pole! But he
+hid his joy so well that the doctor did not even suspect it; he asked
+himself why Hatteras's eye shone with so unusual a lustre; but that
+was all, and the natural reply to this question did not enter his
+head.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Forward</i>, as it approached the Pole, had drifted away from the
+coal which had been seen by Sir Edward Belcher; instead of a hundred
+miles, it would have to be sought two hundred and fifty miles farther
+south. Still, after a short discussion between Hatteras and Clawbonny,
+they determined to make the attempt.</p>
+
+<p>If Belcher was right, and his accuracy could not be doubted, they
+would find everything just at he had left it. Since 1853, no new
+expedition had visited these remote continents. Few, if any, Esquimaux
+are found in this latitude. The disaster which had befallen at Beechey
+Island could not be repeated on the shores of North Cornwall.
+Everything seemed to favor an excursion across the ice.</p>
+
+<p>They estimated that they would be gone forty days at the outside, and
+preparations were made by Johnson for that time of absence.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, he saw about the sledge; it was of the shape of
+those used in Greenland, thirty-five inches broad and twenty-four feet
+long. The Esquimaux sometimes make them fifty feet long. It was built
+of long planks, bent at each end, and kept in position by two strong
+cords. This shape adapted it to resist violent shocks. The sledge ran
+easily upon the ice; but before the snow had hardened, it was
+necessary to place two vertical frames near together, and being raised
+in this way, it could run on without cutting too much into the snow.
+Besides, by rubbing it with a mixture of sulphur and snow in the
+Esquimaux fashion, it ran very easily.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 112">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="395">
+			<img src="images/112.jpg" alt="The sledge party">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>It was drawn by six dogs; they were strong in spite of their thinness,
+and did not appear to be injured by the severity of the winter; the
+harnesses of deerskin were in good condition; perfect reliance could
+be placed on the equipment, which the Greenlanders at Upernavik had
+sold in conscience. These six animals alone could draw a weight of two
+thousand pounds without inordinate fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>They carried with them a tent, in case it should be impossible to
+build a snow-house; a large sheet of mackintosh to spread over the
+snow, so that it should not melt at contact with their bodies; and,
+last of all, many coverings of wool and buffalo-skin. In addition,
+they carried the Halkett-boat.</p>
+
+<p>Their provisions consisted of five chests of pemmican, weighing four
+hundred and fifty pounds; a pound of pemmican was allotted for each
+man and dog; of the latter there were seven, including Duke; there
+were to be four men. They carried, besides, twelve gallons of spirits
+of wine, weighing nearly a hundred and fifty pounds; tea and biscuit,
+in proper amounts; a little portable kitchen, with a great many wicks;
+and much tow, ammunition, and four double-barrelled guns. The men of
+the party made use of Captain Parry's invention, and wore girdles of
+india-rubber in which the heat of the body and the motion in walking
+could keep tea, coffee, and water in a liquid state.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson took special care of the preparation of snow-shoes, with their
+wooden frames and leathern straps; they served as skates; on
+thoroughly frozen spots deerskin moccasins could be worn with comfort;
+every man carried two pairs of each.</p>
+
+<p>These preparations, which were so important because the omission of a
+single detail might have caused the ruin of the whole expedition,
+required four whole days. Every day at noon Hatteras took an
+observation of the ship's position; it was no longer drifting, and
+this had to be perfectly sure in order to secure their return.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras undertook to choose the four men who were to accompany him.
+It was not an easy decision to take; some it was not advisable to
+take, but then the question of leaving them on board had also to be
+considered. Still, the common safety demanded the success of this
+trip, and the captain deemed it right to choose sure and experienced
+men.</p>
+
+<p>Hence Shandon was left out, but not much to his regret. James Wall was
+too ill to go. The sick grew no worse; their treatment consisted of
+repeated rubbing and strong doses of lemon-juice; this was easily seen
+to without the presence of the doctor being essential. Hence he
+enrolled himself among those who should go, and no voice was raised
+against it. Johnson would have gladly gone with the captain in his
+dangerous expedition; but Hatteras drew him to one side and said to
+him in an affectionate, almost weeping voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Johnson, you are the only man I can trust. You are the only officer
+with whom I can leave the ship. I must know that you are here to keep
+an eye on Shandon and the others. They are kept to the ship by the
+winter; but who can say what plans they are not capable of forming?
+You shall receive my formal instructions, which shall place the
+command in your hands. You shall take my place. We shall be absent
+four or five weeks at the most, and I shall be at ease having you here
+where I cannot be. You need wood, Johnson. I know it! But, as much as
+possible, spare my ship. Do you understand, Johnson?"</p>
+
+<p>"I understand, Captain," answered the old sailor, "and I will remain
+if you prefer it."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks!" said Hatteras, pressing the boatswain's hand; and he added,
+"In case we don't come back, Johnson, wait till the next thaw, and try
+to push on to the Pole. If the rest refuse, don't think of us, but
+take the <i>Forward</i> back to England."</p>
+
+<p>"That is your wish, Captain?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is," answered Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"Your orders shall be obeyed," said Johnson, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor regretted that his friend was not going to accompany him,
+but he was obliged to recognize the wisdom of Hatteras's plan.</p>
+
+<p>His two other companions were Bell the carpenter, and Simpson. The
+first, who was sturdy, brave, and devoted, would be of great service
+in their camping in the snow; the other, although less resolute,
+nevertheless determined to take part in this expedition in which he
+might be of use as hunter and fisher.</p>
+
+<p>So this detachment consisted of Hatteras, Clawbonny, Bell, Simpson,
+and the faithful Duke, making in all four men and seven dogs to be
+fed. A suitable amount of provisions was made ready.</p>
+
+<p>During the early days of January the mean temperature was -33&deg;.
+Hatteras waited impatiently for milder weather; he frequently
+consulted the barometer, but no confidence could be placed in this
+instrument, which in these high latitudes seems to lose some of its
+customary accuracy; in these regions there are many exceptions to the
+general laws of nature: for instance, a clear sky was not always
+accompanied by cold, nor did a fall of snow raise the temperature; the
+barometer was uncertain, as many explorers in these seas have noticed;
+it used to fall when the wind was from the north or east; when low it
+foretold fine weather; when high, rain or snow. Hence its indications
+could hardly be relied on.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, January 5th an easterly breeze brought with it a rise in the
+thermometer of fifteen degrees, so that it stood at -18&deg;. Hatteras
+resolved to start the next day; he could no longer endure seeing his
+ship torn to pieces before his eyes; the whole quarter-deck had been
+burned up.</p>
+
+<p>So, January 6th, amid squalls of snow, the order to depart was given;
+the doctor gave his last words of advice to the sick; Bell and Simpson
+shook hands silently with their companions. Hatteras wanted to make a
+farewell speech to the men, but he saw nothing but angry faces around
+him. He fancied he saw an ironical smile playing about Shandon's lips.
+He held his peace. Perhaps he had a momentary pang at parting as he
+gazed at the <i>Forward</i>.</p>
+
+<p>But it was too late for him to change his mind; the sledge, loaded and
+harnessed, was waiting on the ice; Bell was the first to move; the
+others followed. Johnson accompanied the travellers for a quarter of a
+mile; then Hatteras asked him to return, which he did after a long
+leave-taking. At that moment, Hatteras, turning for the last time
+towards the brig, saw the tops of her masts disappearing in the dark
+snow-clouds.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap29"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIX.</h3>
+<h4>ACROSS THE ICE-FIELDS.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The little band made their way towards the southeast. Simpson drove
+the sledge. Duke aided him much, without being disturbed at the
+occupation of his mates. Hatteras and the doctor followed behind on
+foot, while Bell, who was charged with making a road, went on in
+advance, testing the ice with the iron point of his stick.</p>
+
+<a name="ill20"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 113">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="562">
+			<img src="images/113.jpg" alt="The little band made their way towards the southeast">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="562" align="center">
+			<small>"The little band made their way towards the southeast."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The rise in the thermometer foretold a fall of snow, and soon it came,
+beginning in large flakes. This added to the hardships of their
+journey; they kept straying from a straight line; they could not go
+quickly; nevertheless, they averaged three miles an hour.</p>
+
+<p>The ice-field, under the pressure of the frost, presented an unequal
+surface; the sledge was often nearly turned over, but they succeeded
+in saving it.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras and his companions wrapped themselves up in their fur clothes
+cut in the Greenland fashion; they were not cut with extraordinary
+neatness, but they suited the needs of the climate; their faces were
+enclosed in a narrow hood which could not be penetrated by the snow or
+wind; their mouths, noses, and eyes were alone exposed to the air, and
+they did not need to be protected against it; nothing is so
+inconvenient as scarfs and nose-protectors, which soon are stiff with
+ice; at night they have to be cut away, which, even in the arctic
+seas, is a poor way of undressing. It was necessary to leave free
+passage for the breath, which would freeze at once on anything it met.</p>
+
+<p>The boundless plain stretched out with tiresome monotony; everywhere
+there appeared heaped-up ice-hills, hummocks, blocks, and icebergs,
+separated by winding valleys; they walked staff in hand, saying but
+little. In this cold atmosphere, to open the mouth was painful; sharp
+crystals of ice suddenly formed between the lips, and the heat of the
+breath could not melt them. Their progress was silent, and every one
+beat the ice with his staff. Bell's footsteps were visible in the
+fresh snow; they followed them mechanically, and where he had passed,
+the others could go safely.</p>
+
+<p>Numerous tracks of bears and foxes crossed one another everywhere; but
+during this first day not one could be seen; to chase them would have
+been dangerous and useless: they would only have overloaded the
+already heavy sledge.</p>
+
+<p>Generally, in excursions of this sort, travellers take the precaution
+of leaving supplies along their path; they hide them from the animals,
+in the snow, thus lightening themselves for their trip, and on their
+return they take the supplies which they did not have the trouble of
+carrying with them.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras could not employ this device on an ice-field which perhaps
+was moving; on firm land it would have been possible; and the
+uncertainty of their route made it doubtful whether they would return
+by the same path.</p>
+
+<p>At noon, Hatteras halted his little troop in the shelter of an
+ice-wall; they dined off pemmican and hot tea; the strengthening
+qualities of this beverage produced general comfort, and the
+travellers drank a large quantity. After an hour's rest they started
+on again; in the first day they walked about twenty miles; that
+evening men and dogs were tired out.</p>
+
+<p>Still, in spite of their fatigue, they had to build a snow-house in
+which to pass the night; the tent would not have been enough. This
+took them an hour and a half. Bell was very skilful; the blocks of
+ice, which were cut with a knife, were placed on top of one another
+with astonishing rapidity, and they took the shape of a dome, and a
+last piece, the keystone of the arch, established the solidity of the
+building; the soft snow served as mortar in the interstices; it soon
+hardened and made the whole building of a single piece.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 114">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="404">
+			<img src="images/114.jpg" alt="The snow-house">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Access was had into this improvised grotto by means of a narrow
+opening, through which it was necessary to crawl on one's hands and
+knees; the doctor found some difficulty in entering, and the others
+followed. Supper was soon prepared on the alcohol cooking-stove. The
+temperature inside was very comfortable; the wind, which was raging
+without, could not get in.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down!" soon shouted the doctor in his most genial manner.</p>
+
+<p>And this meal, though the same as the dinner, was shared by all. When
+it was finished their only thought was sleep; the mackintoshes, spread
+out upon the snow, protected them from the dampness. At the flame of
+the portable stove they dried their clothes; then three of them,
+wrapped up in their woollen coverings, fell asleep, while one was left
+on watch; he had to keep a lookout on the safety of all, and to
+prevent the opening from being closed, otherwise they ran a risk of
+being buried alive.</p>
+
+<p>Duke shared their quarters; the other dogs remained without, and after
+they had eaten their supper they lay down and were soon hidden by the
+snow.</p>
+
+<p>Their fatigue soon brought sound sleep. The doctor took the watch
+until three of the morning. In the night the hurricane raged
+furiously. Strange was the situation of these lonely men lost in the
+snow, enclosed in this vault with its walls rapidly thickening under
+the snow-fall.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning at six o'clock their monotonous march was resumed;
+there were ever before them the same valleys and icebergs, a
+uniformity which made the choice of a path difficult. Still, a fall of
+several degrees in the temperature made their way easier by hardening
+the snow. Often they came across little elevations, which looked like
+cairns or storing-places of the Esquimaux; the doctor had one
+destroyed to satisfy his curiosity, but he found nothing except a cake
+of ice.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you expect to find, Clawbonny?" asked Hatteras; "are we not
+the first men to penetrate into this part of the globe?"</p>
+
+<p>"Probably," answered the doctor, "but who knows?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let us waste our time in useless searching," resumed the
+captain; "I am in a hurry to rejoin the ship, even if this long-wanted
+fuel should not be found."</p>
+
+<p>"I have great hopes of finding it," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor," Hatteras used to say frequently, "I did wrong to leave the
+<i>Forward;</i> it was a mistake! The captain's place is on board, and
+nowhere else."</p>
+
+<p>"Johnson is there."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! but&mdash;let us hurry on!"</p>
+
+<p>They advanced rapidly; Simpson's voice could be heard urging on the
+dogs; they ran along on a brilliant surface, all aglow with a
+phosphorescent light, and the runners of the sledge seemed to toss up
+a shower of sparks. The doctor ran on ahead to examine this snow, when
+suddenly, as he was trying to jump upon a hummock, he disappeared from
+sight. Bell, who was near him, ran at once towards the place.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Doctor," he cried anxiously, while Hatteras and Simpson joined
+him, "where are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor!" shouted the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"Down here, at the bottom of a hole," was the quiet answer. "Throw me
+a piece of rope, and I'll come up to the surface of the globe."</p>
+
+<p>They threw a rope down to the doctor, who was at the bottom of a pit
+about ten feet deep; he fastened it about his waist, and his three
+companions drew him up with some difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you hurt?" asked Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"No, there's no harm done," answered the doctor, wiping the snow from
+his smiling face.</p>
+
+<p>"But how did it happen?"</p>
+
+<p>"O, it was in consequence of the refraction," he answered, laughing;
+"I thought I had about a foot to step over, and I fell into this deep
+hole! These optical illusions are the only ones left me, my friends,
+and it's hard to escape from them! Let that be a lesson to us all
+never to take a step forward without first testing the ice with a
+staff, for our senses cannot be depended on. Here our ears hear wrong,
+and our eyes deceive us! It's a curious country!"</p>
+
+<p>"Can you go on?" asked the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, Hatteras, go on! This little fall has done me more good than
+harm."</p>
+
+<p>They resumed their march to the southeast, and at evening they halted,
+after walking about twenty-five miles; they were all tired, but still
+the doctor had energy enough to ascend an ice-mountain while the
+snow-hut was building.</p>
+
+<a name="ill21"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 115">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="555">
+			<img src="images/115.jpg" alt="The doctor ascended an ice-mountain">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="555" align="center">
+			<small>"The doctor had energy enough to ascend an ice-mountain
+			while the snow-hut was building."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The moon, which was nearly at its full, shone with extraordinary
+brilliancy in a clear sky; the stars were wonderfully brilliant; from
+the top of the iceberg a boundless plain could be seen, which was
+covered with strangely formed hillocks of ice; in the moonlight they
+looked like fallen columns or overthrown tombstones; the scene
+reminded the doctor of a huge, silent graveyard barren of trees, in
+which twenty generations of human beings might be lying in their long
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the cold and fatigue, Clawbonny remained for a long time
+in a revery, from which it was no easy task for his companions to
+arouse him; but they had to think of resting; the snow-hut was
+completed; the four travellers crawled in like moles, and soon were
+all asleep.</p>
+
+<p>The following days went on without any particular incident; at times
+they went on slowly, at times quickly, with varying ease, according to
+the changes in the weather; they wore moccasins or snow-shoes, as the
+nature of the ice demanded.</p>
+
+<p>In this way they went on till January 15th; the moon, now in its last
+quarter, was hardly visible; the sun, although always beneath the
+horizon, gave a sort of twilight for six hours every day, but not
+enough to light up the route, which had to be directed by the compass.
+Then Bell went on ahead; Hatteras followed next; Simpson and the
+doctor sought also to keep in a straight line behind, with their eyes
+on Hatteras alone; and yet, in spite of all their efforts, they often
+got thirty or forty degrees from the right way, much to their
+annoyance.</p>
+
+<p>Sunday, January 15th, Hatteras judged that they had come about one
+hundred miles to the south; this morning was set aside to mending
+their clothes and materials; the reading of divine service was not
+forgotten.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 116">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="401">
+			<img src="images/116.jpg" alt="A frozen vapor arose">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="note24"></a>
+<p>At noon they started again; the temperature was very low; the
+thermometer marked only -22&deg;;<a href="#not24"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> the air was very clear.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, without warning, a frozen vapor arose into the air from the
+ice, to a height of about ninety feet, and hung motionless; no one
+could see a foot before him; this vapor formed in long, sharp crystals
+upon their clothing.</p>
+
+<p>The travellers, surprised by this phenomenon, which is called
+frost-rime, only thought of getting together; so immediately various
+shouts were heard:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"O Simpson!"</p>
+
+<p>"Bell, this way!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Clawbonny!"</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor!"</p>
+
+<p>"Captain, where are you?"</p>
+
+<p>They began to look for one another with outstretched arms, wandering
+through the fog which their eyes could not pierce. But to their
+disappointment they could hear no answer; the vapor seemed incapable
+of carrying sound.</p>
+
+<p>Each one then thought of firing his gun as a signal to the others. But
+if their voices were too feeble, the reports of the fire-arms were too
+loud; for the echoes, repeated in every direction, made but a confused
+roar, in which no particular direction could be perceived.</p>
+
+<p>Then they began to act, each one as he thought best. Hatteras stood
+still and folded his arms. Simpson contented himself with stopping the
+sledge. Bell retraced his steps, feeling them with his hand. The
+doctor, stumbling over the blocks of ice, wandered here and there,
+getting more and more bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of five minutes he said to himself,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"This can't last long! Singular climate! This is too much! There is
+nothing to help us, without speaking of these sharp crystals which cut
+my face. Halloo, Captain!" he shouted again.</p>
+
+<p>But he heard no answer; he fired his gun, but in spite of his thick
+gloves the iron burned his hands. Meanwhile he thought he saw a
+confused mass moving near him.</p>
+
+<p>"There's some one," he said. "Hatteras! Bell! Simpson! Is that you?
+Come, answer!"</p>
+
+<p>A dull roar was alone heard.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" thought the doctor, "what is that?"</p>
+
+<p>The object approached; it lost its first size and appeared in more
+definite shape. A terrible thought flashed into the doctor's mind.</p>
+
+<p>"A bear!" he said to himself.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, it was a huge bear; lost in the fog, it came and went with
+great danger to the men, whose presence it certainly did not suspect.</p>
+
+<p>"Matters are growing complicated!" thought the doctor, standing still.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes he felt the animal's breath, which was soon lost in the
+frost-rime; again he would see the monster's huge paws beating the air
+so near him that his clothes were occasionally torn by its sharp
+claws; he jumped back, and the animal disappeared like a
+phantasmagoric spectre.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 117">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="553">
+			<img src="images/117.jpg" alt="A phantasmagoric bear">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>But as he sprang back he found an elevation beneath his feet; he
+climbed up first one block of ice, then another, feeling his way with
+his staff.</p>
+
+<p>"An iceberg!" he said to himself; "if I can get to the top I am safe."</p>
+
+<p>With these words he climbed up an elevation of about ninety feet with
+surprising agility; he arose above the frozen mist, the top of which
+was sharply defined.</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" he said to himself; and looking about him he saw his three
+companions emerging from the vapor.</p>
+
+<p>"Hatteras!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Clawbonny!"</p>
+
+<p>"Bell!"</p>
+
+<p>"Simpson!"</p>
+
+<p>These names were shouted out almost at the same time; the sky, lit up
+by a magnificent halo, sent forth pale rays which colored the
+frost-rime as if it were a cloud, and the top of the icebergs seemed
+to rise from a mass of molten silver. The travellers found themselves
+within a circle of less than a hundred feet in diameter. Thanks to the
+purity of the air in this upper layer in this low temperature, their
+words could be easily heard, and they were able to talk on the top of
+this iceberg. After the first shots, each one, hearing no answer, had
+only thought of climbing above the mist.</p>
+
+<p>"The sledge!" shouted the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"It's eighty feet beneath us," answered Simpson.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it all right?"</p>
+
+<p>"All right."</p>
+
+<p>"And the bear?" asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"What bear?" said Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"A bear!" said Hatteras; "let's go down."</p>
+
+<p>"No!" said the doctor; "we shall lose our way, and have to begin it
+all over again."</p>
+
+<p>"And if he eats our dogs&mdash;" said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment Duke was heard barking, the sound rising through the
+mist.</p>
+
+<p>"That's Duke!" shouted Hatteras; "there's something wrong. I'm going
+down."</p>
+
+<p>All sorts of howling arose to their ears; Duke and the dogs were
+barking furiously. The noise sounded like a dull murmur, like the roar
+of a crowded, noisy room. They knew that some invisible struggle was
+going on below, and the mist was occasionally agitated like the sea
+when marine monsters are fighting.</p>
+
+<p>"Duke, Duke!" shouted the captain, as he made ready to enter again
+into the frost-rime.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a moment, Hatteras,&mdash;wait a moment! It seems to me that the fog
+is lifting."</p>
+
+<p>It was not lifting, but sinking, like water in a pool; it appeared to
+be descending into the ground from which it had risen; the summits of
+the icebergs grew larger; others, which had been hidden, arose like
+new islands; by an optical illusion, which may be easily imagined, the
+travellers, clinging to these ice-cones, seemed to be rising in the
+air, while the top of the mist sank beneath them.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the top of the sledge appeared, then the harnessed dogs, and then
+about thirty other animals, then great objects moving confusedly, and
+Duke leaping about with his head alternately rising and sinking in the
+frozen mist.</p>
+
+<p>"Foxes!" shouted Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Bears!" said the doctor; "one, two, three."</p>
+
+<p>"Our dogs, our provisions!" cried Simpson.</p>
+
+<p>A troop of foxes and bears, having come across the sledge, were
+ravaging the provisions. Their instinct of pillaging united them in
+perfect harmony; the dogs were barking furiously, but the animals paid
+no heed, but went on in their work of destruction.</p>
+
+<p>"Fire!" shouted the captain, discharging his piece.</p>
+
+<a name="ill22"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 118">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="564">
+			<img src="images/118.jpg" alt="'Fire!' shouted the captain">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="564" align="center">
+			<small>"'Fire!' shouted the captain, discharging his piece."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>His companions did the same. But at the combined report the bears,
+raising their heads and uttering a singular roar, gave the signal to
+depart; they fell into a little trot which a galloping horse could not
+have kept up with, and, followed by the foxes, they soon disappeared
+amid the ice to the north.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap30"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXX.</h3>
+<h4>THE CAIRN.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>This phenomenon, which is peculiar to the polar regions, had lasted
+three quarters of an hour; the bears and foxes had had plenty of time;
+these provisions arrived opportunely for these animals, who were
+nearly starved during the inclement weather; the canvas cover of the
+sledge was torn by their strong claws, the casks of pemmican were
+opened and emptied; the biscuit-sacks pillaged, the tea spilled over
+the snow, a barrel of alcohol torn open and its contents lost, their
+camping materials scattered and damaged, bore witness to the ferocity
+of these wild beasts, and their greediness.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a misfortune," said Bell, gazing at this scene of ruin.</p>
+
+<p>"Which is probably irreparable," said Simpson.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us first estimate the loss," interrupted the doctor, "and we'll
+talk about it afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras, without saying a word, began to gather the scattered boxes
+and sacks; they collected the pemmican and biscuits which could be
+eaten; the loss of part of their alcohol was much to be regretted; for
+if that was gone there would be nothing warm to drink; no tea, no
+coffee. In making an inventory of the supplies left, the doctor found
+two hundred pounds of pemmican gone, and a hundred and fifty pounds of
+biscuit; if their journey continued they would have to subsist on
+half-rations.</p>
+
+<p>They then began to discuss what should be done, whether they should
+return to the ship and start out again. But how could they make up
+their minds to lose the hundred and fifty miles they had already made?
+To return without fuel would have a depressing effect upon the spirits
+of the crew. Could men be found again to resume their march across the
+ice?</p>
+
+<p>Evidently it was better to push on, even at the risk of severe
+privations.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, Hatteras, and Bell were of this opinion; Simpson wanted to
+go back; the fatigue of the journey had worn upon his health; he was
+visibly weaker; but finding himself alone of this opinion, he resumed
+his place at the head of the sledge, and the little caravan continued
+its journey to the south.</p>
+
+<p>During the three next days, from the 15th to the 17th of January, all
+the monotonous incidents of the voyage were repeated; they advanced
+more slowly, and with much fatigue; their legs grew tired; the dogs
+dragged the sledge with difficulty; their diminished supply of food
+could not comfort men or beasts. The weather was very variable,
+changing from intense, dry cold to damp, penetrating mists.</p>
+
+<p>January 18th the aspect of the ice-fields changed suddenly; a great
+number of peaks, like sharp-pointed pyramids, and very high, appeared
+at the horizon; the ground in certain places came through the snow; it
+seemed formed of gneiss, schist, and quartz, with some appearance of
+limestone. The travellers at last touched earth again, and this land
+they judged to be that called North Cornwall.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor could not help striking the earth with joy; they had now
+only a hundred miles to go before reaching Cape Belcher, but their
+fatigue increased strangely on this soil, covered with sharp rocks,
+and interspersed with dangerous points, crevasses, and precipices;
+they had to go down into the depths of these abysses, climb steep
+ascents, and cross narrow gorges, in which the snow was drifted to the
+depth of thirty or forty feet.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 119">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="555">
+			<img src="images/119.jpg" alt="North Cornwall">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The travellers soon regretted the almost easy journey over the
+ice-fields, which so well suited the sledge; now it had to be dragged
+by main force; the weary dogs were insufficient; the men, compelled to
+take their place alongside of them, wore themselves out with hauling;
+often they had to take off the whole load to get over some steep
+hills; a place only ten feet wide often kept them busy for hours; so
+in this first day they made only five miles in North Cornwall, which
+is certainly well named, for it exhibits all the roughness, the sharp
+points, the steep gorges, the confused rockiness, of the southwest
+coast of England.</p>
+
+<p>The next day the sledge reached the top of the hills near the shore;
+the exhausted travellers, being unable to make a snow-hut, were
+obliged to pass the night under the tent, wrapped up in buffalo-skins,
+and drying their wet stockings by placing them about their bodies. The
+inevitable consequences of such conduct are easily comprehended; that
+night the thermometer fell below -44&deg;, and the mercury froze.</p>
+
+<p>Simpson's health caused great anxiety; a persistent cough, violent
+rheumatism, and intolerable pain obliged him to lie on the sledge
+which he could no longer guide. Bell took his place; he too was
+suffering, but not so much as to be incapacitated. The doctor also
+felt the consequences of this trip in this terrible weather; but he
+uttered no complaint; he walked on, resting on his staff; he made out
+the way and helped every one. Hatteras, impassible, and as strong as
+on the first day, followed the sledge in silence.</p>
+
+<p>January 20th the weather was so severe that the slightest effort
+produced complete prostration. Still, the difficulties of the way were
+so great, that Hatteras, the doctor, and Bell harnessed themselves
+with the dogs; sudden shocks had broken the front of the sledge, and
+they had to stop to repair it. Such delays were frequent every day.</p>
+
+<p>The travellers followed a deep ravine, up to their waists in snow, and
+perspiring violently in spite of the intense cold. They did not say a
+word. Suddenly Bell, who was near the doctor, looked at him with some
+alarm; then, without uttering a word, he picked up a handful of snow
+and began rubbing his companion's face violently.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 120">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="398">
+			<img src="images/120.jpg" alt="He began rubbing his companion's face violently">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Well, Bell!" said the doctor, resisting.</p>
+
+<p>But Bell continued rubbing.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Bell," began the doctor again, his mouth, nose, and eyes full
+of snow, "are you mad? What's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you have a nose left," answered Bell, "you ought to be grateful to
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"A nose!" answered the doctor, quickly, clapping his hand to his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Doctor, you were frost-bitten; your nose was white when I looked
+at you, and if I had not done as I did, you would have lost that
+ornament which is in the way on a journey, but agreeable to one's
+existence."</p>
+
+<p>In fact, the doctor's nose was almost frozen; the circulation of the
+blood was restored in time, and, thanks to Bell, all danger was gone.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, Bell!" said the doctor; "I'll be even with you yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so, Doctor," the carpenter answered; "and may Heaven protect
+us from worse misfortunes!"</p>
+
+<p>"Alas, Bell," continued the doctor, "you mean Simpson! The poor fellow
+is suffering terribly."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you fear for his life?" asked Hatteras, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Captain," answered the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"And why?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has a violent attack of scurvy; his legs have begun to swell, and
+his gums too; the poor fellow lies half frozen on the sledge, and
+every movement redoubles his suffering. I pity him, Hatteras, and I
+can't do anything to relieve him."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Simpson!" murmured Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps we shall have to halt for a day or two," resumed the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt!" shouted Hatteras, "when the lives of eighteen men are hanging
+on our return!"</p>
+
+<p>"Still&mdash;" said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Clawbonny, Bell, listen to me," said Hatteras; "we have food for only
+twenty days! Judge for yourselves whether we can stop for a moment!"</p>
+
+<p>Neither the doctor nor Bell made any reply, and the sledge resumed its
+progress, which had been delayed for a moment. That evening they
+stopped beneath a hillock of ice, in which Bell at once cut a cavern;
+the travellers entered it; the doctor passed the night attending to
+Simpson; the scurvy had already made fearful ravages, and his
+sufferings caused perpetual laments to issue from his swollen lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Dr. Clawbonny!"</p>
+
+<p>"Courage, my dear fellow!" said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never get well! I feel it! I'd rather die!"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor answered these despairing words by incessant cares;
+although worn out by the fatigue of the day, he spent the night in
+composing a soothing potion for his patient; but the lime-juice was
+ineffectual, and continual friction could not keep down the progress
+of the scurvy.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 121">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="545">
+			<img src="images/121.jpg" alt="The doctor treating Simpson">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The next day he had to be placed again upon the sledge, although he
+besought them to leave him behind to die in peace; then they resumed
+their dreary and difficult march.</p>
+
+<p>The frozen mists penetrated the three men to the bone; the snow and
+sleet dashed against them; they were working like draught-horses, and
+with a scanty supply of food.</p>
+
+<p>Duke, like his master, kept coming and going, enduring every fatigue,
+always alert, finding out by himself the best path; they had perfect
+confidence in his wonderful instinct.</p>
+
+<p>During the morning of January 23d, amid almost total darkness, for the
+moon was new, Duke had run on ahead; for many hours he was not seen;
+Hatteras became uneasy, especially because there were many traces of
+bears to be seen; he was uncertain what to do, when suddenly a loud
+barking was heard.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras urged on the sledge, and soon he found the faithful animal at
+the bottom of a ravine. Duke stood as motionless as if turned to
+stone, barking before a sort of cairn made of pieces of limestone,
+covered with a cement of ice.</p>
+
+<p>"This time," said the doctor, detaching his harness, "it's a cairn,
+there's no doubt of that."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that to us?" asked Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"Hatteras, if it is a cairn, it may contain some document of value for
+us; perhaps some provisions, and it would be worth while to see."</p>
+
+<p>"What European could have come as far as this?" asked Hatteras,
+shrugging his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"But in lack of Europeans," answered the doctor, "cannot Esquimaux
+have made it here to contain what they have fished or shot? It's their
+habit, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, go and look at it," continued Hatteras; "but I'm afraid it will
+be hardly worth your while."</p>
+
+<p>Clawbonny and Bell walked to the cairn with picks in their hands. Duke
+continued barking furiously. The limestones were firmly fastened
+together by the ice; but a few blows scattered them on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"There's something there, evidently," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"I think so," answered Bell.</p>
+
+<p>They rapidly destroyed the cairn. Soon they found a bundle and in it a
+damp paper. The doctor took it with a beating heart. Hatteras ran
+forward, seized the paper, and read:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Altam..., <i>Porpoise</i>, December 13, 1860, longitude 12..&deg;, latitude 8..&deg;
+35'."</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>Porpoise?</i>" said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>Porpoise!</i>" replied Hatteras. "I never heard of a ship of this
+name in these seas."</p>
+
+<p>"It is clear," resumed the doctor, "that travellers, perhaps
+shipwrecked sailors, have been here within two months."</p>
+
+<p>"That is sure," said Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"What are we going to do?" asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Push on," answered Hatteras, coldly. "I don't know anything about any
+ship called the <i>Porpoise</i>, but I know that the brig <i>Forward</i> is
+waiting for our return."</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap31"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXI.</h3>
+<h4>THE DEATH OF SIMPSON.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>They resumed their journey; the mind of every one was filled with new
+and unexpected ideas, for to meet any one in these regions is about
+the most remarkable event that can happen. Hatteras frowned uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>Porpoise!</i>" he kept saying to himself; "what ship is that? And
+what is it doing so near the Pole?"</p>
+
+<p>At the thought, he shuddered. The doctor and Bell only thought of the
+two results which might follow the discovery of this document, that
+they might be of service in saving some one, or, possibly, that they
+might be saved by them. But the difficulties, obstacles, and dangers
+soon returned, and they could only think of their perilous position.</p>
+
+<a name="ill23"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 122">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="556">
+			<img src="images/122.jpg" alt="They could only think of their perilous position">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="556" align="center">
+			<small>"They could only think of their perilous position."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="note25"></a>
+<p>Simpson's condition grew worse; the doctor could not be mistaken about
+the symptoms of a speedy death. He could do nothing; he was himself
+suffering from a painful ophthalmia, which might be accompanied by
+deafness<a href="#not25"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> if he did not take care. The twilight at that time gave light
+enough, and this light, reflected by the snow, was bad for the eyes;
+it was hard to protect them from the reflection, for glasses would be
+soon covered with a layer of ice which rendered them useless. Hence
+they had to guard carefully against accident by the way, and they had
+to run the risk of ophthalmia; still, the doctor and Bell covered
+their eyes and took turns in guiding the sledge. It ran far from
+smoothly on its worn runners; it became harder and harder to drag it;
+their path grew more difficult; the land was of volcanic origin, and
+all cut up with craters; the travellers had been compelled gradually
+to ascend fifteen hundred feet to reach the top of the mountains. The
+temperature was lower, the storms were more violent, and it was a
+sorry sight to see these poor men on these lonely peaks.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 123">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="549">
+			<img src="images/123.jpg" alt="Their path grew more difficult">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>They were also made sick by the whiteness of everything; the uniform
+brilliancy tired them; it made them giddy; the earth seemed to wave
+beneath their feet with no fixed point on the immense white surface;
+they felt as one does on shipboard when the deck seems to be giving
+way beneath the foot; they could not get over the impression, and the
+persistence of the feeling wearied their heads. Their limbs grew
+torpid, their minds grew dull, and often they walked like men half
+asleep; then a slip or a sudden fall would rouse them for a few
+moments from their sluggishness.</p>
+
+<p>January 25th they began to descend the steep slopes, which was even
+more fatiguing; a false step, which it was by no means easy to avoid,
+might hurl them down into deep ravines where they would certainly have
+perished. Towards evening a violent tempest raged about the snowy
+summit; it was impossible to withstand the force of the hurricane;
+they had to lie down on the ground, but so low was the temperature
+that they ran a risk of being frozen to death at once.</p>
+
+<p>Bell, with Hatteras's aid, built with much difficulty a snow-house, in
+which the poor men sought shelter; there they partook of a few
+fragments of pemmican and a little hot tea; only four gallons of
+alcohol were left; and they had to use this to allay their thirst, for
+snow cannot be absorbed if taken in its natural state; it has to be
+melted first. In the temperate zone, where the cold hardly ever sinks
+much below the freezing-point, it can do no harm; but beyond the Polar
+Circle it is different; it reaches so low a temperature that the bare
+hand can no more touch it than it can iron at a white heat, and this,
+although it is a very poor conductor of heat; so great is the
+difference of temperature between it and the stomach that its
+absorption produces real suffocation. The Esquimaux prefer severe
+thirst to quenching it with this snow, which does not replace water,
+and only augments the thirst instead of appeasing it. The only way the
+travellers could make use of it was by melting it over the
+spirit-lamp.</p>
+
+<p>At three in the morning, when the tempest was at its height, the
+doctor took his turn at the watch; he was lying in a corner of the hut
+when a groan of distress from Simpson attracted his attention; he
+arose to see to him, but in rising he hit his head sharply against the
+icy roof; without paying any attention to that, he bent over Simpson
+and began to rub his swollen, discolored legs; after doing this for a
+quarter of an hour he started to rise, and bumped his head again,
+although he was on his knees.</p>
+
+<p>"That's odd," he said to himself.</p>
+
+<p>He raised his hand above his head; the roof was perceptibly sinking.</p>
+
+<p>"Great God!" he cried; "wake up, my friends!"</p>
+
+<p>At his shouts Hatteras and Bell arose quickly, striking their heads
+against the roof; they were in total darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall be crushed!" said the doctor; "let's get out!"</p>
+
+<p>And all three, dragging Simpson after them, abandoned their dangerous
+quarters; and it was high time, for the blocks of ice, ill put
+together, fell with a loud crash.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 124">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="401">
+			<img src="images/124.jpg" alt="Dragging Simpson after them">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The poor men found themselves then without shelter against the
+hurricane. Hatteras attempted to raise the tent, but it was
+impossible, so severe was the wind, and they had to shelter themselves
+beneath the canvas, which was soon covered with a thick layer of snow;
+but this snow prevented the radiation of their warmth and kept them
+from being frozen to death.</p>
+
+<p>The storm lasted all night; Bell, when he was harnessing the
+half-starved dogs, noticed that three of them had begun to eat the
+leather straps; two were very sick and seemed unable to go on. Still,
+they set out as well as they could; they had sixty miles between them
+and the point they wished to reach.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 125">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="394">
+			<img src="images/125.jpg" alt="A gun!">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>On the 26th, Bell, who was ahead, shouted suddenly to his companions.
+They ran towards him, and he pointed with astonishment to a gun
+resting on a piece of ice.</p>
+
+<p>"A gun!" cried the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras took it; it was in good condition, and loaded.</p>
+
+<p>"The men of the <i>Porpoise</i> can't be far off."</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras, as he was examining the gun, noticed that it was of American
+make; his hands clinched nervously its barrel.</p>
+
+<p>"Forward!" he said calmly.</p>
+
+<p>They continued to descend the mountains. Simpson seemed deprived of
+all feeling; he had not even strength left to moan.</p>
+
+<p>The tempest continued to rage; the sledge went on more and more
+slowly; they made but a few miles in twenty-four hours, and, in spite
+of the strictest economy, their supplies threatened to give out; but
+so long as enough was left to carry them back, Hatteras pushed on.</p>
+
+<p>On the 27th they found, partly buried beneath the snow, a sextant and
+then a flask, which contained brandy, or rather a piece of ice, in the
+middle of which all the spirit of the liquor had collected in the form
+of snow; it was of no use.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently, without meaning it, Hatteras was following in the wake of
+some great disaster; he went on by the only possible route, collecting
+the traces of some terrible shipwreck. The doctor kept a sharp lookout
+for other cairns, but in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Sad thoughts beset him: in fact, if he should discover these wretches,
+of what service could he be to them? He and his companions were
+beginning to lack everything; their clothing was torn, their supplies
+were scanty. If the survivors were many, they would all starve to
+death. Hatteras seemed inclined to flee from them! Was he not
+justified, since the safety of the crew depended upon him? Ought he to
+endanger the safety of all by bringing strangers on board?</p>
+
+<p>But then strangers were men, perhaps their countrymen! Slight as was
+their chance of safety, ought they to be deprived of it? The doctor
+wanted to get Bell's opinion; but Bell refused to answer. His own
+sufferings had hardened his heart. Clawbonny did not dare ask
+Hatteras: so he sought aid from Providence.</p>
+
+<p>Towards the evening of that day, Simpson appeared to be failing fast;
+his cold, stiff limbs, his impeded breathing, which formed a mist
+about his head, his convulsive movements, announced that his last hour
+had come. His expression was terrible to behold; it was despairing,
+with a look of impotent rage at the captain. It contained a whole
+accusation, mute reproaches which were full of meaning, and perhaps
+deserved.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras did not go near the dying man. He avoided him, more silent,
+more shut into himself than ever!</p>
+
+<p>The following night was a terrible one; the violence of the tempest
+was doubled; three times the tent was thrown over, and snow was blown
+over the suffering men, blinding them, and wounding them with the
+pieces torn from the neighboring masses. The dogs barked incessantly.
+Simpson was exposed to all the inclemency of the weather. Bell
+succeeded in again raising the canvas, which, if it did not protect
+them from the cold, at least kept off the snow. But a sudden squall
+blew it down for the fourth time and carried it away with a fierce
+blast.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, that is too much!" shouted Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Courage, courage!" answered the doctor, stooping down to escape being
+blown away.</p>
+
+<p>Simpson was gasping for breath. Suddenly, with a last effort, he half
+rose, stretched his clinched fist at Hatteras, who was gazing steadily
+at him, uttered a heart-rending cry, and fell back dead in the midst
+of his unfinished threat.</p>
+
+<a name="ill24"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 126">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="543">
+			<img src="images/126.jpg" alt="Suddenly, with a last effort, he half rose">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="543" align="center">
+			<small>"Suddenly, with a last effort, he half rose."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Dead!" said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Dead!" repeated Bell.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras, who was approaching the corpse, drew back before the
+violence of the wind.</p>
+
+<p>He was the first of the crew who succumbed to the murderous climate,
+the first to offer up his life, after incalculable sufferings, to the
+captain's persistent obstinacy. This man had considered him an
+assassin, but Hatteras did not quail before the accusation. But a
+tear, falling from his eyes, froze on his pale cheek.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor and Bell looked at him in terror. Supported by his long
+staff, he seemed like the genius of these regions, straight in the
+midst of the fierce blast, and terrible in his stern severity.</p>
+
+<p>He remained standing, without stirring, till the first rays of the
+twilight appeared, bold and unconquerable, and seeming to defy the
+tempest which was roaring about him.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 127">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="547">
+			<img src="images/127.jpg" alt="He remained standing, without stirring">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table><br>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap32"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXXII.</h3>
+<h4>THE RETURN TO THE FORWARD.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Toward six o'clock in the morning the wind fell, and, shifting
+suddenly to the north, it cleared the clouds from the sky; the
+thermometer stood at -33&deg;. The first rays of the twilight appeared on
+the horizon above which it would soon peer.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras approached his two dejected companions and said to them,
+sadly and gently,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My friends, we are more than sixty miles from the point mentioned by
+Sir Edward Belcher. We have only just enough food left to take us back
+to the ship. To go farther would only expose us to certain death,
+without our being of service to any one. We must return."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a wise decision, Hatteras," answered the doctor; "I should
+have followed you anywhere, but we are all growing weaker every day;
+we can hardly set one foot before the other; I approve of returning."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that your opinion, Bell?" asked Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Captain," answered the carpenter.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," continued Hatteras, "we will take two days for rest. That's
+not too much. The sledge needs a great many repairs. I think, too, we
+ought to build a snow-house in which we can repose."</p>
+
+<p>This being decided, the three men set to work energetically. Bell took
+the necessary precautions to insure the solidity of the building, and
+soon a satisfactory retreat arose at the bottom of the ravine where
+they had last halted.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 128">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="557">
+			<img src="images/128.jpg" alt="A satisfactory retreat">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>It was doubtless after a hard struggle that Hatteras had decided to
+discontinue his journey. So much effort and fatigue thrown away! A
+useless trip, entailing the death of one of his men! To return without
+a scrap of coal: what would the crew say? What might it not do under
+the lead of Shandon? But Hatteras could not continue the struggle any
+longer.</p>
+
+<p>He gave all his attention to their preparations for returning; the
+sledge was repaired; its load, too, had become much lighter, and only
+weighed two hundred pounds. They mended their worn-out, torn clothes,
+all soaked through and through by the snow; new moccasins and
+snow-shoes replaced those which were no longer serviceable. This kept
+them busy the whole of the 29th and the morning of the 30th; then they
+all sought what rest they could get, and prepared for what was before
+them.</p>
+
+<p>During the thirty-six hours spent in or near the snow-house, the
+doctor had been noticing Duke, whose singular behavior did not seem to
+him to be natural; the dog kept going in circles which seemed to have
+a common centre; there was a sort of elevation in the soil, produced
+by accumulated layers of ice; Duke, as he ran around this place, kept
+barking gently and wagging his tail impatiently, looking at his master
+as if asking something.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, after reflecting a moment, ascribed this uneasiness to the
+presence of Simpson's corpse, which his companions had not yet had
+time to bury. Hence he resolved to proceed to this sad ceremony on
+that very day; the next morning they were to start. Bell and the
+doctor, picks in hand, went to the bottom of the ravine; the elevation
+which Duke had noticed offered a suitable place for the grave, which
+would have to be dug deep to escape the bears.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor and Bell began by removing the soft snow, then they
+attacked the solid ice; at the third blow of his pick the doctor
+struck against some hard body; he picked up the pieces and found them
+the fragments of a glass bottle. Bell brought to light a stiffened
+bag, in which were a few crumbs of fresh biscuit.</p>
+
+<p>"What's this?" said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"What can it be?" asked Bell, stopping his work.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor called to Hatteras, who came at once.</p>
+
+<p>Duke barked violently, and with his paws tried to tear up the ice.</p>
+
+<p>"Have we by any possibility come across a supply of provisions?" said
+the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"It looks like it," answered Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on!" said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>A few bits of food were found and a box quarter full of pemmican.</p>
+
+<p>"If we have," said Hatteras, "the bears have visited it before we did.
+See, these provisions have been touched already."</p>
+
+<p>"It is to be feared," answered the doctor, "for&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He did not finish his sentence; a cry from Bell interrupted him; he
+had turned over a tolerably large piece of ice and showed a stiff,
+frozen human leg in the ice.</p>
+
+<p>"A corpse!" cried the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a grave," said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>It was the body of a sailor about thirty years old, in a perfect state
+of preservation; he wore the usual dress of Arctic sailors; the doctor
+could not say how long he had been dead.</p>
+
+<p>After this, Bell found another corpse, that of a man of fifty,
+exhibiting traces of the sufferings that had killed him.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 129">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="562">
+			<img src="images/129.jpg" alt="Bell found another corpse">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"They were never buried," cried the doctor; "these poor men were
+surprised by death as we find them."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Doctor," said Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, go on!" said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>Bell hardly dared. Who could say how many corpses lay hidden here?</p>
+
+<p>"They were the victims of just such an accident as we nearly perished
+by," said the doctor; "their snow-house fell in. Let us see if one may
+not be breathing yet!"</p>
+
+<p>The place was rapidly cleared away, and Bell brought up a third body,
+that of a man of forty; he looked less like a corpse than the others;
+the doctor bent over him and thought he saw some signs of life.</p>
+
+<p>"He's alive!" he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>Bell and he carried this body into the snow-house, while Hatteras
+stood in silence, gazing at the sunken dwelling.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 130">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="559">
+			<img src="images/130.jpg" alt="Hatteras stood in silence">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The doctor stripped the body; it bore no signs of injury; with Bell's
+aid he rubbed it vigorously with tow dipped in alcohol, and he saw
+life gradually reviving within it; but the man was in a state of
+complete prostration, and unable to speak; his tongue clove to his
+palate as if it were frozen.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor examined his patient's pockets; they were empty. No paper.
+He let Bell continue rubbing, and went out to Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>He found him in the ruined snow-house, clearing away the floor; soon
+he came out, bearing a half-burned piece of an envelope. A few words
+could be deciphered:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div align="right">....tamont&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>
+  ....<i>orpoise</i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>
+  ....w York.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</div>
+
+<p>"Altamont!" shouted the doctor, "of the <i>Porpoise!</i> of New York!"</p>
+
+<p>"An American!" said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall save him," said the doctor; "I'll answer for it, and we shall
+find out the explanation of this puzzle."</p>
+
+<p>He returned to Altamont, while Hatteras remained pensive. The doctor
+succeeded in recalling the unfortunate man to life, but not to
+consciousness; he neither saw, heard, nor spoke, but at any rate he
+was alive!</p>
+
+<p>The next morning Hatteras said to the doctor,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We must start."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Hatteras! The sledge is not loaded; we shall carry this
+poor fellow back to the ship with us.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," said Hatteras. "But first let us bury these corpses."</p>
+
+<p>The two unknown sailors were placed beneath the ruins of the
+snow-house; Simpson's body took the place of Altamont's.</p>
+
+<p>The three travellers uttered a short prayer over their companion, and
+at seven o'clock in the morning they set off again for the ship.</p>
+
+<p>Two of the dogs were dead. Duke volunteered to drag the sledge, and he
+worked as resolutely as a Greenland dog.</p>
+
+<p>For twenty days, from January 31st to February 19th, the return was
+very much like the first part of the journey. Save that it was in the
+month of February, the coldest of the whole year, and the ice was
+harder; the travellers suffered terribly from the cold, but not from
+the wind or snow-storm.</p>
+
+<p>The sun reappeared for the first time January 31st; every day it rose
+higher above the horizon. Bell and the doctor were at the end of their
+strength, almost blind and quite lame; the carpenter could not walk
+without crutches. Altamont was alive, but continued insensible;
+sometimes his life was despaired of, but unremitting care kept him
+alive! And yet the doctor needed to take the greatest care of himself,
+for his health was beginning to suffer.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras thought of the <i>Forward!</i> In what condition was he going to
+find it? What had happened on board? Had Johnson been able to
+withstand Shandon and his allies? The cold had been terrible! Had they
+burned the ship? Had they spared her masts and keel?</p>
+
+<p>While thinking of this, Hatteras walked on as if he had wished to get
+an early view of the <i>Forward</i>.</p>
+
+<p>February 24th, in the morning, he stopped suddenly. Three hundred
+paces before him appeared a reddish glow, above which rose an immense
+column of black smoke, which was lost in the gray clouds of the sky.</p>
+
+<p>"See that smoke!" he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>His heart beat as if it would burst.</p>
+
+<p>"See that smoke!" he said to his companions. "My ship is on fire!"</p>
+
+<p>"But we are more than three miles from it," said Bell. "It can't be
+the <i>Forward!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but it is," answered the doctor; "the mirage makes it seem
+nearer."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us run!" cried Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>They left the sledge in charge of Duke, and hastened after the
+captain. An hour later they came in sight of the ship. A terrible
+sight! The brig was burning in the midst of the ice, which was melting
+about her; the flames were lapping her hull, and the southerly breeze
+brought to Hatteras's ears unaccustomed sounds.</p>
+
+<p>Five hundred feet from the ship stood a man raising his hands in
+despair; he stood there, powerless, facing the fire which was
+destroying the <i>Forward</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The man was alone; it was Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras ran towards him.</p>
+
+<p>"My ship! my ship!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"You! Captain!" answered Johnson; "you! stop! not a step farther!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" asked Hatteras with a terrible air.</p>
+
+<p>"The wretches!" answered Johnson, "they've been gone forty-eight
+hours, after firing the ship!"</p>
+
+<p>"Curse them!" groaned Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>Then a terrible explosion was heard; the earth trembled; the icebergs
+fell; a column of smoke rose to the clouds, and the <i>Forward</i>
+disappeared in an abyss of fire.</p>
+
+<a name="ill25"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 131">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="561">
+			<img src="images/131.jpg" alt="Then a terrible explosion was heard">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="561" align="center">
+			<small>"Then a terrible explosion was heard."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>At that moment the doctor and Bell came up to Hatteras. He roused
+himself suddenly from his despair.</p>
+
+<p>"My friends," he said energetically, "the cowards have taken flight!
+The brave will succeed! Johnson, Bell, you are bold; Doctor, you are
+wise; as for me, I have faith! There is the North Pole! Come, to
+work!"</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras's companions felt their hearts glow at these brave words.</p>
+<a name="note26"></a>
+<p>And yet the situation was terrible for these four men and the dying
+man, abandoned without supplies, alone at the eighty-fourth degree of
+latitude,<a href="#not26"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> in the very heart of the polar regions.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<center>END OF PART I.</center>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h4>PART II.</h4>
+<h2>THE DESERT OF ICE.</h2>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<h2>THE DESERT OF ICE.</h2>
+<br><a name="chap33"></a><a name="note27"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER I.</h3>
+<h4>THE DOCTOR'S INVENTORY.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The design which Captain Hatteras had formed of exploring the North,
+and of giving England the honor of discovering the Pole, was certainly
+a bold one. This hardy sailor had just done all that human skill could
+do. After struggling for nine months against contrary winds and seas,
+after destroying icebergs and ice-fields, after enduring the severity
+of an unprecedentedly cold winter, after going over all that his
+predecessors had done, after carrying the <i>Forward</i> beyond the seas
+which were already known, in short, after completing half his task, he
+saw his grand plans completely overthrown. The treachery, or rather
+the demoralization of his wearied crew, the criminal folly of some of
+the ringleaders, left him in a terrible situation; of the eighteen men<a href="#not27"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a>
+who had sailed in the brig, four were left, abandoned without
+supplies, without a boat, more than twenty-five hundred miles from
+home!</p>
+
+<p>The explosion of the <i>Forward</i>, which had just blown up before their
+eyes, took from them their last means of subsistence. Still,
+Hatteras's courage did not abandon him at this terrible crisis. The
+men who were left were the best of the crew; they were genuine heroes.
+He made an appeal to the energy and wisdom of Dr. Clawbonny, to the
+devotion of Johnson and Bell, to his own faith in the enterprise; even
+in these desperate straits he ventured to speak of hope; his brave
+companions listened to him, and their courage in the past warranted
+confidence in their promises for the future.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, after listening to the captain's words, wanted to get an
+exact idea of their situation; and, leaving the others about five
+hundred feet from the ship, he made his way to the scene of the
+catastrophe.</p>
+
+<p>Of the <i>Forward</i>, which had been built with so much care, nothing was
+left; pieces of ice, shapeless fragments all blackened and charred,
+twisted pieces of iron, ends of ropes still burning like fuse, and
+scattered here and there on the ice-field, testified to the force of
+the explosion. The cannon had been hurled to some distance, and was
+lying on a piece of ice that looked like a gun-carriage. The surface
+of the ice, for a circle of six hundred feet in diameter, was covered
+with fragments of all sorts; the brig's keel lay under a mass of ice;
+the icebergs, which had been partly melted by the fire, had already
+recovered their rock-like hardness.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor then began to think of his ruined cabin, of his lost
+collections, of his precious instruments destroyed, his books torn,
+burned to ashes. So much that was valuable gone! He gazed with tearful
+eyes at this vast disaster, thinking not of the future, but of the
+irreparable misfortune which dealt him so severe a blow. He was
+immediately joined by Johnson; the old sailor's face bore signs of his
+recent sufferings; he had been obliged to struggle against his
+revolted companions, defending the ship which had been intrusted to
+his care. The doctor sadly pressed the boatswain's hand.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 132">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="274">
+			<img src="images/132.jpg" alt="The doctor sadly pressed the boatswain's hand">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Well, my friend, what is going to become of us?" asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Who can say?" answered Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate," continued the doctor, "don't let us give way to
+despair; let us be men!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Doctor," answered the old sailor, "you are right; it's when
+matters look worst that we most need courage; we are in a bad way; we
+must see how we can best get out of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor ship!" said the doctor, sighing; "I had become attached to it; I
+had got to look on it as on my own home, and there's not left a piece
+that can be recognized!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who would think, Doctor, that this mass of dust and ashes could be so
+dear to our heart?"</p>
+
+<p>"And the launch," continued the doctor, gazing around, "was it
+destroyed too?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Doctor; Shandon and the others, who left, took it with them."</p>
+
+<p>"And the gig?"</p>
+
+<p>"Was broken into a thousand pieces. See, those sheets of tin are all
+that's left of her."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we have nothing but the Halkett-boat?"*</p>
+
+<blockquote><small>* Made of india-rubber, and capable of being inflated at
+pleasure.</small></blockquote>
+
+<p>"That is all, and it is because you insisted on our taking it, that we
+have that."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not of much use," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"They were a pack of miserable, cowardly traitors who ran away!" said
+Johnson. "May they be punished as they deserve!"</p>
+
+<p>"Johnson," answered the doctor, mildly, "we must remember that their
+suffering had worn upon them very much. Only exceptional natures
+remain stanch in adversity, which completely overthrows the weak. Let
+us rather pity than curse them!"</p>
+
+<p>After these words the doctor remained silent for a few minutes, and
+gazed around uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>"What is become of the sledge?" asked Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"We left it a mile back."</p>
+
+<p>"In care of Simpson?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, my friend; poor Simpson sank under the toil of the trip."</p>
+
+<p>"Dead!" cried the boatswain.</p>
+
+<p>"Dead!" answered the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor fellow!" said Johnson; "but who knows whether we may not soon be
+reduced to envying his fate?"</p>
+
+<p>"But we have brought back a dying man in place of the one we lost,"
+answered the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"A dying man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Captain Altamont."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor gave the boatswain in a few words an account of their
+finding him.</p>
+
+<p>"An American!" said Johnson, thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; everything seems to point that way. But what was this <i>Porpoise</i>
+which had evidently been shipwrecked, and what was he doing in these
+waters?"</p>
+
+<p>"He came in order to be lost," answered Johnson; "he brought his crew
+to death, like all those whose foolhardiness leads them here. But,
+Doctor, did the expedition accomplish what it set out for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Finding the coal?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor shook his head sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"None at all?" asked the old sailor.</p>
+
+<p>"None; our supplies gave out, fatigue nearly conquered us. We did not
+even reach the spot mentioned by Edward Belcher."</p>
+
+<p>"So," continued Johnson, "you have no fuel?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor food?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"And no boat with which to reach England?"</p>
+
+<p>They were both silent; they needed all their courage to meet this
+terrible situation.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," resumed the boatswain, "there can be no doubts about our
+condition! We know what we have to expect! But the first thing to do,
+when the weather is so cold, is to build a snow-house."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered the doctor, "with Bell's aid that will be easy; then
+we'll go after the sledge, we'll bring the American here, and then
+we'll take counsel with Hatteras."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor captain!" said Johnson, forgetting his own griefs; "he must
+suffer terribly."</p>
+
+<p>With these words they returned to their companions. Hatteras was
+standing with folded arms, as usual, gazing silently into space. His
+face wore its usual expression of firmness. Of what was this
+remarkable man thinking? Of his desperate condition and shattered
+hopes? Was he planning to return, since both men and the elements had
+combined against his attempt?</p>
+
+<p>No one could have read his thoughts, which his face in no way
+expressed. His faithful Duke was with him, braving a temperature of
+-32&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>Bell lay motionless on the ice; his insensibility might cost him his
+life; he was in danger of being frozen to death. Johnson shook him
+violently, rubbed him with snow, and with some difficulty aroused him
+from his torpor.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Bell, take courage!" he said; "don't lose heart; get up; we
+have to talk matters over, and we need a shelter. Have you forgotten
+how to make a snow-house? Come, help me, Bell! There's an iceberg we
+can cut into! Come, to work! That will give us what we need, courage!"</p>
+
+<p>Bell, aroused by these words, obeyed the old sailor.</p>
+
+<p>"Meanwhile," Johnson went on, "the doctor will be good enough to go to
+the sledge and bring it back with the dogs."</p>
+
+<p>"I am ready," answered the doctor; "in an hour I shall be back."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall you go too, Captain?" added Johnson, turning to Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>Although he was deep in thought, the captain heard the boatswain's
+question, for he answered gently,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"No, my friend, if the doctor is willing to go alone. We must form
+some plan of action, and I want to be alone to think matters over. Go.
+Do what you think right for the present. I will be thinking of the
+future."</p>
+
+<p>Johnson turned to the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"It's singular," he said; "the captain seems to have forgotten his
+anger; his voice never was so gentle before."</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" answered the doctor; "he has recovered his presence of mind.
+Mark my words, Johnson, that man will be able to save us!"</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 133">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="400">
+			<img src="images/133.jpg" alt="The doctor walking back to the sledge">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Thereupon the doctor wrapped himself up as well as he could, and,
+staff in hand, walked away towards the sledge in the midst of a fog
+which the moonlight made almost bright. Johnson and Bell set to work
+immediately; the old sailor encouraged the carpenter, who wrought on
+in silence; they did not need to build, but to dig into the solid ice;
+to be sure it was frozen very hard, and so rendered the task
+difficult, but it was thereby additionally secure; soon Johnson and
+Bell could work comfortably in the orifice, throwing outside all that
+they took from the solid mass.</p>
+
+<p>From time to time Hatteras would walk fitfully, stopping suddenly
+every now and then; evidently he did not wish to reach the spot where
+his brig had been. As he had promised, the doctor was soon back; he
+brought with him Altamont, lying on the sledge beneath all the
+coverings; the Greenland dogs, thin, tired, and half starved, could
+hardly drag the sledge, and were gnawing at their harness; it was high
+time that men and beasts should take some rest.</p>
+
+<p>While they were digging the house, the doctor happened to stumble upon
+a small stove which had not been injured by the explosion, and with a
+piece of chimney that could be easily repaired: the doctor carried it
+away in triumph. At the end of three hours the house was inhabitable;
+the stove was set in and filled with pieces of wood; it was soon
+roaring and giving out a comfortable warmth.</p>
+
+<p>The American was brought in and covered up carefully; the four
+Englishmen sat about the fire. The last supplies of the sledge, a
+little biscuit and some hot tea, gave them some comfort. Hatteras did
+not speak; every one respected his silence. When the meal was finished
+the doctor made a sign for Johnson to follow him outside.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," he said, "we are going to make an inventory of what is left. We
+must know exactly what things we have; they are scattered all about;
+we must pick them up; it may snow at any moment, and then it would be
+impossible to find a scrap."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let us lose any time, then," answered Johnson; "food and wood
+is what we need at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let us each take a side," answered the doctor, "so as to cover
+the whole ground; let us begin at the centre and go out to the
+circumference."</p>
+
+<p>They went at once to the bed of ice where the <i>Forward</i> had lain; each
+examined with care all the fragments of the ship beneath the dim light
+of the moon. It was a genuine hunt; the doctor entered into this
+occupation with all the zest, not to say the pleasure, of a sportsman,
+and his heart beat high when he discovered a chest almost intact; but
+most were empty, and their fragments were scattered everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>The violence of the explosion had been considerable; many things were
+but dust and ashes; the large pieces of the engine lay here and there,
+twisted out of shape; the broken flanges of the screw were hurled
+twenty fathoms from the ship and buried deeply in the hardened snow;
+the bent cylinders had been torn from their pivots; the chimney, torn
+nearly in two, and with chains still hanging to it, lay half hid under
+a large cake of ice; the bolts, bars, the iron-work of the helm, the
+sheathing, all the metal-work of the ship, lay about as if it had been
+fired from a gun.</p>
+
+<a name="ill26"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 134">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="551">
+			<img src="images/134.jpg" alt="The large pieces of the engine lay here and there">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="551" align="center">
+			<small>"The large pieces of the engine lay here and there,
+			twisted out of shape."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>But this iron, which would have made the fortune of a tribe of
+Esquimaux, was of no use under the circumstances; before anything else
+food had to be found, and the doctor did not discover a great deal.</p>
+
+<p>"That's bad," he said to himself; "it is evident that the store-room,
+which was near the magazine, was entirely destroyed by the explosion;
+what wasn't burned was shattered to dust. It's serious; and if Johnson
+is not luckier than I am, I don't see what's going to become of us."</p>
+
+<p>Still, as he enlarged his circles, the doctor managed to collect a few
+fragments of pemmican, about fifteen pounds, and four stone bottles,
+which had been thrown out upon the snow and so had escaped
+destruction; they held five or six pints of brandy.</p>
+
+<p>Farther on he picked up two packets of grains of cochlearia, which
+would well make up for the loss of their lime-juice, which is so
+useful against the scurvy.</p>
+
+<p>Two hours later the doctor and Johnson met. They told one another of
+their discoveries; unfortunately they had found but little to eat:
+some few pieces of salt pork, fifty pounds of pemmican, three sacks of
+biscuit, a little chocolate, some brandy, and about two pounds of
+coffee, picked up berry by berry on the ice.</p>
+
+<p>No coverings, no hammocks, no clothing, were found; evidently the fire
+had destroyed all. In short, the doctor and boatswain had found
+supplies for three weeks at the outside, and with the strictest
+economy; that was not much for them in their state of exhaustion. So,
+in consequence of these disasters, Hatteras found himself not only
+without any coal, but also short of provisions.</p>
+
+<p>As to the fuel supplied by the fragments of the ship, the pieces of
+the masts and the keel, they might hold out about three weeks; but
+then the doctor, before using it to heat their new dwelling, asked
+Johnson whether out of it they might not build a new ship, or at least
+a launch.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Doctor," answered the boatswain, "it's impossible; there's not a
+piece of wood large enough; it's good for nothing except to keep us
+warm for a few days and then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then?" asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"God alone knows," answered the sailor.</p>
+
+<p>Having made out their list, the doctor and Johnson went after the
+sledge; they harnessed the tired dogs, returned to the scene of the
+explosion, packed up the few precious objects they had found, and
+carried them to their new house; then, half frozen, they took their
+place near their companions in misfortune.</p>
+
+<a name="ill27"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 135">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="586">
+			<img src="images/135.jpg" alt="They harnessed the tired dogs">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="586" align="center">
+			<small>"They harnessed the tired dogs."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table><br>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap34"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER II.</h3>
+<h4>ALTAMONT'S FIRST WORDS.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Towards eight o'clock in the evening the snow-clouds cleared away for
+a few minutes; the constellations shone brilliantly in the clear air.
+Hatteras made use of this change to get the altitude of some stars; he
+went out without saying a word, carrying his instruments with him. He
+wished to ascertain his position and see if the ice-field had not been
+drifting again. After an absence of half an hour he came back, lay
+down in a corner, and remained perfectly still, although not asleep.</p>
+
+<p>The next day snow began to fall heavily; the doctor could not help
+being glad that he had made his examination the day before, for a
+white curtain soon covered the whole expanse, and every trace of the
+explosion was hidden under three feet of snow.</p>
+
+<p>On that day they could not set foot outside; fortunately their
+quarters were comfortable, or at least seemed so to the exhausted
+travellers. The little stove worked well, except occasionally when
+violent gusts drove the smoke into the room; with its heat they could
+make coffee and tea, which are both so serviceable beverages when the
+temperature is low.</p>
+
+<p>The castaways, for they deserve the name, found themselves more
+comfortable than they had been for a long time; hence they only
+thought of the present, of the agreeable warmth, of the brief rest,
+forgetting, or even indifferent to the future, which threatened with
+speedy death.</p>
+
+<p>The American suffered less, and gradually returned to life; he opened
+his eyes, but he did not say anything; his lips bore traces of the
+scurvy, and could not utter a sound; he could hear, and was told where
+he was and how he got there. He moved his head as a sign of gratitude;
+he saw that he had been saved from burial beneath the snow; the doctor
+forbore telling him how very short a time his death had been delayed,
+for, in a fortnight or three weeks at the most, their supply of food
+would be exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>Towards midday Hatteras arose and went up to the doctor, Johnson, and
+Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"My friends," he said to them, "we are going to take a final
+resolution as to the course we must follow. In the first place, I must
+ask Johnson to tell me under what circumstances this act of treachery
+came to pass."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should we know?" said the doctor; "the fact is certain, we need
+give it no more thought."</p>
+
+<p>"I am thinking of it, all the same," answered Hatteras. "But after
+I've heard what Johnson has to say, I shall not think of it again."</p>
+
+<a name="ill28"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 136">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="582">
+			<img src="images/136.jpg" alt="Johnson's Story">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="582" align="center">
+			<small>Johnson's Story.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"This is the way it happened," went on the boatswain; "I did all I
+could to prevent the crime&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure of that, Johnson, and I will add that the leaders had been
+plotting it for some time."</p>
+
+<p>"So I thought," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"And I too," continued Johnson; "for very soon after your departure,
+Captain, on the very next day, Shandon, who was angry with you and was
+egged on by the others, took command of the ship; I tried to resist,
+but in vain. After that, every one acted as he saw fit; Shandon did
+not try to control them; he wanted to let the crew see that the time
+of suffering and privation had gone by. Hence there was no economy; a
+huge fire was lighted in the stove; they began to burn the brig. The
+men had the provisions given them freely, and the spirits too, and you
+can easily imagine the abuse they made of them after their long
+abstinence. Things went on in this way from the 7th to the 15th of
+January."</p>
+
+<p>"So," said Hatteras, in a grave voice, "it was Shandon who incited the
+men to revolt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Captain."
+
+<p>"Say nothing more about him. Go on, Johnson."</p>
+
+<p>"It was towards January 24th or 25th, that the plan of leaving the
+ship was formed. They determined to reach the western coast of
+Baffin's Bay; from there, in the launch, they could meet whalers, or,
+perhaps, the settlements on the eastern side. Their supplies were
+abundant; the sick grew better with the hope of reaching home. So they
+made their plans for leaving; they built a sledge for the transport of
+their food, fuel, and the launch; the men were to drag it themselves.
+This occupied them until February 15th. I kept anxiously awaiting your
+return, Captain, and yet I feared having you present; you would have
+had no influence over the crew, who would rather have killed you than
+have remained on board. They were wild with the hope of escape. I took
+all my companions aside and spoke to them, I besought them to stay; I
+pointed out all the dangers of such a journey, as well as the
+cowardliness of abandoning you. I could get nothing, even from the
+best. They chose February 22d for leaving. Shandon was impatient. They
+heaped upon the sledge all the food and liquor it could hold; they
+took a great deal of wood; the whole larboard side had been cut away
+to the water-line. The last day they passed carousing; they ravaged
+and stole everything, and it was during this drunkenness that Pen and
+two or three others set fire to the ship. I resisted, and struggled
+against them; they threw me down and struck me; at last, these
+villains, with Shandon at their head, fled to the east, and
+disappeared from my sight. I remained alone; what could I do against
+this fire which was seizing the whole ship? The water-hole was frozen
+over; I hadn't a drop of water. For two days the <i>Forward</i> was wrapped
+in flames, and you know the rest."</p>
+
+<p>Having finished this account, a long silence prevailed in this
+ice-house; the gloomy tale of the burning of the ship, the loss of
+their precious brig, appeared so vividly before the minds of the
+castaways; they found themselves before an impossibility, and that was
+a return to England. They did not dare to look at one another, for
+fear of seeing on each other's faces blank despair. There was nothing
+to be heard save the hasty breathing of the American.</p>
+
+<p>At last Hatteras spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Johnson," said he, "I thank you; you have done all you could to save
+my ship. But you could not do anything alone. Again I thank you, and
+now don't let us speak again of this misfortune. Let us unite our
+efforts for the common safety. There are four of us here, four
+friends, and the life of one is of no more worth than the life of
+another. Let each one give his opinion on what should be done."</p>
+
+<p>"Ask us, Hatteras," answered the doctor; "we are all devoted to you,
+our answers shall be sincere. And, in the first place, have you any
+plan?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't have any alone," said Hatteras, sadly. "My opinion might seem
+interested; I want to hear your opinion first."</p>
+
+<p>"Captain," said Johnson, "before speaking on such weighty matters, I
+have an important question to ask you."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"You ascertained our position yesterday; well, has the ice-field
+drifted any more, or are we in just the same place?"</p>
+
+<p>"It has not stirred," answered Hatteras. "The latitude before we left
+was 80&deg; 15', and longitude 97&deg; 35'."</p>
+<a name="note28"></a>
+<p>"And," said Johnson, "how far are we from the nearest sea to the
+west?"<a href="#not28"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a></p>
+
+<p>"About six hundred miles," answered Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"And this water is&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Smith's Sound."</p>
+
+<p>"The same which we could not cross last April?"</p>
+
+<p>"The same."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Captain, now we know where we are, and we can make up our minds
+accordingly."</p>
+
+<p>"Speak, then," said Hatteras, letting his head sink into his hands.</p>
+
+<p>In that way he could hear his friends without looking at them.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Bell," said the doctor, "what do you think is the best course
+to follow?"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't necessary to reflect a long time," answered the carpenter;
+"we ought to return, without wasting a day or an hour, either to the
+south or the west,<a href="#not28"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> and reach the nearest coast, even if it took us two
+months!"</p>
+
+<p>"We have supplies for only three weeks," answered Hatteras, without
+raising his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," continued Johnson, "we must make that distance in three weeks,
+since it's our only chance of safety; if we have to crawl on our knees
+at the end, we must leave, and arrive in twenty-five days."</p>
+
+<p>"This part of the northern continent is not known," answered Hatteras.
+"We may meet obstacles, such as mountains and glaciers, which will
+completely bar our progress."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't consider that," answered the doctor, "a sufficient reason for
+not attempting the journey; evidently, we shall suffer a great deal;
+we ought to reduce our daily supply to the minimum, unless luck in
+hunting&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There's only half a pound of powder left," answered Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Hatteras," resumed the doctor, "I know the weight of all your
+objections, and I don't nourish any vain hopes. But I think I can read
+your thoughts; have you any practicable plan?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered the captain, after a few moments' hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not doubt our courage," continued the doctor; "we are willing
+to follow you to the last, you know very well; but should we not now
+abandon all hope of reaching the Pole? Mutiny has overthrown your
+plans; you fought successfully against natural obstacles, but not
+against the weakness and perfidy of men; you have done all that was
+humanly possible, and I am sure you would have succeeded; but, in the
+present condition of affairs, are you not compelled to give up your
+project, and in order to take it up again, should you not try to reach
+England without delay?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Captain?" asked Johnson, when Hatteras had remained a long time
+silent.</p>
+
+<p>At last the captain raised his head, and said in a constrained tone,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think you are sure of reaching the shore of the sound, tired
+as you are, and almost without food?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered the doctor; "but it's sure the shore won't come to us;
+we must go to it. Perhaps we shall find to the south tribes of
+Esquimaux who may aid us."</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," added Johnson, "may we not find in the sound some ship that
+has been forced to winter there."</p>
+
+<p>"And if need be," continued the doctor, "when we've reached the sound,
+may we not cross it, and reach the west coast of Greenland, and then,
+either by Prudhoe's Land, or Cape York, get to some Danish settlement?
+Nothing of that sort is to be found on the ice-field. The way to
+England is down there to the south, and not here to the north!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Bell, "Dr. Clawbonny is right; we must go, and go at once.
+Hitherto we have forgotten home too much, and those who are dear to
+us."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you agree, Johnson?" Hatteras asked again.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Captain."</p>
+
+<p>"And you, Doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Hatteras."</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras still remained silent; in spite of all he could do, his face
+expressed his agitation. His whole life depended on the decision he
+should take; if he should return, it was all over with his bold plans;
+he could not hope to make the attempt a fourth time.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, seeing the captain was silent, again spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"I ought to add, Hatteras," he said, "that we ought not to lose an
+instant; we ought to load the sledge with all our provisions, and take
+as much wood as possible. A journey of six hundred miles under such
+circumstances is long, I confess, but not insuperable; we can, or
+rather we ought, to make twenty miles a day, which would bring us to
+the coast in a month, that is to say, towards March 26th."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Hatteras, "can't we wait a few days?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you hope for?" answered Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. Who can foretell the future? Only a few days yet! It's
+hardly enough to rest your wearied bodies. We couldn't go two stages
+without dropping from weariness, without any snow-house to shelter
+us!"</p>
+
+<p>"But a terrible death certainly awaits us here!" cried Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"My friends," continued Hatteras in a tone almost of entreaty, "you
+are despairing too soon! I should propose to seek safety to the north,
+were it not that you would refuse to follow me. And yet are there not
+Esquimaux near the Pole, as well as at Smith's Sound? That open sea,
+of which the existence is uncertain, ought to surround a continent.
+Nature is logical in everything it does. Well, we ought to believe
+that vegetation appears when the greatest cold ceases. Is there not a
+promised land awaiting us at the north, and which you want to fly from
+without hope of return?"</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras warmed as he spoke; his heated imagination called up
+enchanting visions of these countries, whose existence was still so
+problematical.</p>
+
+<p>"One more day," he repeated, "a single hour!"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Clawbonny, with his adventurous character and his glowing
+imagination, felt himself gradually aroused; he was about to yield;
+but Johnson, wiser and colder, recalled him to reason and duty.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Bell," he said, "to the sledge!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come along!" answered Bell.</p>
+
+<p>The two sailors turned towards the door of the snow-house.</p>
+
+<p>"O Johnson! you! you!" shouted Hatteras. "Well, go! I shall stay!"</p>
+
+<p>"Captain!" said Johnson, stopping in spite of himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall stay, I say! Go! leave me like the rest! Go!&mdash;Come, Duke, we
+two shall stay!"</p>
+
+<p>The brave dog joined his master, barking. Johnson looked at the
+doctor. He did not know what to do; the best plan was to calm
+Hatteras, and to sacrifice a day to his fancies. The doctor was about
+making up his mind to this effect, when he felt some one touch his
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>He turned round. The American had just left the place where he had
+been lying; he was crawling on the floor; at last he rose to his
+knees, and from his swollen lips a few inarticulate sounds issued.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, astonished, almost frightened, gazed at him silently.
+Hatteras approached the American, and examined him closely. He tried
+to make out the words which the poor fellow could not pronounce. At
+last, after trying for five minutes, he managed to utter this word:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Porpoise</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>Porpoise?</i>" asked the captain.</p>
+
+<p>The American bowed affirmatively.</p>
+
+<p>"In these seas?" asked Hatteras with beating heart.</p>
+
+<p>The same sign from the sick man.</p>
+
+<p>"To the north?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And you know where it lies?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's silence. The bystanders were all excited.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, listen carefully," said Hatteras to the sick man; "we must know
+where this ship lies. I am going to count the degrees aloud; you will
+stop me by a sign."</p>
+
+<p>The American bowed his head to show that he understood.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," said Hatteras, "we'll begin with the longitude. One hundred
+and five? No.&mdash;Hundred and six? Hundred and seven? Hundred and eight?
+Far to the west?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the American.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go on. Hundred and nine? Ten? Eleven? Twelve? Fourteen?
+Sixteen? Eighteen? Nineteen? Twenty?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Longitude one hundred and twenty?" said Hatteras. "And how many
+minutes? I shall count."</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras began at number one. At fifteen Altamont made a sign for him
+to stop.</p>
+
+<p>"All right!" said Hatteras. "Now for the latitude. You understand?
+Eighty? Eighty-one? Eighty-two? Eighty-three?"</p>
+
+<p>The American stopped him with a gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"Well! And the minutes? Five? Ten? Fifteen? Twenty? Twenty-five?
+Thirty? Thirty-five?"</p>
+
+<p>Another sign from Altamont, who smiled slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"So," continued Hatteras, in a deep voice, "the <i>Porpoise</i> lies in
+longitude 120&deg; 15', and 83&deg; 35' latitude?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" said the American, as he fell fainting into the doctor's arms.
+This exertion had exhausted him.</p>
+
+<a name="ill29"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 137">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="552">
+			<img src="images/137.jpg" alt="'Yes!' said the American">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="552" align="center">
+			<small>"'Yes!' said the American."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"My friends," cried Hatteras, "you see that safety lies to the north,
+always to the north! We shall be saved!"</p>
+
+<p>But after these first words of joy, Hatteras seemed suddenly struck by
+a terrible thought. His expression changed, and he felt himself stung
+by the serpent of jealousy.</p>
+
+<p>Some one else, an American, had got three degrees nearer the Pole! And
+for what purpose?</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap35"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3>
+<h4>SEVENTEEN DAYS OF LAND JOURNEY.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>This new incident, these first words which Altamont uttered, had
+completely altered the situation of the castaways; but just now they
+had been far from any possible aid, without a reasonable chance of
+reaching Baffin's Bay, threatened with starvation on a journey too
+long for their wearied bodies, and now, within four hundred miles from
+their snow-house, there was a ship which offered them bounteous
+supplies, and perhaps the means of continuing their bold course to the
+Pole. Hatteras, the doctor, Johnson, and Bell, all began to take heart
+after having been so near despair; they were nearly wild with joy.</p>
+
+<p>But Altamont's account was still incomplete, and, after a few moments'
+repose, the doctor resumed his talk with him; he framed his questions
+in such a way that a simple sign of the head or a motion of the eyes
+would suffice for an answer.</p>
+
+<p>Soon he made out that the <i>Porpoise</i> was an American bark from New
+York, that it had been caught in the ice with a large supply of food
+and fuel; and, although she lay on her beam-ends, she must have
+withstood the ice, and it would be possible to save her cargo.</p>
+
+<p>Two months before, Altamont and the crew had abandoned her, carrying
+the launch upon a sledge; they wanted to get to Smith's Sound, find a
+whaling-vessel, and be carried in her to America; but gradually
+fatigue and disease had fallen upon them, and they fell aside on the
+way. At last only the captain and two sailors were left of a crew of
+thirty men, and Altamont's life was the result of what was really a
+miracle.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras wanted to find out from the American what he was doing in
+these high latitudes.</p>
+
+<p>Altamont managed to make him understand that he had been caught in the
+ice and carried by it without possibility of resisting it.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras asked him anxiously for what purpose he was sailing.</p>
+
+<p>Altamont gave them to understand that he had been trying the Northwest
+Passage.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras did not persist, and asked no other question of the sort.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor then began to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," he said, "all our efforts should be directed to finding the
+<i>Porpoise;</i> instead of struggling to Baffin's Bay, we may, by means of
+a journey only two thirds as long, reach a ship which will offer us
+all the resources necessary for wintering."</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing more to be done," said Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"I should add," said the boatswain, "that we should not lose a moment;
+we should calculate the length of our journey by the amount of our
+supplies, instead of the other and usual way, and be off as soon as
+possible."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Johnson," said the doctor; "if we leave to-morrow,
+Tuesday, February 26th, we ought to reach the <i>Porpoise</i> March 15th,
+at the risk of starving to death. What do you think of that,
+Hatteras?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let us make our preparations at once," said the captain, "and be off.
+Perhaps we shall find the way longer than we suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Why so?" asked the doctor. "This man seemed certain of the situation
+of his ship."</p>
+
+<p>"But," answered Hatteras, "supposing the <i>Porpoise</i> has been drifting
+as the <i>Forward</i> did?"</p>
+
+<p>"True," said the doctor, "that's not unlikely."</p>
+
+<p>Johnson and Bell had nothing to urge against the possibility of a
+drift of which they had themselves been victims.</p>
+
+<p>But Altamont, who was listening to the conversation, gave the doctor
+to understand that he wished to speak. After an effort of about a
+quarter of an hour, Clawbonny made out that the <i>Porpoise</i> was lying
+on a bed of rocks, and so could not have drifted away. This
+information calmed the anxiety of the Englishmen; still it deprived
+them of their hope of returning to Europe, unless Bell should be able
+to build a small boat out of the timbers of the <i>Porpoise</i>. However
+that might be, it was now of the utmost importance that they should
+reach the wreck.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor put one more question to the American, namely, whether he
+had found an open sea at latitude 83&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>There the conversation stopped. They began at once to prepare for
+departure; Bell and Johnson first began to see about the sledge, which
+needed complete repairing. Since they had plenty of wood, they made
+the uprights stronger, availing themselves of the experience of their
+southern trip. They had learned the dangers of this mode of transport,
+and since they expected to find plenty of deep snow, the runners were
+made higher.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 138">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="401">
+			<img src="images/138.jpg" alt="The sledge ready to go">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>On the inside Bell made a sort of bed, covered with the canvas of the
+tent, for the American; the provisions, which were unfortunately
+scanty, would not materially augment the weight of the sledge, but
+still they made up for that by loading it with all the wood it could
+carry.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, as he packed all the provisions, made out a very careful
+list of their amount; he calculated that each man could have three
+quarters of a ration for a journey of three weeks. A whole ration was
+set aside for the four dogs which should draw it. If Duke aided them,
+he was to have a whole ration.</p>
+
+<p>These preparations were interrupted by the need of sleep and rest,
+which they felt at seven o'clock in the evening; but before going to
+bed they gathered around the stove, which was well filled with fuel,
+and these poor men luxuriated in more warmth than they had enjoyed for
+a long time; some pemmican, a few biscuits, and several cups of coffee
+soon put them in good-humor, especially when their hopes had been so
+unexpectedly lighted up. At seven in the morning they resumed work,
+and finished it at three in the afternoon. It was already growing
+dark. Since January 31st the sun had appeared above the horizon, but
+it gave only a pale and brief light; fortunately the moon would rise
+at half past six, and with this clear sky it would make their path
+plain. The temperature, which had been growing lower for several days,
+fell at last to -33&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>The time for leaving came. Altamont received the order with joy,
+although the jolting of the sledge would increase his sufferings; he
+told the doctor that medicine against the scurvy would be found on
+board of the <i>Porpoise</i>. He was carried to the sledge and placed there
+as comfortably as possible; the dogs, including Duke, were harnessed
+in; the travellers cast one last glance at the spot where the
+<i>Forward</i> had lain. A glow of rage passed over Hatteras's face, but he
+controlled it at once, and the little band set out with the air very
+dry at first, although soon a mist came over them.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 139">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="565">
+			<img src="images/139.jpg" alt="Each one took his accustomed place">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Each one took his accustomed place, Bell ahead pointing out the way,
+the doctor and Johnson by the sides of the sledge, watching and
+lending their aid when it was necessary, and Hatteras behind,
+correcting the line of march.</p>
+
+<p>They went along tolerably quickly; now that the temperature was so
+low, the ice was hard and smooth for travel; the five dogs easily drew
+the sledge, which weighed hardly more than nine hundred pounds. Still,
+men and beasts panted heavily, and often they had to stop to take
+breath.</p>
+
+<p>Towards seven o'clock in the evening, the moon peered through mist on
+the horizon. Its rays threw out a light which was reflected from the
+ice; towards the northwest the ice-field looked like a perfectly
+smooth plain; not a hummock was to be seen. This part of the sea
+seemed to have frozen smooth like a lake.</p>
+
+<p>It was an immense, monotonous desert.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the impression that this spectacle made on the doctor's mind,
+and he spoke of it to his companion.</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Doctor," answered Johnson; "it is a desert, but we
+need not fear dying of thirst."</p>
+
+<p>"A decided advantage," continued the doctor; "still, this immensity
+proves one thing to me, and that is that we are far distant from any
+land; in general, the proximity of land is indicated by a number of
+icebergs, and not one is to be seen near us."</p>
+
+<p>"We can't see very far for the fog," said Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"Without doubt; but since we started we have crossed a smooth field of
+which we cannot see the end."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, Doctor, it's a dangerous walk we are taking! We get used
+to it and don't think of it, but we are walking over fathomless
+depths."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, my friend, but we need not fear being swallowed; with
+such cold as this the ice is very strong. Besides, it has a constant
+tendency to get thicker, for snow falls nine days out of ten, even in
+April, May, and June, and I fancy it must be something like thirty or
+forty feet thick."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a comfort," said Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"In fact, we are very much better off than those who skate on the
+Serpentine, and who are in constant dread of falling through; we have
+no such fear."</p>
+
+<p>"Has the resistance of ice been calculated?" asked the old sailor, who
+was always seeking information from the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," the latter answered: "everything almost that can be measured is
+now known, except human ambition! and is it not that which is carrying
+us towards the North Pole? But to return to your question, my answer
+is this. Ice two inches thick will bear a man; three and a half inches
+thick, a horse and rider; five inches thick, an eight-pound cannon;
+eight inches, a fully harnessed artillery-piece; and ten inches, an
+army, any number of men! Where we are now, the Liverpool Custom House
+or the Halls of Parliament in London could be built."</p>
+
+<p>"One can hardly imagine such strength," said Johnson; "but just now,
+Doctor, you spoke of snow falling nine days out of ten; that is true,
+but where does all the snow come from? The sea is all frozen, and I
+don't see how the vapor can rise to form the clouds."</p>
+
+<p>"A very keen observation, Johnson; but, in my opinion, the greatest
+part of the snow or rain which we receive in the polar regions is
+formed from the water of the seas in the temperate zones. One flake
+arose into the air under the form of vapor from some river in Europe,
+it helped make a cloud, and finally came here to be condensed; it is
+not impossible that we who drink it may be quenching our thirst at the
+rivers of our own country."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true," answered Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment Hatteras's voice was heard directing their steps and
+interrupting their conversation. The fog was growing thicker, and
+making a straight line hard to follow.</p>
+
+<p>Finally the little band halted at about eight o'clock in the evening,
+after walking nearly fifteen miles; the weather was dry; the tent was
+raised, the fire lighted, supper cooked, and all rested peacefully.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras and his companions were really favored by the weather. The
+following days brought no new difficulties, although the cold became
+extremely severe and the mercury remained frozen in the thermometer.
+If the wind had risen, no one could have withstood the temperature.
+The doctor was able to corroborate Parry's observations, which he made
+during his journey to Melville Island; he said that a man comfortably
+dressed could walk safely in the open air exposed to great cold, if
+the air were only calm; but as soon as the slightest wind arose, a
+sharp pain was felt in the face, and an extreme headache which is soon
+followed by death. The doctor was very anxious, for a slight wind
+would have frozen the marrow in their bones.</p>
+
+<p>March 5th he observed a phenomenon peculiar to these latitudes: the
+sky was clear and thick with stars, and thick snow began to fall
+without any cloud being visible; the constellations shone through the
+flakes which fell regularly on the ice-field. This went on for about
+two hours, and stopped before the doctor had found a satisfactory
+explanation of its fall.</p>
+
+<p>The last quarter of the moon had then disappeared; total darkness
+reigned for seventeen hours out of the twenty-four; the travellers had
+to tie themselves together by a long cord, to avoid being separated;
+it was almost impossible for them to go in a straight line.</p>
+
+<p>Still, these bold men, although animated by an iron will, began to
+grow weary; their halts were more frequent, and yet they ought not to
+lose an hour, for their supplies were rapidly diminishing. Hatteras
+would often ascertain their position by observation of the moon and
+stars. As he saw the days pass by and the destination appear as remote
+as before, he would ask himself sometimes if the <i>Porpoise</i> really
+existed, whether the American's brain might not have been deranged by
+his sufferings, or whether, through hate of the English, and seeing
+himself without resources, he did not wish to drag them with him to
+certain death.</p>
+
+<p>He expressed his fears to the doctor, who discouraged them greatly,
+but he readily understood the lamentable rivalry which existed between
+the American and English captains.</p>
+
+<p>"They are two men whom it will be hard to make agree," he said to
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>March 14th, after journeying for sixteen days, they had only reached
+latitude 82&deg;; their strength was exhausted, and they were still a
+hundred miles from the ship; to add to their sufferings, they had to
+bring the men down to a quarter-ration, in order to give the dogs
+their full supply.</p>
+
+<p>They could not depend on their shooting for food, for they had left
+only seven charges of powder and six balls; they had in vain fired at
+some white hares and foxes, which besides were very rare. None had
+been hit.</p>
+<a name="note29"></a>
+<p>Nevertheless, on the 18th,<a href="#not29"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> the doctor was fortunate enough to find a
+seal lying on the ice; he wounded him with several balls; the animal,
+not being able to escape through his hole in the ice, was soon slain.
+He was of very good size. Johnson cut him up skilfully, but he was so
+very thin that he was of but little use to the men, who could not make
+up their minds to drink his oil, like the Esquimaux. Still the doctor
+boldly tried to drink the slimy fluid, but he could not do it. He
+preserved the skin of the animal, for no special reason, by a sort of
+hunter's instinct, and placed it on the sledge.</p>
+
+<a name="ill30"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 140">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="586">
+			<img src="images/140.jpg" alt="The doctor was fortunate enough to find a seal">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="586" align="center">
+			<small>"The doctor was fortunate enough to find a seal."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The next day, the 16th, they saw a few icebergs on the horizon. Was it
+a sign of a neighboring shore, or simply a disturbance of the ice? It
+was hard to say.</p>
+
+<p>When they had reached one of these hummocks, they dug in it with a
+snow-knife a more comfortable retreat than that afforded by the tent,
+and after three hours of exertion they were able to rest about their
+glowing stove.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap36"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3>
+<h4>THE LAST CHARGE OF POWDER.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Johnson had admitted the tired dogs into the snow-house; when the snow
+is falling heavily it serves as a covering to the animals, preserving
+their natural heat. But in the open air, with a temperature of -40&deg;,
+they would soon have frozen to death.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson, who made an excellent dog-driver, tried feeding the dogs with
+the dark flesh of the seals which the travellers could not swallow,
+and to his great surprise they made a rich feast out of it; the old
+sailor in his delight told the doctor. He, however, was not in the
+least surprised; he knew that in the north of America the horses make
+fish their main article of food, and what a herbivorous horse could
+content himself with would certainly satisfy an omnivorous dog.</p>
+
+<p>Before going to rest, although sleep became an imperious necessity for
+men who had walked fifteen miles on the ice, the doctor wished to have
+a few serious words with his companions about the dangers of their
+situation.</p>
+
+<p>"We are only at latitude 82&deg;," he said, "and our supplies are already
+running short."</p>
+
+<p>"A reason for losing no time," answered Hatteras; "we must push on;
+the strong can draw the feeble."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we find a ship when we get there?" asked Bell, who was much
+depressed by the fatigue of the journey.</p>
+
+<p>"Why doubt it?" said Johnson; "the American's safety depends on ours."</p>
+
+<p>To make sure, the doctor was anxious to question Altamont again. He
+could speak easily, although his voice was weak; he confirmed all the
+statements he had already made; he repeated that the ship was aground
+on some granite rocks, where it could not stir, and that it lay in
+longitude 120&deg; 15', and latitude 83&deg; 35'.</p>
+
+<p>"We can't doubt this statement," resumed the doctor; "the difficulty
+is not whether the <i>Porpoise</i> is there, but the way of getting to
+her."</p>
+
+<p>"How much food have we left?" asked Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"Enough for three days at the outside," answered the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we must get to her in three days," said the captain, firmly.</p>
+
+<p>"We must indeed," continued the doctor, "and if we succeed we shall
+have no need to complain, for we shall have been favored by faultless
+weather; the snow has given us a fortnight's respite, and the sledge
+has glided easily on the hardened ice! Ah, if it only carried two
+hundred pounds of food! Our dogs could have managed it easily enough.
+But still we can't help it!"</p>
+
+<p>"With luck and skill," said Johnson, "we might put to some use the few
+charges of powder which are left us. If we should kill a bear we
+should be supplied for all the rest of the journey."</p>
+
+<p>"Without doubt," answered the doctor, "but these animals are rare and
+shy; and then, when one thinks of the importance of a shot, his hand
+will shake and his aim be lost."</p>
+
+<p>"But you are a good shot," answered Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, when four men's dinners do not depend on my hitting; still, I
+will do my best if I get a chance. Meanwhile let us try to satisfy
+ourselves with this thin soup of scraps of pemmican, then go to sleep,
+and to-morrow early we'll start forth again."</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later excessive fatigue outweighed every other feeling,
+and they all sank into a heavy sleep. Early on Saturday Johnson awoke
+his companions; the dogs were harnessed to the sledge, and they took
+up again their journey northward.</p>
+
+<p>The heavens were magnificent, the air was very clear, the temperature
+very low; when the sun appeared above the horizon it appeared like an
+elongated ellipse; its horizontal diameter appeared, in consequence of
+refraction, to be double its vertical diameter. It sent forth its
+clear, cold rays over the vast icy plain. This return to light, if not
+to heat, rejoiced them all.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 141">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="553">
+			<img src="images/141.jpg" alt="The sun appeared like an elongated ellipse">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The doctor, gun in hand, walked off for a mile or two, braving the
+cold and solitude; before going he measured the supply carefully; only
+four charges of powder were left, and three balls; that was a small
+supply when one remembers that a strong animal like the polar bear
+often falls only after receiving ten or twelve shots. Hence the doctor
+did not go in search of so fierce game; a few hares or two or three
+foxes would have satisfied him and given him plenty of provisions. But
+during that day, if he saw one, or could not approach one, or if he
+were deceived by refraction, he would lose his shot; and this day, as
+it was, cost him a charge of powder and a ball. His companions, who
+trembled with hope at the report of his gun, saw him returning with
+downcast looks; they did not say anything; that evening they went to
+sleep as usual, after putting aside two quarter-rations reserved for
+the two following days. The next day their journey seemed more
+laborious; they hardly walked, they rather dragged along; the dogs had
+eaten even the entrails of the seal, and they were beginning to gnaw
+their harness.</p>
+
+<p>A few foxes passed at some distance from the sledge, and the doctor,
+having missed another shot as he chased them, did not dare to risk his
+last ball and his last charge save one of powder.</p>
+
+<p>That evening they halted early, unable to set one foot before the
+other, and, although their way was lighted by a brilliant aurora, they
+could not go on. This last meal, eaten Sunday evening under their icy
+tent, was very melancholy. If Heaven did not come to their aid, they
+were lost. Hatteras did not speak, Bell did not even think, Johnson
+reflected in silence, but the doctor did not yet despair.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson thought of setting some traps that night; but since he had no
+bait, he had very little hope of success, and in the morning he found,
+as he expected, that, although a great many foxes had left their marks
+around, yet not one had been caught. He was returning much
+disappointed, when he saw an enormous bear sniffing the air at about
+thirty yards from the sledge. The old sailor thought Providence had
+sent this animal to him to be slain; without awakening his companions
+he seized the doctor's gun and made his way towards the bear.</p>
+
+<p>Having got quite near he took aim, but just as he was about to pull
+the trigger he felt his arm trembling; his large fur gloves were in
+his way; he took them off quickly, and seized his gun with a firmer
+hand. Suddenly, a cry of pain escaped him; the skin of his fingers,
+burned by the cold of the gun-barrel, remained clinging to it, while
+the gun fell to the ground, and went off from the shock, sending the
+last ball off into space. At the sound of the report the doctor ran;
+he understood everything at a glance; he saw the animal trot quickly
+away; Johnson was in despair, and thought no more of the pain.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 142">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="397">
+			<img src="images/142.jpg" alt="He understood everything at a glance">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"I'm as tender as a baby," he cried, "not to be able to endure that
+pain! And an old man like me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come back, Johnson," the doctor said to him, "you'll get frozen; see,
+your hands are white already; come back, come!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't deserve your attentions, Doctor," answered the boatswain;
+"leave me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come along, you obstinate fellow! Come along! It will soon be too
+late!"</p>
+
+<p>And the doctor, dragging the old sailor under the tent, made him
+plunge his hands into a bowl of water, which the heat of the stove had
+kept liquid, although it was not much above the freezing-point; but
+Johnson's hands had no sooner touched it than it froze at once.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," said the doctor, "it was time to come back, otherwise I
+should have had to amputate your hands."</p>
+
+<p>Thanks to his cares, all danger was gone in an hour; but it was no
+easy task, and constant friction was necessary to recall the
+circulation into the old sailor's fingers. The doctor urged him to
+keep his hands away from the stove, the heat of which might produce
+serious results.</p>
+
+<p>That morning they had to go without breakfast; of the pemmican and the
+salt meat nothing was left. There was not a crumb of biscuit, and only
+half a pound of coffee. They had to content themselves with drinking
+this hot, and then they set out.</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing more!" said Bell to Johnson, in a despairing accent.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us trust in God," said the old sailor; "he is able to preserve
+us!"</p>
+
+<p>"This Captain Hatteras!" continued Bell; "he was able to return from
+his first expeditions, but he'll never get back from this one, and we
+shall never see home again!"</p>
+
+<p>"Courage, Bell! I confess that the captain is almost foolhardy, but
+there is with him a very ingenious man."</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Clawbonny?" said Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"What can he do in such circumstances?" retorted Bell, shrugging his
+shoulders. "Can he change these pieces of ice into pieces of meat? Is
+he a god, who can work by miracles?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who can say?" the boatswain answered his companion's doubts; "I trust
+in him."</p>
+
+<p>Bell shook his head, and fell into a silent apathy, in which he even
+ceased to think.</p>
+
+<p>That day they made hardly three miles; at evening they had nothing to
+eat; the dogs threatened to devour one another; the men suffered
+extremely from hunger. Not a single animal was to be seen. If there
+had been one, of what use would it have been? They could not go
+hunting with a knife. Only Johnson thought he recognized a mile to
+leeward the large bear, who was following the ill-fated little party.</p>
+
+<p>"It is spying us!" he said to himself; "it sees a certain prey in us!"</p>
+
+<p>But Johnson said no word to his companions; that evening they made
+their accustomed halt, and their supper consisted only of coffee. They
+felt their eyes growing haggard, their brain growing confused, and,
+tortured by hunger, they could not get an hour's sleep; strange and
+painful dreams took possession of their minds.</p>
+
+<p>At a latitude in which the body imperiously demands refreshment, these
+poor men had not eaten solid food for thirty-six hours, when Tuesday
+morning came. Nevertheless, inspired by superhuman energy, they
+resumed their journey, pushing on the sledge which the dogs were
+unable to draw. At the end of two hours they fell, exhausted. Hatteras
+wanted to push on. He, still strong, besought his companions to rise,
+but they were absolutely unable. Then, with Johnson's assistance, he
+built a resting-place in an iceberg. It seemed as if they were digging
+their own graves.</p>
+
+<a name="ill31"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 143">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="588">
+			<img src="images/143.jpg" alt="At the end of two hours they fell, exhausted">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="588" align="center">
+			<small>"At the end of two hours they fell, exhausted."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"I am willing to die of hunger," said Hatteras, "but not of cold."</p>
+
+<p>After much weariness the house was ready, and they all entered it.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 144">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="397">
+			<img src="images/144.jpg" alt="After much weariness the house was ready">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>So that day passed. In that evening, while his companions lay inert,
+Johnson had a sort of hallucination; he dreamed of an immense bear.
+That word, which he kept repeating, attracted the doctor's attention,
+so that he shook himself free from his stupor, and asked the old
+sailor why he kept talking about a bear, and what bear he meant.</p>
+
+<p>"The bear which is following us," answered Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"The bear which is following us?" repeated the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the last two days."</p>
+
+<p>"The last two days! Have you seen him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he's a mile to leeward."</p>
+
+<p>"And you didn't tell us, Johnson?"</p>
+
+<p>"What was the use?"</p>
+
+<p>"True," said the doctor; "we have no ball to fire at him."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a slug, a bit of iron, nor a bolt!" said the old sailor.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was silent, and began to think intently. Soon he said to
+the boatswain,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You are sure the bear is following us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Doctor, he's lying in wait to eat us. He knows we can't escape
+him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Johnson!" said the doctor, touched by the despairing accent of his
+companion.</p>
+
+<p>"His food is sure," continued the poor man, who was beginning to be
+delirious; "he must be half famished, and I don't see why we need keep
+him waiting any longer!"</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet, Johnson!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Doctor; if we've got to come to it, why should we prolong the
+animal's sufferings? He's hungry as we are; he has no seal to eat!
+Heaven sends him us men; well, so much the better for him!"</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon Johnson went out of his mind; he wanted to leave the
+snow-house. The doctor had hard work to prevent him, and he only
+succeeded by saying, as if he meant it,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow I shall kill that bear!"</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow!" said Johnson, as if he had awakened from a bad dream.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"You have no ball!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall make one."</p>
+
+<p>"You have no lead!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but I have some quicksilver."</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon the doctor took the thermometer; it marked +50&deg;. He went
+outside, placed the instrument on the ice, and soon returned. The
+outside temperature was -50&deg;. Then he said to the old sailor,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Now go to sleep, and wait till to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>That night they endured the horrors of hunger; only the doctor and the
+boatswain were able to temper them with a little hope. The next
+morning, at dawn, the doctor rushed out, followed by Johnson, and ran
+to the thermometer; all the mercury had sunk into the bulb, in the
+form of a compact cylinder. The doctor broke the instrument, and
+seized in his gloved fingers a piece of very hard metal. It was a real
+bullet.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Doctor," shouted the old sailor, "that's a real miracle! You are
+a wonderful man!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, my friend," answered the doctor, "I am only a man with a good
+memory, who has read a good deal."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I happened to remember something Captain Ross related in the account
+of his voyage: he said he shot through an inch plank with a bullet of
+frozen mercury; if I had any oil it would amount to nearly the same
+thing, for he speaks of a ball of sweet almond, which was fired
+against a post and fell back to the ground unbroken."</p>
+
+<p>"That is hardly credible!"</p>
+
+<p>"But it is true, Johnson; this piece of metal may save our lives; let
+us leave it here in the air before we take it, and go and see whether
+the bear is still following us."</p>
+
+<p>At that moment Hatteras came out of the hut; the doctor showed him the
+bullet, and told him what he thought of doing; the captain pressed his
+hand, and the three went off to inspect. The air was very clear.
+Hatteras, who was ahead of his companions, discovered the bear about a
+half-mile off. The animal, seated on his hind quarters, was busily
+moving his head about, sniffing towards these new arrivals.</p>
+
+<p>"There he is!" shouted the captain.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 145">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="392">
+			<img src="images/145.jpg" alt="The huge beast did not stir">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Silence!" said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>But the huge beast did not stir when he saw the hunters. He gazed at
+them without fear or anger. Still, it would be found hard to approach
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"My friends," said Hatteras, "we have not come out for sport, but to
+save our lives. Let us act cautiously."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered the doctor; "we can only have one shot, and we must
+not miss; if he were to run away, he would be lost, for he can run
+faster than a hare."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we must go straight for him," said Johnson; "it is dangerous,
+but what does it matter? I am willing to risk my life."</p>
+
+<p>"No, let me go!" cried the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I shall go," answered Hatteras, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Johnson, "are not you of more use to the others than I
+should be?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Johnson," answered the captain, "let me go; I shall run no
+needless risk; perhaps, too, I shall call on you to help me."</p>
+
+<p>"Hatteras," asked the doctor, "are you going to walk straight towards
+the bear?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I were sure of hitting him, I would do so, even at the risk of
+having my head torn open, but he would flee at my approach. He is very
+crafty; we must try to be even craftier."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you intend to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"To get within ten feet of him without his suspecting it."</p>
+
+<p>"How are you going to do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"By a simple but dangerous method. You kept, did you not, the skin of
+the seal you shot?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is on the sledge."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let us go back to the snow-house, while Johnson stays here on
+watch."</p>
+
+<p>The boatswain crept behind a hummock which hid him entirely from the
+sight of the bear, who stayed in the same place, continually sniffing
+the air.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap37"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER V.</h3>
+<h4>THE SEAL AND THE BEAR.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Hatteras and the doctor went back to the house.</p>
+
+<p>"You know," said the captain, "that the polar bears chase seals, which
+are their principal food. They watch for days at their
+breathing-holes, and seize them the moment they come upon the ice. So
+a bear will not be afraid of a seal; far from it."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand your plan," said the doctor, "but it's dangerous."</p>
+
+<p>"But there is a chance of success," answered the captain, "and we must
+try it. I am going to put on the sealskin and crawl over the ice. Let
+us lose no time. Load the gun and give it to me."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor had nothing to say; he would himself have done what his
+companion was about to try; he left the house, carrying two axes, one
+for Johnson, the other for himself; then, accompanied by Hatteras, he
+went to the sledge.</p>
+<a name="note30"></a>
+<p>There Hatteras put on the sealskin, which very nearly covered him.
+Meanwhile, Hatteras<a href="#not30"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> loaded the gun with the last charge of powder, and
+dropped in it the quicksilver bullet, which was as hard as steel and
+as heavy as lead. Then he handed Hatteras the gun, which he hid
+beneath the sealskin. Then he said to the doctor,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You go and join Johnson; I shall wait a few moments to puzzle the
+enemy."</p>
+
+<p>"Courage, Hatteras!" said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be uneasy, and above all don't show yourselves before you hear
+my gun."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor soon reached the hummock which concealed Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" the latter asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we must wait. Hatteras is doing all this to save us."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was agitated; he looked at the bear, which had grown
+excited, as if he had become conscious of the danger which threatened
+him. A quarter of an hour later the seal was crawling over the ice; he
+made a circuit of a quarter of a mile to baffle the bear; then he
+found himself within three hundred feet of him. The bear then saw him,
+and settled down as if he were trying to hide. Hatteras imitated
+skilfully the movements of a seal, and if he had not known, the doctor
+would certainly have taken him for one.</p>
+
+<p>"That's true!" whispered Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>The seal, as he approached the bear, did not appear to see him; he
+seemed to be seeking some hole through which to reach the water. The
+bear advanced towards him over the ice with the utmost caution; his
+eager eyes betrayed his excitement; for one or perhaps two months he
+had been fasting, and fortune was now throwing a sure prey before him.
+The seal had come within ten feet of his enemy; the bear hastened
+towards him, made a long leap, and stood stupefied three paces from
+Hatteras, who, casting aside the sealskin, with one knee resting on
+the ground, was aiming at the bear's heart.</p>
+
+<p>The report was sounded, and the bear rolled over on the ice.</p>
+
+<p>"Forward!" shouted the doctor. And, followed by Johnson, he hastened
+to the scene of combat. The huge beast rose, and beat the air with one
+paw while with the other he tore up a handful of snow to stanch the
+wound. Hatteras did not stir, but waited, knife in hand. But his aim
+had been accurate, and his bullet had hit its mark; before the arrival
+of his friends he had plunged his knife into the beast's throat, and
+it fell, never to rise.</p>
+
+<a name="ill32"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 146">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="550">
+			<img src="images/146.jpg" alt="He plunged his knife into the beast's throat">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="550" align="center">
+			<small>"He plunged his knife into the beast's throat."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Victory!" shouted Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" cried the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras, with folded arms, was gazing calmly at the corpse of his
+foe.</p>
+
+<p>"It's now my turn," said Johnson; "it's very well to have killed it,
+but there is no need of waiting till it's frozen as hard as a stone,
+when teeth and knife will be useless for attacking it."</p>
+
+<p>Johnson began by skinning the bear, which was nearly as large as an
+ox; it was nine feet long and six feet in circumference; two huge
+tusks, three inches long, issued from his mouth. On opening him,
+nothing was found in his stomach but water; the bear had evidently
+eaten nothing for a long time; nevertheless, he was very fat, and he
+weighed more than fifteen hundred pounds; he was divided into four
+quarters, each one of which gave two hundred pounds of meat, and the
+hunters carried this flesh back to the snow-house, without forgetting
+the animal's heart, which went on beating for three hours.</p>
+
+<p>The others wanted to eat the meat raw, but the doctor bade them wait
+until it should be roasted. On entering the house he was struck by the
+great cold within it; he went up to the stove and found the fire out;
+the occupations as well as the excitement of the morning had made
+Johnson forget his customary duty. The doctor tried to rekindle the
+fire, but there was not even a spark lingering amid the cold ashes.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we must have patience!" he said to himself. He then went to the
+sledge to get some tinder, and asked Johnson for his steel, telling
+him that the fire had gone out. Johnson answered that it was his
+fault, and he put his hand in his pocket, where he usually kept it; he
+was surprised not to find it there. He felt in his other pockets with
+the same success; he went into the snow-house and examined carefully
+the covering under which he had slept in the previous night, but he
+could not find it.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" shouted the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson came back, and stared at his companions.</p>
+
+<p>"And haven't you got the steel, Dr. Clawbonny?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Johnson."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor you, Captain?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"You have always carried it," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I haven't got it now&mdash;" murmured the old sailor, growing pale.</p>
+
+<p>"Not got it!" shouted the doctor, who could not help trembling. There
+was no other steel, and the loss of this might bring with it terrible
+consequences.</p>
+
+<p>"Hunt again!" said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson ran to the piece of ice behind which he had watched the bear,
+then to the place of combat, where he had cut him up; but he could not
+find anything. He returned in despair. Hatteras looked at him without
+a word of reproach.</p>
+
+<p>"This is serious," he said to the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," the latter answered.</p>
+
+<p>"We have not even an instrument, a glass from which we might take the
+lens to get fire by means of it!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know it," answered the doctor; "and that is a great pity, because
+the rays of the sun are strong enough to kindle tinder."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," answered Hatteras, "we must satisfy our hunger with this raw
+meat; then we shall resume our march and we shall try to reach the
+ship."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the doctor, buried in reflection; "yes, we could do that
+if we had to. Why not? We might try&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What are you thinking of?" asked Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"An idea which has just occurred to me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"An idea," said Johnson; "one of your ideas! Then we are saved!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a question," answered the doctor, "whether it will succeed."</p>
+
+<p>"What is your plan?" said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"We have no lens; well, we will make one."</p>
+
+<p>"How?" asked Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"With a piece of ice which we shall cut out."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, do you think&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? We want to make the sun's rays converge to a common focus,
+and ice will do as much good as crystal."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible?" asked Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, only I should prefer fresh to salt water; it is more
+transparent, and harder."</p>
+
+<p>"But, if I am not mistaken," said Johnson, pointing to a hummock a
+hundred paces distant, "that dark green block shows&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You are right; come, my friends; bring your hatchet, Johnson."</p>
+
+<p>The three men went towards the block which, as they supposed, was
+formed of fresh water.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor had a piece, a foot in diameter, cut through, and he began
+to smooth it with the hatchet; then he equalized the surface still
+further with his knife; then he polished it with his hand, and he
+obtained soon a lens as transparent as if it had been made of the most
+magnificent crystal. Then he returned to the snow-house, where he took
+a piece of tinder and began his experiment. The sun was shining
+brightly; the doctor held the lens so that the rays should be focused
+on the tinder, which took fire in a few seconds.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 147">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="557">
+			<img src="images/147.jpg" alt="The doctor held the lens">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried Johnson, who could hardly trust his eyes. "O
+Doctor, Doctor!"</p>
+
+<p>The old sailor could not restrain his joy; he was coming and going
+like a madman. The doctor had returned to the house; a few minutes
+later the stove was roaring, and soon a delicious odor of cooking
+aroused Bell from his torpor. It may be easily imagined how the feast
+was enjoyed; still the doctor advised his friends to partake in
+moderation; he set an example, and while eating he again began to
+talk.</p>
+
+<p>"To-day is a lucky day," he said; "we have food enough for our
+journey. But we mustn't fall asleep in the delights of Capua, and we'd
+better start out again."</p>
+
+<p>"We can't be more than forty-eight hours from the <i>Porpoise</i>," said
+Altamont, who could now begin to speak once more.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope," said the doctor, smiling, "that we shall find material for a
+fire there."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the American.</p>
+<a name="note31"></a>
+<p>"For, if my ice lens is good," continued the doctor, "there would
+still be something desired on cloudy days, and there are many of them
+less than four degrees from the Pole."</p>
+
+<p>"True!" said Altamont with a sigh, "less than four degrees! My ship
+has gone nearer than any yet has been!"<a href="#not31"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a></p>
+
+<p>"Forward!" said Hatteras, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Forward!" repeated the doctor, gazing uneasily at the two captains.</p>
+
+<p>The strength of the travellers soon returned; the dogs had eaten
+freely of the bear's flesh, and they continued their journey
+northward. During their walk the doctor tried to draw from Altamont
+the object of his expedition, but the American gave only evasive
+answers.</p>
+
+<p>"There are two men to be watched," he whispered to the boatswain.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"Hatteras never says a word to the American, and the American seems to
+show very little gratitude. Fortunately I am here."</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Clawbonny," answered Johnson, "since this Yankee has returned to
+life, I don't like his face much."</p>
+
+<p>"Either I'm mistaken," answered the doctor, "or he suspects Hatteras's
+plans."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think that the stranger has the same plans?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who can tell? The Americans are bold; an American may well try what
+an Englishman tries!"</p>
+
+<p>"You think that Altamont&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think anything about it," answered the doctor; "but the
+situation of this ship on the way to the Pole gives one material for
+thought."</p>
+
+<p>"But Altamont said he had drifted there."</p>
+
+<p>"He said so! Yes, but he was smiling in a very strange way."</p>
+
+<p>"The devil, Dr. Clawbonny; it would be unfortunate if there should be
+any rivalry between two such men."</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven grant that I may be mistaken, Johnson, for this misfortune
+might produce serious complications, if not some catastrophe."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope Altamont will not forget that we saved his life."</p>
+
+<p>"But isn't he going to save us? I confess that without us he would not
+be alive; but what would become of us without him, without his ship,
+without its resources?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Doctor, you are here, and I hope with your aid all will go
+well."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so, Johnson."</p>
+
+<p>The voyage went on without incident; there was no lack of bear's
+flesh, and they made copious meals of it; there was a certain
+good-humor in the little band, thanks to the jests of the doctor and
+his pleasant philosophy; this worthy man always had some scrap of
+information to give to his companions. His health continued good; he
+had not grown very thin, in spite of his fatigues and privations; his
+friends at Liverpool would have recognized him without difficulty;
+especially would they have recognized his unaltered good-humor.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 148">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="550">
+			<img src="images/148.jpg" alt="The voyage went on">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>During the morning of Saturday the appearance of the plain of ice
+changed materially; the perturbed fragments, the frequent packs, the
+hummocks, showed that the ice-field was enduring some severe pressure;
+evidently some unknown continent, some new island, might have caused
+this by narrowing the passes. Blocks of fresh water, more frequent and
+larger, indicated the coast to be near. Hence, there was near them a
+new land, and the doctor yearned with a desire to add to the charts of
+the northern regions. Great is the pleasure of ascertaining the line
+of these unknown coasts, and of tracing it with a pencil; that was the
+doctor's aim, while that of Hatteras was merely to place his foot upon
+the Pole, and he took pleasure in advance in thinking of the names he
+was going to give to the seas, straits, bays, and slightest
+promontories in these new continents; certainly he would not forget
+the names of his companions, his friends, nor her Gracious Majesty,
+nor the royal family; and he foresaw a certain "Cape Clawbonny" with
+great satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>These thoughts kept him busy all day; that evening they encamped as
+usual, and each one took his turn at watching near these unknown
+lands. The next day, Sunday, after a heavy breakfast of bear's paws,
+which were very good, the travellers pushed on to the north, inclining
+a little to the west; the road grew difficult, but yet they advanced
+rapidly. Altamont, from the top of the sledge, scanned the horizon
+with feverish attention; his companions were the victims of
+involuntary uneasiness. The last solar observations gave them latitude
+83&deg; 35', and longitude 120&deg; 15'; that was the place where the American
+ship was said to be lying; the question of life and death was to be
+solved that day. At last, at about half past two in the afternoon,
+Altamont stood straight, stopped the little band by a loud cry, and,
+pointing with his hand to a white mass, which all the rest had taken
+for an iceberg, he cried with a loud voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>Porpoise!</i>"</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap38"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER VI.</h3>
+<h4>THE PORPOISE.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>March 24th was Palm Sunday,&mdash;that day when the streets of the towns
+and villages of Europe are filled with flowers and leaves; bells are
+ringing, and the air is filled with rich perfumes. But here, in this
+desolate country, what sadness and silence! The wind was keen and
+bitter; not a leaf of foliage was to be seen! But still, this Sunday
+was a day of rejoicing for our travellers, for at last they were about
+to find supplies which would save them from certain death. They
+hastened their steps; the dogs drew the sledge briskly, Duke barked
+joyously, and they all soon reached the American ship. The <i>Porpoise</i>
+was wholly buried beneath the snow; there was no sign of mast, yard,
+or rigging; all had been lost at the time of the shipwreck; the ship
+lay on a bed of rocks now completely hidden. The <i>Porpoise</i> was
+careened to one side by the violence of the shock, her bottom was torn
+open, so that the ship seemed uninhabitable. This was soon seen by the
+captain, the doctor, and Johnson, after they had entered the vessel;
+they had to cut away fifteen feet of ice to get to the hatchway; but
+to their great joy they saw that the animals, many traces of which
+were to be seen, had spared the supplies.</p>
+
+<p>"If we have here," said Johnson, "plenty of food and fuel, this hull
+does not seem inhabitable."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we must build a snow-house," answered Hatteras, "and make
+ourselves as comfortable as possible on the mainland."</p>
+
+<p>"Without doubt," continued the doctor; "but don't let us hurry; let us
+do things carefully; if need be we can fit out some quarters in the
+ship; meanwhile we can build a strong house, capable of protecting us
+against the cold and wild beasts. I am willing to be the architect,
+and you'll see what I can do."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't doubt your skill, Doctor," answered Johnson; "we'll make
+ourselves as comfortable as possible here, and we'll make an inventory
+of all that the ship contains; unfortunately, I don't see any launch,
+or boat, and these ruins are in too bad a state to permit of our
+making a small boat."</p>
+
+<p>"Who can say?" answered the doctor. "With time and thought a great
+deal can be done; now we have not to trouble ourselves about
+navigation, but about a house to live in; I propose not to form any
+other plans, and to let everything have its turn."</p>
+
+<p>"That is wise," answered Hatteras; "let us begin with the beginning."</p>
+
+<p>The three companions left the ship, returned to the sledge, and
+announced their determination to Bell and the American; Bell said he
+was ready to work; the American shook his head, on learning that
+nothing could be done with his ship; but since all discussion would
+have been idle, they determined at first to take refuge in the
+<i>Porpoise</i>, and to build a large building on the shore.</p>
+
+<p>At four o'clock in the afternoon the five travellers were installed as
+comfortably as possible between decks; by means of spars and fragments
+of masts, Bell had made a nearly level floor; there they placed
+coverings stiffened by the frost, which the heat of the stove soon
+brought back to their natural state; Altamont, leaning on the doctor,
+was able to make his way to the corner which had been set aside for
+him; on setting foot on his ship, he had sighed with a feeling of
+relief, which did not encourage the boatswain.</p>
+
+<p>"He feels at home," the old sailor thought, "and one would say that he
+had invited us here."</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the day was devoted to repose; the weather threatened to
+change under the influence of the westerly winds; the thermometer
+outside stood at -26&deg;. In fact, the <i>Porpoise</i> lay beyond the pole of
+cold, at a latitude relatively less severe, though farther to the
+north. On that day they finished the bear, with some biscuits they
+found on the ship, and a few cups of tea; then fatigue overcame them,
+and each one sank into a sound sleep.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning they all awoke rather late; they soon recalled the
+difference in their situation; they were no longer perplexed with
+uncertainty about the morrow; they only thought of establishing
+themselves comfortably. These castaways looked at themselves as
+colonists who had reached their destination, and, forgetting the
+sufferings of their long march, they had no other thought than that of
+securing a comfortable future.</p>
+
+<a name="ill33"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 149">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="565">
+			<img src="images/149.jpg" alt="These castaways looked at themselves as colonists">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="565" align="center">
+			<small>"These castaways looked at themselves as colonists who
+			had reached their destination."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Well," said the doctor, stretching his arms, "it's something not to
+have to wonder where one will sleep to-night and what one will have to
+eat to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us first make an inventory of the ship," answered Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Porpoise</i> had been carefully equipped for a long voyage.</p>
+
+<p>The inventory, when complete, indicated the following supplies:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="provisions">
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">6,150&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+		<td>lbs. of flour, fat and raisins for puddings;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">2,000&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+		<td>&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;beef and salt pork;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">1,500&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+		<td>&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;pemmican;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">700&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+		<td>&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;sugar;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">700&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+		<td>&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;chocolate;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">500&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+		<td>&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"&nbsp;&nbsp;rice;</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td align="right">1&frac12;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+		<td>chests of tea, weighing 87 lbs;</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>many barrels of canned fruits and vegetables, lime-juice in abundance,
+cochlearia, sorrel and water-cresses, and three hundred gallons of rum
+and brandy; in the hold there was a large supply of ammunition; there
+was plenty of coal and wood. The doctor collected carefully the
+nautical instruments, and he also found a Bunsen's Pile, which had
+been carried for electrical tests and experiments. In short, they had
+supplies enough to keep five men on whole rations for two years; all
+fear of starving or freezing to death was hence wholly removed.</p>
+
+<p>"Our means of living are certain," said the doctor to the captain,
+"and there is nothing to prevent our reaching the Pole."</p>
+
+<p>"The Pole!" answered Hatteras, trembling with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," continued the doctor; "what's to prevent our pushing on
+during the summer across the land?"</p>
+
+<p>"Across the land! true! But how about the sea?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't we build a small boat out of the timber of the <i>Porpoise?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"An American boat, you mean," answered Hatteras, scornfully, "and
+commanded by this American!"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor understood the captain's repugnance, and judged it best to
+change the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Now that we know what our supplies are," he went on, "we must build
+some safe place for them, and a house for ourselves. We have plenty of
+material, and we can settle ourselves very comfortably. I hope, Bell,"
+he added, turning to the carpenter, "that you are going to distinguish
+yourself; I may be able to help you too, I trust."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm ready, Doctor," answered Bell; "if it were necessary I could
+easily build a whole city with houses and streets out of these blocks
+of ice&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We sha'n't need as much as that; let us follow the example of the
+agents of the Hudson's Bay Company; they build forts which protect
+them from the wild beasts and the Indians; that is all we need; let us
+make it no larger than necessary; on one side the dwelling, on the
+other the stores, with a sort of curtain, and two bastions. I'll try
+to rub up what I know about fortification."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word, Doctor," said Johnson, "I don't doubt that we shall
+make something very fine under your direction."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my friends, we must first choose a site; a good engineer should
+first study the lay of the land. Will you come with me, Hatteras?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall trust to you, Doctor," answered the captain. "You see about
+that, while I explore the coast."</p>
+
+<p>Altamont, who was still too feeble to get to work, was left on board
+of his ship, and the two Englishmen set foot on the mainland. The
+weather was thick and stormy; at noon the thermometer stood at -11&deg;,
+but, there being no wind, that temperature was comfortable. Judging
+from the outline of the shore, a large sea, at that time wholly
+frozen, stretched out farther than eye could reach in the west; on the
+east it was limited by a rounded coast, cut into by numerous
+estuaries, and rising suddenly about two hundred yards from the shore;
+it formed a large bay, full of dangerous rocks, on which the <i>Porpoise</i>
+had been wrecked; far off on the land rose a mountain, which the
+doctor conjectured to be about three thousand feet high. Towards the
+north a promontory ran into the sea, after hiding a part of the bay.
+An island of moderate size rose from the field of ice, three miles
+from the mainland, so that it offered a safe anchorage to any ship
+that could enter the bay. In a hollow cut of the shore was a little
+inlet, easily reached by ships, if this part of the arctic seas was
+ever open. Yet, according to the accounts of Beecher and Penny, this
+whole sea was open in the summer months.</p>
+
+<p>In the middle of the coast the doctor noticed a sort of plateau about
+two hundred feet in diameter; on three sides it was open to the bay;
+the fourth was enclosed by an elevation about a hundred and twenty
+feet high; this could be ascended only by steps cut in the ice. This
+seemed a proper place for a solid building, and it could be easily
+fortified; nature had adapted it for the purpose; it was only
+necessary to make use of the place. The doctor, Bell, and Johnson
+reached this place by means of steps cut in the ice. As soon as the
+doctor saw the excellence of the place, he determined to dig away the
+ten feet of hardened snow which covered it; the buildings had to be
+built on a solid foundation.</p>
+
+<p>During Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, work went on without
+relaxation; at last the ground appeared; it consisted of a hard, dense
+granite, with the angles as sharp as glass; it contained, moreover,
+garnets and large crystals of feldspar, against which the pickaxe
+struck fire.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="pictures 150, 151, 152">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="399">
+			<img src="images/150.jpg" alt="The snow-house">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="399">
+			<img src="images/151.jpg" alt="The sitting-room">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="399">
+			<img src="images/152.jpg" alt="The kitchen">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The doctor then gave them the dimensions and plan of the snow-house;
+it was to be forty feet long, twenty broad, and ten deep; it was
+divided into three rooms, a sitting-room, a bedroom, and a kitchen;
+more was not needed. To the left was the kitchen, to the right the
+bedroom, in the middle the sitting-room. For five days they worked
+busily. There was no lack of material; the ice walls were thick enough
+to resist thawing, for they could not risk being wholly without
+protection, even in summer. In proportion as the house rose, it became
+agreeable to see; there were four front windows, two in the
+sitting-room, one in the kitchen, another in the bedroom; for panes of
+glass they substituted large sheets of ice, in the Esquimaux fashion,
+which served as well as unpolished glass for the passage of light. In
+front of the sitting-room, between two windows, there ran a long entry
+like a tunnel, which gave admission to the house; a solid door,
+brought from the <i>Porpoise</i>, closed it hermetically. When the house
+was finished, the doctor was delighted with his handiwork; it would
+have been impossible to say to what school of architecture the
+building belonged, although the architect would have avowed his
+preferences for the Saxon Gothic, so common in England; but the main
+point was, that it should be solid; therefore the doctor placed on the
+front short uprights; on top a sloping roof rested against the granite
+wall. This served to support the stove-pipes, which carried the smoke
+away. When the task was completed, they began to arrange the interior.
+They carried into the bedroom the sleeping-accommodations from the
+<i>Porpoise;</i> they were arranged in a circle about a large stove.
+Benches, chairs, sofas, tables, wardrobes, were arranged in the
+sitting-room, which was also used as a dining-room; the kitchen
+received the cooking-stoves of the ship, and the various utensils.
+Sails, stretched on the floor, formed the carpet, and also served as
+hangings to the inner doors, which had no other way of closing. The
+walls of the house averaged five feet in thickness, and the recesses
+for the windows looked like embrasures in a fort. It was all built
+with great solidity; what more was to be desired? Ah, if they had
+listened to the doctor, there is no knowing what they would not have
+made of this ice and snow, which can be so easily manipulated! He all
+day long would ponder over plans which he never hoped to bring about,
+but he thereby lightened the dull work of all by the ingenuity of his
+suggestions. Besides, he had come across, in his wide reading, a
+rather rare book by one Kraft, entitled "Detailed Description of the
+Snow-Palace built at St. Petersburg, in January, 1740, and of all the
+Objects it contained." The recollection of this book impressed him.
+One evening he gave his companions a full account of the wonders of
+that snow-palace.</p>
+
+<p>"Why couldn't we do here," he asked, "what they did at St. Petersburg?
+What do we need? Nothing, not even imagination!"</p>
+
+<p>"So it was very handsome?" said Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"It was fairy-like, my friend. The house, built by order of the
+Empress Anna, and in which she had celebrated the marriage of one of
+her buffoons in 1740, was nearly as large as ours; but in front stood
+six cannons of ice; they were often fired without bursting; there were
+also mortars to hold sixty-pound shells; so we could have some
+formidable artillery; the bronze is handy, and falls even from heaven.
+But the triumph of taste and art was on the front of the palace, which
+was adorned with handsome statues; the steps were garnished with vases
+of flowers of the same material; on the right stood an enormous
+elephant, who played water through his trunk by day, and burning
+naphtha by night. What a menagerie we might have if we only wanted
+to!"</p>
+
+<p>"As for animals," answered Johnson, "we sha'n't lack them, I fancy,
+and they won't be any the less interesting for not being made of ice."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the doctor, "we shall be able to defend ourselves against
+their attacks; but to return to the palace, I should add that inside
+there were mirrors, candelabra, beds, mattresses, pillows, curtains,
+clocks, chairs, playing-cards, wardrobes well furnished, and all cut
+out of ice; in fact, nothing was lacking."</p>
+
+<p>"It was then a true palace?" said Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"A splendid palace, worthy of a sovereign! Ice! It was kind of
+Providence to invent it, since it lends itself to so many miracles and
+accommodates so readily to the needs of castaways!"</p>
+
+<p>It took them until March 31st to get the house ready; this was Easter
+Sunday, and the day was set aside for rest; the whole day was spent in
+the sitting-room, where divine service was read, and each was able to
+judge of the excellent arrangements of the snow-house.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning they set about building stores and a magazine; this
+took them about a week, including the time employed for emptying the
+<i>Porpoise</i>, which was not done without difficulty, for the low
+temperature did not permit them to work very long. At last, April 8th,
+provisions, food, and supplies were safely sheltered on land; the
+stores were placed to the north, and the powder-house to the south,
+about sixty feet from the end of the house; a sort of dog-kennel was
+built near the stores; it was destined for the Greenland dogs, and the
+doctor honored it with the title of "Dog-Palace." Duke partook of the
+common quarters.</p>
+
+<p>Then the doctor passed to the means of defence of the place. Under his
+direction the plateau was surrounded by a real fortification of ice
+which secured it against every invasion; its height made a natural
+protection, and as there was no salient, it was equally strong on all
+sides. The doctor's system of defence recalled strongly the method of
+Sterne's Uncle Toby, whose gentleness and good-humor he also shared.
+He was a pleasant sight when he was calculating the inclination of the
+platform and the breadth of the causeway; but this task was so easy
+with the snow, that he enjoyed it, and he was able to make the wall
+seven feet thick; besides the plateau overlooking the bay, he had to
+build neither counterscarp nor glacis; the parapet of snow, after
+following the outlines of the plateau, joined the rock on the other
+side. The work of fortification was finished April 15th. The fort was
+completed, and the doctor seemed very proud of his work.</p>
+
+<a name="ill34"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 153">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="564">
+			<img src="images/153.jpg" alt="The fort was completed">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="564" align="center">
+			<small>The fort was completed.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>In truth, this fortified enclosure could have withstood for a long
+time against a tribe of Esquimaux, if such enemies were met under that
+latitude; but there was no trace of human beings there; Hatteras, in
+making out the outline of the bay, did not see any ruins of the huts
+which are so commonly found in the places resorted to by Greenland
+tribes; the castaways of the <i>Forward</i> and the <i>Porpoise</i> appeared to
+be the first ever to set foot on this unknown shore. But if they need
+not fear men, animals were to be dreaded, and the fort, thus defended,
+would have to protect the little garrison against their attacks.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap39"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER VII.</h3>
+<h4>A DISCUSSION ABOUT CHARTS.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>During these preparations for going into winter-quarters, Altamont had
+entirely recovered his health and strength; he was even able to aid in
+unloading the ship. His vigorous constitution at last carried the day,
+and his pallor soon gave way before the vigor of his blood.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 154">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="384">
+			<img src="images/154.jpg" alt="Altamont recovered">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>They saw in him a sanguine, robust citizen of the United States, an
+intelligent, energetic man with a resolute character, a bold, hardy
+American ready for everything; he was originally from New York, and
+had been a sailor from infancy, as he told his companions; his ship,
+the <i>Porpoise</i>, had been equipped and sent out by a society of wealthy
+American merchants, at the head of whom was the famous Mr. Grinnell.</p>
+
+<p>There was a certain similarity between his disposition and that of
+Hatteras, but their sympathies were different. This similarity did not
+incline them to become friends; indeed, it had the opposite effect. A
+close observer would have detected serious discordances between them;
+and this, although they were very frank with one another. Altamont was
+less so, however, than Hatteras; with greater ease of manner, he was
+less loyal; his open character did not inspire as much confidence as
+did the captain's gloomy temperament. Hatteras would say what he had
+to say, and then he held his peace. The other would talk a great deal,
+but say very little. Such was the doctor's reading of the American's
+character, and he was right in his presentiment of a future
+disagreement, if not hatred, between the captains of the <i>Porpoise</i>
+and the <i>Forward</i>.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 155">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="391">
+			<img src="images/155.jpg" alt="The doctor prepared a feast">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>And yet only one could command. To be sure, Hatteras had all the right
+of commanding, by virtue of anterior right and superior force. But if
+one was at the head of his own men, the other was on board of his own
+ship. And that was generally felt. Either from policy or
+instinctively, Altamont was at first attracted towards the doctor; it
+was to him he owed his life, but it was sympathy rather than gratitude
+which moved him. This was the invariable effect of Clawbonny's nature;
+friends grew about him like wheat under the summer sun. Every one has
+heard of people who rise at five o'clock in the morning to make
+enemies; the doctor could have got up at four without doing it.
+Nevertheless, he resolved to profit by Altamont's friendship to the
+extent of learning the real reason of his presence in the polar seas.
+But with all his wordiness the American answered without answering,
+and kept repeating what he had to say about the Northwest Passage. The
+doctor suspected that there was some other motive for the expedition,
+the same, namely, that Hatteras suspected. Hence he resolved not to
+let the two adversaries discuss the subject; but he did not always
+succeed. The simplest conversations threatened to wander to that
+point, and any word might kindle a blaze of controversy. It happened
+soon. When the house was finished, the doctor resolved to celebrate
+the fact by a splendid feast; this was a good idea of Clawbonny's, who
+wanted to introduce in this continent the habits and pleasures of
+European life. Bell had just shot some ptarmigans and a white rabbit,
+the first harbinger of spring. This feast took place April 14, Low
+Sunday, on a very pleasant day; the cold could not enter the house,
+and if it had, the roaring stoves would have soon conquered it. The
+dinner was good; the fresh meat made an agreeable variety after the
+pemmican and salt meat; a wonderful pudding, made by the doctor's own
+hand, was much admired; every one asked for another supply; the head
+cook himself, with an apron about his waist and a knife hanging by his
+side, would not have disgraced the kitchen of the Lord High Chancellor
+of England. At dessert, liquors appeared; the American was not a
+teetotaler; hence there was no reason for his depriving himself of a
+glass of gin or brandy; the other guests, who were never in any way
+intemperate, could permit themselves this infraction of their rule;
+so, by the doctor's command, each one was able to drain a glass at the
+end of the merry meal. When a toast was drunk to the United States,
+Hatteras was simply silent. It was then that the doctor brought
+forward an interesting subject.</p>
+
+<p>"My friends," he said, "it is not enough that we have crossed the
+waters and ice and have come so far; there is one thing left for us to
+do. Hence I propose that we should give names to this hospitable land
+where we have found safety and rest; that is the course pursued by all
+navigators, and there is not one who has neglected it; therefore we
+ought to carry back with us not only a map of the shores, but also the
+names of the capes, bays, points, and promontories which we find. That
+is absolutely necessary."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" cried Johnson; "besides, when one can give all these lands
+their own names, it looks like genuine work, and we can't consider
+ourselves as cast away on an unknown shore."</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," added Bell, "that simplifies instructions and facilitates
+the execution of orders; we may be compelled to separate during some
+expedition or in hunting, and the best way for finding our way back is
+to know the names of the places."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the doctor, "since we are all agreed, let us try to
+settle on some names without forgetting our country and friends."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Doctor," answered the American, "and you give what you
+say additional value by your warmth."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," continued the doctor, "let us go on in order."</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras had not taken part in the conversation; he was thinking.
+Still the eyes of his companions were fastened on him; he rose and
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If you are all willing, and I don't think any one will dissent,"&mdash;at
+those words Hatteras looked at Altamont,&mdash;"it seems to me proper to
+name this house after its skilful architect, and to call it 'Doctor's
+House.'"</p>
+
+<p>"That's true," said Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" shouted Johnson; "Doctor's House!"</p>
+
+<p>"Couldn't be better," added Altamont. "Hurrah for Dr. Clawbonny!"</p>
+
+<p>Three cheers were then given, to which Duke added an approving bark.</p>
+
+<p>"So," resumed Hatteras, "let this house bear that name until some new
+land is discovered to bear the name of our friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Johnson, "if the earthly Paradise were to be named over
+again, the name of Clawbonny would suit it to a miracle!"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, much moved, wanted to defend himself by modesty, but he
+was unable. It was then formally agreed that the feast had been eaten
+in the grand dining-hall of Doctor's House, after being cooked in the
+kitchen of Doctor's House, and that they would go comfortably to bed
+in the chamber of Doctor's House.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said the doctor, "let us take the more important points of our
+discoveries."</p>
+
+<p>"There is," said Hatteras, "this immense sea which surrounds us, and
+in which no ship has ever floated."</p>
+
+<p>"No ship!" interrupted Altamont; "it seems to me the <i>Porpoise</i> should
+not be forgotten, unless indeed it came by land," he added jestingly.</p>
+
+<p>"One might think it had," retorted Hatteras, "to see the rocks on
+which it is now resting."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, Hatteras," answered Altamont with some vexation; "but, on the
+whole, isn't even that better than blowing up as the <i>Forward</i> did!"</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras was about to make some angry reply, when the doctor
+interrupted him.</p>
+
+<p>"My friends," he said, "we are not talking about ships, but about the
+new sea&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not new," interrupted Altamont. "It already bears a name on all
+the charts of the Pole. It is the Arctic Ocean, and I don't see any
+reason for changing its name; if we should find out in the future that
+it is only a sound or gulf, we can see what is to be done."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"Agreed," said the doctor, regretting that he had aroused a discussion
+between rival nationalities.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us come to the land which we are now in," resumed Hatteras. "I am
+not aware that it bears any name on the most recent maps."</p>
+
+<a name="ill35"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 156">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="586">
+			<img src="images/156.jpg" alt="I am not aware that it bears any name on the most recent maps">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="586" align="center">
+			<small>"I am not aware that it bears any name on the most
+			recent maps."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>At these words he turned to Altamont, who did not lower his eyes, but
+answered,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You may be mistaken again, Hatteras."</p>
+
+<p>"Mistaken! this unknown land, this new country&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Has a name already," answered the American, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras was silent. His lips trembled.</p>
+
+<p>"And what is its name?" asked the doctor, a little surprised at the
+American's statement.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Clawbonny," answered Altamont, "it is the custom, not to say
+the habit, of every explorer to give a name to the continent which he
+has discovered. It seems to me that on this occasion it was in my
+power and that it was my duty to use this indisputable right&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Still&mdash;" said Johnson, whom Altamont's coolness annoyed.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me hard to pretend," the American resumed, "that the
+<i>Porpoise</i> did not discover this coast, and even on the supposition
+that it came by land," he added, glancing at Hatteras, "there can't be
+any question."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a claim I can't admit," answered Hatteras, gravely, forcibly
+restraining himself. "To give a name, one should be the discoverer,
+and that I fancy you were not. Without us, besides, where would you
+be, sir, you who presume to impose conditions upon us? Twenty feet
+under the snow!"</p>
+
+<p>"And without me, sir," replied the American, "without my ship, where
+would you be at this moment? Dead of cold and hunger?"</p>
+
+<p>"My friends," said the doctor, intervening for the best, "come, a
+little calm, it can all settle itself. Listen to me!"</p>
+
+<p>"That gentleman," continued Altamont, pointing to the captain, "can
+give a name to all the lands he discovers, if he discovers any; but
+this continent belongs to me! I cannot admit of its bearing two names,
+like Grinnell Land and Prince Albert's Land, because an Englishman and
+American happened to find it at the same time. Here it's different. My
+rights of precedence are beyond dispute! No ship has ever touched this
+shore before mine. No human being before me has ever set foot upon it;
+now, I have given it its name, and it shall keep it."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is its name?" asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"New America," answered Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras clinched his fists on the table. But with a violent effort he
+controlled himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you prove to me," Altamont went on, "that any Englishman has ever
+set foot on this soil before me?"</p>
+
+<p>Johnson and Bell were silent, although they were no less angry than
+the captain at the haughty coolness of their opponent. But there was
+nothing to be said. The doctor began again after a few moments of
+painful silence.</p>
+
+<p>"My friends," he said, "the first law of humanity is justice; it
+embraces all the rest. Let us then be just, and not give way to evil
+feelings. Altamont's priority appears to me incontestable. There is no
+question about it; we shall have our revenge later, and England will
+have a good share in future discoveries. Let us leave to this land,
+then, the name of New America. But Altamont, in giving it this name,
+has not, I imagine, disposed of the bays, capes, points, and
+promontories which it encloses, and I don't see anything to prevent
+our calling it Victoria Bay."</p>
+
+<p>"None at all," answered Altamont, "provided that the cape jutting into
+the sea over there is named Cape Washington."</p>
+
+<p>"You might have chosen, sir," cried Hatteras, beside himself, "a name
+less offensive to an English ear."</p>
+
+<p>"But none dearer to an American ear," answered Altamont, with much
+pride.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come," continued the doctor, who found it hard to keep the
+peace in this little world, "no discussion about that! Let an American
+be proud of his great men! Let us honor genius wherever it is found,
+and since Altamont has made his choice, let us now speak for ourselves
+and our friends. Let our captain&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor," answered Hatteras, "since this is an American land, I don't
+care to have my name figure here."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that opinion unchangeable?" asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"It is," answered Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor did not insist any further.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, it's our turn," he said, addressing the old sailor and
+the carpenter; "let us leave a trace of our passage here. I propose
+that we call that island about three miles from here Johnson Island,
+in honor of our boatswain."</p>
+
+<p>"O," said the latter, a little embarrassed, "O doctor!"</p>
+
+<p>"As to the mountain which we have seen in the west, we shall call it
+Bell Mountain, if our carpenter is willing."</p>
+
+<p>"It's too much honor for me," answered Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"It's only fair," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing better," said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we have only to name our fort," resumed the doctor; "there need
+be no discussion about that; it's neither to Her Royal Highness Queen
+Victoria nor to Washington that we owe our protection in it at this
+moment, but to God, who brought us together and saved us all. Let it
+be called Fort Providence!"</p>
+
+<p>"A capital plan!" answered Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Fort Providence," added Johnson, "that sounds well! So, then, in
+returning from our excursions in the north, we shall start from Cape
+Washington to reach Victoria Bay, and from there to Fort Providence,
+where we shall find rest and plenty in Doctor's House."</p>
+
+<p>"Then that's settled," answered the doctor; "later, as we make
+discoveries, we shall have other names to give, which I hope will not
+give rise to discussion; for, my friends, we ought to stand by one
+another and love one another; we represent humanity on this distant
+shore; let us not give ourselves up to the detestable passions which
+infest society; let us rather remain unattackable by adversity. Who
+can say what dangers Heaven has in store for us, what sufferings we
+may not have to support before we return to our own country? Let us
+five be like one man, and leave on one side the rivalry which is wrong
+anywhere, and especially here. You understand me, Altamont? And you,
+Hatteras?"</p>
+
+<p>The two men made no reply, but the doctor did not seem to notice their
+silence. Then they talked about other things; about hunting, so as to
+get a supply of fresh meat; with the spring, hares, partridges, even
+foxes, would return, as well as bears; they resolved accordingly not
+to let a favorable day pass without exploring the land of New America.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap40"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII.</h3>
+<h4>EXCURSION TO THE NORTH OF VICTORIA BAY.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The next morning, as soon as the sun appeared, Clawbonny ascended the
+wall of rock which rose above Doctor's House; it terminated suddenly
+in a sort of truncated cone; the doctor reached the summit with some
+little difficulty, and from there his eye beheld a vast expanse of
+territory which looked as if it were the result of some volcanic
+convulsion; a huge white canopy covered land and sea, rendering them
+undistinguishable the one from the other. The doctor, when he saw that
+this rock overlooked all the surrounding plain, had an idea,&mdash;a fact
+which will not astonish those who are acquainted with him. This idea
+he turned over, pondered, and made himself master of by the time he
+returned to the house, and then he communicated it to his companions.</p>
+
+<a name="ill36"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 157">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="595">
+			<img src="images/157.jpg" alt="The doctor reached the summit with some little difficulty">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="595" align="center">
+			<small>"The doctor reached the summit with some little difficulty."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"It has occurred to me," he said to them, "to build a lighthouse at
+the top of the cone up there."</p>
+
+<p>"A lighthouse?" they cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a lighthouse; it will be of use to show us our way back at night
+when we are returning from distant excursions, and to light up the
+neighborhood in the eight months of winter."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," answered Altamont, "such an apparatus would be useful;
+but how will you build it?"</p>
+
+<p>"With one of the <i>Porpoise's</i> lanterns."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good; but with what will you feed the lamp? With seal-oil?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; it doesn't give a bright enough light; it could hardly pierce the
+fog."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think you can get hydrogen from our coal and make illuminating
+gas?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that light would not be bright enough, and it would be wrong to
+use up any of our fuel."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said Altamont, "I don't see&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"As for me," answered Johnson, "since the bullet of mercury, the ice
+lens, the building of Fort Providence, I believe Dr. Clawbonny is
+capable of anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," resumed Altamont, "will you tell us what sort of a light you
+are going to have?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's very simple," answered the doctor; "an electric light."</p>
+
+<p>"An electric light!"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly; didn't you have on board of the <i>Porpoise</i> a Bunsen's pile
+in an uninjured state?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered the American.</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently, when you took it, you intended to make some experiments,
+for it is complete. You have the necessary acid, and the wires
+isolated, hence it would be easy for us to get an electric light. It
+will be more brilliant, and will cost nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"That is perfect," answered the boatswain, "and the less time we
+lose&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the materials are there," answered the doctor, "and in an hour
+we shall have a column ten feet high, which will be enough."</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 158">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="558">
+			<img src="images/158.jpg" alt="The lighthouse">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The doctor went out; his companions followed him to the top of the
+cone; the column was promptly built and was soon surmounted by one of
+the <i>Porpoise's</i> lanterns. Then the doctor arranged the conducting
+wires which were connected with the pile; this was placed in the
+parlor of the ice-house, and was preserved from the frost by the heat
+of the stoves. From there the wires ran to the lantern. All this was
+quickly done, and they waited till sunset to judge of the effect. At
+night the two charcoal points, kept at a proper distance apart in the
+lantern, were brought together, and flashes of brilliant light, which
+the wind could neither make flicker nor extinguish, issued from the
+lighthouse. It was a noteworthy sight, these sparkling rays, rivalling
+the brilliancy of the plains, and defining sharply the outlines of the
+surrounding objects. Johnson could not help clapping his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Clawbonny," he said, "has made another sun!"</p>
+
+<p>"One ought to do a little of everything," answered the doctor,
+modestly.</p>
+
+<p>The cold put an end to the general admiration, and each man hastened
+back to his coverings.</p>
+
+<p>After this time life was regularly organized. During the following
+days, from the 15th to the 20th of April, the weather was very
+uncertain; the temperature fell suddenly twenty degrees, and the
+atmosphere experienced severe changes, at times being full of snow and
+squally, at other times cold and dry, so that no one could set foot
+outside without precautions. However, on Saturday, the wind began to
+fall; this circumstance made an expedition possible; they resolved
+accordingly to devote a day to hunting, in order to renew their
+provisions. In the morning, Altamont, the doctor, Bell, each one
+taking a double-barrelled gun, a proper amount of food, a hatchet, a
+snow-knife in case they should have to dig a shelter, set out under a
+cloudy sky. During their absence Hatteras was to explore the coast and
+take their bearings. The doctor took care to start the light; its rays
+were very bright; in fact, the electric light, being equal to that of
+three thousand candles or three hundred gas-jets, is the only one
+which at all approximates to the solar light.</p>
+
+<p>The cold was sharp, dry, and still. The hunters set out towards Cape
+Washington, finding their way made easier over the hardened snow. In
+about half an hour they had made the three miles which separated the
+cape from Fort Providence. Duke was springing about them. The coast
+inclined to the east, and the lofty summits of Victoria Bay tended to
+grow lower toward the north. This made them believe that New America
+was perhaps only an island; but they did not have then to concern
+themselves with its shape. The hunters took the route by the sea and
+went forward rapidly. There was no sign of life, no trace of any
+building; they were walking over a virgin soil. They thus made about
+fifteen miles in the first three hours, eating without stopping to
+rest; but they seemed likely to find no sport. They saw very few
+traces of hare, fox, or wolf. Still, a few snow-birds flew here and
+there, announcing the return of spring and the arctic animals. The
+three companions had been compelled to go inland to get around some
+deep ravines and some pointed rocks which ran down from Bell Mountain;
+but after a few delays they succeeded in regaining the shore; the ice
+had not yet separated. Far from it. The sea remained fast; still a few
+traces of seals announced the beginning of their visit, and that they
+were already come to breathe at the surface of the ice-field. It was
+evident from the large marks, the fresh breaking of the ice, that many
+had very recently been on the land. These animals are very anxious for
+the rays of the sun, and they like to bask on the shore in the sun's
+heat. The doctor called his companions' attention to these facts.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 159">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="555">
+			<img src="images/159.jpg" alt="The hunters">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Let us notice this place," he said. "It is very possible that in
+summer we shall find hundreds of seals here; they can be approached
+and caught without difficulty, if they are unfamiliar with men. But we
+must take care not to frighten them, or they will disappear as if by
+magic and never return; in that way, careless hunters, instead of
+killing them one by one, have often attacked them in a crowd, with
+noisy cries, and have thereby driven them away."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they only killed for their skin and oil?" asked Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"By Europeans, yes, but the Esquimaux eat them; they live on them, and
+pieces of seal's flesh, which they mix with blood and fat, are not at
+all unappetizing. After all, it depends on the way it's treated, and I
+shall give you some delicate cutlets if you don't mind their dark
+color."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall see you at work," answered Bell; "I'll gladly eat it,
+Doctor."</p>
+
+<p>"My good Bell, as much as you please. But, however much you eat, you
+will never equal a Greenlander, who eats ten or fifteen pounds of it a
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"Fifteen pounds!" said Bell. "What stomachs!"</p>
+
+<p>"Real polar stomachs," answered the doctor; "prodigious stomachs which
+can be dilated at will, and, I ought to add, can be contracted in the
+same way, so that they support starving as well as gorging. At the
+beginning of his dinner, the Esquimaux is thin; at the end, he is fat,
+and not to be recognized! It is true that his dinner often lasts a
+whole day."</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently," said Altamont, "this voracity is peculiar to the
+inhabitants of cold countries!"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so," answered the doctor; "in the arctic regions one has to
+eat a great deal; it is a condition not only of strength, but of
+existence. Hence the Hudson's Bay Company gives each man eight pounds
+of meat a day, or twelve pounds of fish, or two pounds of pemmican."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a generous supply," said the carpenter.</p>
+
+<p>"But not so much as you imagine, my friend; and an Indian crammed in
+that way does no better work than an Englishman with his pound of beef
+and his pint of beer a day."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, Doctor, all is for the best."</p>
+
+<p>"True, but still an Esquimaux meal may well astonish us. While
+wintering at Boothia Land, Sir John Ross was always surprised at the
+voracity of his guides; he says somewhere that two men&mdash;two, you
+understand&mdash;ate in one morning a whole quarter of a musk-ox; they tear
+the meat into long shreds, which they place in their mouths; then each
+one, cutting off at his lips what his mouth cannot hold, passes it
+over to his companion; or else the gluttons, letting the shreds hang
+down to the ground, swallow them gradually, as a boa-constrictor
+swallows an animal, and like it stretched out at full length on the
+ground."</p>
+
+<p>"Ugh!" said Bell, "the disgusting brutes!"</p>
+
+<p>"Every one eats in his own way," answered the American,
+philosophically.</p>
+
+<p>"Fortunately!" replied the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Altamont, "since the need of food is so great in these
+latitudes, I'm no longer surprised that in accounts of arctic voyages
+there is always so much space given to describing the meals."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right," answered the doctor; "and it is a remark which I have
+often made myself; it is not only that plenty of food is needed, but
+also because it is often hard to get it. So one is always thinking of
+it and consequently always talking of it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Still," said Altamont, "if my memory serves me right, in Norway, in
+the coldest countries, the peasants need no such enormous supply: a
+little milk, eggs, birch-bark bread, sometimes salmon, never any meat;
+and yet they are hardy men."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a matter of organization," answered the doctor, "and one which I
+can't explain. Still, I fancy that the second or third generation of
+Norwegians, carried to Greenland, would end by feeding themselves in
+the Greenland way. And we too, my friends, if we were to remain in
+this lovely country, would get to live like the Esquimaux, not to say
+like gluttons."</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Clawbonny," said Bell, "it makes me hungry to talk in this way."</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't make me," answered Altamont; "it disgusts me rather, and
+makes me dislike seal's flesh. But I fancy we shall have an
+opportunity to try the experiment. If I'm not mistaken, I see some
+living body down there on the ice."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a walrus," shouted the doctor; "forward silently!"</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 160">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="563">
+			<img src="images/160.jpg" alt="The walrus">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Indeed, the animal was within two hundred feet of the hunters; he was
+stretching and rolling at his ease in the pale rays of the sun. The
+three men separated so as to surround him and cut off his retreat; and
+they approached within a few fathoms' lengths of him, hiding behind
+the hummocks, and then fired. The walrus rolled over, still full of
+strength; he crushed the ice in his attempts to get away; but Altamont
+attacked him with his hatchet, and succeeded in cutting his dorsal
+fins. The walrus made a desperate resistance; new shots finished him,
+and he remained stretched lifeless on the ice-field stained with his
+blood. He was a good-sized animal, being nearly fifteen feet long from
+his muzzle to the end of his tail, and he would certainly furnish many
+barrels of oil. The doctor cut out the most savory parts of the flesh,
+and he left the corpse to the mercies of a few crows, which, at this
+season of the year, were floating through the air. The night began to
+fall. They thought of returning to Fort Providence; the sky had become
+perfectly clear, and while waiting for the moon to rise, the splendor
+of the stars was magnificent.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, push on," said the doctor, "it's growing late; to be sure,
+we've had poor luck; but as long as we have enough for supper, there's
+no need of complaining. Only let's take the shortest way and try not
+to get lost; the stars will help us."</p>
+
+<p>But yet in countries where the North Star shines directly above the
+traveller's head, it is hard to walk by it; in fact, when the north is
+directly in the zenith, it is hard to determine the other cardinal
+points; fortunately the moon and great constellations aided the doctor
+in determining the route. In order to shorten their way, he resolved
+to avoid the sinuosities of the coast, and to go directly across the
+land; it was more direct, but less certain; so, after walking for a
+few hours, the little band had completely lost its way. They thought
+of spending the night in an ice-house and waiting till the next day to
+find out where they were, even if they should have to return along the
+shore; but the doctor, fearing that Hatteras and Johnson might be
+anxious, insisted on their going on.</p>
+
+<p>"Duke is showing us the way," he said, "and he can't be wrong; he has
+an instinct which is surer than needle or star. Let us follow him."</p>
+
+<p>Duke went forward, and they all followed confidently. And they were
+justified in so doing. Soon a distant light appeared on the horizon;
+it was not to be confounded with a star in the low clouds.</p>
+
+<p>"There's our light!" cried the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so, Doctor!" asked the carpenter.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure of it. Let us push on."</p>
+
+<p>As they approached the light grew brighter, and soon they enjoyed its
+full brilliancy; they advanced in full illumination, and their sharply
+cut shadows ran out behind them over the snow. They hastened their
+gait, and in about half an hour they were climbing up the steps of
+Fort Providence.</p>
+
+<a name="ill37"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 161">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="557">
+			<img src="images/161.jpg" alt="They advanced in full illumination">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="557" align="center">
+			<small>"They advanced in full illumination, and their sharply
+			cut shadows ran out behind them over the snow."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table><br>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap41"></a><a name="note32"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER IX.</h3>
+<h4>COLD AND HEAT.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Hatteras and Johnson had waited for the three hunters with some
+uneasiness. When they returned they were delighted to find a warm and
+comfortable shelter. That evening the temperature had decidedly
+fallen, and the thermometer outside stood at -31&deg;.<a href="#not32"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> The three were very
+much fatigued and almost frozen, so that they could hardly drag one
+foot after the other; fortunately the stoves were drawing well; the
+doctor became cook, and roasted a few walrus cutlets. At nine o'clock
+they all five sat down before a nourishing supper.</p>
+
+<p>"On my word," said Bell, "at the risk of passing for an Esquimaux, I
+will say that food is an important thing in wintering; one ought to
+take what one can get."</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 162">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="393">
+			<img src="images/162.jpg" alt="All five sat down before a nourishing supper">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Each of them having his mouth full, it was impossible for any one to
+answer the carpenter at once; but the doctor made a sign that he was
+right. The walrus cutlets were declared excellent; or, if they made no
+declarations about it, they ate it all up, which is much more to the
+purpose. At dessert the doctor made the coffee, as was his custom; he
+intrusted this task to no one else; he made it at the table, in an
+alcohol machine, and served it boiling hot. He wanted it hot enough to
+scald his throat, or else he did not think it worth drinking. That
+evening he drank it so hot that his companions could not imitate him.</p>
+
+<p>"But you'll burn yourself, Doctor," said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"O no!" was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Is your throat lined with copper?" asked Johnson.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 163">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="398">
+			<img src="images/163.jpg" alt="The doctor with his coffee">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"No, my friends; I advise you to take counsel from me. There are some
+persons, and I am of the number, who drink coffee at a temperature of
+131&deg;."</p>
+
+<p>"One hundred and thirty-one degrees!" cried Altamont; "but the hand
+can't support that heat!"</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently, Altamont, since the hand can't endure more than 122&deg; in
+the water; but the palate and tongue are not so tender as the hand;
+they can endure much more."</p>
+
+<p>"You surprise me," said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm going to convince you."</p>
+
+<p>And the doctor, bringing the thermometer from the parlor, plunged the
+bulb into his cup of boiling coffee; he waited until it stood at a
+131&deg;, and then he drank it with evident joy. Bell tried to do the same
+thing, but he burned himself and shouted aloud.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 164">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="250">
+			<img src="images/164.jpg" alt="Bell burned himself">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"You are not used to it," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Clawbonny," asked Altamont, "can you tell me the highest temperature
+the human body can support?"</p>
+
+<p>"Easily," answered the doctor; "various experiments have been made and
+curious facts have been found out. I remember one or two, and they
+serve to show that one can get accustomed to anything, even to not
+cooking where a beefsteak would cook. So, the story goes that some
+girls employed at the public bakery of the city of La Rochefoucauld,
+in France, could remain ten minutes in the oven in a temperature of
+300&deg;, that is to say, 89&deg; hotter than boiling water, while potatoes
+and meat were cooking around them."</p>
+
+<p>"What girls!" said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is another indisputable example. Nine of our fellow-countrymen
+in 1778, Fordyce, Banks, Solander, Blagden, Home, North, Lord
+Seaforth, and Captain Phillips, endured a temperature of 295&deg;, while
+eggs and roast beef were cooking near them."</p>
+
+<p>"And they were Englishmen!" said Bell, with an accent of pride.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Bell," answered the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"O, Americans could have done better!" said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"They would have roasted," said the doctor, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"And why not?" answered the American.</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate, they have not tried; still, I stand up for my
+countrymen. There's one thing I must not forget; it is incredible if
+one can doubt of the accuracy of the witnesses. The Duke of Ragusa and
+Dr. Jung, a Frenchman and an Austrian, saw a Turk dive into a bath
+which stood at 170&deg;."</p>
+
+<p>"But it seems to me," said Johnson, that that is not equal to other
+people you mentioned."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," answered the doctor; there is a great difference
+between entering warm air and entering warm water; warm air induces
+perspiration, and that protects the skin, while in such hot water
+there is no perspiration and the skin is burned. Hence a bath is
+seldom hotter than 107&deg;. This Turk must have been an extraordinary man
+to have been able to endure so great heat."</p>
+
+<p>"Dr. Clawbonny," asked Johnson, "what is the usual temperature of
+living beings?"</p>
+<a name="note33"></a>
+<p>"It varies very much," answered the doctor; "birds are the warmest
+blooded, and of these the duck and hen are the most remarkable; their
+temperature is above 110&deg;, while that of the owl is not more than
+104&deg;; then come the mammalia, men; the temperature of Englishmen is
+generally 101&deg;."<a href="#not33"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a></p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure Mr. Altamont is going to claim something more for the
+Americans," said Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Altamont, "there are some very warm; but as I've never
+placed a thermometer into their thorax or under their tongue, I can't
+be sure about it."</p>
+
+<p>"The difference of temperature," resumed the doctor, "between men of
+different races is quite imperceptible when they are placed in the
+same circumstances, whatever be the nature of their bringing-up; I
+should add, that the temperature varies but little between men at the
+equator and at the pole."</p>
+
+<p>"So," said Altamont, "our temperature is about the same here as in
+England?"</p>
+
+<p>"About the same," answered the doctor; "as to the other mammalia,
+their temperature is a trifle higher than that of man. The horse is
+about the same, as well as the hare, the elephant, the porpoise, the
+tiger; but the cat, the squirrel, the rat, panther, sheep, ox, dog,
+monkey, goat, reach 103&deg;; and the warmest of all, the pig, goes above
+104&deg;."</p>
+
+<p>"That is humiliating for us," said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Then come amphibious animals and fish, whose temperature varies very
+much according to that of the water. The serpent does not go above
+86&deg;, the frog 70&deg;, and the shark the same in a medium a degree and a
+half cooler; insects appear to have the temperature of the water and
+the air."</p>
+
+<p>"That is all very well," said Hatteras, who had not yet spoken, "and
+I'm much obliged to the doctor for his information; but we are talking
+as if we had to endure torrid heats. Would it not be wiser to talk
+about the cold, to know to what we are exposed, and what is the lowest
+temperature that has ever been observed?"</p>
+
+<p>"True," added Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing easier," continued the doctor, "and I may be able to
+give you some information."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say," said Johnson; "you know everything."</p>
+
+<p>"My friends, I only know what others have taught me, and when I've
+finished you'll know exactly as much. This is what I know about cold
+and the lowest temperatures observed in Europe. A great many
+noteworthy winters have been known, and it seems as if the severest
+has a periodic return about every forty-one years,&mdash;a period which
+nearly corresponds with the greater appearance of spots on the sun. I
+can mention the winter of 1364, when the Rhone was frozen as far as
+Arles; that of 1408, when the Danube was frozen its whole length, and
+when wolves ran over to Jutland without wetting their feet; that of
+1509, during which the Mediterranean at Cette and Marseilles and the
+Adriatic at Venice were frozen, and the Baltic as late as April 10;
+that of 1608, which killed all the cattle in England; that of 1789,
+when the Thames was frozen&mdash;as far as Gravesend, six leagues&mdash;below
+London; that of 1813, of which the French retain such a terrible
+memory; and that of 1829, the earliest and longest winter of this
+century. So much for Europe."</p>
+
+<p>"But what temperature has been reached above the Arctic Circle?" asked
+Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Really," said the doctor, "I believe we have experienced the greatest
+cold that has ever been observed, since our spirit thermometer
+indicated one day -72&deg;; and if I remember aright, the lowest
+temperatures ever observed before were only -61&deg; at Melville Island,
+-65&deg; at Port Felix, and -70&deg; at Fort Reliance."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Hatteras; "we were delayed, and unfortunately too, by a
+very severe winter!"</p>
+
+<p>"You were delayed?" exclaimed Altamont, staring at the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"In our journey westward," interposed the doctor, hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"So," said Altamont, continuing the conversation, "the maximum and
+minimum temperatures endured by men vary about two hundred degrees?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered the doctor; "a thermometer exposed to the open air and
+sheltered from reflection has never risen above 135&deg;, and in the
+greatest colds it never falls below -72&deg;. So, my friends, you see we
+can take our ease."</p>
+
+<p>"But still," said Johnson, "if the sun were to be extinguished
+suddenly, would not the earth endure greater cold?"</p>
+
+<p>"The sun won't be extinguished," answered the doctor; "but even if it
+should be, the temperature would not fall any lower, probably, than
+what I have mentioned."</p>
+
+<p>"That's strange."</p>
+
+<p>"O, I know it used to be said that in the space outside of the
+atmosphere the temperature was thousands of degrees below zero! but
+since the experiments of the Frenchman Fourrier, this has been
+disproved; he has shown that if the earth were placed in a medium void
+of all heat, that the temperature at the pole would be much greater,
+and that there would be very great differences between night and day;
+so, my friends, it is no colder a few millions of miles from the earth
+than it is here."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, Doctor," said Altamont, "is not the temperature of America
+lower than that of other countries of the world?"</p>
+
+<p>"Without doubt; but don't be proud of it," answered the doctor with a
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"And what is the reason?"</p>
+<a name="note34"></a>
+<p>"No very satisfactory explanation has ever been given; so it occurred
+to Hadley<a href="#not34"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> that a comet had come into collision with the earth and had
+altered the position of its axis of rotation, that is to say, of its
+poles; according to him, the North Pole, which used to be situated at
+Hudson's Bay, found itself carried farther east, and the land at the
+old Pole preserved a greater cold, which long centuries of the sun
+have not yet heated."</p>
+
+<p>"And you do not admit this hypothesis?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not for a moment; for what is true of the eastern coast of America is
+not true of the western coast, which has a higher temperature. No! we
+can prove that the isothermal lines differ from the terrestrial
+parallels, and that is all."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, Doctor," said Johnson, "that it is pleasant to talk
+about cold in our present circumstances?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly, Johnson; we can call practice to the aid of theory. These
+countries are a vast laboratory where curious experiments on low
+temperatures can be made. Only, be always careful; if any part of your
+body is frozen, rub it at once with snow to restore the circulation of
+the blood; and if you come near the fire, be careful, for you may burn
+your hands or feet without noticing it; then amputation would be
+necessary, and we should try to leave nothing of ourselves in these
+lands. And now I think it would be well for us to seek a few hours of
+sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"Willingly," answered the doctor's companions.</p>
+
+<p>"Who keeps watch over the stove?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do," answered Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my friend, take care the fire does not fall out, for it's most
+abominably cold this evening."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be uneasy, Doctor; it's very sharp, but see, the sky is all
+ablaze!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered the doctor, going up to the window, "it's a
+magnificent aurora. What a glorious sight! I should never get tired of
+looking at it!"</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 165">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="551">
+			<img src="images/165.jpg" alt="A magnificent aurora">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>In fact, the doctor admired all these cosmic phenomena, to which his
+companions paid but little attention; he had noticed, besides, that
+their appearance always preceded disturbances of the magnetic needle,
+and he was preparing some observations on the subject which he
+intended for Admiral Fitz-Roy's "Weather Book."</p>
+
+<p>Soon, while Bell was on watch near the stove, all the rest, stretched
+on their beds, slept quietly.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap42"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER X.</h3>
+<h4>THE PLEASURES OF WINTER-QUARTERS.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>There is a gloomy monotony about life at the Pole. Man is wholly the
+sport of the changes of the weather, which alternates between intense
+cold and severe storms with savage relentlessness. The greater part of
+the time it is impossible to set foot out of doors; one is imprisoned
+in the hut of ice. Long months pass in this way, so that men lead the
+life of moles.</p>
+
+<p>The next day the thermometer was several degrees lower, and the air
+was full of clouds of snow, which absorbed all the light of day. The
+doctor saw himself kept within doors, and he folded his arms; there
+was nothing to be done, except every hour to clear away the
+entrance-hall and to repolish the ice-walls which the heat within made
+damp; but the snow-house was very finely built, and the snow added to
+its resistance by augmenting the thickness of its walls.</p>
+
+<table align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 166">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="402">
+			<img src="images/166.jpg" alt="Hatteras was always lying on the bed">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The stores were equally secure. All the objects taken from the ship
+had been arranged in order in these "Docks of Merchandise," as the
+doctor called them. Now, although these stores were at a distance of
+only sixty feet from the house, it was yet on some days almost
+impossible to get to them; hence a certain quantity of provisions had
+always to be kept in the kitchen for daily needs.</p>
+
+<p>They had been wise in unloading the <i>Porpoise</i>. The ship was exposed
+to a gentle, but persistent pressure, which was gradually crushing it;
+it was evident that nothing could be done with its fragments; still
+the doctor kept hoping to be able to build a launch out of them to
+return to England in, but the time for building it had not yet come.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 167">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="351">
+			<img src="images/167.jpg" alt="Altamont was drinking or sleeping">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>So for the most part the five men remained in complete idleness.
+Hatteras was pensive and always lying on the bed; Altamont was
+drinking or sleeping, and the doctor took good care not to rouse him
+from his slumbers, for he was always afraid of some distressing
+quarrel. These two men seldom spoke to one another.</p>
+
+<p>So during meal-time the prudent Clawbonny always took care to guide
+the conversation and to direct it in such a way as not to offend the
+susceptibilities of either; but he had a great deal to do. He did his
+best to instruct, distract, and interest his companions; when he was
+not arranging his notes about the expedition, he read aloud some
+history, geography, or work on meteorology, which had reference to
+their condition; he presented things pleasantly and philosophically,
+deriving wholesome instruction from the slightest incidents; his
+inexhaustible memory never played him false; he applied his doctrines
+to the persons who were with him, reminding them of such or such a
+thing which happened under such or such circumstances; and he filled
+out his theories by the force of personal arguments.</p>
+
+<a name="ill38"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 168">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="592">
+			<img src="images/168.jpg" alt="He did his best to instruct his companions">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="592" align="center">
+			<small>"He did his best to instruct and interest his companions."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>This worthy man may be called the soul of this little world, a soul
+glowing with frankness and justice. His companions had perfect
+confidence in him; he even improved Captain Hatteras, who, besides,
+was very fond of him; he made his words, manners, and custom so
+agreeable, that the life of these five men within six degrees of the
+Pole seemed perfectly natural; when he was speaking, any one would
+have imagined he was in his office in Liverpool. And yet this
+situation was unlike that of castaways on the islands of the Pacific
+Ocean, those Robinsons whose touching history always aroused the envy
+of their readers. There, the natural richness offers a thousand
+different resources; a little imagination and effort suffice to secure
+material happiness; nature aids man; hunting and fishing supply all
+his wants; the trees grow to aid him, caverns shelter him, brooks
+slake his thirst, dense thickets hide him from the sun, and severe
+cold never comes upon him in the winter; a grain tossed into the earth
+brings forth a bounteous return a few months later. There, outside of
+society, everything is found to make man happy. And then these happy
+isles lie in the path of ships; the castaway can hope to be picked up,
+and he can wait in patience.</p>
+
+<p>But here on the coast of New America how great is the difference! This
+comparison would continually occur to the doctor, but he never
+mentioned it to the others, and he struggled against the enforced
+idleness.</p>
+
+<p>He yearned ardently for the spring, in order to resume his excursions;
+and yet he was anxious about it, for he foresaw difficulties between
+Hatteras and Altamont. If they pushed on to the Pole, there would
+necessarily be rivalry between the two men. Hence he had to prepare
+for the worst, and still, as far as he could, to try to pacify these
+rivals; but to reconcile an American and an Englishman, two men
+hostile to one another from their birth, one endowed with real insular
+prejudice, the other with the adventurous, irreverent spirit of his
+country, was no easy task. When the doctor thought of their eager
+rivalry, which in fact was one of nationalities, he could not help,
+not shrugging his shoulders, but lamenting human weakness. He would
+often talk to Johnson on this subject; he and the old sailor agreed in
+the matter; they were uncertain what view to take, and they foresaw
+complications in the future.</p>
+
+<p>Still, the bad weather continued; they could not leave Fort Providence
+even for an hour. Night and day they had to remain in the snow-house.
+They all found it tedious, except the doctor, who found diversion for
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't there any way we can amuse ourselves?" said Altamont one
+evening. "This isn't really living, lying here like sluggish reptiles
+all winter."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a pity," said the doctor, "that we are too few to organize any
+system of distractions."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean it would be easier for us to combat idleness if there
+were more of us?" asked the American.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; when whole crews have wintered in boreal regions, they have
+found out the way to avoid idleness."</p>
+
+<p>"To tell the truth," said Altamont, "I should like to know how they
+did; they must have been very ingenious to get any fun out of these
+surroundings. They didn't ask one another riddles, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered the doctor, "but they introduced into these lands two
+great means of amusement, the press and the theatre."</p>
+
+<p>"What! did they have a newspaper?" asked the American.</p>
+
+<p>"Did they act plays?" asked Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and with much amusement. While he was wintering at Melville
+Island, Captain Parry offered his crews these two entertainments, and
+they enjoyed them very much."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Johnson, "I should have liked to be there; it must have
+been funny enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Funny indeed; Lieutenant Beecher was manager of the theatre, and
+Captain Sabine editor of the 'Winter Chronicle, or Gazette of North
+Georgia.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Good names," said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"The paper appeared every Monday morning, from November 1, 1819, to
+March 20, 1820. It contained an account of everything that happened,
+the hunts, accidents, incidents, and of the weather; there were
+stories written for it; to be sure, it lacked the humor of Sterne, and
+the delightful articles of the 'Daily Telegraph'; but they got
+amusement from it; its readers were not over-critical, and I fancy no
+journalists ever enjoyed their occupation more."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Altamont, "I should like to hear some extracts from this
+paper, my dear Doctor; its articles must all have been frozen solid."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," answered the doctor; "at any rate, what would have seemed
+simple enough to the Liverpool Philosophical Society, or the London
+Literary Institution, was perfectly satisfactory to the crews beneath
+the snow. Do you want a sample?"</p>
+
+<p>"What! Do you remember&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but you had 'Parry's Voyages' on board the <i>Porpoise</i>, and I can
+read you his own account."</p>
+
+<p>"Do!" shouted the doctor's companions.</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing easier."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor got the book from the shelves, and soon found the passage.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 169">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="554">
+			<img src="images/169.jpg" alt="The doctor got the book from the shelves">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"See here," he said, "here are some extracts from the newspaper. It is
+a letter addressed to the editor:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'It is with genuine satisfaction that your plan for the establishment
+of a newspaper has been received. I am convinced that under your
+charge it will furnish us with a great deal of amusement, and will
+serve to lighten materially the gloom of our hundred days of darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"'The interest which I, for my part, take in it has caused me to
+examine the effect of your announcement upon the members of our
+society, and I can assure you, to use the consecrated phrase of the
+London press, that it has produced a profound impression upon the
+public.</p>
+
+<p>"'The day after the appearance of your prospectus, there was on board
+an unusual and unprecedented demand for ink. The green cloth of our
+tables was suddenly covered with a deluge of quill-pens, to the great
+injury of one of our servants, who, in trying to remove them, got one
+under his nail.</p>
+
+<p>"'Finally, I know that Sergeant Martin has had no less than nine
+pocket-knives to sharpen.</p>
+
+<p>"'Our tables are groaning beneath the unaccustomed weight of
+inkstands, which had not seen the light for two months; and it is even
+whispered that the depths of the hold have been often opened to secure
+many reams of paper, which did not expect to issue so soon from their
+place of repose.</p>
+
+<p>"'I shall not forget to say to you that I have some suspicions that an
+effort will be made to slip into your box some articles, which,
+lacking complete originality, and not being wholly unpublished, may
+not suit your plan. I can affirm that no later than last evening an
+author was seen bending over his desk, holding in one hand an open
+volume of the "Spectator," while with the other he was thawing his ink
+by the flame of the lamp. It is useless to recommend you to keep a
+lookout against such devices; we must not see reappearing in the
+"Winter Chronicle" what our ancestors used to read at breakfast more
+than a century ago.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well," said Altamont, when the doctor had finished reading,
+"there is really good humor in that, and the writer must have been a
+bright fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"Bright is the word," answered the doctor. "Stop a moment, here is an
+amusing advertisement:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Wanted. A middle-aged, respectable woman to help dress the ladies of
+the troupe of the "Theatre Royal of North Georgia." Suitable salary
+given, tea and beer free. Address the Committee of the theatre.&mdash;N. B.
+A widow preferred.'"</p>
+
+<p>"They were not disgusted, at any rate," said Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"And did they get the widow?" asked Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Probably," answered the doctor, "for here is an answer addressed to
+the committee:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'Gentlemen: I am a widow, twenty-six years old, and I can produce
+warm testimonials as to my morals and talents. But before taking
+charge of the dresses of the actresses of your theatre, I am anxious
+to know if they intend to keep their trousers on, and whether I can
+have the aid of some strong sailors to lace their corsets properly.
+This being arranged, gentlemen, you may count upon your servant.</p>
+
+<div align="right">"'A. B.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</div>
+
+<p>"'P. S. Can you not substitute brandy for beer?'"</p>
+<br>
+<p>"Bravo!" shouted Altamont. "I suppose they had ladies'-maids to lace
+you by the capstan. Well, they were jolly fellows!"</p>
+
+<p>"Like all who do what they set out to do," remarked Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras uttered these words, and then he relapsed into his usual
+silence. The doctor, unwilling to dwell on that subject, hastened to
+resume his reading.</p>
+
+<p>"See here," he said, "here is a picture of arctic sufferings; it may
+be varied infinitely; but a few of the observations are wise enough;
+for instance:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"'To go out in the morning to take the air, and on setting foot off
+the ship, to take a cold bath in the cook's trough.</p>
+
+<p>"'To go on a hunting-party, get near a fine reindeer, take aim, try to
+fire, and miss the shot on account of a damp cap.</p>
+
+<p>"'To start out with a piece of fresh bread in the pocket, and when one
+gets hungry to find it frozen hard enough to break one's teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"'To leave the table suddenly on hearing a wolf is in sight of the
+ship, and to come back and find one's dinner eaten by the cat.</p>
+
+<p>"'To return from a walk rapt in thought, and to be awakened suddenly
+by the embrace of a bear.'</p>
+
+<p>"You see, my friends," said the doctor, "we should not find it hard to
+imagine other polar troubles; but from the moment it becomes necessary
+to endure these miseries, it would be a pleasure to narrate them."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word," said Altamont, "that's an amusing paper, and it's a
+pity we can't subscribe to it."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose we should start one," suggested Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"We five!" answered Clawbonny; "we should all be editors, and there
+would be no readers."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor audience either, if we should act a play," said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell us, Doctor," said Johnson, "something about Captain Parry's
+theatre; did they act new plays there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course; at first they made use of two volumes which were put on
+board of the <i>Hector</i>, and they had plays every fortnight; but soon
+they had acted all; then they resorted to original authors, and Parry
+himself wrote a suitable play for the Christmas holidays; it was very
+successful, and was called 'The Northwest Passage, or the End of the
+Voyage.'"</p>
+
+<p>"A capital title," answered Altamont; "but I confess, if I had to
+write on that subject, I should be puzzled about the end."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right," said Bell; "who can say how it will end?"</p>
+
+<p>"True," answered the doctor; "but why bother about the end, since the
+beginning is so favorable? Let us trust in Providence, my friends; let
+us act our part well, and since the end depends on the Author of all
+things, let us have confidence in him; he will know what to do with
+us."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us sleep on it," answered Johnson; "it is late, and since bedtime
+has come, let us turn in."</p>
+
+<p>"You are in a great hurry, my old friend," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally enough, Doctor, I am so comfortable in bed! And then my
+dreams are pleasant. I dream of warm countries; or that, to tell the
+truth, half of my life is spent at the equator and half at the Pole!"</p>
+
+<p>"The deuce," said Altamont, "you have a happy temperament."</p>
+
+<p>"True," answered the boatswain.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it would be cruel to detain Johnson any longer. His tropical
+sun is waiting for him. Let us go to bed."</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap43"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XI.</h3>
+<h4>DISQUIETING TRACES.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>In the night of April 26-27, the weather changed; the thermometer fell
+many degrees, and the inhabitants of Doctor's House perceived it from
+the cold which made its way beneath their coverings; Altamont, who was
+watching the stove, took care not to let the fire get low, and he was
+kept busy putting on enough coal to keep the temperature at 50&deg;. This
+cold weather announced the end of the storm, and the doctor was glad
+of it, for now they could resume their usual occupations, their
+hunting, excursions, and explorations; this would put an end to the
+apathy of their loneliness, which in time sours even the finest
+characters.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 170">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="399">
+			<img src="images/170.jpg" alt="The doctor made his way to the lighthouse">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The next morning the doctor rose early, and made his way over the
+drifts to the lighthouse. The wind was from the north; the air was
+clear, the snow was hard under his feet. Soon his five companions had
+left Doctor's House; their first care was to dig away the drifted
+snow, which now disguised the plateau; it would have been impossible
+to discover any traces of life upon it, for the tempest had buried all
+inequalities beneath fifteen feet of snow.</p>
+
+<p>After the snow was cleared away from the house, it was necessary to
+restore its architectural outline. This was very easy, and after the
+ice was removed a few blows with the snow-knife gave it its normal
+thickness. After two hours' work the granite appeared, and access to
+the stores and the powder-house was free. But since, in these
+uncertain climates, such things can happen every day, a new supply of
+food was carried to the kitchen. They were all wearied of salt food
+and yearned for fresh meat, and so the hunters were charged with
+changing the bill of fare, and they prepared to set out.</p>
+
+<p>Still the end of April did not bring with it the polar spring, which
+was yet six weeks off; the sun's rays were still too feeble to melt
+the snow or to nourish the few plants of these regions. They feared
+lest animals should be scarce, both birds and quadrupeds. But a hare,
+a few ptarmigans, even a young fox, would have been welcome to the
+table of Doctor's House, and the hunters resolved to shoot whatever
+should come within range.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 171">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="561">
+			<img src="images/171.jpg" alt="The hunters resolved to shoot">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The doctor, Altamont, and Bell determined to explore the country.
+Altamont, they felt sure from his habits, was a bold and skilful
+hunter, and, with all his bragging, a capital shot. So he went with
+the hunters, as did Duke, who was equally skilful and less prone to
+boasting.</p>
+
+<p>The three companions ascended the east cone and set out towards the
+large white plains; but they had gone no farther than two or three
+miles before they saw numerous tracks; from that point, they ran down
+to the shore of Victoria Bay, and appeared to surround Fort Providence
+with a series of concentric circles.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 172">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="559">
+			<img src="images/172.jpg" alt="They saw numerous tracks">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>After they had followed these footprints for a short time, the doctor
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that is clear enough."</p>
+
+<p>"Too clear," said Bell; "they are bear tracks."</p>
+
+<p>"Good game," continued Altamont, "and there is only one fault in it
+to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"The abundance," answered the American.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" asked Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that there are distinct tracks of five bears; and five bears
+are a good many for five men."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure of what you say?" asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Judge for yourself; this mark is different from any other; the claws
+on this one are farther apart than those. Here is the print of a
+smaller bear. If you compare them together, you'll find traces of five
+animals."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right," said Bell, after a careful examination.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said the doctor, "there is no need of useless bravado, but
+rather of caution; these animals are famished at the end of a severe
+winter, and they may be very dangerous; and since there is no doubt of
+their number&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Nor of their intentions," interrupted the American.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose," he asked, "that they have discovered our presence
+here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Without a doubt, unless we've fallen on a whole band of bears; but in
+that case, why do their prints go about in a circle, instead of
+running out of sight? See, they came from the southwest and stopped
+here, and began to explore the country."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right," said the doctor, "and it's certain they came last
+night."</p>
+
+<p>"And the other nights too," answered Altamont; "only the snow has
+covered their tracks."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said the doctor; "it's more likely that they waited for the end
+of the storm; they went to the bay to catch some seals, and then they
+scented us."</p>
+
+<p>"True," said Altamont; "so it is easy to know whether they will return
+to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"How so?" asked Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"By rubbing out some of their tracks; and if we find new ones
+to-morrow, we can be sure that they are trying to get into Fort
+Providence."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the doctor, "we shall at least know what to expect."</p>
+
+<p>The three then set to work, and soon effaced all the tracks over a
+space of about six hundred feet.</p>
+
+<p>"It's strange, however," said Bell, "that they could scent us at so
+great a distance; we didn't burn anything greasy which could attract
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"O," answered the doctor, "they have very fine sight, and delicate
+sense of smell! Besides, they are very intelligent, perhaps the most
+intelligent of animals, and they have found out something strange
+here."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," continued Bell, "during the storm, they came up as far as
+the plateau."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said the American, "why should they have stopped there?"</p>
+
+<p>"True, there is no answer to that," answered the doctor; "and we ought
+to believe that they are shortening the circle about Fort Providence."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall see," answered Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, let us go on," said the doctor; "but we'll keep our eyes open."</p>
+
+<p>They kept careful watch, through fear lest some bear should be hidden
+behind the masses of ice; often they took the blocks for animals, from
+their shape and whiteness, but soon they discovered their mistake.</p>
+
+<p>They returned at last to the shore beneath the cone, and from there
+their eyes swept in vain from Cape Washington to Johnson Island. They
+saw nothing; everything was white and motionless; not a sound was to
+be heard. They entered the snow-house.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras and Johnson were informed of the condition of affairs, and
+they resolved to keep a strict watch. Night came; nothing occurred to
+alarm them, or to mar its beauty. At dawn the next morning, Hatteras
+and his companions, fully armed, went out to examine the condition of
+the snow; they found the same tracks as on the previous day, only
+nearer. Evidently the enemy was preparing to lay siege to Fort
+Providence.</p>
+
+<p>"They have opened their second parallel," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"They have made a point in advance," answered Altamont; "see those
+footprints coming nearer the plateau; they are those of some strong
+animal."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they are gaining ground gradually," said Johnson; "it is evident
+that they are going to attack us."</p>
+
+<p>"There's no doubt of that," said the doctor; "let us avoid showing
+ourselves. We are not strong enough to fight successfully."</p>
+
+<p>"But where do these devilish bears come from?" asked Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"From behind those pieces of ice to the east, where they are spying
+us; don't let us get too near them."</p>
+
+<p>"And our hunt?" asked Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us put it off for a few days," answered the doctor; "let us again
+rub out these nearest marks, and to-morrow we shall see if they are
+renewed. In this way we can see the manoeuvres of our enemies."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor's advice was taken, and they returned to the fort; the
+presence of these terrible beasts forbade any excursion. Strict watch
+was kept over the neighborhood of Victoria Bay. The lighthouse was
+dismantled; it was of no real use, and might attract the attention of
+the animals; the lantern and the electric threads were carried to the
+house; then they took turns in watching the upper plateau.</p>
+
+<p>Again they had to endure the monotony of loneliness, but what else was
+to be done? They dared not risk a contest at so fearful odds; no one's
+life could be risked imprudently. Perhaps the bears, if they caught
+sight of nothing, might be thrown off the track; or, if they were met
+singly, they might be attacked successfully. However, this inaction
+was relieved by a new interest; they had to keep watch, and no one
+regretted it.</p>
+
+<p>April 28th passed by without any sign of the existence of the enemy.
+The next morning their curiosity as to the existence of new tracks was
+succeeded by astonishment. Not a trace was to be seen; the snow was
+intact.</p>
+
+<p>"Good," shouted Altamont, "the bears are thrown off the track! They
+have no perseverance! They are tired of waiting, and have gone! Good
+by, and now off to the hunt!"</p>
+
+<p>"Eh!" answered the doctor, "who can say? For greater safety, my
+friends, I beg one more day of watching; it is certain the enemy did
+not approach last night, at least from this side&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Let us make a circuit of the plateau," said Altamont, "and then we
+shall make sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Willingly," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>But with all their care in exploration, not the slightest trace could
+be found.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, shall we start on our hunt?" asked Altamont, impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us wait till to-morrow," urged the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," answered Altamont, who had some reluctance, however,
+about conceding.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 173">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="393">
+			<img src="images/173.jpg" alt="They returned to the fort">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>They returned to the fort. Each one had to watch for an hour, as on
+the previous evening. When Altamont's turn came, he went to relieve
+Bell. As soon as he was gone, Hatteras called his companions together.
+The doctor left his notes, and Johnson his furnaces. It might have
+been supposed that Hatteras was going to discuss the dangers of the
+situation; he did not even think of them.</p>
+
+<p>"My friends," he said, "let us take advantage of the absence of this
+American, to talk over our affairs; some things don't concern him at
+all, and I don't care to have him meddling with them."</p>
+
+<p>The others looked at one another, uncertain of his meaning.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to speak with you," he said, "about our future plans."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," answered the doctor, "let us talk now we are alone."</p>
+
+<p>"In a month, or six weeks at the latest," Hatteras began, "we shall be
+able to make distant excursions. Had you thought of what might be done
+in the summer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Had you, Captain?" asked Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"I? I can say that not an hour passes without my mind's recurring to
+my plan. I suppose no one of you has any thought of returning&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>There was no immediate answer to this insinuation.</p>
+
+<p>"As for me," continued Hatteras, "if I have to go alone, I shall go to
+the North Pole; we are only three hundred and sixty miles from it at
+the outside. No men have ever been so near it, and I shall not let
+such a chance go by without the attempt, even if it be impossible.
+What are your views in the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your own," answered the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"And yours, Johnson?"</p>
+
+<p>"The same as the doctor's," answered the boatswain.</p>
+
+<p>"It is your turn to speak, Bell," said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"Captain," answered the carpenter, "it is true we have no family
+awaiting us in England, but our country is our country: don't you
+think of going back?"</p>
+
+<p>"We shall go back easily as soon as we shall have discovered the Pole.
+In fact, more easily. The difficulties will not increase, for, on our
+way thither, we leave behind us the coldest spots on the globe. We
+have supplies of all sorts for a long time. There is nothing to hinder
+us, and we should be to blame if we did not push on to the end."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," answered Bell, "we are all of your opinion, Captain."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" replied Hatteras. "I have never doubted of you. We shall
+succeed, my friends, and England shall have all the glory of our
+success."</p>
+
+<p>"But there is an American with us," said Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras could not restrain a wrathful gesture at this remark.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it," he said in a deep voice.</p>
+
+<p>"We can't leave him here," continued the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"No, we cannot," answered Hatteras, coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"And he will certainly come."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he will come, but who will command?"</p>
+
+<p>"You, Captain."</p>
+
+<p>"And if you obey me, will this Yankee refuse to obey?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so," answered Johnson; "but if he is unwilling to obey
+your orders&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It would have to be settled between him and me."</p>
+
+<p>The three Englishmen looked at Hatteras without a word. The doctor
+broke the silence.</p>
+
+<p>"How shall we travel?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"By keeping along the coast as much as possible," answered Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"But if we find the sea open, as is likely?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we shall cross it."</p>
+
+<p>"How? We have no boat."</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras did not answer; he was evidently embarrassed.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," suggested Bell, "we might build a launch out of the timbers
+of the <i>Porpoise</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Never!" shouted Hatteras, warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Never?" exclaimed Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor shook his head; he understood the captain's unwillingness.</p>
+
+<p>"Never!" the latter answered. "A launch made out of the wood of an
+American ship would be an American launch&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Captain&mdash;" interposed Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor made a sign to the old boatswain to keep silent. A more
+suitable time was required for that question. The doctor, although he
+understood Hatteras's repugnance, did not sympathize with it, and he
+determined to make his friend abandon this hasty decision. Hence he
+spoke of something else, of the possibility of going along the coast
+to the north, and that unknown point, the North Pole. In a word, he
+avoided all dangerous subjects of conversation up to the moment when
+it was suddenly ended by the entrance of Altamont. He had nothing new
+to report. The day ended in this way, and the night was quiet. The
+bears had evidently disappeared.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap44"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XII.</h3>
+<h4>THE ICE PRISON.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The next day they determined to arrange the hunt, in which Hatteras,
+Altamont, and the carpenter were to take part; no more tracks were to
+be seen; the bears had decidedly given up their plan of attack, either
+from fear of their unknown enemies, or because there had been no sign
+of living beings beneath the mass of snow. During the absence of the
+three hunters, the doctor was to push on to Johnson Island to examine
+the condition of the ice, and to make some hydrographic
+investigations. The cold was sharp, but they supported it well, having
+become accustomed to it by this time. The boatswain was to remain at
+Doctor's House; in a word, to guard the house.</p>
+
+<p>The three hunters made their preparations; each one took a
+double-barrelled rifled gun, with conical balls; they carried a small
+quantity of pemmican, in case night should fall before their return;
+they also were provided with the snow-knife, which is so indispensable
+in these regions, and a hatchet which they wore in their belts. Thus
+armed and equipped they could go far; and since they were both skilled
+and bold, they could count on bringing back a good supply.</p>
+
+<p>At eight in the morning they set out. Duke sprang about ahead of them;
+they ascended the hill to the east, went about the lighthouse, and
+disappeared in the plains to the south, which were bounded by Mount
+Bell. The doctor, having agreed on a danger-signal with Johnson,
+descended towards the shore so as to reach the ice in Victoria Bay.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 174">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="388">
+			<img src="images/174.jpg" alt="He set free the Greenland dogs">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The boatswain remained at Fort Providence alone, but not idle. He
+first set free the Greenland dogs, which were playing about the Dog
+Palace; they in their joy rolled about in the snow. Johnson then gave
+his attentions to the cares of housekeeping. He had to renew the fuel
+and provisions, to set the stores in order, to mend many broken
+utensils, to patch the coverings, to work over the shoes for the long
+excursions of the summer. There was no lack of things to do, but the
+boatswain worked with the ease of a sailor, who has generally a
+smattering of all trades. While thus employed he began to think of the
+talk of the evening before; he thought of the captain, and especially
+of his obstinacy, which, after all, had something very heroic and very
+honorable about it, in his unwillingness that any American man or boat
+should reach the Pole before him, or even with him.</p>
+
+<p>"Still, it seems to me," he said to himself, "no easy task to cross
+the ocean without a boat; and if we have the open sea before us, we
+should need one. The strongest Englishman in the world couldn't swim
+three hundred miles. Patriotism has its limits. Well, we shall see. We
+have still time before us; Dr. Clawbonny has not yet said his last
+word in the matter; he is wise, and he may persuade the captain to
+change his mind. I'll bet that in going towards the island he'll
+glance at the fragments of the <i>Porpoise</i>, and will know exactly what
+can be made out of them."</p>
+
+<p>Johnson had reached this point in his reflections, and the hunters had
+been gone an hour, when a loud report was heard two or three miles to
+windward.</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" said the sailor; "they have come across something, and without
+going very far, for I heard them distinctly. After all, the air is so
+clear."</p>
+
+<p>A second and then a third report was heard.</p>
+
+<p>"Hulloa!" continued Johnson, "they've got into a good place."</p>
+
+<p>Three other reports, in quicker succession, were heard.</p>
+
+<p>"Six shots!" said Johnson; "now they've fired off everything. It was a
+hot time! Is it possible&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>At the thought, Johnson grew pale; he quickly left the snow-house, and
+in a few moments he had run up to the top of the cone. He saw a sight
+that made him tremble.</p>
+
+<p>"The bears!" he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>The three hunters, followed by Duke, were running rapidly, followed by
+five enormous animals; their six bullets had not disabled them; the
+bears were gaining on them; Hatteras, behind the others, could only
+keep his distance from the animals by throwing away his cap, hatchet,
+and even his gun. The bears stopped, according to their habit, to
+sniff at the different objects, and lost a little on this ground on
+which they would have outstripped the swiftest horse. It was thus that
+Hatteras, Altamont, and Bell, all out of breath, came up to Johnson,
+and they all slid down the slope to the snow-house. The five bears
+were close behind, and the captain was obliged to ward off the blow of
+a paw with his knife. In a moment Hatteras and his companions were
+locked in the house. The animals stopped on the upper plateau of the
+truncated cone.</p>
+
+<a name="ill39"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 175">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="564">
+			<img src="images/175.jpg" alt="Hatteras running from the bears">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="564" align="center">
+			<small>"Hatteras could only keep his distance from the animals
+			by throwing away his cap, hatchet, and even his gun."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Well," said Hatteras, "we can now defend ourselves better, five to
+five!"</p>
+
+<p>"Four to five!" shouted Johnson in a terrified voice.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" asked Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"The doctor!" answered Johnson, pointing to the empty room.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is on the shore of the island!"</p>
+
+<p>"Poor man!" cried Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"We can't abandon him in this way," said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us run!" said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>He opened the door quickly, but he had hardly time to shut it; a bear
+nearly crushed his skull with his claw.</p>
+
+<p>"They are there," he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"All?" asked Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"All!" answered Hatteras.</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 176">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="393">
+			<img src="images/176.jpg" alt="Heaping the bays with pieces of ice">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Altamont hastened to the windows, heaping up the bays with pieces of
+ice torn from the walls of the house. His companions did the same
+without speaking. Duke's dull snarls alone broke the silence.</p>
+
+<p>But it must be said these men had only a single thought; they forgot
+their own danger, and only considered the doctor. Poor Clawbonny! so
+kind, so devoted! the soul of the little colony! for the first time he
+was missing; extreme peril, a terrible death, awaited him; for when
+his excursion was over he would return quietly to Fort Providence, and
+would find these ferocious animals. And there was no way of warning
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"If I'm not mistaken, he will be on his guard; your shots must have
+warned him, and he must know something has happened."</p>
+
+<p>"But if he were far off," answered Altamont, "and did not understand?
+There are eight chances out of ten that he'll come back without
+suspicion of danger! The bears are hiding behind the scarp of the
+fort, and he can't see them."</p>
+
+<p>"We shall have to get rid of these dangerous beasts before his
+return," answered Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"But how?" asked Bell.</p>
+
+<p>To answer this question was not easy. A sortie seemed impossible. They
+took the precaution to barricade the entrance, but the bears could
+easily have overcome the obstacles if the idea had occurred to them;
+they knew the number and strength of their adversaries, and they could
+easily have reached them. The prisoners were posted in each one of the
+chambers of Doctor's House to watch for every attempt at entrance;
+when they listened, they heard the bears coming and going, growling,
+and tearing at the walls with their huge paws. But some action was
+necessary; time was pressing. Altamont resolved to make a loop-hole to
+shoot the assailants; in a few minutes he had made a little hole in
+the ice-wall; he pushed his gun through it; but it had scarcely
+reached the other side before it was torn from his hands with
+irresistible force before he could fire.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 177">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="566">
+			<img src="images/177.jpg" alt="It was torn from his hands">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"The devil!" he cried, "we are too weak."</p>
+
+<p>And he hastened to close the loop-hole. Thus matters went for an hour,
+without any end appearing probable. The chances of a sortie were
+discussed; they seemed slight, for the bears could not be fought
+singly. Nevertheless, Hatteras and his companions, being anxious to
+finish it, and, it must be said, very much confused at being thus
+imprisoned by the beasts, were about to try a direct attack, when the
+captain thought of a new means of defence.</p>
+
+<p>He took the poker and plunged it into the stove; then he made an
+opening in the wall, but so as to keep a thin coating of ice outside.
+His companions watched him. When the poker was white hot, Hatteras
+said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"This bar will drive away the bears, for they won't be able to seize
+it, and through the loop-hole we will be able to fire at them, without
+their taking our guns away from us."</p>
+
+<p>"A good idea!" cried Bell, going towards Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>Then Hatteras, withdrawing the poker from the stove, pushed it through
+the wall. The snow, steaming at its touch, hissed sharply. Two bears
+ran to seize the bar, but they roared fearfully when four shots were
+fired at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Hit!" shouted the American.</p>
+
+<p>"Hit!" repeated Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us try again," said Hatteras, closing the opening for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>The poker was put again into the fire; in a few minutes it was red
+hot.</p>
+
+<p>Altamont and Bell returned to their place after loading their guns;
+Hatteras again pushed the poker through the loop-hole. But this time
+an impenetrable substance stopped it.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 178">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="559">
+			<img src="images/178.jpg" alt="An impenetrable substance stopped it">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Curse it!" cried the American.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?" asked Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"The matter! These cursed animals are heaping up the ice and snow so
+as to bury us alive!"</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible!"</p>
+
+<p>"See, the poker can't go through! Really, this is absurd!"</p>
+
+<p>It was more than absurd, it was alarming. Matters looked worse. The
+bears, which are very intelligent beasts, employed this method of
+suffocating their prey. They heaped the ice in such a way as to render
+flight impossible.</p>
+
+<a name="ill40"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 179">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="553">
+			<img src="images/179.jpg" alt="The bears heaped the ice">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="553" align="center">
+			<small>"The bears heaped the ice in such a way as to render
+			flight impossible."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"This is hard," said Johnson, with a very mortified air. "It's well
+enough to have men treat you in this way, but bears!"</p>
+
+<p>After this reflection two hours passed by without any material change
+in their situation; a sortie became impossible; the thickened walls
+deadened all sound without. Altamont walked to and fro like a bold man
+in face of a danger greater than his courage. Hatteras thought
+anxiously of the doctor, and of the great danger awaiting him when he
+should return.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," shouted Johnson, "if Dr. Clawbonny were only here!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what would he do?" asked Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"O, he would be able to help us!"</p>
+
+<p>"How?" asked the American, with some asperity.</p>
+
+<p>"If I knew," answered Johnson, "I shouldn't want him here. Still, I
+can think of a piece of advice he would give us at this moment."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"To take some food. It can't hurt us. What do you think, Mr.
+Altamont?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let us eat if you care to," was the answer; "although our condition
+is stupid, not to say disgraceful."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet," said Johnson, "that we'll find some way of driving them
+off after dinner."</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 180">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="566">
+			<img src="images/180.jpg" alt="They sat down to dinner">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table><br>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 181">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="277">
+			<img src="images/181.jpg" alt="We must get out!">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>They made no reply, but sat down to dinner. Johnson, as a pupil of the
+doctor, tried to be a philosopher in the face of danger, but he
+succeeded ill; his jokes stuck in his throat. Besides, they began to
+feel uncomfortable; the air was growing bad in this hermetically
+sealed prison; the stove-pipe drew insufficiently, and it was easy to
+see that in a short time the fire would go out; the oxygen, consumed
+by their lungs and the fire, would be replaced by carbonic acid, which
+would be fatal to them, as they all knew. Hatteras was the first to
+detect this new danger; he was unwilling to hide it from the others.</p>
+
+<p>"So, at any risk we must get out!" said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Hatteras; "but let us wait till night; we will make a
+hole in the snow that we may get fresh air; then one shall take his
+place here and fire at the bears."</p>
+
+<p>"It's the only thing we can do," said the American.</p>
+
+<p>Having agreed on this, they waited for the time of action; and during
+the following hours, Altamont did not spare imprecations against a
+state of things in which, as he put it, "there being men and bears
+concerned, the men were getting the worst of it."</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap45"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII.</h3>
+<h4>THE MINE.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Night came, and the lamp began to burn dimly in the close air of the
+room. At eight o'clock they made their final preparations. The guns
+were carefully loaded, and an opening was begun in the roof of the
+snow-house. Bell worked cleverly at this for a few minutes, when
+Johnson, who had left the bedroom, where he was on guard, for a few
+minutes, returned rapidly to his companions. He seemed disturbed.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter?" the captain asked.</p>
+
+<p>"The matter? nothing!" answered the old sailor, hesitatingly, "yet&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! Don't you hear a strange sound?"</p>
+
+<p>"On which side?"</p>
+
+<p>"There! There is something happening to the wall of that room."</p>
+
+<p>Bell stopped his work; each one listened. A distant noise could be
+heard, apparently in the side wall; some one was evidently making a
+passage-way through the ice.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a tearing sound!" said Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"Without a doubt," answered Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"The bears?" asked Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the bears," said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"They have changed their plan," continued the sailor; "they've given
+up trying to suffocate us."</p>
+
+<p>"Or else they think they've done it," added the American, who was
+getting very angry.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall be attacked," said Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," remarked Hatteras, "we shall fight against them."</p>
+
+<p>"Confound it!" shouted Altamont; "I prefer that decidedly! I've had
+enough working in the dark! Now we shall see one another and fight!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Johnson; "but with our guns it is impossible in so
+small a space."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, with a hatchet or a knife!"</p>
+
+<p>The noise increased; the scratching of claws could be heard; the bears
+had attacked the wall at the angle where it joined the snow fastened
+to the rock."</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently," said Johnson, "the animal is within six feet of us."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Johnson," answered the American, "but we have time to
+prepare ourselves to receive it!"</p>
+
+<p>The American took the axe in one hand, his knife in the other; resting
+on his right foot, his body thrown back, he stood ready to attack.
+Hatteras and Bell did the same. Johnson prepared his gun in case
+fire-arms should be necessary. The noise grew louder and louder; the
+ice kept cracking beneath the repeated blows. At last only a thin
+crust separated the adversaries; suddenly this crust tore asunder like
+paper through which a clown leaps, and an enormous black body appeared
+in the gloom of the room. Altamont raised his hand to strike it.</p>
+
+<a name="ill41"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 182">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="565">
+			<img src="images/182.jpg" alt="Altamont raised his hand to strike">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="565" align="center">
+			<small>"An enormous black body appeared in the gloom of the
+			room. Altamont raised his hand to strike it."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Stop! for heaven's sake, stop!" said a well-known voice.</p>
+
+<p>"The doctor, the doctor!" shouted Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>It was indeed the doctor, who, carried by the impetus, rolled into the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening, my friends," he said, springing to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>His companions remained stupefied; but joy succeeded their
+stupefaction; each one wished to embrace the worthy man; Hatteras, who
+was much moved, clasped him for a long time to his breast. The doctor
+answered by a warm clasp of the hand.</p>
+
+<p>"What! you, Dr. Clawbonny!" said the boatswain.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Johnson, I was much more anxious about your fate than you about
+mine."</p>
+
+<p>"But how did you know that we were attacked by bears?" asked Altamont;
+"our greatest fear was to see you returning quietly to Fort Providence
+without thought of danger."</p>
+
+<p>"O, I saw everything!" answered the doctor; "your shots warned me; I
+happened to be near the fragments of the <i>Porpoise;</i> I climbed up a
+hummock; I saw five bears chasing you; ah, I feared the worst for you!
+But the way you slid down the hill, and the hesitation of the animals,
+reassured me for a time; I knew you'd had time to lock yourselves in.
+Then I approached gradually, climbing and creeping between cakes of
+ice; I arrived near the fort, and I saw the huge beasts working like
+beavers; they were tossing the snow about, heaping up the ice so as to
+bury you alive. Fortunately, they did not think of hurling the blocks
+down from the top of the cone, for you would have been crushed without
+mercy."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Bell, "you were not safe, Doctor; couldn't they leave
+their place and attack you?"</p>
+
+<p>"They didn't think of it; the Greenland dogs which Johnson let loose
+would sniff around at a little distance, but they didn't think of
+attacking them; no, they were sure of better game."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks for the compliment," said Altamont, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"O, you needn't be vain of it! When I saw the tactics of the bears, I
+resolved to join you; to be prudent, I waited till night; so at
+twilight I slipped noiselessly towards the slope, on the side of the
+magazine; I had my own idea in choosing this point; I wanted to make a
+gallery; so I set to work; I began with my snow-knife, and a capital
+tool it is! For three hours I dug and dug, and here I am, hungry and
+tired, but here at last&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"To share our fate?" asked Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"To save all of us; but give me a piece of biscuit and some meat; I'm
+half starved."</p>
+
+<p>Soon the doctor was burying his white teeth in a large slice of salt
+beef. Although he was eating, he appeared willing to answer the
+questions they put to him.</p>
+
+<p>"To save us?" Bell began.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," answered the doctor, "and to rid us of the malicious
+pests who will end by finding our stores and devouring them."</p>
+
+<p>"We must stay here," said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," answered the doctor, "and yet rid ourselves of these
+animals."</p>
+
+<p>"There is then a means?" asked Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"A sure means," answered the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"I said so," cried Johnson, rubbing his hands; "with Dr. Clawbonny, we
+need not despair; he always has some invention handy."</p>
+
+<p>"Not always handy; but after thinking for a while&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor," interrupted Altamont, "can't the bears get through the
+passage-way you cut?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I took the precaution of closing it behind me; and now we can go
+from here to the powder-magazine without their suspecting it."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! Will you tell us what means you intend to employ to rid us of
+these unpleasant visitors?"</p>
+
+<p>"Something very simple, and which is already half done."</p>
+
+<p>"How so?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll see. But I forgot I didn't come alone."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" asked Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a companion to introduce to you."</p>
+
+<table align="right" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="12" summary="picture 183">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="287">
+			<img src="images/183.jpg" alt="I have a companion to introduce">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>And with these words he pulled in from the gallery the newly killed
+body of a fox.</p>
+
+<p>"A fox!" cried Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"My morning's game," answered the doctor, modestly, "and you'll see no
+fox was ever wanted more than this one."</p>
+
+<p>"But what is your plan, after all?" asked Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"I intend to blow the bears up with a hundred pounds of powder."</p>
+
+<p>They all gazed at the doctor with amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"But the powder?" they asked.</p>
+
+<p>"It is in the magazine."</p>
+
+<p>"And the magazine?"</p>
+
+<p>"This passage-way leads to it. I had my own reason for digging this
+passage sixty feet long; I might have attacked the parapet nearer to
+the house, but I had my own idea."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, where are you going to put the mine?" asked the American.</p>
+
+<p>"On the slope, as far as possible from the house, the magazine, and
+the stores."</p>
+
+<p>"But how shall you get all the bears together?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take charge of that," answered the doctor; "but we've talked
+enough, now to work; we have a hundred feet to dig out to-night; it's
+tiresome work, but we five can do it in relays. Bell shall begin, and
+meanwhile we can take some rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Really," said Johnson, "the more I think of it, the more I admire Dr.
+Clawbonny's plan."</p>
+
+<p>"It's sure," answered the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"O, from the moment you opened your mouth they are dead bears, and I
+already feel their fur about my shoulders!"</p>
+
+<p>"To work, then!"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor entered the dark gallery, followed by Bell; where the
+doctor had gone through, his companions were sure to find no
+difficulty; two reached the magazine and entered among the barrels,
+which were all arranged in good order. The doctor gave Bell the
+necessary instructions; the carpenter began work on the wall towards
+the slope, and his companion returned to the house.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 184">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="554">
+			<img src="images/184.jpg" alt="The carpenter began work on the wall">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Bell worked for an hour, and dug a passage about ten feet long,
+through which one might crawl. Then Altamont took his place, and did
+about as much; the snow which was taken from the gallery was carried
+into the kitchen, where the doctor melted it at the fire, that it
+might take up less room. The captain followed the American; then came
+Johnson. In ten hours, that is to say, at about eight o'clock in the
+morning, the gallery was finished. At daybreak the doctor peeped at
+the bears through a loop-hole in the wall of the powder-magazine.</p>
+
+<p>The patient animals had not left their place; there they were, coming
+and going, growling, but in general patrolling patiently; they kept
+going around the house, which was gradually disappearing beneath the
+snow. But at length they seemed to lose patience, for the doctor saw
+them begin to tear away the ice and snow they had heaped up.</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" he said to the captain, who was standing near him.</p>
+
+<p>"What are they doing?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"They seem to be trying to destroy what they have done and to get to
+us! But they'll be destroyed first! At any rate, there is no time to
+lose."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor made his way to the place where the mine was to be laid;
+then he enlarged the chamber all the height and breadth of the slope;
+a layer of ice, only a foot thick at the outside, remained; it had to
+be supported lest it should fall in. A stake resting on the granite
+soil served as a post; the fox's body was fastened to the top, and a
+long knotted cord ran the whole length of the gallery to the magazine.
+The doctor's companions followed his orders without clearly
+understanding his intention.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the bait," he said, pointing to the fox.</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the post he placed a cask holding about a hundred
+pounds of powder.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 185">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="553">
+			<img src="images/185.jpg" alt="At the foot of the post he placed a cask">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"And here is the charge," he added.</p>
+
+<p>"But," asked Hatteras, "sha'n't we blow ourselves up at the same
+time?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, we are far enough off from the explosion; besides, our house is
+solid; and if it is hurt a little we can easily repair it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," continued Altamont; "but how are you going to set it off?"</p>
+
+<p>"This way. By pulling this cord we pull over the post which holds up
+the ice above the powder; the fox's body will suddenly be seen on the
+slope, and you must confess that the starving animals will rush upon
+this unexpected prey."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, at that moment I shall explode the mine, and blow up guest and
+dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well!" exclaimed Johnson, who was listening eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras had perfect confidence in his friend, and asked no question.
+He waited. But Altamont wanted it made perfectly clear.</p>
+
+<p>"Doctor," he began, "how can you calculate the length of the fuse so
+exactly that the explosion will take place at the right moment?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's very simple," answered the doctor; "I don't make any
+calculation."</p>
+
+<p>"But you have a fuse a hundred feet long?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall you set a train of powder simply?"</p>
+
+<p>"No! that might fail."</p>
+
+<p>"Will some one have to volunteer and light the powder?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you want any one," said Johnson, eagerly, "I'm your man."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not necessary, my friend," answered the doctor, grasping the
+boatswain's hand; "our five lives are precious, and they will be
+spared, thank God!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said the American, "I can't guess."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," answered the doctor, smiling, "if we couldn't get out of this
+little affair, what would be the use of physics?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Johnson, brightening up, "physics!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! Haven't we here an electric pile and wires long enough,&mdash;those,
+you know, which connected with the lighthouse?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we shall explode the powder when we please, instantly, and
+without danger."</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah!" shouted Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah!" repeated his companions, not caring whether the enemy heard
+them or not. Soon the electric wires were run through the gallery from
+the house to the chamber of the mine. One of the extremities remained
+at the pile, the other was plunged into the centre of the cask, the
+two ends being placed at but a little distance from one another. At
+nine of the morning all was finished, and it was time; the bears were
+tearing the snow away furiously. The doctor thought the proper time
+had come. Johnson was sent to the magazine and charged with pulling
+the cord fastened to the post. He took his place.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said the doctor to his companions, "load your guns in case they
+should not be all killed at once, and take your place near Johnson; as
+soon as you hear the explosion, run out."</p>
+
+<p>"All right!" said the American.</p>
+
+<p>"And now we have done all that men can do! We have helped ourselves;
+may God help us!"</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras, Altamont, and Bell went to the magazine. The doctor remained
+alone at the pile. Soon he heard Johnson's voice crying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Ready?"</p>
+
+<p>"All right!" he answered.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson gave a strong pull at the rope; it pulled over the stake; then
+he ran to the loop-hole and looked out. The surface of the slope had
+sunk in. The fox's body was visible upon the shattered ice. The bears,
+at first surprised, crowded about this new prey.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 186">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="550">
+			<img src="images/186.jpg" alt="The bears crowded about this new prey">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Fire!" shouted Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor at once established the electric current between the
+threads; a loud explosion followed; the house shook as if in an
+earthquake; the walls fell in. Hatteras, Altamont, and Bell hastened
+out of the magazine, ready to fire. But their guns were not needed;
+four of the five bears fell about them in fragments, while the fifth,
+badly burned, ran away as fast as he could.</p>
+
+<a name="ill42"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 187">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="555">
+			<img src="images/187.jpg" alt="A loud explosion followed">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="555" align="center">
+			<small>"A loud explosion followed."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" shouted the doctor's companions, while they
+crowded about him and embraced him.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap46"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XIV.</h3>
+<h4>THE POLAR SPRING.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The prisoners were set free; they expressed their joy by the warmth of
+their thanks to the doctor. Johnson regretted somewhat the skins,
+which were burned and useless; but his regret did not sour his temper.
+They spent the day in repairing the house, which was somewhat injured
+by the explosion. They took away the blocks heaped up by the animals,
+and the walls were made secure. They worked briskly, encouraged by the
+cheery songs of the boatswain.</p>
+
+<p>The next day the weather was much milder; the wind changed suddenly,
+and the thermometer rose to +15&deg;. So great a difference was soon felt
+by both man and nature. The southerly wind brought with it the first
+signs of the polar spring. This comparative warmth lasted for many
+days; the thermometer, sheltered from the wind, even rose as high as
++31&deg;, and there were signs of a thaw. The ice began to crack; a few
+spirts of salt-water arose here and there, like jets in an English
+park; a few days later it rained hard.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 188">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="559">
+			<img src="images/188.jpg" alt="The air was filled with the deafening cries">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>A dense vapor arose from the snow; this was a good sign, and the
+melting of the immense masses appeared to be near at hand. The pale
+disk of the sun grew brighter and drew longer spirals above the
+horizon; the night lasted scarcely three hours. Another similar
+symptom was the reappearance of some ptarmigans, arctic geese, plover,
+and flocks of quail; the air was soon filled with the deafening cries
+which they remembered from the previous summer. A few hares, which
+they were able to shoot, appeared on the shores of the bay, as well as
+the arctic mice, the burrows of which were like a honeycomb. The
+doctor called the attention of his friends to the fact that these
+animals began to lose their white winter plumage, or hair, to put on
+their summer dress; they were evidently getting ready for summer,
+while their sustenance appeared in the form of moss, poppy, saxifrage,
+and thin grass. A new life was peering through the melting snows. But
+with the harmless animals returned the famished foes; foxes and wolves
+arrived in search of their prey; mournful howling sounded during the
+brief darkness of the nights.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 189">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="562">
+			<img src="images/189.jpg" alt="The many birds of spring">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The wolf of these countries is near of kin to the dog; like him, it
+barks, and often in such a way as to deceive the sharpest ears, those
+of the dogs themselves, for instance; it is even said that they employ
+this device to attract dogs, and then eat them. This has been observed
+on the shores of Hudson's Bay, and the doctor could confirm it at New
+America; Johnson took care not to let loose the dogs of the sledge,
+who might have been destroyed in that way. As for Duke, he had seen
+too many of them, and he was too wise to be caught in any such way.</p>
+
+<p>During a fortnight they hunted a great deal; fresh food was abundant;
+they shot partridges, ptarmigans, and snow-birds, which were delicious
+eating. The hunters did not go far from Fort Providence. In fact,
+small game could almost be killed with a stick; and it gave much
+animation to the silent shores of Victoria Bay,&mdash;an unaccustomed sight
+which delighted their eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The fortnight succeeding the great defeat of the bears was taken up
+with different occupations. The thaw advanced steadily; the
+thermometer rose to 32&deg;, and torrents began to roar in the ravines,
+and thousands of cataracts fell down the declivities. The doctor
+cleared an acre of ground and sowed in it cresses, sorrel, and
+cochlearia, which are excellent remedies for the scurvy; the little
+greenish leaves were peeping above the ground when, with incredible
+rapidity, the cold again seized everything.</p>
+
+<p>In a single night, with a violent north-wind, the thermometer fell
+forty degrees, to -8&deg;. Everything was frozen; birds, quadrupeds, and
+seals disappeared as if by magic; the holes for the seals were closed,
+the crevasses disappeared, the ice became as hard as granite, and the
+waterfalls hung like long crystal pendants.</p>
+
+<p>It was a total change to the eye; it took place in the night of May
+11-12. And when Bell the next morning put his nose out of doors into
+this sharp frost, he nearly left it there.</p>
+
+<p>"O, this polar climate!" cried the doctor, a little disappointed;
+"that's the way it goes! Well, I shall have to begin sowing again."</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 190">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="570">
+			<img src="images/190.jpg" alt="I shall have to begin sowing again">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Hatteras took things less philosophically, so eager was he to renew
+his explorations. But he had to resign himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Will this cold weather last long?" asked Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"No, my friend, no," answered Clawbonny; "it's the last touch of
+winter we shall have! You know it's at home here, and we can't drive
+it away against its will."</p>
+
+<p>"It defends itself well," said Bell, rubbing his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but I ought to have expected it," said the doctor; "and I should
+not have thrown the seed away so stupidly, especially since I might
+have started them near the kitchen stove."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" asked Altamont, "could you have foreseen this change of
+weather?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, and without resorting to magic. I ought to have put the
+seed under the protection of Saints Mamert, Panera, and Servais, whose
+days are the 11th, 12th, and 13th of this month."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Doctor," said Altamont, "will you tell me what influence these
+three saints have on the weather?"</p>
+
+<p>"A very great influence, to believe gardeners, who call them the three
+saints of ice."</p>
+
+<p>"And why so, pray?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because generally there is a periodic frost in the month of May, and
+the greatest fall of temperature takes place from the 11th to the 13th
+of this month. It is a fact, that is all."</p>
+
+<p>"It is curious, but what is the explanation?" asked the American.</p>
+
+<p>"There are two: either by the interposition of a greater number of
+asteroids between the earth and the sun at this season, or simply by
+the melting of the snow, which thereby absorbs a great quantity of
+heat. Both explanations are plausible; must they be received? I don't
+know; but if I'm uncertain of the truth of the explanation, I ought
+not to have been of the fact, and so lose my crop."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was right; for one reason or another the cold was very
+intense during the rest of the month of May; their hunting was
+interrupted, not so much by the severity of the weather as by the
+absence of game; fortunately, the supply of fresh meat was not yet
+quite exhausted. They found themselves accordingly condemned to new
+inactivity; for a fortnight, from the 11th to the 25th of May, only
+one incident broke the monotony of their lives; a serious illness,
+diphtheria, suddenly seized the carpenter; from the swollen tonsils
+and the false membrane in the throat, the doctor could not be ignorant
+of the nature of the disease; but he was in his element, and he soon
+drove it away, for evidently it had not counted on meeting him; his
+treatment was very simple, and the medicines were not hard to get; the
+doctor simply prescribed pieces of ice to be held in the mouth; in a
+few hours the swelling went down and the false membrane disappeared;
+twenty-four hours later Bell was up again.</p>
+
+<p>When the others wondered at the doctor's prescriptions: "This is the
+land of these complaints," he answered; "the cure must be near the
+disease."</p>
+
+<p>"The cure, and especially the doctor," added Johnson, in whose mind
+the doctor was assuming colossal proportions.</p>
+
+<p>During this new leisure the latter resolved to have a serious talk
+with the captain; he wanted to induce Hatteras to give up his
+intention of going northward without carrying some sort of a boat; a
+piece of wood, something with which he could cross an arm of the sea,
+if they should meet one. The captain, who was fixed in his views, had
+formally vowed not to use a boat made of the fragments of the American
+ship. The doctor was uncertain how to broach the subject, and yet a
+speedy decision was important, for the month of June would be the time
+for distant excursions. At last, after long reflection, he took
+Hatteras aside one day, and with his usual air of kindness said to
+him,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hatteras, you know I am your friend?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," answered the captain, warmly, "my best friend; indeed, my
+only one."</p>
+
+<p>"If I give you a piece of advice," resumed the doctor, "advice which
+you don't ask for, would you consider it disinterested?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, for I know that selfish interest has never been your guide; but
+what do you want to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"One moment, Hatteras; I have something else to ask of you: Do you
+consider me a true Englishman like yourself, and eager for the glory
+of my country?"</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras looked at the doctor with surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered, with his face expressing surprise at the question.</p>
+
+<p>"You want to reach the North Pole," resumed the doctor; "I understand
+your ambition, I share it, but to reach this end we need the means."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, haven't I so far sacrificed everything in order to succeed?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Hatteras, you have not sacrificed your personal prejudices, and
+at this moment I see that you are ready to refuse the indispensable
+means of reaching the Pole."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" answered Hatteras, "you mean the launch; this man&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Hatteras, let us argue coolly, without passion, and look at all
+sides of the question. The line of the coast on which we have wintered
+may be broken; there is no proof that it runs six degrees to the
+north; if the information which has brought you so far is right, we
+ought to find a vast extent of open sea during the summer months. Now,
+with the Arctic Ocean before us, free of ice and favorable for
+navigation, what shall we do if we lack the means of crossing it?"</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras made no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to be within a few miles of the Pole without being able
+to reach it?"</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras's head sank into his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," continued the doctor, "let us look at the question from a
+moral point of view. I can understand that an Englishman should give
+up his life and his fortune for the honor of his country. But because
+a boat made of a few planks torn from a wrecked American ship first
+touches the coast or crosses the unknown ocean, can that diminish the
+honor of the discovery? If you found on this shore the hull of an
+abandoned ship, should you hesitate to make use of it? Doesn't the
+glory of success belong to the head of the expedition? And I ask you
+if this launch built by four Englishmen, manned by four Englishmen,
+would not be English from keel to gunwale?"</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras was still silent.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Clawbonny, "let us talk frankly; it's not the boat you
+mind, it's the man."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Doctor, yes," answered the captain, "that American; I hate him
+with real English hate, that man thrown in my way by chance&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"To save you!"</p>
+
+<p>"To ruin me! He seems to defy me, to act as master, to imagine he
+holds my fate in his hands, and to have guessed my plans. Didn't he
+show his character when we were giving names to the new lands? Has he
+ever said what he was doing here? You can't free me of the idea which
+is killing me, that this man is the head of an expedition sent out by
+the government of the United States."</p>
+
+<p>"And if he is, Hatteras, what is there to show that he is in search of
+the Pole? Can't America try to discover the Northwest Passage as well
+as England? At any rate, Altamont is perfectly ignorant of your plans;
+for neither Johnson nor Bell nor you nor I has said a single word
+about them in his presence."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I hope he'll never know them!"</p>
+
+<p>"He will know them finally, of course, for we can't leave him alone
+here."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" asked the captain, with some violence; "can't he remain at
+Fort Providence?"</p>
+
+<p>"He would never give his consent, Hatteras; and then to leave him
+here, uncertain of finding him again, would be more than imprudent, it
+would be inhuman. Altamont will come with us; he must come! But since
+there is no need of suggesting new ideas to him, let us say nothing,
+and build a launch apparently for reconnoitring these new shores."</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras could not make up his mind to accede to the demands of his
+friend, who waited for an answer which did not come.</p>
+
+<p>"And if he refused to let us tear his ship to pieces!" said the
+captain, finally.</p>
+
+<p>"In that case, you would have the right on your side; you could build
+the boat in spite of him, and he could do nothing about it."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope he will refuse," exclaimed Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"Before he refuses," answered the doctor, "he must be asked. I will
+undertake to do it."</p>
+
+<p>In fact, that evening, before supper, Clawbonny turned the
+conversation to certain proposed expeditions in the summer months for
+hydrographic observations.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose, Altamont," he said, "that you will join us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," was the reply; "we must know how large New America is."</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras gazed earnestly at his rival while he made his answer.</p>
+
+<p>"And for that," continued Altamont, "we must make the best use we can
+of the fragments of the <i>Porpoise;</i> let us make a strong boat which
+can carry us far."</p>
+
+<p>"You hear, Bell," said the doctor, quickly; "to-morrow we shall set to
+work."</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap47"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XV.</h3>
+<h4>THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The next day Bell, Altamont, and the doctor went to the <i>Porpoise;</i>
+they found no lack of wood; the old three-masted launch, though
+injured by being wrecked, could still supply abundant material for the
+new one. The carpenter set to work at once; they needed a seaworthy
+boat, which should yet be light enough to carry on a sledge. Towards
+the end of May the weather grew warmer; the thermometer rose above the
+freezing-point; the spring came in earnest this time, and the men were
+able to lay aside their winter clothing. Much rain fell, and soon the
+snow began to slide and melt away. Hatteras could not hide his joy at
+seeing the first signs of thaw in the ice-fields. The open sea meant
+liberty for him.</p>
+
+<a name="ill43"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 191">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="605">
+			<img src="images/191.jpg" alt="The carpenter set to work at once">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="605" align="center">
+			<small>"The carpenter set to work at once."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table><br>
+<br>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 192">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="561">
+			<img src="images/192.jpg" alt="Bell working on the launch">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Whether or not his predecessors had been wrong on this great question
+of an open polar sea, he hoped soon to know. All chance of success in
+his undertaking depended on this. One evening, after a warm day in
+which the ice had given unmistakable signs of breaking up, he turned
+the conversation to the question of an open sea. He took up the
+familiar arguments, and found the doctor, as ever, a warm advocate of
+his doctrine. Besides, his conclusions were evidently accurate.</p>
+
+<p>"It is plain," he said, "that if the ocean before Victoria Bay gets
+clear of ice, its southern part will also be clear as far as New
+Cornwall and Queen's Channel. Penny and Belcher saw it in that state,
+and they certainly saw clearly."</p>
+
+<p>"I agree with you, Hatteras," answered the doctor, "and I have no
+reason for doubting the word of these sailors; a vain attempt has been
+made to explain their discovery as an effect of mirage; but they were
+so certain, it was impossible that they could have made such a
+mistake."</p>
+
+<p>"I always thought so," said Altamont; "the polar basin extends to the
+east as well as to the west."</p>
+
+<p>"We can suppose so, at any rate," answered Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"We ought to suppose so," continued the American, "for this open sea
+which Captains Penny and Belcher saw near the coast of Grinnell Land
+was seen by Morton, Kane's lieutenant, in the straits which are named
+after that bold explorer."</p>
+
+<p>"We are not in Kane's sea," answered Hatteras, coldly, "and
+consequently we cannot verify the fact."</p>
+
+<p>"It is supposable, at least," said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," replied the doctor, who wished to avoid useless
+discussion. "What Altamont thinks ought to be the truth; unless there
+is a peculiar disposition of the surrounding land, the same effects
+appear at the same latitudes. Hence I believe the sea is open in the
+east as well as in the west."</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate, it makes very little difference to us," said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't agree with you, Hatteras," resumed the American, who was
+beginning to be annoyed by the affected unconcern of the captain; "it
+may make considerable difference to us."</p>
+
+<p>"And when, if I may ask?"</p>
+
+<p>"When we think of returning."</p>
+
+<p>"Returning!" cried Hatteras, "and who's thinking of that?"</p>
+
+<p>"No one," answered Altamont; "but we shall stop somewhere, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"And where?" asked Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time the question was fairly put to Altamont. The doctor
+would have given one of his arms to have put a stop to the discussion.
+Since Altamont made no answer, the captain repeated his question.</p>
+
+<p>"And where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where we are going," answered the American, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"And who knows where that is?" said the peace-loving doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, then," Altamont went on, "that if we want to make use of the
+polar basin in returning, we can try to gain Kane's sea; it will lead
+us more directly to Baffin's Bay."</p>
+
+<p>"So that is your idea?" asked the captain, ironically.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that is my idea, as it is that if these seas ever become
+practicable, they will be reached by the straightest way. O, that was
+a great discovery of Captain Kane's!"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed!" said Hatteras, biting his lips till they bled.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the doctor, "that cannot be denied; every one should have
+the praise he deserves."</p>
+
+<p>"Without considering," went on the obstinate American, "that no one
+had ever before gone so far to the north."</p>
+
+<p>"I like to think," said Hatteras, "that now the English have got ahead
+of him."</p>
+
+<p>"And the Americans!" said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Americans!" repeated Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"What am I, then?" asked Altamont, proudly.</p>
+
+<p>"You are," answered Hatteras, who could hardly control his
+voice,&mdash;"you are a man who presumes to accord equal glory to science
+and to chance! Your American captain went far to the north, but as
+chance alone&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Chance!" shouted Altamont; "do you dare to say that this great
+discovery is not due to Kane's energy and knowledge?"</p>
+
+<p>"I say," answered Hatteras, "that Kane's name is not fit to be
+pronounced in a country made famous by Parry, Franklin, Ross, Belcher,
+and Penny in these seas which opened the Northwest Passage to
+MacClure&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"MacClure!" interrupted the American; "you mention that man, and yet
+you complain of the work of chance? Wasn't it chance alone that
+favored him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered Hatteras, warmly,&mdash;"no! It was his courage, his
+perseverance in spending four winters in the ice&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I should think so!" retorted the American; "he got caught in the ice
+and couldn't get out, and he had to abandon the <i>Investigator</i> at last
+to go back to England."</p>
+
+<p>"My friends&mdash;" said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Besides," Altamont went on, "let us consider the result. You speak of
+the Northwest Passage; well, it has yet to be discovered!"</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras started at these words; no more vexatious question could have
+arisen between two rival nationalities. The doctor again tried to
+intervene.</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken, Altamont," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I persist in my opinions," he said obstinately; "the Northwest
+Passage is yet to be found, to be sailed through, if you like that any
+better! MacClure never penetrated it, and to this day no ship that has
+sailed from Behring Strait has reached Baffin's Bay!"</p>
+
+<p>That was true, speaking exactly. What answer could be made?</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, Hatteras rose to his feet and said,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not permit the good name of an English captain to be attacked
+any further in my presence."</p>
+
+<p>"You will not permit it?" answered the American, who also rose to his
+feet; "but these are the facts, and it is beyond your power to destroy
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir!" said Hatteras, pale with anger.</p>
+
+<p>"My friends," said the doctor, "don't get excited! We are discussing a
+scientific subject."</p>
+
+<p>Clawbonny looked with horror at a scientific discussion into which the
+hate of an American and an Englishman could enter.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to give you the facts," began Hatteras, threateningly.</p>
+
+<p>"But I'm speaking now!" retorted the American.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson and Bell became very uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," said the doctor, severely, "let me say a word! I insist
+upon it, I know the facts as well, better than you do, and I can speak
+of them impartially."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes," said Bell and Johnson, who were distressed at the turn the
+discussion had taken, and who formed a majority favorable to the
+doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, Doctor," said Johnson, "these gentlemen will listen, and you
+cannot fail to give us some information."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, Doctor," said the American.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras resumed his place with a sign of acquiescence, and folded his
+arms.</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell the simple truth about the facts," said the doctor, "and
+you must correct me if I omit or alter any detail."</p>
+
+<p>"We know you, Doctor," said Bell, "and you can speak without fear of
+interruption."</p>
+
+<p>"Here is the chart of the Polar Seas," resumed the doctor, who had
+brought it to the table; "it will be easy to trace MacClure's course,
+and you will be able to make up your minds for yourselves."</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon he unrolled one of the excellent maps published by order of
+the Admiralty, containing the latest discoveries in arctic regions;
+then he went on:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You know, in 1848, two ships, the <i>Herald</i>, Captain Kellet, and the
+<i>Plover</i>, Commander Moore, were sent to Behring Strait in search of
+traces of Franklin; their search was vain; in 1850 they were joined by
+MacClure, who commanded the <i>Investigator</i>, a ship in which he had
+sailed, in 1849, under James Ross's orders. He was followed by Captain
+Collinson, his chief, who sailed in the <i>Enterprise;</i> but he arrived
+before him. At Behring Strait he declared he would wait no longer, and
+that he would go alone, on his own responsibility, and&mdash;you hear me,
+Altamont&mdash;that he would find either Franklin or the passage."</p>
+
+<p>Altamont showed neither approbation nor the contrary.</p>
+
+<p>"August 5, 1850," continued the doctor, "after a final communication
+with the <i>Plover</i>, MacClure sailed eastward by an almost unknown
+route; see how little land is marked upon the chart. August 30th he
+rounded Cape Bathurst; September 6th he discovered Baring Land, which
+he afterwards discovered to form part of Banks Land, then Prince
+Albert's Land. Then he resolved to enter the long straits between
+these two large islands, and he called it Prince of Wales Strait. You
+can follow his plan. He hoped to come out in Melville Sound, which we
+have just crossed, and with reason; but the ice at the end of the
+strait formed an impassable barrier. There MacClure wintered in
+1850-51, and meanwhile he pushed on over the ice, to make sure that
+the strait connected with the sound."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Altamont, "but he didn't succeed."</p>
+
+<p>"One moment," said the doctor. "While wintering there, MacClure's
+officers explored all the neighboring coasts: Creswell, Baring's Land;
+Haswell, Prince Albert's Land, to the south; and Wynniat, Cape Walker,
+to the north. In July, at the beginning of the thaw, MacClure tried a
+second time to carry the <i>Investigator</i> to Melville Sound; he got
+within twenty miles of it, twenty miles only, but the winds carried
+him with irresistible force to the south, before he could get through
+the obstacle. Then he determined to go back through Prince of Wales
+Strait, and go around Banks Land, to try at the west what he could not
+do in the east; he put about; the 18th he rounded Cape Kellet; the
+19th, Cape Prince Alfred, two degrees higher; then, after a hard
+struggle with the icebergs, he was caught in Banks Strait, in the
+series of straits leading to Baffin's Bay."</p>
+
+<a name="ill44"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 193">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="562">
+			<img src="images/193.jpg" alt="A hard struggle with the icebergs">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="562" align="center">
+			<small>"A hard struggle with the icebergs."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"But he couldn't get through them," said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a moment, and be as patient as MacClure was. September 26th, he
+took his station for the winter in Mercy Bay, and stayed there till
+1852. April came; MacClure had supplies for only eighteen months.
+Nevertheless, he was unwilling to return; he started, crossing Banks
+Strait by sledge, and reached Melville Island. Let us follow him. He
+hoped to find here Commander Austin's ships, which were sent to meet
+him by Baffin's Bay and Lancaster Sound; April 28th he arrived at
+Winter Harbor, at the place where Parry had wintered thirty-three
+years previously, but no trace of the ships; only he found in a cairn
+a paper, telling him that MacClintock, Austin's lieutenant, had been
+there the year before, and gone away. Any one else would have been in
+despair, but MacClure was not. He put in the cairn another paper, in
+which he announced his intention of returning to England by the
+Northwest Passage, which he had discovered by reaching Baffin's Bay
+and Lancaster Sound. If he is not heard from again, it will be because
+he will have been to the north or west of Melville Island; then he
+returned, not discouraged, to Mercy Bay for the third winter,
+1852-53."</p>
+
+<p>"I have never doubted his courage," said Altamont, "but his success."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us follow him again," resumed the doctor. "In the month of March,
+being on two-thirds rations, at the end of a very severe winter, when
+no game was to be had, MacClure determined to send back half of his
+crew to England, either by Baffin's Bay, or by Mackenzie River and
+Hudson's Bay; the other half was to bring the <i>Investigator</i> back. He
+chose the weakest men, who could not stand a fourth winter; everything
+was ready, and their departure settled for April 15th, when on the
+6th, MacClure, who was walking on the ice with his lieutenant,
+Creswell, saw a man running northward and gesticulating; it was
+Lieutenant Pim of the <i>Herald</i>, lieutenant of the same Captain Kellet
+whom two years before he had left at Behring Strait, as I said when I
+began. Kellet, having reached Winter Harbor, found the paper left
+there by MacClure; having heard in that way of his position in Mercy
+Bay, he sent Lieutenant Pim to meet the captain. He was followed by a
+detachment of the men of the <i>Herald</i>, among whom was a midshipman of
+a French ship, M. de Bray, who was a volunteer aid of Captain Kellet.
+You don't doubt this meeting?"</p>
+
+<a name="ill45"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 194">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="556">
+			<img src="images/194.jpg" alt="MacClure saw a man running and gesticulating">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="556" align="center">
+			<small>"MacClure saw a man running and gesticulating."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Not at all," answered Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, see what followed, and whether the Northwest Passage was really
+made. If you join Parry's discoveries to those of MacClure, you will
+see the northern coast of America was rounded."</p>
+
+<p>"But not by a single ship," said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"No, but by a single man. Let us go on. MacClure went to see Captain
+Kellet at Melville Island; in twelve days he made the one hundred and
+seventy miles between Winter Harbor and the island; he agreed with the
+commander of the <i>Herald</i> to send him his sick, and returned; many
+others would have thought, had they been in MacClure's place, that
+they had done enough, but this bold young man determined to try his
+fortune again. Then, and please observe this, Lieutenant Creswell,
+with the sick and disabled men of the <i>Investigator</i>, left Mercy Bay,
+reached Winter Harbor, and from there, after a journey of four hundred
+and seventy miles on the ice, reached Beechey Island, June 2d, and a
+few days later, with twelve of his men, he took passage on board of
+the <i>Phoenix</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"In which I was at the time," said Johnson, "with Captain Inglefield,
+and we returned to England."</p>
+
+<p>"And October 7, 1853," continued the doctor, "Creswell arrived at
+London, after having crossed over the whole distance between Behring
+Strait and Cape Farewell."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Hatteras, "to enter at one end and go out by the other,
+isn't that going through?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Altamont, "but by going four hundred and seventy miles
+over the ice."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what difference does that make?"</p>
+
+<p>"The whole," answered the American. "Did MacClure's ship make the
+passage?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered the doctor, "for after a fourth winter, MacClure was
+obliged to leave it in the ice."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, in a sea-voyage it's important to have the ship reach her
+destination. If the Northwest Passage ever becomes practicable, it
+must be for ships and not for sledges. The ship must accomplish the
+voyage, or if not the ship, the launch."</p>
+
+<p>"The launch!" shouted Hatteras, who detected the hidden meaning in the
+American's words.</p>
+
+<p>"Altamont," said the doctor, hurriedly, "you make a puerile
+distinction, and we all consider you wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"That is easy, gentlemen," answered the American; "you are four to
+one. But that won't keep me from holding my own opinion."</p>
+
+<p>"Keep it," said Hatteras, "and so closely that we need hear nothing
+about it."</p>
+
+<p>"And what right have you to speak to me in that way?" asked the
+American in a rage.</p>
+
+<p>"My right as captain," answered Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I under your commands?" retorted Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Without doubt, and look out for yourself, if&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, Johnson, and Bell intervened. It was time; the two enemies
+were gazing at one another. The doctor was very anxious. Still, after
+a few gentler words, Altamont went off to bed whistling "Yankee
+Doodle," and, whether he slept or not, he did not speak. Hatteras went
+out and paced up and down for an hour, and then he turned in without
+saying a word.</p>
+
+<a name="ill46"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 195">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="547">
+			<img src="images/195.jpg" alt="The doctor, Johnson, and Bell intervened">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="547" align="center">
+			<small>"The doctor, Johnson, and Bell intervened. It was time;
+			the two enemies were gazing at one another."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table><br>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap48"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XVI.</h3>
+<h4>NORTHERN ARCADIA.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>On May 29th, for the first time, the sun did not set; it merely
+touched the horizon and then rose at once; the day was twenty-four
+hours long. The next day it was surrounded by a magnificent halo, a
+bright circle with all the colors of the prism; this apparition, which
+was by no means rare, always attracted the doctor's attention; he
+never failed to note the date and appearance of the phenomenon; the
+one he saw on that day was of an elliptic shape, which he had seldom
+seen before.</p>
+
+<p>Soon the noisy flocks of birds appeared; bustards and wild geese came
+from Florida or Arkansas, flying northward with inconceivable rapidity
+and bringing the spring with them. The doctor shot a few, as well as
+three or four cranes and a single stork. However, the snow was melting
+everywhere beneath the sun; the salt-water, which overran the
+ice-field through the crevasses and the seal-holes, hastened the
+melting; the ice which was mingled with salt-water formed a soft
+slush. Large pools appeared on the land near the bay, and the exposed
+soil seemed to be a production of the arctic spring.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 196">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="555">
+			<img src="images/196.jpg" alt="Noisy flocks of birds appeared">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The doctor then resumed his planting; he had plenty of seed; besides,
+he was surprised to see a sort of sorrel growing naturally between the
+dried rocks, and he wondered at the force of nature which demanded so
+little in order to manifest itself. He sowed some cresses, of which
+the young sprouts, three weeks later, were already an inch long.</p>
+
+<p>The heath began to show timidly its little pale, rosy flowers. In
+fact, the flora of New America is very defective; still, this rare
+vegetation was agreeable to their eyes; it was all the feeble rays of
+the sun could nourish, a trace of the Providence which had not
+completely forgotten these distant countries. At last it became really
+warm; June 15th the thermometer stood at 57&deg;; the doctor could hardly
+believe his eyes; the country changed its appearance; numerous noisy
+cascades fell from the sunny summits of the hills; the ice loosened,
+and the great question of an open sea would soon be decided. The air
+was full of the noise of avalanches falling from the hills to the
+bottom of the ravines, and the cracking of the ice-field produced a
+deafening sound.</p>
+
+<p>A trip was made to Johnson Island; it was merely an unimportant, arid,
+barren island; but the old boatswain was no less proud of giving his
+name to a few desolate rocks. He even wanted to carve it on a high
+peak. During this excursion, Hatteras had carefully explored these
+lands, even beyond Cape Washington; the melting of the snow sensibly
+changed the country; ravines and hillocks appeared here and there,
+where the snow indicated nothing but monotonous stretches. The house
+and magazines threatened to melt away, and they had frequently to be
+repaired; fortunately, a temperature of 57&deg; is rare in these
+latitudes, and the mean is hardly above the freezing-point.</p>
+
+<p>By the middle of June the launch was far advanced and getting into
+shape. While Bell and Johnson were working at it, the others had a few
+successful hunts. Reindeer were shot, although they are hard to
+approach; but Altamont put in practice a device employed by the
+Indians of his own country; he crept over the ground with his gun and
+arms outstretched like the horns of one of these shy animals, and
+having thus come within easy gunshot, he could not fail.</p>
+
+<p>But the best game, the musk-ox, of which Parry found plenty at
+Melville Island, appeared not to frequent the shores of Victoria Bay.
+A distant hunt was determined on, as much to get these valuable
+animals as to reconnoitre the eastern lands. Hatteras did not propose
+to reach the Pole by this part of the continent, but the doctor was
+not sorry to get a general idea of the country. Hence they decided to
+start to the east of Fort Providence. Altamont intended to hunt; Duke
+naturally was of the party.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 197">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="561">
+			<img src="images/197.jpg" alt="Altamont intended to hunt">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>So, Monday, June 17th, a pleasant day, with the thermometer at 41&deg;,
+and the air quiet and clear, the three hunters, each carrying a
+double-barrelled gun, a hatchet, a snow-knife, and followed by Duke,
+left Doctor's House at six o'clock in the morning. They were fitted
+out for a trip of two or three days, with the requisite amount of
+provisions. By eight o'clock Hatteras and his two companions had gone
+eight miles. Not a living thing had tempted a shot, and their hunt
+threatened to be merely a trip.</p>
+
+<p>This new country exhibited vast plains running out of sight; new
+streams divided them everywhere, and large, unruffled pools reflected
+the sun. The layers of melting ice bared the ground to their feet; it
+belonged to the great division of sedimentary earth, and the result of
+the action of the water, which is so common on the surface of the
+globe. Still a few erratic blocks were seen of a singular nature,
+foreign to the soil where they were found, and whose presence it was
+hard to explain. Schists and different productions of limestone were
+found in abundance, as was also a sort of strange, transparent,
+colorless crystal, which has a refraction peculiar to Iceland spar.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 198">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="399">
+			<img src="images/198.jpg" alt="This new country">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>But, although he was not hunting, the doctor had not time to
+geologize; he had to walk too quickly, in order to keep up with his
+friends. Still, he observed the land and talked as much as possible,
+for had he not there would have been total silence in the little band;
+neither Altamont nor the captain had any desire to talk to one
+another.</p>
+
+<p>By ten o'clock the hunters had got a dozen miles to the east; the sea
+was hidden beneath the horizon; the doctor proposed a halt for
+breakfast. They swallowed it rapidly, and in half an hour they were
+off again. The ground was sloping gently; a few patches of snow,
+preserved either by their position or the slope of the rocks, gave it
+a woolly appearance, like waves in a high wind. The country was still
+barren, and looking as if no living being had ever set foot in it.</p>
+
+<p>"We have no luck," said Altamont to the doctor; "to be sure, the
+country doesn't offer much food to animals, but the game here ought
+not to be over-particular, and ought to show itself."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let us despair," said the doctor; "the summer has hardly begun;
+and if Parry met so many animals at Melville Island, we may be as
+lucky here."</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 199">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="562">
+			<img src="images/199.jpg" alt="On the hunt">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Still, we are farther north," said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, but that is unimportant; it is the pole of cold we ought
+to consider; that is to say, that icy wilderness in the middle of
+which we wintered with the <i>Forward;</i> now the farther north we go, the
+farther we are from the coldest part of the globe; we ought to find,
+beyond, what Parry, Ross, and others found on the other side."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Altamont, with a regretful sigh, "so far we've been
+travellers rather than hunters."</p>
+
+<p>"Be patient," answered the doctor; "the country is changing gradually,
+and I should be astonished if we don't find game enough in the ravines
+where vegetation has had a chance to sprout."</p>
+
+<p>"It must be said," continued Altamont, "that we are going through an
+uninhabited and uninhabitable country."</p>
+
+<p>"O, uninhabitable is a strong word!" answered the doctor; "I can't
+believe any land uninhabitable; man, by many sacrifices, and for
+generations using all the resources of science, might finally
+fertilize such a country."</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 200">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="563">
+			<img src="images/200.jpg" alt="Uninhabitable country">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Do you think so?" asked Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Without doubt! If you were to go to the celebrated countries of the
+world, to Thebes, Nineveh, or Babylon, in the fertile valleys of our
+ancestors, it would seem impossible that men should ever have lived
+there; the air itself has grown bad since the disappearance of human
+beings. It is the general law of nature which makes those countries in
+which we do not live unhealthy and sterile, like those out of which
+life has died. In fact, man himself makes his own country by his
+presence, his habits, his industry, and, I might add, by his breath;
+he gradually modifies the exhalations of the soil and the atmospheric
+conditions, and he makes the air he breathes wholesome. So there are
+uninhabited lands, I grant, but none uninhabitable."</p>
+
+<p>Talking in this way, the hunters, who had become naturalists, pushed
+on and reached a sort of valley, fully exposed, at the bottom of which
+a river, nearly free of ice, was flowing; its southern exposure had
+brought forth a certain amount of vegetation. The earth showed a
+strong desire to grow fertile; with a few inches of rich soil it would
+have produced a good deal. The doctor called their attention to these
+indications.</p>
+
+<p>"See," he said, "a few hardy colonists might settle in this ravine.
+With industry and perseverance they could do a great deal; not as much
+as is seen in the temperate zones, but a respectable show. If I am not
+mistaken, there are some four-footed animals! They know the good
+spots."</p>
+
+<p>"They are Arctic hares," shouted Altamont, cocking his gun.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a moment," cried the doctor,&mdash;"wait a moment, you hasty fellow.
+They don't think of running away! See, they'll come to us!"</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 201">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="549">
+			<img src="images/201.jpg" alt="Spotting game">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>And, in fact, three or four young hares, springing about in the heath
+and young moss, ran boldly towards the three men; they were so cunning
+that even Altamont was softened.</p>
+
+<p>Soon they were between the doctor's legs; he caressed them with his
+hand, saying,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Why shoot these little animals which come to be petted? We need not
+kill them."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Doctor," answered Hatteras; "we'll let them live."</p>
+
+<p>"And these ptarmigan, too, which are flying towards us!" cried
+Altamont; "and these long-legged water-fowl!"</p>
+
+<p>A whole flock of birds passed over the hunters, not suspecting the
+peril from which the doctor's presence saved them. Even Duke was
+compelled to admire them.</p>
+
+<p>They were a curious and touching sight, flying about without fear,
+resting on Clawbonny's shoulders, lying at his feet, offering
+themselves to his caresses, seeming to do their best to welcome their
+new guests; they called one another joyously, flying from the most
+distant points; the doctor seemed to be a real bird-charmer. The
+hunters continued their march up the moist banks of the brook,
+followed by the familiar band, and turning from the valley they
+perceived a troop of eight or ten reindeer browsing on a few lichens
+half buried beneath the snow; they were graceful, quiet animals, with
+their branching antlers, which the female carried as well as the male;
+their wool-like fur was already losing its winter whiteness in favor
+of the summer brown and gray; they seemed no more timid than the hares
+and birds of the country. Such were the relations of the first men to
+the first animals in the early ages of the world.</p>
+
+<a name="ill47"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 202">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="550">
+			<img src="images/202.jpg" alt="They were a curious and touching sight">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="550" align="center">
+			<small>"They were a curious and touching sight, flying about
+			without fear, resting on Clawbonny's shoulders," etc.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The hunters reached the middle of the band without any one flying;
+this time the doctor found it hard to restrain the instincts of
+Altamont, who could not calmly look on this game without a thirst for
+blood rising in his brain. Hatteras looked mildly at these gentle
+beasts, who rubbed their noses against the doctor's clothes; he was
+the friend of all the animals.</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Altamont, "didn't we come here to shoot?"</p>
+
+<p>"To shoot musk-ox," answered Clawbonny, "and nothing else! We should
+have no need of this game; we have food enough, so let us enjoy the
+sight of man walking thus among these animals, without alarming them."</p>
+
+<p>"That proves they have never seen one before," said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently," answered the doctor; "and so we can be sure that these
+animals are not of American origin."</p>
+
+<p>"And why so?" said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"If they were born on the continent of North America, they would know
+what to think of men, and they would have fled at the sight of us. No;
+they probably came from the north, from those unknown lands where our
+kind has never set foot, and they have crossed the continents near the
+Pole. So, Altamont, you can't claim them as your fellow-countrymen."</p>
+
+<p>"O," answered Altamont, "a hunter does not scrutinize so closely, and
+the game belongs to the land where it was shot!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, calm yourself, my Nimrod! As for me, I would rather never fire
+a gun in my life than alarm this timid population. See, even Duke
+fraternizes with the charming beasts! Come, we'll be kind when we can!
+Kindness is a force!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well," answered Altamont, who sympathized but slightly with
+this sensitiveness; "but I should be amused to see you armed with this
+kindness alone among a flock of bears or wolves!"</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 203">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="553">
+			<img src="images/203.jpg" alt="With the reindeer">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"O, I don't pretend to charm wild beasts!" answered the doctor; "I
+have little faith in the enchantment of Orpheus; besides, bears and
+wolves wouldn't come up to us like the hares, partridges, and
+reindeer."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not," answered Altamont, "if they have never seen men?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because they are naturally ferocious, and ferocity, like
+maliciousness, begets suspicion; a remark which is true of man as well
+as of animals. A wicked man is distrustful, and fear is commonly found
+in those who are able to inspire it."</p>
+
+<p>This little lesson in natural philosophy ended the conversation.</p>
+
+<p>The whole day was passed in this Northern Arcadia, as the doctor named
+the valley, with the consent of his companions; and that evening,
+after a supper which had not cost the life of a single inhabitant of
+the country, the three hunters went to sleep in a cleft of a rock
+which was admirably adapted for a shelter.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap49"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XVII.</h3>
+<h4>ALTAMONT'S REVENGE.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The next day the doctor and his two companions woke up after a
+perfectly quiet night. The cold, although not keen, increased towards
+daybreak, but they were well covered, and slept soundly under the
+watch of the peaceful animals.</p>
+
+<p>The weather being pleasant, they resolved to consecrate the day to a
+reconnaissance of the country, and the search of musk-oxen. Altamont
+insisted on shooting something, and they decided that, even if these
+oxen should be the gentlest animals in the world, they should be shot.
+Besides, their flesh, although strongly flavored with musk, was
+pleasant eating, and they all hoped to carry back to Fort Providence a
+good supply of it.</p>
+
+<p>During the early morning hours nothing noteworthy took place; the land
+grew different in the northeast; a few elevations, the beginning of a
+mountainous district, indicated a change. If this New America were not
+a continent, it was at any rate an important island; but then they did
+not have to trouble themselves about its geography.</p>
+
+<p>Duke ran ahead, and soon came across some traces of a herd of
+musk-oxen; he then advanced rapidly, and soon disappeared from the
+eyes of the hunters. They followed his clear barking, which soon grew
+so hasty that they knew he had discovered the object of their search.
+They pushed on, and in an hour and a half they came up to two of these
+animals; they were large, and formidable in appearance. They appeared
+much surprised at Duke's attacks, but not alarmed; they were feeding
+off a sort of reddish moss which grew on the thin soil. The doctor
+recognized them at once from their moderate height, their horns, which
+were broad at the base, the absence of muzzle, their sheep-like
+forehead, and short tail; their shape has earned for them from
+naturalists the name of "ovibos," a compound, and which expresses the
+two sorts of animals whose characteristics they share. Thick, long
+hair and a sort of delicate brown silk formed their fur.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 204">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="557">
+			<img src="images/204.jpg" alt="Chasing the musk-oxen">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>They ran away when they saw the two hunters, who came running up after
+them. It was hard to reach them for men who were out of breath after
+running half an hour. Hatteras and his companions stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"The Devil!" said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"That's just the word," said the doctor, as soon as he could take
+breath. "I'll grant they are Americans, and they can't have a very
+good idea of your countrymen."</p>
+
+<p>"That proves we are good hunters," answered Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>Still, the musk-oxen, seeing they were not pursued, stopped in a
+posture of surprise. It became evident that they could never be run
+down; they would have to be surrounded; the plateau on which they were
+aided this manoeuvre. The hunters, leaving Duke to harass them,
+descended through the neighboring ravines, so as to get around the
+plateau. Altamont and the doctor hid behind a rock at one end, while
+Hatteras, suddenly advancing from the other end, should drive the oxen
+towards them. In half an hour each had gained his post.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't object any longer to our shooting?" asked Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it's fair fighting," answered the doctor, who, in spite of
+gentleness, was a real sportsman.</p>
+
+<p>They were talking in this way, when they saw the oxen running, and
+Duke at their heels; farther on Hatteras was driving them, with loud
+cries, towards the American and the doctor, who ran to meet this
+magnificent prey.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 205">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="561">
+			<img src="images/205.jpg" alt="This magnificent prey">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>At once the oxen stopped, and, less fearful of a single enemy, they
+turned upon Hatteras. He awaited them calmly, aimed at the nearest,
+and fired; but the bullet struck the animal in the middle of his
+forehead, without penetrating the skull. Hatteras's second shot
+produced no other effect than to make the beasts furious; they ran to
+the disarmed hunter, and threw him down at once.</p>
+
+<p>"He is lost," cried the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>At the moment Clawbonny pronounced these words with an accent of
+despair, Altamont made a step forward to run to Hatteras's aid; then
+he stopped, struggling against himself and his prejudices.</p>
+
+<p>"No," he cried, "that would be cowardice."</p>
+
+<p>He hastened with Clawbonny to the scene of combat. His hesitation had
+not lasted half a second. But if the doctor saw what was taking place
+in the American's heart, Hatteras understood it, who would rather have
+died than have implored his rival's interference. Still, he had hardly
+time to perceive it, for Altamont appeared before him. Hatteras, lying
+on the ground, was trying to ward off the horns and hoofs of the two
+animals. But he could not long continue so unequal a struggle. He was
+about to be torn in pieces, when two shots were heard. Hatteras heard
+the bullets whistling by his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be frightened!" shouted Altamont, hurling his gun to one side,
+and rushing upon the angry animals.</p>
+
+<p>One of the oxen fell, shot through the heart; the other, wild with
+rage, was just going to gore the captain, when Altamont faced him, and
+plunged into his mouth his hand, armed with a snow-knife; with the
+other he gave him a terrible blow with a hatchet on the head. This was
+done with marvellous rapidity, and a flash of lightning would have lit
+up the whole scene.</p>
+
+<a name="ill48"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 206">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="552">
+			<img src="images/206.jpg" alt="Gave him a terrible blow with a hatchet on the head">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="552" align="center">
+			<small>"Gave him a terrible blow with a hatchet on the head."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The second ox fell back dead.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried Clawbonny.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras was saved. He owed his life to the man whom he detested most
+in the world. What was going on in his mind at this time? What emotion
+was there which he could not master? That is one of the secrets of the
+heart which defy all analysis.</p>
+
+<p>However that may be, Hatteras advanced to his rival without
+hesitation, and said to him seriously,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You have saved my life, Altamont."</p>
+
+<p>"You saved mine," answered the American. There was a moment's silence.
+Then Altamont added, "We are now quits, Hatteras!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Altamont," answered the captain; "when the doctor took you from
+your icy tomb, I did not know who you were, and you have saved me at
+the risk of your own life, knowing who I was."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a fellow-being," answered Altamont; "and whatever else he may
+be, an American is not a coward."</p>
+
+<p>"No, he is not," said the doctor; "he is a man! a man like you,
+Hatteras!"</p>
+
+<p>"And like me he shall share the glory which is awaiting us!"</p>
+
+<p>"The glory of going to the North Pole?" said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the captain, haughtily.</p>
+
+<p>"I had guessed it!" exclaimed the American. "So you dared conceive of
+this bold design! You dared try to reach that inaccessible point! Ah,
+that is great! It is sublime!"</p>
+
+<p>"But you," asked Hatteras, hurriedly, "were you not on your way to the
+Pole?"</p>
+
+<p>Altamont seemed to hesitate about replying.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no," answered the American,&mdash;"no; tell the truth, and shame the
+Devil! No, I did not have this great idea, which has brought you here.
+I was trying simply to sail through the Northwest Passage, that is
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"Altamont," said Hatteras, holding out his hand to the American,
+"share our glory, and go with us to the North Pole!"</p>
+
+<p>The two men then shook hands warmly.</p>
+
+<p>When they turned towards the doctor, they saw his eyes full of tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, my friends," he murmured, as he dried his eyes, "how can my heart
+hold the joy with which you fill it? My dear companions, you have
+sacrificed a miserable question of nationality in order to unite in
+your common success! You know that England and America have nothing to
+do with all this; that mutual sympathy ought to bind you together
+against the dangers of the journey! If the North Pole is discovered,
+what difference does it make who does it? Why stand bickering about
+English or American, when we can be proud of being men?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor embraced the reconciled foes; he could not restrain his
+joy. The two new friends felt themselves drawn closer together by the
+friendship this worthy man had for them both. Clawbonny spoke freely
+of the vanity of competition, of the madness of rivalry, and of the
+need of agreement between men so far from home. His words, his tears
+and caresses, came from the bottom of his heart.</p>
+
+<p>Still, he grew calm after embracing Hatteras and Altamont for the
+twentieth time.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," he said, "to work, to work! Since I was no use as a hunter,
+let me try in another capacity!"</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon he started to cut up the ox, which he called the "ox of
+reconciliation," but he did it as skilfully as if he were a surgeon
+conducting a delicate autopsy. His two companions gazed at him in
+amusement. In a few minutes he had cut from the body a hundred pounds
+of flesh; he gave each one a third of it, and they again took up their
+march to Fort Providence. At ten o'clock in the evening, after walking
+in the oblique rays of the sun, they reached Doctor's House, where
+Johnson and Bell had a good supper awaiting them.</p>
+
+<p>But before they sat down to table, the doctor said in a voice of
+triumph, as he pointed to his two companions,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Johnson, I carried away with me an Englishman and an American, did I
+not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Dr. Clawbonny," answered the boatswain.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've brought back two brothers."</p>
+
+<a name="ill49"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 207">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="567">
+			<img src="images/207.jpg" alt="'Well, I've brought back two brothers'">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="567" align="center">
+			<small>"'Well, I've brought back two brothers.'"</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The two sailors gladly shook Altamont's hand; the doctor told them
+what the American captain had done for the English captain, and that
+night the snow-house held five perfectly happy men.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap50"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XVIII.</h3>
+<h4>THE LAST PREPARATIONS.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The next day the weather changed; there was a return of cold; the snow
+and rain gust raged for many days.</p>
+
+<p>Bell had finished the launch; it was perfectly satisfactory for the
+purpose it was intended for; partly decked, and partly open, it could
+sail in heavy weather under mainsail and jib, while it was so light as
+not to be too heavy a load on the sledge for the dogs.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 208">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="555">
+			<img src="images/208.jpg" alt="Bell had finished the launch">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Then, too, a change of great importance was taking place in the state
+of the polar basin. The ice in the middle of the bay was beginning to
+give way; the tallest pieces, forever weakened by the collision of the
+rest, only needed a sufficiently heavy tempest to be torn away and to
+become icebergs. Still, Hatteras was unwilling to wait so long before
+starting. Since it was to be a land journey, he cared very little
+whether the sea was open or not. He determined to start June 25th;
+meanwhile all the preparations could be completed. Johnson and Bell
+put the sledge into perfect repair; the frame was strengthened and the
+runners renewed. The travellers intended to devote to their journey
+the few weeks of good weather which nature allows to these northern
+regions. Their sufferings would be less severe, the obstacles easier
+to overcome.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 209">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="548">
+			<img src="images/209.jpg" alt="A trial trip on board of the new launch">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>A few days before their departure, June 20th, the ice had so many free
+passages, that they were able to make a trial trip on board of the new
+launch as far as Cape Washington. The sea was not perfectly free, far
+from it; but its surface was not solid, and it would have been
+impossible to make a trip on foot over the ice-fields. This half-day's
+sail showed the good sailing qualities of the launch. During the
+return they beheld a curious incident. It was a monstrous bear chasing
+a seal. Fortunately the former was so busily occupied, that he did not
+see the launch, otherwise he would certainly have pursued it; he kept
+on watch near a crevasse in the ice-field, into which the seal had
+evidently plunged. He was awaiting his reappearance with all the
+patience of a hunter, or rather of a fisherman, for he was really
+fishing. He was silent, motionless, without any sign of life. Suddenly
+the surface of the water was agitated; the seal had come up to
+breathe. The bear crouched low upon the ice, and rounded his two paws
+about the crevasse. The next moment the seal appeared, with his head
+above water; but he had not time to withdraw it. The bear's paws, as
+if driven by a spring, were clashed together, strangling the animal
+with irresistible force and dragging it out of the water.</p>
+
+<p>It was but a brief struggle; the seal struggled for a few seconds, and
+was then suffocated on the breast of his adversary, who, dragging him
+away easily, in spite of his size, and springing lightly from one
+piece of ice to another, reached land and disappeared with his prey.</p>
+
+<a name="ill50"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 210">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="556">
+			<img src="images/210.jpg" alt="The seal struggled for a few seconds">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="556" align="center">
+			<small>"The seal struggled for a few seconds, and was then
+			suffocated on the breast of his adversary."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"A pleasant journey!" shouted Johnson; "that bear has got rather too
+many paws!"</p>
+
+<p>The launch soon reached the little anchorage Bell had made for her in
+the ice.</p>
+
+<p>Only four days were there before the time fixed for their departure.
+Hatteras hurried on the last preparations; he was in a hurry to leave
+New America, a land which was not his, and which he had not named; he
+did not feel at home.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 211">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="557">
+			<img src="images/211.jpg" alt="Packing the sledge">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>June 22d they began to carry to the sledge their camp-material, tent,
+and food. They carried only two hundred pounds of salt meat, three
+chests of preserved meat and vegetables, fifty pounds of pickles and
+lime-juice, five quarters of flour, packets of cresses and cochlearia
+from the doctor's garden; with the addition of two hundred pounds of
+powder, the instruments, arms, and personal baggage, the launch,
+Halkett-boat, and the weight of the sledge itself, the whole weighed
+fifteen hundred pounds,&mdash;a heavy load for four dogs, especially since,
+unlike the Esquimaux, who never travel more than four days in
+succession, they had none to replace them, and would have to work them
+every day. But the travellers determined to aid them when it was
+necessary, and they intended to proceed by easy stages; the distance
+from Victoria Bay to the Pole was three hundred and fifty-five miles
+at the outside, and going twelve miles a day they could make the
+journey in a month. Besides, when the land came to an end, the launch
+would enable them to finish the journey without fatigue for dogs or
+men.</p>
+
+<p>The latter were well, and in excellent condition. The winter, although
+severe, ended favorably enough. Each one had followed the doctor's
+advice, and escaped from the diseases common in these severe climates.
+In fact, they had grown a trifle thinner, which gave a great deal of
+pleasure to Clawbonny; but their bodies were inured to the rigors of
+that life, and these men were able to face the severest attacks of
+cold and hunger without succumbing. And then, too, they were going to
+the end of their journey, to the inaccessible Pole, after which their
+only thought would be of returning. The sympathy which bound together
+the five members of the expedition would aid their success in this
+bold trip, and no one doubted of their success.</p>
+
+<p>As a precaution, the doctor had urged his companions to prepare
+themselves for some time beforehand, and to "train" with much care.</p>
+
+<p>"My friends," he used to say, "I don't ask you to imitate the English
+racers, who lose eighteen pounds after two days' training, and
+twenty-five after five days, but we ought to do something to get into
+the best possible condition for a long journey. Now the first
+principle of training is to get rid of the fat on both horse and
+jockey, and this is done by means of purging, sweating, and violent
+exercise. These gentlemen know they will lose so much by medicine, and
+they arrive at their results with incredible accuracy; such a one who
+before training could not run a mile without being winded, can run
+twenty-five easily after it. There was a certain Townsend who ran a
+hundred miles in twelve hours without stopping."</p>
+
+<p>"A good result," answered Johnson; "and although we are not very fat,
+if we must get thinner yet&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no need of it, Johnson; but without exaggerating, it can't
+be denied that training produces good effects; it strengthens the
+bones, makes the muscles more elastic, improves the hearing and the
+sight; so let us not forget it."</p>
+
+<p>In short, whether in training or not, the travellers were ready June
+23d; it was Sunday, and the day was devoted to absolute rest.</p>
+
+<p>The time for departure drew near, and the inhabitants of Fort
+Providence could not see it approach without a certain emotion. It
+grieved them to leave this snow-hut which had served so well to
+protect them; Victoria Bay, this hospitable shore where they had spent
+the last days of the winter. Would they find these buildings standing
+when they returned? Would not the rays of the sun melt away its
+fragile walls?</p>
+
+<p>In a word, they had passed pleasant hours there. The doctor, at the
+evening meal, called up to his companions' memory touching
+reminiscences, and he did not forget to thank Heaven for its evident
+protection.</p>
+
+<p>At last the hour of sleeping came. Each one went to bed early, so as
+to be up betimes. Thus passed their last night at Fort Providence.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 212">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="559">
+			<img src="images/212.jpg" alt="Thus passed their last night at Fort Providence">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table><br>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap51"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XIX.</h3>
+<h4>THE JOURNEY NORTHWARD.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>At dawn the next day Hatteras gave the signal for departure. The dogs
+were harnessed to the sledge; since they were well fed and had
+thoroughly rested, after a comfortable winter there was no reason for
+their not being of great service during the summer. Hence they were
+not averse to being put into harness.</p>
+
+<p>After all, these Greenland dogs are kind beasts. Their wildness was
+partly gone; they had lost their likeness to the wolf, and had become
+more like Duke, the finished model of the canine race,&mdash;in a word,
+they were becoming civilized. Duke could certainly claim a share in
+their education; he had given them lessons and an example in good
+manners. In his quality of Englishman, and so punctilious in the
+matter of cant, he was a long time in making the acquaintance of the
+other dogs, who had not been introduced to him, and in fact he never
+used to speak to them; but after sharing the same dangers and
+privations, they gradually grew used to one another. Duke, who had a
+kind heart, made the first advances, and soon all the dogs were
+friends. The doctor used to pet the Greenland dogs, and Duke saw him
+do it without jealousy. The men were in equally good condition; if the
+dogs could draw well, the men could walk well.</p>
+
+<p>They left at six o'clock in the morning; it was a very pleasant day.
+After they had followed the line of the bay and passed Cape
+Washington, Hatteras gave the order to turn northward; by seven the
+travellers lost sight of the lighthouse and of Fort Providence in the
+south.</p>
+
+<a name="ill51"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 213">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="565">
+			<img src="images/213.jpg" alt="They left at six o'clock in the morning">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="565" align="center">
+			<small>"They left at six o'clock in the morning."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The journey promised well, much better than the expedition begun in
+the dead of winter in search of coal. Hatteras then left behind him,
+on board of the ship, mutiny and despair, without being certain of the
+object of his journey; he left a crew half dead with cold, he started
+with companions who were weakened by the miseries of an arctic winter;
+he, too, eager for the north, had to return to the south! Now, on the
+other hand, surrounded by vigorous, healthy friends, encouraged and
+aided in many ways, he was starting for the Pole, the object of his
+whole life! No man had ever been nearer acquiring this glory for
+himself and his country.</p>
+
+<p>Was he thinking of all this, which was so naturally inspired by his
+present position? The doctor liked to think so, and could hardly doubt
+it when he saw him so eager. Clawbonny rejoiced in what so pleased his
+friend; and since the reconciliation of the two captains, the two
+friends, he was the happiest of men; for hatred, envy, and rivalry
+were passions he had never felt. What would be the issue of this
+voyage he did not know; but, at any rate, it began well, and that was
+a good deal.</p>
+
+<p>The western shore of New America stretched out in a series of bays
+beyond Cape Washington; the travellers, to avoid this long curve,
+after crossing the first spurs of Mount Bell, turned northward over
+the upper plateaus. This was a great saving of time; Hatteras was
+anxious, unless prevented by seas or mountains, to make a straight
+line of three hundred and fifty miles to the Pole from Fort
+Providence.</p>
+
+<p>Their journey was easy; these lofty plains were covered with deep
+snow, over which the sledge passed easily, and the men in their
+snow-shoes walked easily and rapidly.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 214">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="557">
+			<img src="images/214.jpg" alt="The sledge passed easily">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The thermometer stood at 37&deg;. The weather was not absolutely settled;
+at one moment it was clear, the next cloudy: but neither cold nor
+showers could have stopped the eager party. They could be followed
+easily by the compass; the needle was more active as they receded from
+the magnetic pole; it is true that it turned to the opposite direction
+and pointed to the south, while they were walking northward; but this
+did not in any way embarrass them. Besides, the doctor devised a
+simple method of staking out the way and thereby avoiding perpetual
+reference to the compass; when once they had got their bearings by
+some object two or three miles to the north, they walked till they
+reached it, when they chose another, and so on. In this way they had a
+straight road.</p>
+
+<p>In the first two days they made twenty miles in twelve hours; the rest
+of the time was devoted to meals and rest. The tent was ample
+protection against the cold when they were sleeping. The temperature
+gradually rose. The snow melted away in some places, according to the
+shape of the ground, while in others it lay in large patches. Broad
+pools appeared here and there, often almost as large as lakes. They
+would walk in up to their waists very often; but they only laughed at
+it, and the doctor more than any.</p>
+
+<p>"Water has no right to wet us in this country," he used to say; "it
+ought to appear only as a solid, or a gas; as to its being liquid,
+it's absurd! Ice or vapor will do, but water won't!"</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 215">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="551">
+			<img src="images/215.jpg" alt="Broad pools appeared">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>They did not forget their shooting, for thereby they got fresh meat.
+So Altamont and Bell, without going very far away, scoured the
+neighboring ravines; they brought back ptarmigan, geese, and a few
+gray rabbits. Gradually these animals became very shy and hard to
+approach. Without Duke they would often have found it hard to get any
+game. Hatteras advised them not to go off farther than a mile, for not
+a day nor an hour was to be lost, and he could not count on more than
+three months of good weather.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, each one had to be at his post by the sledge whenever a hard
+spot, a narrow gorge, or steep inclines lay in the path; then each one
+helped pull or push. More than once everything had to be taken off;
+and this even did not fully protect against shocks and damage, which
+Bell repaired as well as he could.</p>
+
+<p>The third day, Wednesday, June 26th, they came across a vast lake,
+still frozen by reason of its being sheltered from the sun; the ice
+was even strong enough to bear both men and sledge. It was a solid
+mirror which no arctic summers had melted, as was shown by the fact
+that its borders were surrounded by a dry snow, of which the lower
+layers evidently belonged to previous years.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 216">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="562">
+			<img src="images/216.jpg" alt="A lake still frozen">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>From this moment the land grew lower, whence the doctor concluded that
+it did not extend very far to the north. Besides, it was very likely
+that New America was merely an island, and did not extend to the Pole.
+The ground grew more level; in the west a few low hills could be seen
+in the distance, covered with a bluish mist.</p>
+
+<p>So far they had experienced no hardships; they had suffered from
+nothing except the reflection of the sun's rays upon the snow, which
+could easily give them snow-blindness. At any other time they would
+have travelled by night to avoid this inconvenience, but then there
+was no night. The snow was fortunately melting away, and it was much
+less brilliant when it was about turning into water.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 217">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="559">
+			<img src="images/217.jpg" alt="Sometimes bears appeared">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>June 28th the temperature arose to 45&deg;; this was accompanied with
+heavy rain, which the travellers endured stoically, even with
+pleasure, for it hastened the disappearance of the snow. They had to
+put on their deer-skin moccasins, and change the runners of the
+sledge. Their journey was delayed, but still they were advancing
+without any serious obstacles. At times the doctor would pick up
+rounded or flat stones like pebbles worn smooth by the waves, and then
+he thought he was near the Polar Sea; but yet the plain stretched on
+out of sight. There was no trace of man, no hut, no cairn nor
+Esquimaux snow-house; they were evidently the first to set foot in
+this new land. The Greenlanders never had gone so far, and yet this
+country offered plenty of game for the support of that half-starved
+people. Sometimes bears appeared in the distance, but they showed no
+signs of attacking; afar off were herds of musk-oxen and reindeer. The
+doctor would have liked to catch some of the latter to harness to the
+sledge; but they were timid, and not to be caught alive.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 218">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="566">
+			<img src="images/218.jpg" alt="Accompanied with heavy rain">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The 29th, Bell shot a fox, and Altamont was lucky enough to bring down
+a medium-sized musk-ox, after giving his companions a high idea of his
+bravery and skill; he was indeed a remarkable hunter, and so much
+admired by the doctor. The ox was cut out, and gave plenty of
+excellent meat. These lucky supplies were always well received; the
+least greedy could not restrain their joy at the sight of the meat.
+The doctor laughed at himself when he caught himself admiring these
+huge joints.</p>
+
+<a name="ill52"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 219">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="560">
+			<img src="images/219.jpg" alt="Altamont shot a medium-sized musk-ox">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="560" align="center">
+			<small>"On the 29th Bell shot a fox, and Altamont a
+			medium-sized musk-ox."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Let us not be afraid to eat it," he used to say; "a good dinner is a
+good thing in these expeditions."</p>
+
+<p>"Especially," said Johnson, "when it depends on a better or worse
+shot."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Johnson," replied the doctor; "one thinks less of
+one's food when one gets a regular supply from the kitchen."</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 220">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="558">
+			<img src="images/220.jpg" alt="The country became unexpectedly rugged">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The 30th, the country became unexpectedly rugged, as if it had been
+upheaved by some volcanic commotion; the cones and peaks increased
+indefinitely in number, and were very high. A southeast breeze began
+to blow with violence, and soon became a real hurricane. It rushed
+across the snow-covered rocks, among the ice-mountains, which,
+although on the firm land, took the form of hummocks and icebergs;
+their presence on these lofty plateaus could not be explained even by
+the doctor, who had an explanation for almost everything. Warm, damp
+weather succeeded the tempest; it was a genuine thaw; on all sides
+resounded the cracking of the ice amid the roar of the avalanches.</p>
+
+<a name="ill53"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 221">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="565">
+			<img src="images/221.jpg" alt="The masses of ice took the forms of hummocks and icebergs">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="565" align="center">
+			<small>"The masses of ice took the forms of hummocks and icebergs."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table><br>
+<br>
+<a name="ill54"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 222">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="549">
+			<img src="images/222.jpg" alt="The cracking of the ice">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="549" align="center">
+			<small>"On all sides resounded the cracking of the ice amid
+			the roar of the avalanches."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The travellers carefully avoided the base of these hills; they even
+took care not to talk aloud, for the sound of the voice could shake
+the air and cause accident. They were witnesses of frequent and
+terrible avalanches which they could not have foreseen. In fact, the
+main peculiarity of polar avalanches is their terrible swiftness;
+therein they differ from those of Switzerland and Norway, where they
+form a ball, of small size at first, and then, by adding to themselves
+the snow and rocks in its passage, it falls with increasing swiftness,
+destroys forests and villages, but taking an appreciable time in its
+course. Now, it is otherwise in the countries where arctic cold rages;
+the fall of the block of ice is unexpected and startling; its fall is
+almost instantaneous, and any one who saw it from beneath would be
+certainly crushed by it; the cannon-ball is not swifter, nor lightning
+quicker; it starts, falls, and crashes down in a single moment with
+the dreadful roar of thunder, and with dull echoes.</p>
+
+<p>So the amazed spectators see wonderful changes in the appearance of
+the country; the mountain becomes a plain under the action of a sudden
+thaw; when the rain has filtered into the fissures of the great blocks
+and freezes in a single night, it breaks everything by its
+irresistible expansion, which is more powerful in forming ice than in
+forming vapor: the phenomenon takes place with terrible swiftness.</p>
+
+<p>No catastrophe, fortunately, threatened the sledge and its drivers;
+the proper precautions were taken, and every danger avoided. Besides,
+this rugged, icy country was not of great extent, and three days
+later, July 3d, the travellers were on smoother ground. But their eyes
+were surprised by a new phenomenon, which has for a long time claimed
+the attention of the scientific men of the two worlds. It was this:
+the party followed a line of hills not more than fifty feet high,
+which appeared to run on several miles, and their eastern side was
+covered with red snow.</p>
+
+<p>The surprise and even the sort of alarm which the sight of this
+crimson curtain gave them may be easily imagined. The doctor hastened,
+if not to reassure, at least to instruct, his companions; he was
+familiar with this red snow and the chemical analysis made of it by
+Wollaston, Candolle, Bäuer. He told them this red snow was not found
+in the arctic regions alone, but in Switzerland in the middle of the
+Alps; De Saussure collected a large quantity on the Breven in 1760;
+and since then Captains Ross, Sabine, and others had brought some back
+from their arctic journeys.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 223">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="556">
+			<img src="images/223.jpg" alt="This crimson curtain">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="note35"></a>
+<p>Altamont asked the doctor about the nature of this extraordinary
+substance. He was told that its color came simply from the presence of
+organic corpuscles. For a long time it was a question whether these
+corpuscles were animal or vegetable; but it was soon ascertained that
+they belonged to the family of microscopic mushrooms, of the genus
+<i>Uredo</i>, which Bäuer proposed naming <i>Uredo vivalis</i>.<a href="#not35"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a></p>
+
+<p>Then the doctor, prying into the snow with his cane, showed his
+companions that the scarlet layer was only nine feet deep, and he bade
+them calculate how many of these mushrooms there might be on a space
+of many miles, when scientific men estimated forty-three thousand in a
+square centimetre.</p>
+
+<p>This coloring probably ran back to a remote period, for the mushrooms
+were not decomposed by either evaporation or the melting of the snow,
+nor was their color altered.</p>
+
+<p>The phenomenon, although explained, was no less strange. Red is a rare
+color in nature; the reflection of the sun's rays on this crimson
+surface produced strange effects; it gave the surrounding objects, men
+and animals, a brilliant appearance, as if they were lighted by an
+inward flame; and when the snow was melting, streams of blood seemed
+to be flowing beneath the travellers' feet.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, who had not been able to examine this substance when he
+saw it on crimson cliffs from Baffin's Bay, here examined it at his
+ease, and gathered several bottlefuls of it.</p>
+
+<p>This red ground, the "Field of Blood," as he called it, took three
+hours' walk to pass over, and then the country resumed its habitual
+appearance.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap52"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XX.</h3>
+<h4>FOOTPRINTS ON THE SNOW.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>July 4th a dense fog prevailed. They were only able with the greatest
+difficulty to keep a straight path; they had to consult the compass
+every moment. Fortunately there was no accident in the darkness,
+except that Bell lost his snow-shoes, which were broken against a
+projecting rock.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, really," said Johnson, "I thought, after seeing the Mersey and
+the Thames, that I knew all about fogs, but I see I was mistaken."</p>
+
+<p>"We ought," answered Bell, "to light torches as is done at London and
+Liverpool."</p>
+
+<a name="ill55"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 224">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="565">
+			<img src="images/224.jpg" alt="'We ought,' answered Bell, 'to light torches'">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="565" align="center">
+			<small>"'We ought,' answered Bell, 'to light torches, as is
+			done at London and Liverpool.'"</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Why not?" asked the doctor; "that's a good idea; it wouldn't light up
+the road much, but we could see the guide, and follow him more
+easily."</p>
+
+<p>"But what shall we do for torches?"</p>
+
+<p>"By lighting tow dipped in alcohol, and fastening to the end of
+walking-sticks."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" said Johnson; "and we shall soon have it ready."</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of an hour later the little band was walking along with
+torches faintly lighting up the general gloom.</p>
+
+<p>But if they went straighter, they did not go quicker, and the fog
+lasted till July 6th; the earth being cold then, a blast of north-wind
+carried away all the mist as if it had been rags. Soon the doctor took
+an observation, and ascertained that meanwhile they had not made eight
+miles a day.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 225">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="562">
+			<img src="images/225.jpg" alt="The fog lasted till July 6th">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The 6th, they made an effort to make up for lost time, and they set
+out early. Altamont and Bell were ahead, choosing the way and looking
+out for game. Duke was with them. The weather, with its surprising
+fickleness, had become very clear and dry; and although the guides
+were two miles from the sledge, the doctor did not miss one of their
+movements. He was consequently very much startled to see them stop
+suddenly, and remain in a position of surprise; they seemed to be
+gazing into the distance, as if scanning the horizon. Then they bent
+down to the ground and seemed to be examining it closely, and they
+arose in evident amazement. Bell seemed to wish to push on, but
+Altamont held him back.</p>
+
+<p>"What can they be doing?" asked the doctor of Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"I know no more than you, Doctor; I don't understand their gestures."</p>
+
+<p>"They have found the track of some animals," answered Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"That's not it," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because Duke would bark."</p>
+
+<p>"Still, they've seen marks of some sort."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go on," said Hatteras; "we shall soon know."</p>
+
+<p>Johnson urged on the dogs, who quickened their pace.</p>
+
+<p>In twenty minutes the five were together, and Hatteras, the doctor,
+and Johnson were as much surprised as Bell and Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>There were in the snow indubitable traces of men, as fresh as if they
+had just been made.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 226">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="563">
+			<img src="images/226.jpg" alt="Indubitable traces of men">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"They are Esquimaux," said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the doctor, "there is no doubt of that!"</p>
+
+<p>"You think so?" said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Without any doubt."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and this mark?" continued Altamont, pointing to another print,
+which was often repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"That one?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think it was made by an Esquimau?"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor examined it carefully, and was stupefied. The print of a
+European shoe, with nails, sole, and heel, was clearly stamped in the
+snow. There could be no further doubt; a man, a stranger, had been
+there.</p>
+
+<p>"Europeans here!" cried Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently," said Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"And still," said the doctor, "it is so unlikely, that we ought to
+look twice before being sure."</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon he looked twice, three times, at the print, and he was
+obliged to acknowledge its extraordinary origin.</p>
+
+<p>De Foe's hero was not more amazed when he saw the footprint on the
+sand of his island; but if he was afraid, Hatteras was simply angry. A
+European so near the Pole!</p>
+
+<p>They pushed on to examine the footprints; for a quarter of a mile they
+were continually repeated, mingled with marks of moccasins; then they
+turned to the west. When they had reached this point they consulted as
+to whether they should follow them any farther.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Hatteras. "Let us go on&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He was interrupted by an exclamation of the doctor, who had just
+picked up on the snow an object even more convincing, and of the
+origin of which there could be no doubt. It was the object-glass of a
+pocket telescope.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," he said, "we can't doubt that there is a stranger here&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Forward!" cried Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>He uttered this word so sharply that each one obeyed, and the sledge
+resumed its monotonous progress.</p>
+
+<p>They all scanned the horizon attentively, except Hatteras, who was
+filled with wrath and did not care to see anything. Still, since they
+ran the risk of coming across a band of travellers, they had to take
+precautions; it was very disappointing to see any one ahead of them on
+the route. The doctor, although not as angry as Hatteras, was somewhat
+vexed, in spite of his usual philosophy. Altamont seemed equally
+annoyed; Johnson and Bell muttered threatening words between their
+teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," said the doctor, "let us take heart against our bad fortune."</p>
+
+<p>"We must confess," said Johnson, without being heard by Altamont,
+"that if we find the place taken, it would disgust us with journeying
+to the Pole."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet," answered Bell, "there is no possibility of doubting&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No," retorted the doctor; "I turn it all over in vain, and say it is
+improbable, impossible; I have to give it up. This shoe was not
+pressed into the snow without being at the end of a leg, and without
+the leg being attached to a human body. I could forgive Esquimaux, but
+a European!"</p>
+
+<p>"The fact is," answered Johnson, "that if we are going to find all the
+rooms taken in the hotel of the end of the world, it would be
+annoying."</p>
+
+<p>"Very annoying," said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we shall see," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>And they pushed on. The day ended without any new fact to indicate the
+presence of strangers in this part of New America, and they at last
+encamped for the evening.</p>
+
+<p>A rather strong wind from the south had sprung up, and obliged them to
+seek a secure shelter for their tent in the bottom of a ravine. The
+sky was threatening; long clouds passed rapidly through the air; they
+passed near the ground, and so quickly that the eye could hardly
+follow them. At times some of the mist touched the ground, and the
+tent resisted with difficulty the violence of the hurricane.</p>
+
+<a name="ill56"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 227">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="563">
+			<img src="images/227.jpg" alt="The hut was pitched in a ravine for shelter">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="563" align="center">
+			<small>The hut was pitched in a ravine for shelter.</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"It's going to be a nasty night," said Johnson, after supper.</p>
+
+<p>"It won't be cold, but stormy," answered the doctor; "let us take
+precautions, and make the tent firm with large stones."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Doctor; if the wind should carry away the canvas,
+Heaven alone knows where we should find it again."</p>
+
+<p>Hence they took every precaution against such a danger, and the
+wearied travellers lay down to sleep. But they found it impossible.
+The tempest was loose, and hastened northward with incomparable
+violence; the clouds were whirling about like steam which has just
+escaped from a boiler; the last avalanches, under the force of the
+hurricane, fell into the ravines, and their dull echoes were
+distinctly heard; the air seemed to be struggling with the water, and
+fire alone was absent from this contest of the elements.</p>
+
+<p>Amid the general tumult their ears distinguished separate sounds, not
+the crash of heavy falling bodies, but the distinct cracking of bodies
+breaking; a clear snap was frequently heard, like breaking steel, amid
+the roar of the tempest. These last sounds were evidently avalanches
+torn off by the gusts, but the doctor could not explain the others. In
+the few moments of anxious silence, when the hurricane seemed to be
+taking breath in order to blow with greater violence, the travellers
+exchanged their suppositions.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a sound of crashing," said the doctor, "as if icebergs and
+ice-fields were being blown against one another."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Altamont; "one would say the whole crust of the globe
+was falling in. Say, did you hear that?"</p>
+
+<p>"If we were near the sea," the doctor went on, "I should think it was
+ice breaking."</p>
+
+<p>"In fact," said Johnson, "there is no other explanation possible."</p>
+
+<p>"Can we have reached the coast?" asked Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"It's not impossible," answered the doctor. "Hold on," he said, after
+a very distinct sound; "shouldn't you say that was the crashing of
+ice? We may be very near the ocean."</p>
+
+<p>"If it is," continued Hatteras, "I should not be afraid to go across
+the ice-fields."</p>
+
+<p>"O," said the doctor, "they must be broken by such a tempest! We shall
+see to-morrow. However that may be, if any men have to travel in such
+a night as this, I pity them."</p>
+
+<p>The hurricane raged ten hours without cessation, and no one of those
+in the tent had a moment's sleep; the night passed in profound
+uneasiness. In fact, under such circumstances, every new incident, a
+tempest, an avalanche, might bring serious consequences. The doctor
+would gladly have gone out to reconnoitre, but how could he with such
+a wind raging?</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately the hurricane grew less violent early the next day; they
+could leave the tent which had resisted so sturdily. The doctor,
+Hatteras, and Johnson went to a hill about three hundred feet high,
+which they ascended without difficulty. Their eyes beheld an entirely
+altered country, composed of bare rocks, sharp ridges entirely clear
+of ice. It was summer succeeding winter, which had been driven away by
+the tempest; the snow had been blown away by the wind before it could
+melt, and the barren soil reappeared.</p>
+
+<a name="ill57"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 228">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="563">
+			<img src="images/228.jpg" alt="They climbed a hill which commanded a wide view">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="563" align="center">
+			<small>"They climbed a hill which commanded a wide view."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>But Hatteras's glances were all turned towards the north, where the
+horizon appeared to be hidden by dark mist.</p>
+
+<p>"That may be the effect of the ocean," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"You are right," said Hatteras; "the sea must be there."</p>
+
+<p>"That's what we call the blink of the water," said Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let us start," said Hatteras, "and push on to this new ocean."</p>
+
+<p>"That rejoices my heart," said Clawbonny to the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," was the enthusiastic answer. "Soon we shall have reached
+the Pole! and doesn't the prospect delight you, too, Doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"It does. I am always happy, and especially about the happiness of
+others!"</p>
+
+<p>The three Englishmen returned to the ravine; the sledge was made
+ready, and they left the camp and resumed their march. Each one
+dreaded finding new tracks, but all the rest of the way they saw no
+trace of any human being. Three hours later they reached the coast.</p>
+
+<p>"The sea! the sea!" they all shouted.</p>
+
+<p>"And the open sea!" cried the captain.</p>
+
+<a name="ill58"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 229">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="568">
+			<img src="images/229.jpg" alt="Three hours later they reached the coast">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="568" align="center">
+			<small>"Three hours later they reached the coast. 'The sea!
+			the sea!' they all shouted."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>It was ten o'clock in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, the hurricane had cleared up the polar basin; the shattered
+ice was floating away in every direction; the largest pieces, forming
+icebergs, had just weighed anchor and were sailing on the open sea.
+The wind had made a harsh attack upon the field. Fragments of ice
+covered the surrounding rocks. The little which was left of the
+ice-field seemed very soft; on the rocks were large pieces of
+sea-weed. The ocean stretched beyond the line of vision, with no
+island or new land peering above the horizon.</p>
+
+<p>In the east and west were two capes gently sloping to the water; at
+their end the sea was breaking, and the wind was carrying a slight
+foam. The land of New America thus died away in the Polar Ocean,
+quietly and gently. It rounded into an open bay, with roadstead
+enclosed by the two promontories. In the middle a rock made a little
+natural harbor, sheltered against three points of the compass; it ran
+back into the land in the broad bed of a stream, through which ran
+down the melted snows of winter, now forming a perfect torrent.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras, after noticing the outline of the coast, resolved to make
+the preparations for departure that very day, to launch the boat, to
+put the unloaded sledge on board for future excursions. That took all
+day; then the tent was raised, and after a comfortable meal work
+began. Meanwhile the doctor took out his instruments to take an
+observation and determine the position of a part of the bay. Hatteras
+hurried on the work; he was anxious to start; he wanted to leave the
+land, and to be in advance in case any others should reach the sea.</p>
+
+<p>At five o'clock in the evening Johnson and Bell had nothing to do but
+to fold their arms. The launch was rocking gently in her little
+harbor, with her mast set, her jib lowered, and her foresail in the
+brails; the provisions and most of the things on the sledge had been
+put on board; only the tent and a little of the camping material
+remained to be put on board the next day. The doctor found all these
+preparations complete on his return. When he saw the launch quietly
+sheltered from the wind, it occurred to him to give a name to the
+little harbor, and he proposed that of Altamont. This proposition was
+unanimously agreed to. So it was named Altamont Harbor.</p>
+
+<a name="ill59"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 230">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="557">
+			<img src="images/230.jpg" alt="The launch was rocking gently in her little harbor">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="557" align="center">
+			<small>"The launch was rocking gently in her little harbor."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="note36"></a>
+<p>According to the doctor's calculations, it lay in latitude 87&deg; 5', and
+longitude 118&deg; 35' E. of Greenwich;<a href="#not36"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> that is to say, less than three
+degrees from the Pole. The band had gone more than two hundred miles
+from Victoria Bay to Altamont Harbor.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap53"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXI.</h3>
+<h4>THE OPEN SEA.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The next morning Johnson and Bell set about carrying on board the
+camping material. At eight o'clock all the preparations for departure
+were complete. At the moment of starting the doctor's thoughts
+returned to the footprints they had seen. Were these men trying to
+gain the North? Had they any means of crossing the Polar Sea! Should
+they meet them again? For three days they had come across no trace of
+the travellers, and certainly, whoever they were, they could not have
+reached Altamont Harbor. That was a place which they were the first to
+set foot in. But the doctor, who was harassed by his thoughts, wanted
+to take a last view of the country, and he ascended a little hill
+about a hundred feet high, whence he had a distant view to the south.</p>
+
+<p>When he had reached the top, he put his glass to his eyes. Great was
+his surprise when he found he could not see anything, either at a
+distance on the plains, or within a few feet of him. This seemed very
+odd; he made another examination, and at last he looked at the
+glass,&mdash;the object-glass was missing.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 231">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="554">
+			<img src="images/231.jpg" alt="He put the glass to his eyes">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"The object-glass!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>The sudden revelation may be imagined; he uttered a cry so loud as to
+be heard by his companions, and they were much astonished at seeing
+him running down the hill.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what's the matter now?" asked Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was out of breath, and unable to speak. At length he
+managed to bring out,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"The footprints!&mdash;the expedition!&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what?" said Hatteras; "are they here?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" resumed the doctor,&mdash;"the object-glass, mine!"</p>
+
+<p>And he showed his own glass.</p>
+
+<p>"O, ho!" cried the American, "so you lost&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!"</p>
+
+<p>"But then the footprints&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Our own!" cried the doctor. "We lost our way in the fog! We went
+around in a circle, and came across our own footprints!"</p>
+
+<p>"But the print of the shoes?" asked Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"Bell's, you know, who walked all day in the snow after breaking his
+snow-shoes."</p>
+
+<p>"That's true," said Bell.</p>
+
+<p>Their mistake was so clear, that they all, except Hatteras, burst out
+laughing, and he was none the less pleased at the discovery.</p>
+
+<p>"We were stupid enough," said the doctor, when they had stopped
+laughing. What good guesses we made! Strangers up here! Really, we
+ought to think before speaking. Well, since we are easy on this point,
+we can't do better than start."</p>
+
+<p>"Forward!" said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of an hour later each one had taken his place on board of
+the launch, which sailed out of Altamont Harbor under mainsail and
+jib. This voyage began Wednesday, July 10th; they were then very near
+the Pole, exactly one hundred and seventy-five miles from it. However
+small the land might be at that point of the globe, the voyage would
+certainly be a short one. The wind was light, but fair. The
+thermometer stood at 50&deg;; it was really warm.</p>
+
+<p>The launch had not been injured by the journey on the sledge; it was
+in perfect order, and sailed easily. Johnson was at the helm; the
+doctor, Bell, and Altamont were lying as best they might among the
+load, partly on deck, partly below.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras stood forward, with his eyes turned to the mysterious point,
+which attracted him with an irresistible power, as the magnetic pole
+attracts the needle. If there should be any land, he wanted to be the
+first to see it. This honor really belonged to him. He noticed,
+besides, that the surface of the Polar Sea was covered with short
+waves, like those of land locked seas. This he considered a proof of
+the nearness of the opposite shore, and the doctor shared his opinion.</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras's desire to find land at the North Pole is perfectly
+comprehensible. His disappointment would have been great if the
+uncertain sea covered the place where he wanted to find a piece of
+land, no matter how small! In fact, how could he give a special name
+to an uncertain portion of the sea? How plant the flag of his country
+among the waves? How take possession, in the name of her Gracious
+Majesty, of the liquid element?</p>
+
+<p>So Hatteras, compass in hand, gazed steadily at the north. There was
+nothing that he could see between him and the horizon, where the line
+of the blue water met the blue sky. A few floating icebergs seemed to
+be leaving the way free for these bold sailors. The appearance of this
+region was singularly strange. Was this impression simply the result
+of the nervous excitement of the travellers? It is hard to say. Still,
+the doctor in his journal has described the singular appearance of the
+ocean; he spoke of it as Penny did, according to whom these countries
+present an appearance "offering the most striking contrast of a sea
+filled with millions of living creatures."</p>
+
+<p>The sea, with its various colors, appeared strangely transparent, and
+endowed with a wonderful dispersive quality, as if it had been made
+with carburet of sulphur. This clearness let them see down into
+immeasurable depths; it seemed as if the sea were lit up like a large
+aquarium; probably some electric phenomenon at the bottom of the sea
+lit it up. So the launch seemed hung in a bottomless abyss.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 232">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="550">
+			<img src="images/232.jpg" alt="The birds were flying in large flocks">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>On the surface of the water the birds were flying in large flocks,
+like thick clouds big with a storm. Aquatic birds of all sorts were
+there, from the albatross which is common to the south, to the penguin
+of the arctic seas, but of enormous size. Their cries were deafening.
+In considering them the doctor found his knowledge of natural history
+too scanty; many of the names escaped him, and he found himself bowing
+his head when their wings beat the air.</p>
+
+<a name="ill60"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 233">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="536">
+			<img src="images/233.jpg" alt="Aquatic birds of all sorts were there">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="536" align="center">
+			<small>"Aquatic birds of all sorts were there."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Some of these large birds measured twenty feet from tip to tip; they
+covered the whole launch with their expanded wings; and there were
+legions of these birds, of which the names had never appeared in the
+London "Index Ornithologus." The doctor was dejected and stupefied at
+finding his science so faulty. Then, when his glance fell from the
+wonders of the air to the calm surface of the ocean, he saw no less
+astonishing productions of the animal kingdom, among others, medusæ
+thirty feet broad; they served as food for the other fish, and they
+floated like islands amid the sea-weed. What a difference from the
+microscopic medusæ observed in the seas of Greenland by Scoresby, and
+of which that explorer estimated the number at twenty-three trillions
+eight hundred and ninety-eight billions of millions in a space of two
+square miles!</p>
+
+<p>Then the eye glancing down into the transparent water, the sight was
+equally strange, so full was it of fishes; sometimes the animals were
+swimming about below, and the eye saw them gradually disappearing, and
+fading away like spectres; then they would leave the lower layers and
+rise to the surface. The monsters seemed in no way alarmed at the
+presence of the launch; they even passed near it, rubbing their fins
+against it; this, which would have alarmed whalers, did not disturb
+these men, and yet the sea-monsters were very large.</p>
+
+<a name="ill61"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 234">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="560">
+			<img src="images/234.jpg" alt="Then the eye glancing down into the transparent water, the sight was equally strange">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="560" align="center">
+			<small>"Then the eye glancing down into the transparent water,
+			the sight was equally strange."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Young sea-calves played about them; the sword-fish, with its long,
+narrow, conical sword, with which it cleaves the ice, was chasing the
+more timid cetacea; numberless spouting whales were clearly to be
+heard. The sword-caper, with its delicate tail and large caudal fins,
+swam with incomprehensible quickness, feeding on smaller animals, such
+as the cod, as swift as itself; while the white whale, which is more
+inactive, swallowed peacefully the tranquil, lazy mollusks.</p>
+
+<p>Farther down were Greenland anamaks, long and dark; huge sperm-whales,
+swimming in the midst of ambergris, in which took place thomeric
+battles that reddened the ocean for many miles around; the great
+Labrador tegusik. Sharp-backed dolphins, the whole family of seals and
+walruses, sea-dogs, horses and bears, lions and elephants, seemed to
+be feeding on the rich pastures; and the doctor admired the numberless
+animals, as he would have done the crustacea in the crystal basins of
+the zoölogical garden.</p>
+
+<p>What beauty, variety, and power in nature! How strange and wonderful
+everything seemed in the polar regions!</p>
+
+<p>The air acquired an unnatural purity; one would have said it was full
+of oxygen; the explorers breathed with delight this air, which filled
+them with fresher life; without taking account of the result, they
+were, so to speak, exposed to a real consuming fire, of which one can
+give no idea, not even a feeble one. Their emotions, their breathing
+and digestion, were endowed with superhuman energy; their ideas became
+more excited; they lived a whole day in an hour.</p>
+
+<p>Through all these wonders the launch pushed on before a moderate
+breeze, occasionally feeling the air moved by the albatrosses' wings.</p>
+
+<p>Towards evening, the coast of New America disappeared beneath the
+horizon. In the temperate zones, as well as at the equator, night
+falls; but here the sun simply described a circle parallel to the line
+of the horizon. The launch, bathed in its oblique rays, could not lose
+sight of it.</p>
+
+<p>The animate beings of these regions seemed to know the approach of
+evening as truly as if the sun had set; birds, fish, cetacea, all
+disappeared. Whither? To the depths of the ocean? Who could say? But
+soon total silence succeeded to their cries, and the sound of their
+passage through the water; the sea grew calmer and calmer, and night
+retained its gentle peace even beneath the glowing sun.</p>
+
+<p>Since leaving Altamont Harbor the launch had made one degree to the
+north; the next day nothing appeared on the horizon, neither
+projecting peaks nor those vague signs by which sailors detect their
+nearness to land.</p>
+
+<p>The wind was good, but not strong, the sea not high; the birds and
+fish came as thick as the day before; the doctor, leaning over the
+gunwale, could see the cetacea rising slowly to the surface; a few
+icebergs and scattered pieces of ice alone broke the monotony of the
+ocean.</p>
+
+<p>But the ice grew rarer, and was not enough to interfere with the boat.
+It is to be remembered that the launch was then ten degrees above the
+pole of cold; and as to the parallels of temperature, they might as
+well have been ten degrees to the other side. There was nothing
+surprising in the sea being open at this epoch, as it must have been
+at Disco Island in Baffin's Bay. So a sailing vessel would have plenty
+of sailing room in the summer months.</p>
+
+<p>This observation had a great practical importance; in fact, if whalers
+can ever get to the polar basin, either by the seas of North America
+or those of the north of Asia, they are sure of getting full cargoes,
+for this part of the ocean seems to be the universal fishing-pond, the
+general reservoir of whales, seals, and all marine animals. At noon
+the line of the horizon was still unbroken; the doctor began to doubt
+of the existence of a continent in so high latitudes.</p>
+
+<p>Still, as he reflected, he was compelled to believe in the existence
+of an arctic continent; in fact, at the creation of the world, after
+the cooling of the terrestrial crust, the waters formed by the
+condensation of the atmospheric vapor were compelled to obey the
+centrifugal force, to fly to the equator and leave the motionless
+extremities of the globe. Hence the necessary emersion of the
+countries near the Pole. The doctor considered this reasoning very
+just. And so it seemed to Hatteras.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 235">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="551">
+			<img src="images/235.jpg" alt="The captain still tried to pierce the mists of the horizon">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Hence the captain still tried to pierce the mists of the horizon. His
+glass never left his eyes. In the color of the water, the shape of the
+waves, the direction of the wind, he tried to find traces of
+neighboring land. His head was bent forward, and even one who did not
+know his thoughts would have admired, so full was his attitude of
+energetic desire and anxious interrogation.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap54"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXII.</h3>
+<h4>THE APPROACH TO THE POLE.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>The time flew by in this uncertainty. Nothing appeared on the sharply
+defined circle of the sea; nothing was to be seen save sky and
+sea,&mdash;not one of those floating land-plants which rejoiced the heart
+of Christopher Columbus as he was about to discover America. Hatteras
+was still gazing. At length, at about six o'clock in the evening, a
+shapeless vapor appeared at a little height above the level of the
+sea; it looked like a puff of smoke; the sky was perfectly cold, so
+this vapor was no cloud; it would keep appearing and disappearing, as
+if it were in commotion. Hatteras was the first to detect this
+phenomenon; he examined it with his glass for a whole hour.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, some sure sign apparently occurred to him, for he stretched
+out his arms to the horizon and cried in a loud voice,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Land, ho!"</p>
+
+<p>At these words each one sprang to his feet as if moved by electricity.
+A sort of smoke was clearly rising above the sea.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 236">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="557">
+			<img src="images/236.jpg" alt="Each one sprang to his feet">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"I see it," cried the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! certainly!&mdash;yes!" said Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a cloud," said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"It's land!" answered Hatteras, as if perfectly convinced.</p>
+
+<p>But, as often happens with objects that are indistinct in the
+distance, the point they had been looking at seemed to have
+disappeared. At length they found it again, and the doctor even
+fancied that he could see a swift light twenty or twenty-five miles to
+the north.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a volcano!" he cried.</p>
+
+<a name="ill62"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 237">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="559">
+			<img src="images/237.jpg" alt="'It's a volcano!' he cried.">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="559" align="center">
+			<small>"'It's a volcano!' he cried."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"A volcano?" said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Without doubt."</p>
+
+<p>"At this high latitude?"</p>
+
+<p>"And why not?" continued the doctor; "isn't Iceland a volcanic land,
+so to speak, made of volcanoes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Iceland," said the American, "but so near the Pole!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, didn't Commodore James Ross find in the Southern Continent two
+active volcanoes, Erebus and Terror by name, in longitude 170&deg; and
+latitude 78&deg;? Why then shouldn't there be volcanoes at the North
+Pole?"</p>
+
+<p>"It may be so, after all," answered Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," cried the doctor, "I see it clearly! It is a volcano."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Hatteras, "let us sail straight towards it."</p>
+
+<p>"The wind is changing," said Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"Haul on the fore-sheet, and bring her nearer the wind."</p>
+
+<p>But this manoeuvre only turned the launch away from the point they had
+been gazing at, and even with their closest examination they could not
+find it again. Still, they could not doubt that they were nearing
+land. They had seen, if they had not reached, the object of their
+voyage, and within twenty-four hours they would set foot on this
+unknown shore. Providence, after letting them get so near, would not
+drive them back at the last moment.</p>
+
+<p>Still, no one manifested the joy which might have been expected under
+the circumstances; each one wondered in silence what this polar land
+might be. The animals seemed to shun it; at evening the birds, instead
+of seeking refuge there, flew with all speed to the south. Could not a
+single gull or ptarmigan find a resting-place there? Even the fish,
+the large cetacea, avoided that coast. Whence came this repugnance,
+which was shared by all the animals they saw, unless from terror?</p>
+
+<p>The sailors experienced the same feeling; they gave way to the
+feelings inspired by the situation, and gradually each one felt his
+eyelids grow heavy. It was Hatteras's watch. He took the tiller; the
+doctor, Altamont, Johnson, and Bell fell asleep, stretched on the
+benches, and soon were dreaming soundly. Hatteras struggled against
+his sleepiness; he wished to lose not a moment; but the gentle motion
+of the launch rocked him, in spite of himself, into a gentle sleep.</p>
+
+<p>The boat made hardly any headway; the wind did not keep her sails
+full. Far off in the west a few icebergs were reflecting the sun's
+rays, and glowing brightly in the midst of the ocean.</p>
+<a name="note37"></a>
+<p>Hatteras began to dream. He recalled his whole life, with the
+incalculable speed of dreams; he went through the winter again, the
+scenes at Victoria Bay, Fort Providence, Doctor's House, the finding
+the American beneath the snow. Here remoter incidents came up before
+him; he dreamed of the burning of the <i>Forward</i>, of his treacherous
+companions who had abandoned him. What had become of them? He thought
+of Shandon, Wall, and the brutal Pen.<a href="#not37"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> Where were they now? Had they
+succeeded in reaching Baffin's Bay across the ice? Then he went
+further back, to his departure from England, to his previous voyages,
+his failures and misfortunes. Then he forgot his present situation,
+his success so near at hand, his hopes half realized. His dreams
+carried him from joy to agony. So it went on for two hours; then his
+thoughts changed; he began to think of the Pole, and he saw himself at
+last setting foot on this English continent, and unfolding the flag of
+the United Kingdom. While he was dozing in this way a huge, dark cloud
+was climbing across the sky, throwing a deep shadow over the sea.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 238">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="556">
+			<img src="images/238.jpg" alt="Hatteras began to dream">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>It is difficult to imagine the great speed with which hurricanes arise
+in the arctic seas. The vapors which rise under the equator are
+condensed above the great glaciers of the North, and large masses of
+air are needed to take their place. This can explain the severity of
+arctic storms.</p>
+
+<p>At the first shock of the wind the captain and his friends awoke from
+their sleep, ready to manage the launch. The waves were high and
+steep. The launch tossed helplessly about, now plunged into deep
+abysses, now oscillated on the pointed crest of a wave, inclining
+often at an angle of more than forty-five degrees. Hatteras took firm
+hold of the tiller, which was noisily sliding from one side to the
+other. Every now and then some strong wave would strike it and nearly
+throw him over. Johnson and Bell were busily occupied in bailing out
+the water which the launch would occasionally ship.</p>
+
+<a name="ill63"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 239">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="564">
+			<img src="images/239.jpg" alt="The launch tossed helplessly about">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="564" align="center">
+			<small>"The launch tossed helplessly about."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"This is a storm we hardly expected," said Altamont, holding fast to
+his bench.</p>
+
+<p>"We ought to expect anything here," answered the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>These remarks were made amid the roar of the tempest and the hissing
+of the waves, which the violence of the wind reduced to a fine spray.
+It was nearly impossible for one to hear his neighbor. It was hard to
+keep the boat's head to the north; the clouds hid everything a few
+fathoms from the boat, and they had no mark to sail by. This sudden
+tempest, just as they were about attaining their object, seemed full
+of warning; to their excited minds it came like an order to go no
+farther. Did Nature forbid approach to the Pole? Was this point of the
+globe surrounded by hurricanes and tempests which rendered access
+impossible? But any one who had caught sight of those men could have
+seen that they did not flinch before wind or wave, and that they would
+push on to the end. So they struggled on all day, braving death at
+every instant, and making no progress northward, but also losing no
+ground; they were wet through by the rain and waves; above the din of
+the storm they could hear the hoarse cries of the birds.</p>
+
+<p>But at six o'clock in the evening, while the waves were rising, there
+came a sudden calm. The wind stopped as if by a miracle. The sea was
+smooth, as if it had not felt a puff of wind for twelve hours. The
+hurricane seemed to have respected this part of the Polar Ocean. What
+was the reason? It was an extraordinary phenomenon, which Captain
+Sabine had witnessed in his voyages in Greenland seas. The fog,
+without lifting, was very bright. The launch drifted along in a zone
+of electric light, an immense St. Elmo fire, brilliant but without
+heat. The mast, sail, and rigging stood out black against the
+phosphorescent air; the men seemed to have plunged into a bath of
+transparent rays, and their faces were all lit up. The sudden calm of
+this portion of the ocean came, without doubt, from the ascending
+motion of the columns of air, while the tempest, which was a cyclone,
+turned rapidly about this peaceful centre. But this atmosphere on fire
+suggested a thought to Hatteras.</p>
+
+<a name="ill64"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 240">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="547">
+			<img src="images/240.jpg" alt="The fog, without lifting, was very bright">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="547" align="center">
+			<small>"The fog, without lifting, was very bright."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"The volcano!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible?" asked Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" answered the doctor; "we should be smothered if the flames
+were to reach us."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is its reflection in the fog," said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"No. We should have to admit that we were near land, and in that case
+we should hear the eruption."</p>
+
+<p>"But then?" asked the captain.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a phenomenon," said the doctor, "which has been seldom observed
+hitherto. If we go on we cannot help leaving this luminous sphere and
+re-entering storm and darkness."</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever it is, push on!" said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>"Forward!" cried his companions, who did not wish to delay even for
+breathing-time in this quiet spot. The bright sail hung down the
+glistening mast; the oars dipped into the glowing waves, and appeared
+to drip with sparks. Hatteras, compass in hand, turned the boat's head
+to the north; gradually the mist lost its brightness and transparency;
+the wind could be heard roaring a short distance off; and soon the
+launch, lying over before a strong gust, re-entered the zone of
+storms. Fortunately, the hurricane had shifted a point towards the
+south, and the launch was able to run before the wind, straight for
+the Pole, running the risk of foundering, but sailing very fast; a
+rock, reef, or piece of ice might at any moment rise before them, and
+crush them to atoms. Still, no one of these men raised a single
+objection, nor suggested prudence. They were seized with the madness
+of danger. Thirst for the unknown took possession of them. They were
+going along, not blinded, but blindly, finding their speed only too
+slow for their impatience. Hatteras held the tiller firm amid the
+waves lashed into foam by the tempest. Still the proximity of land
+became evident. Strange signs filled the air. Suddenly the mist parted
+like a curtain torn by the wind, and for a moment, brief as a flash of
+lightning, a great burst of flame could be seen rising towards the
+sky.</p>
+
+<p>"The volcano! the volcano!" was the cry which escaped from the lips of
+all; but the strange vision disappeared at once; the wind shifted to
+the southeast, took the launch on her quarter, and drove her from this
+unapproachable land.</p>
+
+<p>"Malediction!" said Hatteras, shifting her sail; "we were not three
+miles from land!"</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras could not resist the force of the tempest; but without
+yielding to it, he brought the boat about in the wind, which was
+blowing with fearful violence. Every now and then the launch leaned to
+one side, so that almost her whole keel was exposed; still she obeyed
+her rudder, and rose like a stumbling horse which his rider brings up
+by spur and reins. Hatteras, with his hair flying and his hand on the
+tiller, seemed to be part of the boat, like horse and man at the time
+of the centaurs. Suddenly a terrible sight presented itself to their
+eyes. Within less than ten fathoms a floe was balancing on the waves;
+it fell and rose like the launch, threatening in its fall to crush it
+to atoms. But to this danger of being plunged into the abyss was added
+another no less terrible; for this drifting floe was covered with
+white bears, crowded together and wild with terror.</p>
+
+<a name="ill65"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 241">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="550">
+			<img src="images/241.jpg" alt="This drifting floe was covered with white bears">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="550" align="center">
+			<small>"This drifting floe was covered with white bears,
+			crowded together."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Bears! bears!" cried Bell, in terror.</p>
+
+<p>And each one gazed with terror. The floe pitched fearfully, sometimes
+at such an angle that the bears were all rolled together. Then their
+roars were almost as loud as the tempest; a formidable din arose from
+the floating menagerie.</p>
+
+<p>If the floe had upset, the bears would have swum to the boat and
+clambered aboard.</p>
+
+<p>For a quarter of an hour, which was as long as a century, the launch
+and floe drifted along in consort, twenty fathoms from one another at
+one moment and nearly running together the next, and at times they
+were so near to one another, the bears need only have dropped to have
+got on board. The Greenland dogs trembled from terror; Duke remained
+motionless. Hatteras and his companions were silent; it did not occur
+to them to put the helm down and sail away, and they went straight on.
+A vague feeling, of astonishment rather than terror, took possession
+of them; they admired this spectacle which completed the struggle of
+the elements. Finally the floe drifted away, borne by the wind, which
+the launch was able to withstand, as she lay with her head to the
+wind, and it disappeared in the mist, its presence being known merely
+by the distant roaring of the bears.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the fury of the tempest redoubled; there was an endless
+unchaining of atmospheric waves; the boat, borne by the waves, was
+tossed about giddily; her sail flew away like a huge white bird; a
+whirlpool, a new Maelstrom, formed among the waves; the boat was
+carried so fast that it seemed to the men as if the rapidly revolving
+water were motionless. They were gradually sinking down. There was an
+irresistible power dragging them down and ingulfing them alive. All
+five arose. They looked at one another with terror. They grew dizzy.
+They felt an undefinable dread of the abyss! But suddenly the launch
+arose perpendicularly. Her prow was higher than the whirling waves;
+the speed with which she was moving hurled her beyond the centre of
+attraction, and escaping by the tangent of this circumference which
+was making more than a thousand turns a second, she was hurled away
+with the rapidity of a cannon-ball.</p>
+
+<a name="ill66"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 242">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="555">
+			<img src="images/242.jpg" alt="Her sail flew away like a huge white bird">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="555" align="center">
+			<small>"Her sail flew away like a huge white bird; a
+			whirlpool, a new Maelstrom, formed among the waves."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Altamont, the doctor, Johnson, and Bell were thrown down among the
+seats. When they rose, Hatteras had disappeared. It was two o'clock in
+the morning.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap55"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIII.</h3>
+<h4>THE ENGLISH FLAG.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>One cry, bursting from the lips of the other four, succeeded their
+first stupefaction.</p>
+
+<p>"Hatteras!" cried the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Gone!" said Johnson and Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Lost!"</p>
+
+<p>They looked about, but nothing was to be seen on the storm-tossed sea.
+Duke barked despairingly; he tried to spring into the water, but Bell
+managed to hold him.</p>
+
+<p>"Take a place at the helm, Altamont," said the doctor; "let us try
+everything to save the captain."</p>
+
+<p>Johnson and Bell took their seats. Altamont took the helm, and the
+launch came into wind again. Johnson and Bell began to row vigorously;
+for an hour they remained at the scene of the accident. They sought
+earnestly, but in vain. The unfortunate Hatteras was lost in the
+storm! Lost, so near the Pole, so near the end, of which he had had
+but a glimpse!</p>
+<a name="note38"></a>
+<p>The doctor called aloud, and fired the guns; Duke added his howling,
+but there was no answer. Then profound grief seized Clawbonny; his
+head sank into his hands, and his companions saw that he was weeping.
+In fact, at this distance from land, with a scrap of wood to hold him
+up,<a href="#not38"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> Hatteras could not reach the shore alive; and if anything did come
+ashore, it would be his disfigured corpse. After hunting for an hour,
+they decided to turn to the north, and struggle against the last
+furies of the tempest.</p>
+
+<p>At five o'clock in the morning of July 11th the wind went down; the
+sea grew quieter; the sky regained its polar clearness, and within
+three miles of them appeared the land. This continent was but an
+island, or rather a volcano, peering up like a lighthouse at the North
+Pole. The mountain, in full eruption, was hurling forth a mass of
+burning stones and melting rocks. It seemed to be rising and falling
+beneath the successive blasts as if it were breathing; the things
+which were cast out reached a great height in the air; amid the jets
+of flame, torrents of lava were flowing down the side of the mountain;
+here creeping between steaming rocks, there falling in cascades amid
+the purple vapor: and lower down a thousand streams united in one
+large river, which ran boiling into the sea.</p>
+
+<a name="ill67"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 243">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="546">
+			<img src="images/243.jpg" alt="The mountain was in full eruption">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="546" align="center">
+			<small>"The mountain was in full eruption."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The volcano seemed to have but a single crater, whence arose a column
+of fire, lighted by transverse rays; one would have said that part of
+the magnificence of the phenomenon was due to electricity. Above the
+flames floated an immense cloud of smoke, red below, black above. It
+rose with great majesty, and unrolled into huge layers.</p>
+
+<p>The sky at a considerable height had an ashy hue; the darkness, which
+was so marked during the tempest, and of which the doctor could give
+no satisfactory explanation, evidently came from the ashes, which
+completely hid the sun. He remembered a similar fact that took place
+in 1812, at the Barbadoes, which at noon was plunged into total
+darkness by the mass of cinders thrown from the crater of Isle St.
+Vincent.</p>
+
+<p>This enormous volcano, jutting up in mid-ocean, was about six thousand
+feet high, very nearly the altitude of Hecla. A line from the summit
+to the base would form with the horizon an angle of about eleven
+degrees. It seemed to rise from the bosom of the waves as the launch
+approached it. There was no trace of vegetation. There was no shore;
+it ran down steep to the sea.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we be able to land?" said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"The wind is carrying us there," answered Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"But I can't see any beach on which we could set foot."</p>
+
+<p>"So it seems from here," answered Johnson; "but we shall find some
+place for our boat; that is all we need."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us go on, then!" answered Clawbonny, sadly.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor had no eyes for the strange continent which was rising
+before him. The land of the Pole was there, but not the man who had
+discovered it. Five hundred feet from the rocks the sea was boiling
+under the action of subterraneous fires. The island was from eight to
+ten miles in circumference, no more; and, according to their
+calculation, it was very near the Pole, if indeed the axis of the
+world did not pass exactly through it. As they drew near they noticed
+a little fiord large enough to shelter their boat; they sailed towards
+it, filled with the fear of finding the captain's body cast ashore by
+the tempest.</p>
+
+<a name="ill68"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 244">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="551">
+			<img src="images/244.jpg" alt="They noticed a little fiord">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="551" align="center">
+			<small>"They noticed a little fiord."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Still, it seemed unlikely that any corpse should rest there; there was
+no beach, and the sea beat against the steep rocks; thick ashes, on
+which no human foot had ever stepped, covered the ground beyond the
+reach of the waves. At last the launch slipped between the breakers,
+and there she was perfectly sheltered against the surf. Then Duke's
+lamentable howling redoubled; the poor animal called for the captain
+with his sad wails among the rocks. His barking was vain; and the
+doctor caressed him, without being able to calm him, when the faithful
+dog, as if he wanted to replace his master, made a prodigious leap,
+and was the first to get ashore amid the dust and ashes which flew
+about him.</p>
+
+<p>"Duke! Duke!" said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>Duke did not hear him, but disappeared. The men then went ashore, and
+made the launch fast. Altamont was preparing to climb up a large pile
+of rocks, when Duke's distant barking was heard; it expressed pain,
+not wrath.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen!" said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Has he got on the track of some animal?" asked the boatswain.</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered the doctor, quivering with emotion; "he's mourning,
+crying! Hatteras's body is there!"</p>
+
+<p>At these words the four men started after Duke, in the midst of
+blinding cinders; they reached the end of the fiord, a little place
+ten feet broad, where the waves were gently breaking. There Duke was
+barking near a body wrapped up in the English flag.</p>
+
+<p>"Hatteras, Hatteras!" cried the doctor, rushing to the body of his
+friend.</p>
+<a name="note39"></a>
+<p>But at once he uttered an explanation<a href="#not39"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> which it is impossible to
+render. This bleeding and apparently lifeless body had just given
+signs of life.</p>
+
+<p>"Alive, alive!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said a feeble voice, "living on the land of the Pole, where the
+tempest cast me up! Living on Queen Island!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah for England!" cried the five together.</p>
+
+<p>"And for America!" added the doctor, holding out one hand to Hatteras
+and the other to Altamont. Duke, too, hurrahed in his own way, which
+was as good as any other.</p>
+
+<p>At first these kind-hearted men were wholly given up to the pleasure
+of seeing their captain again; they felt the tears welling up into
+their eyes. The doctor examined Hatteras's condition. He was not
+seriously injured. The wind had carried him to the shore, where it was
+hard to land; the bold sailor, often beaten back, at last succeeded in
+clambering upon a rock above the reach of the waves. Then he lost
+consciousness, after wrapping himself up in his flag, and he only came
+to himself under Duke's caresses and barking. After receiving a few
+attentions, Hatteras was able to rise, and, leaning on the doctor's
+arm, to go to the launch.</p>
+
+<p>"The Pole, the North Pole!" he repeated as he walked along.</p>
+
+<p>"You are happy!" the doctor said to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, happy! And you, my friend, don't you feel happy at being here?
+This land is the land of the Pole! This sea we have crossed is the sea
+of the Pole! This air we breathe is the air of the Pole! O, the North
+Pole, the North Pole!"</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, Hatteras was the victim of a violent excitement, a sort
+of fever, and the doctor in vain tried to calm him. His eyes were
+strangely bright, and his thoughts were boiling within him. Clawbonny
+ascribed this condition to the terrible perils he had gone through.
+Hatteras evidently needed rest, and they set about seeking a place to
+camp. Altamont soon found a grotto in the rocks, which had fallen in
+such a way as to form a cavern. Johnson and Bell brought provisions
+there, and let loose the dogs. Towards eleven o'clock everything was
+prepared for a meal; the canvas of the tent served as a cloth; the
+breakfast, consisting of pemmican, salt meat, tea and coffee, was set
+and soon devoured. But first, Hatteras demanded that an observation
+should be made; he wanted to know its position exactly. The doctor and
+Altamont then took their instruments, and after taking an observation
+they found the precise position of the grotto to be latitude 89&deg; 59'
+15". The longitude at this height was of no importance, for all the
+meridians run together within a few hundred feet higher. So in reality
+the island was situated at the North Pole, and the ninetieth degree of
+latitude was only forty-five seconds from there, exactly three
+quarters of a mile, that is to say, towards the top of the volcano.
+When Hatteras knew this result, he asked that it should be stated in
+two documents, one to be placed in a cairn on the shore. So at once
+the doctor took his pen and wrote the following document, one copy of
+which is now in the archives of the Royal Geographical Society in
+London:&mdash;</p>
+<br>
+<p>"July 11, 1861, in north latitude 89&deg; 59' 15", 'Queen Island' was
+discovered at the North Pole by Captain Hatteras, commanding the brig
+<i>Forward</i> of Liverpool, who has set his name hereto, with his
+companions. Whoever shall find this document is entreated to forward
+it to the Admiralty.</p>
+
+<table align="center" summary="document">
+	<tr><td>(Signed)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+	&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td><td>J<small>OHN</small> H<small>ATTERAS</small>, Captain of the <i>Forward</i>.</td></tr>
+	<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>D<small>R</small>. C<small>LAWBONNY</small>.</td></tr>
+	<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>A<small>LTAMONT</small>, Captain of the <i>Porpoise</i>.</td></tr>
+	<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>J<small>OHNSON</small>, Boatswain.</td></tr>
+	<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td>B<small>ELL</small>, Carpenter."</td></tr>
+</table>
+<br><br>
+<p>"And now, my friends, to table!" said the doctor, gayly.</p>
+
+<a name="ill69"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 245">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="587">
+			<img src="images/245.jpg" alt="Altamont soon found a grotto in the rocks">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="587" align="center">
+			<small>"Altamont soon found a grotto in the rocks."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table><br>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap56"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXIV.</h3>
+<h4>POLAR COSMOGRAPHY.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Of course, to eat at table, they were obliged to sit on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Clawbonny, "who wouldn't give all the tables and
+dining-rooms in the world, to dine in north latitude 89&deg; 59' 15"?"</p>
+
+<p>The thoughts of each one were about their situation. They had no other
+idea than the North Pole. The dangers they had undergone to reach it,
+those to overcome before returning, were forgotten in their
+unprecedented success. What neither Europeans, Americans, nor Asiatics
+had been able to do, they had accomplished. Hence they were all ready
+to listen to the doctor when he told them all that his inexhaustible
+memory could recall about their position. It was with real enthusiasm
+that he first proposed their captain's health.</p>
+
+<a name="ill70"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 246">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="604">
+			<img src="images/246.jpg" alt="They were all ready to listen to the doctor">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="604" align="center">
+			<small>"They were all ready to listen to the doctor."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"To John Hatteras!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"To John Hatteras!" repeated the others.</p>
+
+<p>"To the North Pole!" answered the captain, with a warmth that was
+unusual in this man who was usually so self-restrained, but who now
+was in a state of great nervous excitement. They touched glasses, and
+the toasts were followed by earnest hand-shakings.</p>
+
+<p>"It is," said the doctor, "the most important geographical fact of our
+day! Who would have thought that this discovery would precede that of
+the centre of Africa or Australia? Really, Hatteras, you are greater
+than Livingstone, Burton, and Barth! All honor to you!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Doctor," said Altamont; "it would seem, from the
+difficulty of the undertaking, that the Pole would be the last place
+discovered. Whenever the government was absolutely determined to know
+the middle of Africa, it would have succeeded at the cost of so many
+men and so much money; but here nothing is less certain than success,
+and there might be obstacles really insuperable."</p>
+
+<p>"Insuperable!" cried Hatteras with warmth; "there are no insuperable
+obstacles; there are more or less determined minds, that is all!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Johnson, "we are here, and it is well. But, Doctor, will
+you tell me, once for all, what there is so remarkable about the
+Pole?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is this, Johnson, that it is the only motionless part of the
+globe, while all the rest is turning with extreme rapidity."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't see that we are more motionless here than at Liverpool."</p>
+
+<p>"No more than you perceive the motion at Liverpool; and that is
+because in both cases you participate in the movement or the repose.
+But the fact is no less certain. The earth rotates in twenty-four
+hours, and this motion is on an axis with its extremities at the two
+poles. Well, we are at one of the extremities of the axis, which is
+necessarily motionless."</p>
+
+<p>"So," said Bell, "when our countrymen are turning rapidly, we are
+perfectly still?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very nearly, for we are not exactly at the Pole."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Doctor," said Hatteras seriously, and shaking his
+head; "we are still forty-five seconds from the precise spot."</p>
+
+<p>"That is not far," answered Altamont, "and we can consider ourselves
+motionless."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," continued the doctor, "while those living at the equator move
+at the rate of three hundred and ninety-six leagues an hour."</p>
+
+<p>"And without getting tired!" said Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly!" answered the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"But," continued Johnson, "besides this movement of rotation, doesn't
+the earth also move about the sun?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and this takes a year."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it swifter than the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"Infinitely so; and I ought to say that, although we are at the Pole,
+it takes us with it as well as all the people in the world. So our
+pretended immobility is a chimera: we are motionless with regard to
+the other points of the globe, but not so with regard to the sun."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" said Bell, with an accent of comic regret; "so I, who thought
+I was still, was mistaken! This illusion has to be given up! One can't
+have a moment's peace in this world."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Bell," answered Johnson; "and will you tell us,
+Doctor, how fast this motion is?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is very fast," answered the doctor; "the earth moves around the
+sun seventy-six times faster than a twenty-four-pound cannon-ball
+flies, which goes one hundred and ninety-five fathoms a second. It
+moves, then, seven leagues and six tenths per second; you see it is
+very different from the diurnal movement of the equator."</p>
+
+<p>"The deuce!" said Bell; "that is incredible, Doctor! More than seven
+leagues a second, and that when it would have been so easy to be
+motionless, if God had wished it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" said Altamont; "do you think so, Bell? In that case no more
+night, nor spring, nor autumn, nor winter!"</p>
+
+<p>"Without considering a still more terrible result," continued the
+doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?" asked Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"We should all fall into the sun!"</p>
+
+<p>"Fall into the sun!" repeated Bell with surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. If this motion were to stop, the earth would fall into the sun
+in sixty-four days and a half."</p>
+
+<p>"A fall of sixty-four days!" said Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"No more nor less," answered the doctor; "for it would have to fall a
+distance of thirty-eight millions of leagues."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the weight of the earth?" asked Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"It is five thousand eight hundred and ninety-one quadrillions of
+tons."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" said Johnson; "those numbers have no meaning."</p>
+<a name="note40"></a>
+<p>"For that reason, Johnson, I was going to give you two comparisons
+which you could remember. Don't forget that it would take seventy-five
+moons to make the sun,<a href="#not40"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> and three hundred and fifty thousand earths to
+make up the weight of the sun."</p>
+
+<p>"That is tremendous!" said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Tremendous is the word," answered the doctor; "but, to return to the
+Pole, no lesson on cosmography on this part of the globe could be more
+opportune, if it doesn't weary you."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on, Doctor, go on!"</p>
+
+<p>"I told you," resumed the doctor, who took as much pleasure in giving
+as the others did in receiving instruction,&mdash;"I told you that the Pole
+was motionless in comparison with the rest of the globe. Well, that is
+not quite true!"</p>
+
+<p>"What!" said Bell, "has that got to be taken back?"</p>
+<a name="note41"></a>
+<p>"Yes, Bell, the Pole is not always exactly in the same place; formerly
+the North Star was farther from the celestial pole than it is now. So
+our Pole has a certain motion; it describes a circle in about
+twenty-six years.<a href="#not41"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> That comes from the precession of the equinoxes, of
+which I shall speak soon."</p>
+
+<p>"But," asked Altamont, "might it not happen that some day the Pole
+should get farther from its place?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, my dear Altamont," answered the doctor, "you bring up there a
+great question, which scientific men investigated for a long time in
+consequence of a singular discovery."</p>
+
+<p>"What was that?"</p>
+
+<p>"This is it. In 1771 the body of a rhinoceros was found on the shore
+of the Arctic Sea, and in 1799 that of an elephant on the coast of
+Siberia. How did the animals of warm countries happen to be found in
+these latitudes? Thereupon there was much commotion among geologists,
+who were not so wise as a Frenchman, M. Elie de Beaumont, has been
+since. He showed that these animals used to live in rather high
+latitudes, and that the streams and rivers simply carried their bodies
+to the places where they were found. But do you know the explanation
+which scientific men gave before this one?"</p>
+
+<p>"Scientific men are capable of anything," said Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, in explanation of a fact; well, they imagined that the Pole used
+to be at the equator and the equator at the Pole."</p>
+
+<p>"Bah!"</p>
+
+<p>"It was exactly what I tell you. Now, if it had been so, since the
+earth is flattened more than five leagues at the pole, the seas,
+carried to the equator by centrifugal force, would have covered
+mountains twice as high as the Himalayas; all the countries near the
+polar circle, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Siberia, Greenland, and New
+Britain, would have been buried in five leagues of water, while the
+regions at the equator, having become the pole, would have formed
+plateaus fifteen leagues high!"</p>
+
+<p>"What a change!" said Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"O, that made no difference to scientific men!"</p>
+
+<p>"And how did they explain the alteration?" asked Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"They said it was due to the shock of collision with a comet. The
+comet is the <i>deus ex machina;</i> whenever one comes to a difficult
+question in cosmography, a comet is lugged in. It is the most obliging
+of the heavenly bodies, and at the least sign from a scientific man it
+disarranges itself to arrange everything."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said Johnson, "according to you, Doctor, this change is
+impossible?"</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible!"</p>
+
+<p>"And if it should take place?"</p>
+
+<p>"If it did, the equator would be frozen in twenty-four hours!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good! if it were to take place now," said Bell, "people would as
+likely as not say we had never gone to the Pole."</p>
+
+<p>"Calm yourself, Bell. To return to the immobility of the terrestrial
+axis, the following is the result: if we were to spend a winter here,
+we should see the stars describing a circle about us. As for the sun,
+the day of the vernal equinox, March 23d, it would appear to us (I
+take no account of refraction) exactly cut in two by the horizon, and
+would rise gradually in longer and longer curves; but here it is
+remarkable that when it has once risen it sets no more; it is visible
+for six months. Then its disk touches the horizon again at the
+autumnal equinox, September 22d, and as soon as it is set, it is seen
+no more again all winter."</p>
+
+<p>"You were speaking just now of the flattening of the earth at the
+poles," said Johnson; "be good enough to explain that, Doctor."</p>
+
+<p>"I will. Since the earth was fluid when first created, you understand
+that its rotary movement would try to drive part of the mobile mass to
+the equator, where the centrifugal force was greater. If the earth had
+been motionless, it would have remained a perfect sphere; but in
+consequence of the phenomenon I have just described, it has an
+ellipsoidal form, and points at the pole are nearer the centre of the
+earth than points at the equator by about five leagues."</p>
+
+<p>"So," said Johnson, "if our captain wanted to take us to the centre of
+the earth, we should have five leagues less to go?"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly, my friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Captain, it's so much gained! We ought to avail ourselves of
+it."</p>
+
+<p>But Hatteras did not answer. Evidently he had lost all interest in the
+conversation, or perhaps he was listening without hearing.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," answered the doctor, "according to certain scientific men, it
+would be worth while to try this expedition."</p>
+
+<p>"What! really?" exclaimed Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"But let me finish," answered the doctor. "I will tell you. I must
+first tell you this flattening of the poles is the cause of the
+precession of the equinoxes; that is to say, why every year the vernal
+equinox comes a day sooner than it would if the earth were perfectly
+round. This comes from the attraction of the sun operating in a
+different way on the heaped-up land of the equator, which then
+experiences a retrograde movement. Subsequently it displaces this Pole
+a little, as I just said. But, independently of this effect, this
+flattening ought to have a more curious and more personal effect,
+which we should perceive if we had mathematical sensibility."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" asked Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that we are heavier here than at Liverpool."</p>
+
+<p>"Heavier?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; ourselves, the dogs, our guns, and instruments!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, and for two reasons: the first is, that we are nearer the
+centre of the globe, which consequently attracts us more strongly, and
+this force of gravitation is nothing but weight; the second is, the
+rotary force, which is nothing at the pole, is very marked at the
+equator, and objects there have a tendency to fly from the earth: they
+are less heavy."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" exclaimed Johnson, seriously; "have we not the same weight
+everywhere?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Johnson; according to Newton's law, bodies attract one another
+directly as their masses, and inversely to the square of their
+distances. Here I weigh more, because I am nearer the centre of
+attraction; and on another planet I should weigh more or less
+according to the mass of the planet."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" said Bell, "in the moon&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"In the moon my weight, which is two hundred pounds at Liverpool,
+would be only thirty-two pounds."</p>
+
+<p>"And in the sun?"</p>
+
+<p>"O, in the sun I should weigh more than five thousand pounds!"</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens!" said Bell; "you'd need a derrick to move your legs."</p>
+
+<p>"Probably," answered the doctor, laughing at Bell's amazement; "but
+here the difference is imperceptible, and by an equal effort of the
+muscles Bell would leap as high as on the docks at Liverpool."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but in the sun?" urged Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"My friend," answered the doctor, "the upshot of it all is that we are
+well off where we are, and need not want to go elsewhere."</p>
+
+<p>"You said just now," resumed Altamont, "that perhaps it would be worth
+while to make a journey to the centre of the world; has such an
+undertaking ever been thought of?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and this is all I'm going to say about the Pole. There is no
+point in the world which has given rise to more chimeras and
+hypotheses. The ancients, in their ignorance, placed the garden of the
+Hesperides there. In the Middle Ages it was supposed that the earth
+was upheld on axles placed at the poles, on which it revolved; but
+when comets were seen moving freely, that idea had to be given up.
+Later, there was a French astronomer, Bailly, who said that the lost
+people mentioned by Plato, the Atlantides, lived here. Finally, it has
+been asserted in our own time that there was an immense opening at the
+poles, from which came the Northern Lights, and through which one
+could reach the inside of the earth; since in the hollow sphere two
+planets, Pluto and Proserpine, were said to move, and the air was
+luminous in consequence of the strong pressure it felt."</p>
+
+<p>"That has been maintained?" asked Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it has been written about seriously. Captain Symmes, a
+countryman of ours, proposed to Sir Humphry Davy, Humboldt, and Arago,
+to undertake the voyage! But they declined."</p>
+
+<p>"And they did well."</p>
+
+<p>"I think so. Whatever it may be, you see, my friends, that the
+imagination has busied itself about the Pole, and that sooner or later
+we must come to the reality."</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate, we shall see for ourselves," said Johnson, who clung to
+his idea.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, to-morrow we'll start," said the doctor, smiling at seeing the
+old sailor but half convinced; "and if there is any opening to the
+centre of the earth, we shall go there together."</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap57"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXV.</h3>
+<h4>MOUNT HATTERAS.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>After this solid conversation every one made himself as comfortable as
+possible in the cavern, and soon fell asleep. Every one, that is,
+except Hatteras. Why did not this strange man sleep?</p>
+
+<p>Was not the object of his life attained? Had he not accomplished the
+bold projects which lay so near his heart? Why did not calmness
+succeed the agitation in his ardent mind? Would not one suppose that,
+when he had accomplished this end, Hatteras would fall into a sort of
+dejection, and that his over-stretched nerves would seek repose? After
+succeeding, it would seem natural that he should be seized with the
+feeling of sadness, which always follows satisfied desires.</p>
+
+<p>But no. He was only more excited. It was not, however, the thought of
+returning which agitated him so. Did he wish to go farther? Was there
+no limit to his ambition, and did he find the world too small, because
+he had been around it? However this may have been, he could not sleep.
+And yet this first night spent at the pole of the world was pleasant
+and quiet. The island was absolutely uninhabited. There was not a bird
+in its fire-impregnated atmosphere, not an animal on the soil of
+cinders, not a fish in its boiling waters. Only afar off the dull
+murmur of the mountain, from the summit of which arose puffs of hot
+smoke.</p>
+
+<p>When Bell, Johnson, Altamont, and the doctor awoke, Hatteras was not
+to be seen near them. Being anxious, they left the cave, and saw the
+captain standing on a rock. His eyes were fixed on the top of the
+volcano. He held his instruments in his hands, having evidently been
+calculating the exact height of the mountain. The doctor went up to
+him and spoke to him several times before he could rouse him from his
+revery. At last the captain seemed to understand him.</p>
+
+<a name="ill71"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 247">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="598">
+			<img src="images/247.jpg" alt="They saw the captain standing on a rock">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="598" align="center">
+			<small>"They saw the captain standing on a rock."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Forward!" said the doctor, who was examining him
+attentively,&mdash;"forward! let us explore our island; we are all ready
+for our last excursion."</p>
+
+<p>"Our last," said Hatteras, with the intonation of people who are
+dreaming aloud; "yes, the last, indeed. But also," he continued with
+great animation, "the most wonderful!"</p>
+
+<p>He spoke in this way, rubbing his hands over his brow as if to allay
+its throbbing. At that moment, Altamont, Johnson, and Bell joined him;
+Hatteras appeared to awaken from his revery.</p>
+
+<a name="ill72"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 248">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="601">
+			<img src="images/248.jpg" alt="Hatteras appeared to wake from his revery">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="601" align="center">
+			<small>"Hatteras appeared to wake from his revery."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"My friends," he said with emotion, "thanks for your courage, thanks
+for your perseverance, thanks for your superhuman efforts, which have
+allowed us to set foot on this land!"</p>
+
+<p>"Captain!" said Johnson, "we have only obeyed; all the honor is due to
+you alone!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" resumed Hatteras with emotion; "to you as much as to me! to
+Altamont as well as to all of us! as to the doctor himself&mdash; O, let my
+heart well over in your hands! It can no longer restrain its joy and
+gratitude!"</p>
+
+<p>Hatteras clasped the hands of his companions. He walked to and fro, no
+longer master of himself.</p>
+
+<p>"We have only done our duty as Englishmen," said Bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Our duty as friends," continued the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Hatteras, "but all have not performed this duty. Some have
+given way! Still, they must be pardoned, both who were treacherous,
+and those who were led away to it! Poor men! I forgive them. You
+understand me, Doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered the doctor, who was very uneasy at Hatteras's
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"So," went on the captain, "I don't want them to lose the money they
+came so far to seek. No, I shall not alter my plan; they shall be
+rich,&mdash;if they ever see England again!"</p>
+
+<p>Few could have withstood the tenderness with which Hatteras spoke
+these last words.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Captain," said Johnson, with an effort at pleasantry, "one would
+say you were making your will."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I am," answered Hatteras, seriously.</p>
+
+<p>"Still you have before you a long and glorious life," continued the
+old sailor.</p>
+
+<p>"Who can say?" said Hatteras.</p>
+
+<p>A long silence followed these words. The doctor did not dare to try to
+interpret the last remark. But Hatteras soon expressed his meaning,
+for in a hasty, hardly restrained voice, he went on:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"My friends, listen to me. We have done a good deal so far, and yet
+there is a good deal to do."</p>
+
+<p>His companions gazed at him in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we are on the land of the Pole, but we are not on the Pole
+itself!"</p>
+
+<p>"How so?" asked Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean it!" cried the doctor, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" resumed Hatteras, earnestly, "I said that an Englishman should
+set foot on the Pole; I said it, and an Englishman shall do it."</p>
+
+<p>"What!" ejaculated the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"We are now forty-five seconds from the unknown point," Hatteras went
+on, with increasing animation; "where it is, I am going!"</p>
+
+<p>"But that is the top of the volcano!" said the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's an inaccessible spot!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a fiery crater!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going!"</p>
+
+<p>The firmness with which Hatteras uttered these words cannot be given.
+His friends were stupefied; they gazed with horror at the volcano
+tipped with flame. Then the doctor began; he urged and besought
+Hatteras to give up his design; he said everything he could imagine,
+from entreaty to well-meant threats; but he obtained no concession
+from the nervous captain, who was possessed with a sort of madness
+which may be called polar madness. Only violent means could stop him,
+rushing to his ruin. But seeing that thereby they would produce
+serious results, the doctor wished to keep them for a last resource.
+He hoped, too, that some physical impossibility, some unsurmountable
+difficulty, would compel him to give up his plan.</p>
+
+<p>"Since it is so," he said, "we shall follow you."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered the captain, "half-way up the mountain! No farther!
+Haven't you got to carry back to England the copy of the document
+which proves our discovery, in case&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Still&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is settled," said Hatteras, in a tone of command; "and since my
+entreaties as a friend are not enough, I order it as captain."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was unwilling to urge him any further, and a few moments
+later the little band, equipped for a hard climb, and preceded by
+Duke, set out. The sky was perfectly clear. The thermometer stood at
+52&deg;. The air had all the brilliancy which is so marked at this high
+latitude. It was eight o'clock in the morning. Hatteras went ahead
+with his dog, the others followed close behind.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm anxious," said Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, there's nothing to fear," answered the doctor; "we are here."</p>
+
+<p>It was a strange island, in appearance so new and singular! The
+volcano did not seem old, and geologists would have ascribed a recent
+date to its formation.</p>
+
+<p>The rocks were heaped upon one another, and only kept in place by
+almost miraculous balancing. The mountain, in fact, was composed of
+nothing but stones that had fallen from above. There was no soil, no
+moss, no lichen, no trace of vegetation. The carbonic acid from the
+crater had not yet had time to unite with the hydrogen of the water;
+nor the ammonia of the clouds, to form under the action of the light,
+organized matter. This island had arisen from successive volcanic
+eruptions, like many other mountains; what they have hurled forth has
+built them up. For instance, Etna has poured forth a volume of lava
+larger than itself; and the Monte Nuovo, near Naples, was formed by
+ashes in the short space of forty-eight hours. The heap of rocks
+composing Queen's Island had evidently come from the bowels of the
+earth. Formerly the sea covered it all; it had been formed long since
+by the condensation of the vapor on the cooling globe; but in
+proportion as the volcanoes of the Old and New World disappeared, they
+were replaced by new craters.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, the earth can be compared to a vast spheroidal boiler. Under
+the influence of the central fire an immense quantity of vapor is
+generated, which is exposed to a pressure of thousands of atmospheres,
+and which would blow up the globe, were it not for the safety-valves
+opening on the outside.</p>
+
+<p>These safety-valves are the volcanoes; when one closes, another opens;
+and at the poles, where, doubtless in consequence of the flattening of
+the earth's surface, the crust is thinner, it is not strange that a
+volcano should be suddenly formed by the upheaval of the bottom of the
+waves. The doctor noticed all this as he followed Hatteras; his foot
+sank into a volcanic tufa, and the deposits of ashes, volcanic stones,
+etc., like the syenite and granite of Iceland. But he attributed a
+comparatively recent origin to the island, on account of the fact that
+no sedimentary soil had yet formed upon it. Water, too, was lacking.
+If Queen's Island had existed for several years, there would have been
+springs upon it, as there are in the neighborhood of volcanoes. Now,
+not only was there no drop of water there, but the vapors which arose
+from the stream of lava seemed absolutely anhydrous.</p>
+
+<p>This island, then, was of recent formation; and since it appeared in
+one day, it might disappear in another and sink beneath the ocean.</p>
+
+<p>The ascent grew more difficult the higher they went; the sides of the
+mountain became nearly perpendicular, and they had to be very careful
+to avoid accident. Often columns of cinders were blown about them and
+threatened to choke them, or torrents of lava barred their path. On
+some such places these streams were hard on top, but the molten stream
+flowed beneath. Each one had to test it first to escape sinking into
+the glowing mass. From time to time the crater vomited forth huge
+red-hot rocks amid burning gases; some of these bodies burst in the
+air like shells, and the fragments were hurled far off in all
+directions. The innumerable dangers of this ascent may be readily
+perceived, as well as the foolhardiness of the attempt.</p>
+
+<p>Still, Hatteras climbed with wonderful agility, and while spurning the
+use of his iron-tipped staff, he ascended the steepest slopes. He soon
+reached a circular rock, which formed a sort of plateau about ten feet
+broad; a glowing stream surrounded it, which was divided at the corner
+by a higher rock, and left only a narrow passage through which
+Hatteras slipped boldly. There he stopped, and his companions were
+able to join him. Then he seemed to estimate the distance yet
+remaining; horizontally there were only about six hundred feet of the
+crater remaining, that is to say, from the mathematical point of the
+Pole; but vertically they had fifteen hundred feet yet to climb. The
+ascent had already taken three hours; Hatteras did not seem tired; his
+companions were exhausted.</p>
+
+<p>The top of the volcano seemed inaccessible. The doctor wished at any
+risk to keep Hatteras from going higher. At first he tried gentle
+means, but the captain's excitement amounted to delirium; on the way
+he had exhibited all the signs of growing madness, and whoever has
+known him in the different scenes of his life cannot be surprised. In
+proportion as Hatteras rose above the ocean his excitement increased;
+he lived no longer with men; he thought he was growing larger with the
+mountain itself.</p>
+
+<p>"Hatteras," said the doctor, "this is far enough! we can't go any
+farther!"</p>
+
+<p>"Stay where you are, then," answered the captain in a strange voice;
+"I shall go higher!"</p>
+
+<p>"No! that's useless! you are at the Pole here!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, higher!"</p>
+
+<p>"My friend, it's I who am speaking to you, Dr. Clawbonny! Don't you
+know me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Higher! higher!" repeated the madman.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no, we sha'n't let&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor had not finished the sentence before Hatteras, by a violent
+effort, sprang over the stream of lava and was out of their reach.
+They uttered a cry, thinking Hatteras was lost in the fiery abyss; but
+he had reached the other side, followed by Duke, who was unwilling to
+abandon him.</p>
+
+<p>He disappeared behind a puff of smoke, and his voice was heard growing
+fainter and fainter in the distance.</p>
+
+<p>"To the north!" he was shouting, "to the top of Mount Hatteras! Do you
+remember Mount Hatteras?"</p>
+
+<p>They could not think of getting up to him; there were twenty chances
+to one against their being able to cross the stream he had leaped over
+with the skill and luck of madmen. Nor could they get around it.
+Altamont in vain tried to pass; he was nearly lost in trying to cross
+the stream of lava; his companions were obliged to hold him by force.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 249">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="553">
+			<img src="images/249.jpg" alt="Altamont in vain tried to pass">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>"Hatteras, Hatteras!" shouted the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>But the captain did not answer; Duke's barking alone was heard upon
+the mountain.</p>
+
+<p>Still, Hatteras could be seen at intervals through the column of smoke
+and the showers of cinders. Sometimes his arm or head would emerge
+from the whirlwind. Then he would disappear and be seen again higher
+up in the rocks. His height diminished with the fantastic swiftness of
+objects rising in the air. Half an hour later he seemed but a fraction
+of his usual size.</p>
+
+<p>The air was filled with the dull noises of the volcano; the mountain
+was roaring like a boiler, its sides were quivering. Hatteras kept on,
+and Duke followed. From time to time some enormous rock would give way
+beneath them and go crashing down to the sea. But Hatteras did not
+look back. He had made use of his staff as a pole on which to fasten
+the English flag. His companions observed every one of his movements.
+His dimensions became gradually smaller, and Duke seemed no larger
+than a rat. One moment the wind seemed to drive down upon them a great
+wave of flame. The doctor uttered a cry of anguish, but Hatteras
+reappeared, standing and brandishing the flag.</p>
+
+<a name="ill73"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 250">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="566">
+			<img src="images/250.jpg" alt="Hatteras did not look back">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="566" align="center">
+			<small>"But Hatteras did not look back. He had made use of his
+			staff as a pole on which to fasten the English flag."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>This sight lasted for more than an hour,&mdash;an hour of struggle with the
+trembling rocks, with the beds of ashes into which this madman would
+sink up to the waist. Now he would be climbing on his knees and making
+use of every inequality in the mountain, and now he would hang by his
+hands at some sharp corner, swinging in the wind like a dry leaf.</p>
+
+<p>At last he reached the top, the yawning mouth of the crater. The
+doctor then hoped that the wretched man, having attained his object,
+would perhaps return and have only those dangers before him.</p>
+
+<p>He gave a last shout.</p>
+
+<p>"Hatteras, Hatteras!"</p>
+
+<p>The doctor's cry moved the American's heart so that he cried out,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I will save him!"</p>
+
+<p>Then with one leap crossing the fiery torrent at the risk of falling
+in, he disappeared among the rocks. Clawbonny did not have time to
+stop him. Still, Hatteras, having reached the top, was climbing on top
+of a rock which overhung the abyss. The stones were raining about him.
+Duke was still following him. The poor beast seemed already dizzy at
+the sight beneath him. Hatteras was whirling about his head the flag,
+which was lighted with the brilliant reflection, and the red bunting
+could be seen above the crater. With one hand Hatteras was holding it;
+with the other he was pointing to the zenith, the celestial pole.
+Still he seemed to hesitate. He was seeking the mathematical point
+where all the meridians meet, and on which in his sublime obstinacy he
+wanted to set his foot.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the rock gave way beneath him. He disappeared. A terrible cry
+from his companions rose even to the summit of the mountain. A
+second&mdash;a century&mdash;passed! Clawbonny considered his friend lost and
+buried forever in the depths of the volcano. But Altamont was there,
+and Duke too. The man and the dog had seized him just when he was
+disappearing in the abyss. Hatteras was saved, saved in spite of
+himself, and half an hour later the captain of the <i>Forward</i> lay
+unconscious in the arms of his despairing friends.</p>
+
+<p>When he came to himself, the doctor gave him a questioning glance in
+mute agony. But his vague look, like that of a blind man, made no
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens!" said Johnson, "he is blind!"</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered Clawbonny,&mdash;"no! My poor friends, we have saved
+Hatteras's body! His mind is at the top of the volcano! He has lost
+his reason!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mad?" cried Johnson and Altamont in deep distress.</p>
+
+<p>"Mad!" answered the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>And he wept bitterly.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap58"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVI.</h3>
+<h4>RETURN TO THE SOUTH.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Three hours after this sad conclusion to the adventures of Captain
+Hatteras, Clawbonny, Altamont, and the two sailors were assembled in
+the cavern at the foot of the volcano. Then Clawbonny was asked to
+give his opinion on what was to be done.</p>
+
+<p>"My friends," he said, "we cannot prolong our stay at Queen's Island;
+the sea is open before us; our provisions are sufficient; we must set
+out and reach Fort Providence as soon as possible, and we can go into
+winter-quarters till next summer."</p>
+
+<p>"That is my opinion," said Altamont; "the wind is fair, and to-morrow
+we shall set sail."</p>
+
+<p>The day passed in great gloom. The captain's madness was a sad
+foreboding, and when Johnson, Bell, and Altamont thought of their
+return, they were afraid of their loneliness and remoteness. They felt
+the need of Hatteras's bold soul. Still, like energetic men they made
+ready for a new struggle with the elements, and with themselves, in
+case they should feel themselves growing faint-hearted.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, Saturday, July 13th, the camping materials were put on
+the boat, and soon everything was ready for their departure. But
+before leaving this rock forever, the doctor, following Hatteras's
+intentions, put up a cairn at the place where the captain reached the
+island; this cairn was built of large rocks laid on one another, so as
+to form a perfectly visible landmark, if it were not destroyed by the
+eruption.</p>
+
+<a name="ill74"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 251">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="570">
+			<img src="images/251.jpg" alt="The doctor put up a cairn">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="570" align="center">
+			<small>"The doctor put up a cairn."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>On one of the lateral stones Bell carved with a chisel this simple
+inscription:&mdash;</p>
+
+<center><big><b>JOHN HATTERAS<br>
+1861.</b></big></center>
+
+<p>A copy of the document was placed inside of the cairn in an
+hermetically sealed tin cylinder, and the proof of this great
+discovery was left here on these lonely rocks.</p>
+
+<p>Then the four men and the captain,&mdash;a poor body without a mind,&mdash;and
+his faithful Duke, sad and melancholy, got into the boat for the
+return voyage. It was ten o'clock in the morning. A new sail was set
+up with the canvas of the tent. The launch, sailing before the wind,
+left Queen's Island, and that evening the doctor, standing on his
+bench, waved a last farewell to Mount Hatteras, which was lighting up
+the horizon.</p>
+
+<p>Their voyage was very quick; the sea, which was always open, was easy
+sailing, and it seemed really easier to go away from the Pole than to
+approach it. But Hatteras was in no state to understand what was going
+on about him; he lay at full length in the launch, his mouth closed,
+his expression dull, and his arms folded. Duke lay at his feet. It was
+in vain that the doctor questioned him. Hatteras did not hear him.</p>
+
+<p>For forty-eight hours the breeze was fair and the sea smooth.
+Clawbonny and his companions rejoiced in the north-wind. July 15th,
+they made Altamont Harbor in the south; but since the Polar Ocean was
+open all along the coast, instead of crossing New America by sledge,
+they resolved to sail around it, and reach Victoria Bay by sea. This
+voyage was quicker and easier. In fact, the space which had taken them
+a fortnight on sledges took them hardly a week by sail; and after
+following the rugged outline of the coast, which was fringed with
+numerous fiords, and determining its shape, they reached Victoria Bay,
+Monday evening, July 23d.</p>
+
+<p>The launch was firmly anchored to the shore, and each one ran to Fort
+Providence. The Doctor's House, the stores, the magazine, the
+fortifications, all had melted in the sun, and the supplies had been
+devoured by hungry beasts.</p>
+
+<p>It was a sad sight.</p>
+
+<p>They were nearly at the end of their supplies, and they had intended
+to renew them at Fort Providence. The impossibility of passing the
+winter there was evident. Like people accustomed to decide rapidly,
+they determined to reach Baffin's Bay as soon as possible.</p>
+
+<p>"We have nothing else to do," said the doctor; "Baffin's Bay is not
+six hundred miles from here; we might sail as far as our launch would
+carry us, reach Jones's Sound, and from there the Danish settlements."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered Altamont; "let us collect all the provisions we can,
+and leave."</p>
+
+<p>By strict search they found a few chests of pemmican here and there,
+and two barrels of preserved meat, which had escaped destruction. In
+short, they had a supply for six weeks, and powder enough. This was
+promptly collected. The day was devoted to calking the launch,
+repairing it, and the next day, July 24th, they put out to sea again.</p>
+
+<p>The continent towards latitude 83&deg; inclined towards the east. It was
+possible that it joined the countries known under the name of Grinnell
+Land, Ellesmere, and North Lincoln, which form the coast-line of
+Baffin's Bay. They could then hold it for certain that Jones's Sound
+opened in the inner seas, like Lancaster Sound. The launch then sailed
+without much difficulty, easily avoiding the floating ice. The doctor,
+by way of precaution against possible delay, put them all on
+half-rations; but this did not trouble them much, and their health was
+unimpaired.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, they were able to shoot occasionally; they killed ducks,
+geese, and other game, which gave them fresh and wholesome food. As
+for their drink, they had a full supply from the floating ice, which
+they met on the way, for they took care not to go far from the coast,
+the launch being too small for the open sea.</p>
+
+<p>At this period of the year the thermometer was already, for the
+greater part of time, beneath the freezing-point; after a certain
+amount of rainy weather snow began to fall, with other signs of the
+end of summer; the sun sank nearer the horizon, and more and more of
+its disk sank beneath it every day. July 30th they saw it disappear
+for the first time, that is to say, they had a few minutes of night.</p>
+
+<p>Still, the launch sailed well, sometimes making from sixty to
+seventy-five miles a day; they did not stop a moment; they knew what
+fatigues to endure, what obstacles to surmount; the way by land was
+before them, if they had to take it, and these confined seas must soon
+be closed; indeed, the young ice was already forming here and there.
+Winter suddenly succeeds summer in these latitudes; there are no
+intermediate seasons; no spring, no autumn. So they had to hurry. July
+31st, the sky being clear at sunset, the first stars were seen in the
+constellations overhead. From this day on there was perpetual mist,
+which interfered very much with their sailing. The doctor, when he saw
+all the signs of winter's approach, became very uneasy; he knew the
+difficulties Sir John Ross had found in getting to Baffin's Bay, after
+leaving his ship; and indeed, having once tried to pass the ice, he
+was obliged to return to his ship, and go into winter-quarters for the
+fourth year; but he had at least a shelter against the weather, food,
+and fuel. If such a misfortune were to befall the survivors of the
+<i>Forward</i>, if they had to stop or put back, they were lost; the doctor
+did not express his uneasiness to his companions; but he urged them to
+get as far eastward as possible.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 252">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="557">
+			<img src="images/252.jpg" alt="The launch sailed well">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Finally, August 15th, after thirty days of rather good sailing, after
+struggling for forty-eight hours against the ice, which was
+accumulating, after having imperilled their little launch a hundred
+times, they saw themselves absolutely stopped, unable to go farther;
+the sea was all frozen, and the thermometer marked on an average +15&deg;.
+Moreover, in all the north and east it was easy to detect the nearness
+of land, by the presence of pebbles; frozen fresh water was found more
+frequently. Altamont made an observation with great exactness, and
+found they were in latitude 77&deg; 15', and longitude 85&deg; 2'.</p>
+
+<p>"So, then," said the doctor, "this is our exact position; we have
+reached North Lincoln, exactly at Cape Eden; we are entering Jones's
+Sound; if we had been a little luckier, we should have found the sea
+open to Baffin's Bay. But we need not complain. If my poor Hatteras
+had at first found so open a sea, he would have soon reached the Pole,
+his companions would not have deserted him, and he would not have lost
+his reason under his terrible sufferings!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said Altamont, "we have only one course to follow; to abandon
+the launch, and get to the east coast of Lincoln by sledge."</p>
+
+<p>"Abandon the launch and take the sledge? Well," answered the doctor;
+"but instead of crossing Lincoln, I propose going through Jones's
+Sound on the ice, and reaching North Devon."</p>
+
+<p>"And why?" asked Altamont.</p>
+
+<p>"Because we should get nearer to Lancaster Sound, and have more chance
+of meeting whalers."</p>
+
+<p>"You are right, Doctor, but I am afraid the ice is not yet hard
+enough."</p>
+
+<p>"We can try," said Clawbonny.</p>
+
+<p>The launch was unloaded; Bell and Johnson put the sledge together; all
+its parts were in good condition. The next day the dogs were harnessed
+in, and they went along the coast to reach the ice-field.</p>
+
+<p>Then they began again the journey which has been so often described;
+it was tiresome and slow; Altamont was right in doubting the strength
+of the ice; they could not go through Jones's Sound, and they had to
+follow the coast of Lincoln.</p>
+
+<p>August 21st they turned to one side and reached the entrance of
+Glacier Sound; then they ventured upon the ice-field, and the next day
+they reached Cobourg Island, which they crossed in less than two days
+amid snow-squalls. They could advance more easily on the ice-fields,
+and at last, August 24th, they set foot on North Devon.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said the doctor, "we have only to cross this, and reach Cape
+Warender, at the entrance of Lancaster Sound."</p>
+
+<p>But the weather became very cold and unpleasant; the snow-squalls
+became as violent as in winter; they all found themselves nearly
+exhausted. Their provisions were giving out, and each man had but a
+third of a ration, in order to allow to the dogs enough food in
+proportion to their work.</p>
+
+<p>The nature of the ground added much to the fatigue of the journey;
+North Devon was far from level; they had to cross the Trauter
+Mountains by almost impassable ravines, struggling against all the
+fury of the elements. The sledge, men, and dogs had to rest, and more
+than once despair seized the little band, hardened as it was to the
+fatigues of a polar journey. But, without their noticing it, these
+poor men were nearly worn out, physically and morally; they could not
+support such incessant fatigue for eighteen months with impunity, nor
+such a succession of hopes and despairs. Besides, it should be borne
+in mind that they went forward with enthusiasm and conviction, which
+they lacked when returning. So they with difficulty dragged on; they
+walked almost from habit, with the animal energy left almost
+independent of their will.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until August 30th that they at last left the chaos of
+mountains, of which one can form no idea from the mountains of lower
+zones, but they left it half dead. The doctor could no longer cheer up
+his companions, and he felt himself breaking down. The Trauter
+Mountains ended in a sort of rugged plain, heaped up at the time of
+the formation of the mountains. There they were compelled to take a
+few days of rest; the men could not set one foot before another; two
+of the dogs had died of exhaustion. They sheltered themselves behind a
+piece of ice, at a temperature of -2&deg;; no one dared put up the tent.
+Their food had become very scanty, and, in spite of their extreme
+economy with their rations, they had a supply for but a week more;
+game became rarer, having left for a milder climate. Starvation
+threatened these exhausted men.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 253">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="545">
+			<img src="images/253.jpg" alt="Two of the dogs had died of exhaustion">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Altamont, who all along had shown great devotion and unselfishness,
+took advantage of the strength he had left, and resolved to procure by
+hunting some food for his companions. He took his gun, called Duke,
+and strode off for the plains to the north; the doctor, Johnson, and
+Bell saw him go away without much interest. For an hour they did not
+once hear his gun, and they saw him returning without firing a single
+shot; but he was running as if in great alarm.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter?" asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>"There! under the snow!" answered Altamont in great alarm, indicating
+a point in the horizon.</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"A whole band of men&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Alive?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dead,&mdash;frozen,&mdash;and even&mdash;"</p>
+
+<a name="ill75"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 254">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="559">
+			<img src="images/254.jpg" alt="Dead&mdash;frozen">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="559" align="center">
+			<small>"Dead&mdash;frozen."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+<a name="note42"></a>
+<p>The American durst not finish his sentence,<a href="#not42"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> but his face expressed
+clearly his horror. The doctor, Johnson, Bell, aroused by this
+incident, were able to rise, and drag themselves along in Altamont's
+footprints to the part of the plain to which he had pointed. They soon
+reached a narrow space, at the bottom of a deep ravine, and there a
+terrible sight met their eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Bodies were lying half buried beneath the snow; here an arm, there a
+leg, or clinched hands, and faces still preserving an expression of
+despair.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor drew near; then he stepped back, pale and agitated, while
+Duke barked mournfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Horror!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" asked the boatswain.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you recognize them?" said the doctor in a strange voice.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Look!"</p>
+<a name="note43"></a>
+<p>This ravine had been the scene of the last struggle between the men
+and the climate, despair, and hunger, for from some horrible signs it
+was easy to see that they had been obliged to eat human flesh. Among
+them the doctor had recognized Shandon, Pen,<a href="#not43"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> and the wretched crew of
+the <i>Forward;</i> their strength and food had failed them; their launch
+had probably been crushed by an avalanche, or carried into some
+ravine, and they could not take to the open sea; probably they were
+lost among these unknown continents. Besides, men who had left in
+mutiny could not long be united with the closeness which is necessary
+for the accomplishment of great things. A ringleader of a revolt has
+never more than a doubtful authority in his hands. And, without doubt,
+Shandon was promptly deposed.</p>
+
+<p>However that may have been, the crew had evidently undergone a
+thousand tortures, a thousand despairs, to end with this terrible
+catastrophe; but the secret of their sufferings is forever buried
+beneath the arctic snows.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us flee!" cried the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>And he dragged his companions far from the scene of the disaster.
+Horror lent them momentary strength. They set out again.</p>
+<br>
+<br><a name="chap59"></a>
+<hr align="center" width="10%">
+<br>
+<br>
+<h3>CHAPTER XXVII.</h3>
+<h4>CONCLUSION.</h4>
+<br>
+
+<p>Why linger over the perpetual sufferings of the survivors? They
+themselves could never recall to their memory a clear vision of what
+had happened in the week after their horrible discovery of the remains
+of the crew. However, September 9th, by a miracle of energy, they
+reached Cape Horsburgh, at the end of North Devon.</p>
+
+<p>They were dying of hunger; they had not eaten for forty-eight hours,
+and their last meal had been the flesh of their last Esquimaux dog.
+Bell could go no farther, and old Johnson felt ready to die. They were
+on the shore of Baffin's Bay, on the way to Europe. Three miles from
+land the waves were breaking on the edges of the ice-field. They had
+to await the uncertain passage of a whaler, and how many days yet?</p>
+
+<p>But Heaven took pity on them, for the next day Altamont clearly saw a
+sail. The anguish which follows such an appearance of a sail, the
+tortures of disappointment, are well known. The ship seemed to
+approach and then to recede. Terrible are the alternations of hope and
+despair, and too often at the moment the castaways consider themselves
+saved the sail sinks beneath the horizon.</p>
+
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" summary="picture 255">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="554">
+			<img src="images/255.jpg" alt="The ship seemed to approach and then to recede">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The doctor and his companions went through all these emotions; they
+had reached the western limit of the ice-field, and yet they saw the
+ship disappear, taking no note of their presence. They shouted, but in
+vain.</p>
+
+<p>Then the doctor had a last inspiration of that busy mind which had
+served him in such good stead.</p>
+
+<p>A floe had drifted against the ice-field.</p>
+
+<p>"That floe!" he said, pointing to it.</p>
+
+<p>They did not catch his meaning.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us get on it!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>They saw his plan at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Clawbonny, Dr. Clawbonny!" cried Johnson, kissing the doctor's
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>Bell, with Altamont's aid, ran to the sledge; he brought one of the
+uprights, stood it up on the floe for a mast, making it fast with
+ropes; the tent was torn up for a sail. The wind was fair; the poor
+castaways put out to sea on this frail raft.</p>
+
+<p>Two hours later, after unheard-of efforts, the last men of the
+<i>Forward</i> were taken aboard the Danish whaler <i>Hans Christian</i>, which
+was sailing to Davis Strait. The captain received kindly these
+spectres who had lost their semblance to human beings; when he saw
+their sufferings he understood their history; he gave them every
+attention, and managed to save their lives. Ten days later, Clawbonny,
+Johnson, Bell, Altamont, and Captain Hatteras landed at Korsoeur, in
+Zeeland, in Denmark; a steamboat carried them to Kiel; thence, <i>via</i>
+Altona and Hamburg, they reached London the 13th of the same month,
+hardly recovered from their long sufferings.</p>
+
+<a name="ill76"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 256">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="556">
+			<img src="images/256.jpg" alt="Taken aboard the Danish whaler">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="556" align="center">
+			<small>"Two hours later, after unheard-of efforts, the last
+		men of the <i>Forward</i> were taken aboard the Danish whaler <i>Hans Christian</i>."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table><br>
+<br>
+<a name="ill77"></a>
+<table align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" summary="picture 257">
+	<tr>
+		<td width="551">
+			<img src="images/257.jpg" alt="A steamboat carried them to Kiel">
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+	<tr>
+		<td width="551" align="center">
+			<small>"A steamboat carried them to Kiel."</small>
+		</td>
+	</tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>The first thought of the doctor was to ask permission of the Royal
+Geographical Society of London to lay a communication before it; he
+was admitted to the meeting of July 15th.<a href="#not44"><small><small><sup>*</sup></small></small></a> The astonishment of the
+learned assembly, and its enthusiastic cheers after reading Hatteras's
+document, may be imagined.</p>
+
+<p>This journey, the only one of its kind, went over all the discoveries
+that had been made in the regions about the Pole; it brought together
+the expeditions of Parry, Ross, Franklin, MacClure; it completed the
+chart between the one hundredth and one hundred and fifteenth
+meridians; and, finally, it ended with the point of the globe hitherto
+inaccessible, with the Pole itself.</p>
+
+<p>Never had news so unexpected burst upon astonished England.</p>
+
+<p>The English take great interest in geographical facts; they are proud
+of them, lord and cockney, from the merchant prince to the workman in
+the docks.</p>
+
+<p>The news of this great discovery was telegraphed over the United
+Kingdom with great rapidity; the papers printed the name of Hatteras
+at the head of their columns as that of a martyr, and England glowed
+with pride.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor and his companions were feasted everywhere; they were
+formally presented to her Majesty by the Lord High Chancellor.</p>
+
+<p>The government confirmed the name of Queen's Island for the rock at
+the North Pole, of Mount Hatteras for the mountain itself, and of
+Altamont Harbor for the port in New America.</p>
+
+<p>Altamont did not part from those whose misery and glory he had shared,
+and who were now his friends. He followed the doctor, Johnson, and
+Bell to Liverpool, where they were warmly received, after they had
+been thought to be long dead, and buried in the eternal ice.</p>
+
+<p>But Dr. Clawbonny always gave the glory to the man who most deserved
+it. In his account of the journey entitled "The English at the North
+Pole," published the next year by the Royal Geographical Society, he
+made John Hatteras equal to the greatest explorers, the rival of those
+bold men who sacrifice everything to science.</p>
+
+<p>But the sad victim of a lofty passion lived peacefully at the asylum
+of Starr Cottage near Liverpool, where the doctor had placed him. His
+madness was of a gentle kind, but he never spoke, he understood
+nothing, his power of speech seemed to have gone with his reason. A
+single feeling seemed to unite him to the outer world, his love for
+Duke, who was not separated from him.</p>
+
+<p>This disease, this "polar madness," pursued its course quietly,
+presenting no particular symptom, when Dr. Clawbonny, who often
+visited his poor patient, was struck by his singular manner.</p>
+
+<p>For some time Captain Hatteras, followed by his faithful dog, that
+used to gaze at him sadly, would walk for hours every day; but he
+always walked in one way, in the direction of a certain path. When he
+had reached the end, he would return, walking backwards. If any one
+stopped him, he would point his finger at a portion of the sky. If any
+one tried to make him turn round, he grew angry, and Duke would show
+his anger and bark furiously.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor observed carefully this odd mania; he understood the motive
+of this strange obstinacy; he guessed the reason of this walk always
+in the same direction, and, so to speak, under the influence of a
+magnetic force.</p>
+
+<p>Captain John Hatteras was always walking towards the north.</p>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<center>FINIS.</center>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr align="center" width="50%">
+<center><small>University Press, Cambridge: Printed by Welch, Bigelow, &amp; Co.</small></center>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<hr>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+<p>Transcriber's notes on inconsistencies, errors and corrections.</p>
+
+<p>Table of Contents: Part II., Chapter X., "The Pleasure of Winter
+Quarters" is corrected to "The Pleasures of Winter-Quarters" to match
+the chapter title.</p>
+
+<p>Part I.</p>
+<a name="not1"></a>
+<p><a href="#note1">Chapter 2</a>: The letter says the large Danish dog
+will arrive on the 15th of February.  In <a href="#note2">chapter 3</a> the dog arrives on the
+15th of March "as the captain's letter had said." Other versions have the
+same inconsistency.</p>
+<a name="not3"></a>
+<p><a href="#note3">Chapter 5</a>: In the discussion of steamers, the doctor
+observes of the <i>Fox</i> that MacClintock "succeeded in making his way more
+easily and more directly than all his successors." Other translations
+say "predecessors" which makes more sense.</p>
+<a name="not4"></a>
+<p><a href="#note4">Chapter 5</a>: On April 14 the longitude given is 22
+degrees 37 minutes. Other versions give 22 degrees 58 minutes. Other versions agree
+that the latitude is 51 degrees&mdash;which hardly seems possible for a ship
+leaving Ireland at nearly 56 degrees latitude and sailing northwest. 57
+degrees seems more likely. A few days later the latitude is further confused
+during the discussion of iceberg sightings. The doctor states that they are
+two degrees further north than a sighting of icebergs occurring at 42
+degrees latitude, apparently confusing the <i>Forward's</i> latitude with that
+of the <i>Ann Poole</i>.</p>
+<a name="not5"></a>
+<p><a href="#note5">Chapter 6</a>: In the remembrance of Parry's expedition
+into Lancaster Sound, mention is made of the prize for crossing a meridian
+at higher than the seventy-seventh parallel. Here the specific meridian is
+left out, which is not very informative. In the French version, it is the
+170th meridian, which is clearly wrong. The Ward and Lock translation
+changes it to the 117th meridian. Historically, the prize was for the 110th
+meridian.</p>
+<a name="not6"></a>
+<p><a href="#note6">Chapter 8</a>: On Saturday, the temperature is stated to
+have fallen to 8 degrees above zero. The French and Routledge translation
+state 8 degrees below zero. This makes more sense since the previous
+temperature cited, from which it had fallen, was 6 degrees above zero.</p>
+<a name="not7"></a>
+<p><a href="#note7">Chapter 8</a>: The block of ice which turns upside down
+is stated to be 800 feet high. This appears to be a mistranslation of the
+French; other translations have it as at least a hundred feet high.</p>
+<a name="not8"></a>
+<p><a href="#note8">Chapter 9</a>: According to this translation,
+the <i>Forward</i> crosses the 62nd parallel on May 5. This is clearly
+incorrect since the ship is north of its May 1 latitude of 68 degrees. Other
+versions have this as the 72nd parallel. This agrees with the accompanying map.</p>
+<a name="not9"></a>
+<p><a href="#note9">Chapter 10</a>: Although "the Governor was born on the
+island of Disco, and he has never left the place," the landing party meets
+him at Upernavik which is well north of the island of Disco.</p>
+<a name="not10"></a>
+<p><a href="#note10">Chapter 12</a>: The captain declares their latitude to
+be at 72 degrees when they are actually at <a href="#note11">74 degrees</a>. The promise of
+1000 pounds for each degree beyond 72 is continued throughout the book.</p>
+<a name="not12"></a>
+<p><a href="#note12">Chapter 12</a>: Names of several English explorers have
+been garbled in this translation:</p>
+
+<p>"Stuart" = Charles Sturt<br>
+"McDougall Stuart" = John McDouall Stuart<br>
+"Wells" = William John Wills<br>
+"Havnoan" = ??&mdash;Haouran (French version) is a place in Syria.</p>
+<a name="not13"></a>
+<p><a href="#note13">Chapter 15</a>: "During the day two whalers were seen
+making toward the south;" should be "During the day two whales were seen"
+etc. to agree with other translations and the French version. Finding
+whalers in this area would contradict the spirit of the adventure.</p>
+<a name="not14"></a>
+<p><a href="#note14">Chapter 16</a>: "the barometer fell to 29°" should
+be "the barometer fell to 29 inches" to agree with the French version
+and the measurement scale of barometers.</p>
+<a name="not15"></a>
+<p><a href="#note15">Chapter 16</a>: "Friday, June 7th" should be "Friday,
+June 8th" to agree with the French version and the timing since the
+previous date of June 6.</p>
+<a name="not16"></a>
+<p><a href="#note16">Chapter 16</a>: "found a declination of only 89
+degrees 50 minutes," should be "89 degrees 59 minutes'" to agree with
+other translations and the French version and to make sense of the following
+statement of being within a minute of the magnetic pole.</p>
+<a name="not17"></a>
+<p><a href="#note17">Chapter 18</a>: "'The way west is easier than the
+way north.'" agrees with the French, but has been changed to "'The way
+east'" in other translations. Baffin's Bay is, in fact, east of
+Melville Bay.</p>
+<a name="not18"></a>
+<p><a href="#note18">Chapter 18</a>: Clifton's counting of the crew at
+sixteen is faulty since Garry turned into Hatteras and would no longer
+be counted. The per degree rate should be 62 pounds not 72 pounds
+to agree with all other versions and actual calculation.</p>
+<a name="not19"></a>
+<p><a href="#note19">Chapter 18</a>: On June 19th, Point Minto is said
+by all versions to be at 72 degrees latitude. It is actually at 73 degrees.
+The next paragraph immediately proceeds to 74 degrees latitude at
+Melville Bay.</p>
+<a name="not20"></a>
+<p><a href="#note20">Chapter 20</a>: Creswell's march to Beechey Island
+was 470 miles in the French version and in later discussions in Part II,
+Chapter 15.</p>
+<a name="not21"></a>
+<p><a href="#note21">Chapter 21</a>: The year of Lieutenant Bellot's first
+expedition in search of Franklin is corrected from "18 0" to "1850."</p>
+<a name="not22"></a>
+<p><a href="#note22">Chapter 23</a>: The large white masses gathering
+"indicated an approaching thaw" is translated in another version as
+"an approaching frost" which agrees with the French version and makes more
+sense.</p>
+<a name="not23"></a>
+<p><a href="#note23">Chapter 25</a>: Clifton's anticipated fortune
+is said to be "hardly-earned" when "hard-earned" would be more appropriate.</p>
+<a name="not24"></a>
+<p><a href="#note24">Chapter 29</a>: The temperature on January 15
+of -22 should be -32 degrees to agree with the French version and the
+other translations.</p>
+<a name="not25"></a>
+<p><a href="#note25">Chapter 31</a>: The doctor's ophthalmia should not
+lead to "deafness" but to "blindness" as in other translations.</p>
+<a name="not26"></a>
+<p><a href="#note26">Chapter 33</a>: In the final sentence of the chapter
+the latitude of the <i>Forward</i> should be "eightieth degree" not
+"eighty-fourth degree." Eighty-fourth is clearly wrong since in chapter 2
+of part II, their latitude is stated as eighty degrees fifteen minutes.</p>
+
+<p>Part II.</p>
+<a name="not27"></a>
+<p><a href="#note27">Chapter 1</a>: The count of "eighteen men who had
+sailed in the brig" continues to ignore that there were only seventeen
+men and that Hatteras and Garry are one and the same person.</p>
+<a name="not28"></a>
+<p><a href="#note28">Chapter 2</a>: Johnson's question, "how far are we
+from the nearest sea to the west?" should be "how far are we from the
+nearest sea to the east?" The disorientation continues with Bell's
+suggestion to travel south or west. Baffin's Bay, the only place they can
+hope for rescue is south and east of their current position.</p>
+<a name="not29"></a>
+<p><a href="#note29">Chapter 3</a>: The date of the day the doctor killed
+the seal is stated as the 18th and should be the 15th. The date mentioned two
+paragraphs previously was the 14th, and the date mentioned as the next day
+in the next paragraph is the 16th.</p>
+<a name="not30"></a>
+<p><a href="#note30">Chapter 5</a>: "Hatteras loaded the gun with the
+last charge of powder" should be "the doctor loaded the gun with the
+last charge of powder" to agree with the French and the sense of the
+paragraph.</p>
+<a name="not31"></a>
+<p><a href="#note31">Chapter 5</a>: Altamont comments that his ship
+is less than four degrees from the Pole when it actually is not, but
+is within seven degrees.</p>
+<a name="not32"></a>
+<p><a href="#note32">Chapter 9</a>: The author's intention for the
+outside temperature here is uncertain. The -31 degrees of this translation
+does not agree with the French in which it is -73 degrees (-31 degrees
+Centigrade). The latter two are not equivalent temperatures. Later in this
+chapter it is stated that the outside temperature can never exist lower
+than -72 degrees. If the author intended -31 degrees Centigrade, this
+would convert to -24 degrees Fahrenheit.</p>
+<a name="not33"></a>
+<p><a href="#note33">Chapter 9</a>: "The temperature of Englishmen is
+generally 101 degrees" is a incorrect conversion of the more accurate 37
+degrees Celsius in the French version. The correct temperature should be
+98.6 degrees.</p>
+<a name="not34"></a>
+<p><a href="#note34">Chapter 9</a>: The mention of "Hadley" concerning a
+comet collision should be "Halley" as in the French version.</p>
+<a name="not35"></a>
+<p><a href="#note35">Chapter 19</a>: "<i>Uredo vivalis</i>" should be "<i>Uredo
+nivalis</i>" as in the French version.</p>
+<a name="not36"></a>
+<p><a href="#note36">Chapter 20</a>: In this translation as in the French
+version, Altamont Harbor is said to be at longitude 118 degrees 35 minutes
+E. of Greenwich, whereas it should be W. of Greenwich.</p>
+<a name="not37"></a>
+<p><a href="#note37">Chapter 22</a>: The spelling of the name "Penn" is
+corrected to "Pen" as a typographical error.</p>
+<a name="not38"></a>
+<p><a href="#note38">Chapter 23</a>: "With a scrap of wood to hold him
+up," should be "without a scrap of wood to hold him up," as found in the
+French version and required by the sense of the sentence.</p>
+<a name="not39"></a>
+<p><a href="#note39">Chapter 23</a>: The doctor "uttered an explanation
+which it is impossible to render," should be "uttered an exclamation which
+it is impossible to render," as found in the French version and required
+by the sense of the sentence.</p>
+<a name="not40"></a>
+<p><a href="#note40">Chapter 24</a>: The doctors comparison "it would take
+seventy-five moons to make the sun," should be "it would take seventy-five moons
+to make the earth," as in the French version.</p>
+<a name="not41"></a>
+<p><a href="#note41">Chapter 24</a>: The motion of the Pole "describes a circle
+in about twenty-six years" should be "describes a circle in about twenty-six
+thousand years" as in the French version.</p>
+<a name="not42"></a>
+<p><a href="#note42">Chapter 26</a>: "The American durst not not finish his
+sentence," is corrected to "The American durst not finish his sentence," as a
+typographical error.</p>
+<a name="not43"></a>
+<p><a href="#note43">Chapter 26</a>: The spelling of the name "Penn" is corrected
+to "Pen" as a typographical error.</p>
+<a name="not44"></a>
+<p>Chapter 27: The timeline of the concluding chapter is odd. September 9, 1861
+the party is at the end of North Devon. The next day (September 10) they are picked
+up by the Danish whaler. Ten days later (September 20) they arrive in Denmark.
+The 13th of the same month (September 13? October 13?) they reach London. July
+15 (1862?) Clawbonny attends the Royal Geographical Society of London meeting. For
+this to astonish the learned assembly it would need to be two days after their
+arrival in London rather than 9 months.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Voyages and Adventures of Captain
+Hatteras, by Jules Verne
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Voyages and Adventures of Captain
+Hatteras, by Jules Verne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras
+
+Author: Jules Verne
+
+Illustrator: Édouard Riou
+
+Release Date: July 15, 2009 [EBook #29413]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VOYAGES OF CAPTAIN HATTERAS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ron Swanson (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
+Libraries)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CAPTAIN HATTERAS.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+JULES VERNE.
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: "The brig was tossed about like a child's toy."--Page
+134.]
+
+
+
+
+THE VOYAGES AND ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN HATTERAS.
+
+TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF JULES VERNE.
+
+
+
+
+_WITH TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY ILLUSTRATIONS BY RIOU_.
+
+
+
+
+BOSTON: JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,
+LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.
+1876.
+
+
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1874.
+BY JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO.
+
+
+
+
+UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & CO., CAMBRIDGE.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+PART I.
+THE ENGLISH AT THE NORTH POLE.
+
+CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
+     I. THE FORWARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .    3
+
+    II. AN UNEXPECTED LETTER  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   12
+
+   III. DR. CLAWBONNY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   14
+
+    IV. THE DOG-CAPTAIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   22
+
+     V. AT SEA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   29
+
+    VI. THE GREAT POLAR CURRENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   38
+
+   VII. THE ENTRANCE OF DAVIS STRAIT  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   45
+
+  VIII. THE TALK OF THE CREW  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   53
+
+    IX. ANOTHER LETTER  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   63
+
+     X. DANGEROUS SAILING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   69
+
+    XI. THE DEVIL'S THUMB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   78
+
+   XII. CAPTAIN HATTERAS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   86
+
+  XIII. THE CAPTAIN'S PLANS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   95
+
+   XIV. THE EXPEDITIONS IN SEARCH OF FRANKLIN . . . . . . . . . .  102
+
+    XV. THE FORWARD DRIVEN SOUTHWARD  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  109
+
+   XVI. THE MAGNETIC POLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  116
+
+  XVII. THE FATE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  124
+
+ XVIII. THE WAY NORTHWARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  129
+
+   XIX. A WHALE IN SIGHT  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  134
+
+    XX. BEECHEY ISLAND  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  139
+
+   XXI. THE DEATH OF BELLOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  147
+
+  XXII. THE FIRST SIGNS OF MUTINY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  155
+
+ XXIII. ATTACKED BY THE ICE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  161
+
+  XXIV. PREPARATIONS FOR WINTERING  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  169
+
+   XXV. ONE OF JAMES ROSS'S FOXES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  176
+
+  XXVI. THE LAST PIECE OF COAL  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  185
+
+ XXVII. THE GREAT COLD AT CHRISTMAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  191
+
+XXVIII. PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  198
+
+  XXIX. ACROSS THE ICE-FIELDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  202
+
+   XXX. THE CAIRN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  211
+
+  XXXI. THE DEATH OF SIMPSON  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  218
+
+ XXXII. THE RETURN TO THE FORWARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  224
+
+
+PART II.
+THE DESERT OF ICE.
+
+     I. THE DOCTOR'S INVENTORY  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  235
+
+    II. ALTAMONT'S FIRST WORDS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  242
+
+   III. SEVENTEEN DAYS OF LAND JOURNEY  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  251
+
+    IV. THE LAST CHARGE OF POWDER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  258
+
+     V. THE SEAL AND THE BEAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  267
+
+    VI. THE PORPOISE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  275
+
+   VII. A DISCUSSION ABOUT CHARTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  284
+
+  VIII. EXCURSION TO THE NORTH OF VICTORIA BAY  . . . . . . . . .  291
+
+    IX. COLD AND HEAT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  299
+
+     X. THE PLEASURES OF WINTER-QUARTERS  . . . . . . . . . . . .  307
+
+    XI. DISQUIETING TRACES  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  315
+
+   XII. THE ICE PRISON  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  324
+
+  XIII. THE MINE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  332
+
+   XIV. THE POLAR SPRING  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  341
+
+    XV. THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  348
+
+   XVI. NORTHERN ARCADIA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  357
+
+  XVII. ALTAMONT'S REVENGE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  366
+
+ XVIII. THE LAST PREPARATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  372
+
+   XIX. THE JOURNEY NORTHWARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  377
+
+    XX. FOOTPRINTS ON THE SNOW  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  386
+
+   XXI. THE OPEN SEA  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  394
+
+  XXII. THE APPROACH TO THE POLE  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  401
+
+ XXIII. THE ENGLISH FLAG  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  408
+
+  XXIV. POLAR COSMOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  413
+
+   XXV. MOUNT HATTERAS  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  420
+
+  XXVI. RETURN TO THE SOUTH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  429
+
+ XXVII. CONCLUSION  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  437
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+                                                                  PAGE
+"JOHNSON KNEW ALL THE SAILORS IN LIVERPOOL, AND IMMEDIATELY SET
+   ABOUT ENGAGING A CREW" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   16
+
+"EVERYTHING WAS ENVELOPED IN ONE OF THE ORDINARY FOGS OF THAT
+   REGION"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   18
+
+"THIS SPACE OF SIX FEET SQUARE CONTAINED INCALCULABLE WEALTH" . .   23
+
+"THE NEWS SPEAD IMMEDIATELY THROUGHOUT THE CITY, AND A GREAT
+   CONCOURSE OF SPECTATORS THRONGED THE PIERS"  . . . . . . . . .   27
+
+"TOWARDS EVENING THE BRIG DOUBLED THE CALF OF MAN"  . . . . . . .   29
+
+"WOULD ONE NOT SAY IT WAS A FOREIGN CITY, AN EASTERN CITY, WITH
+   MINARETS AND MOSQUES IN THE MOONLIGHT" . . . . . . . . . . . .   50
+
+"FORTUNATELY THE OPENING OF THESE HUTS WAS TOO SMALL, AND THE
+   ENTHUSIASTIC DOCTOR COULD NOT GET THROUGH" . . . . . . . . . .   71
+
+"A STRANGE ANIMAL WAS BOUNDING ALONG WITHIN A CABLE'S LENGTH FROM
+   THE SHIP"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   85
+
+"JOHN HATTERAS" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   95
+
+"HE CAUGHT A LARGE NUMBER OF WHITE FOXES; HE HAD PUT ON THEIR
+   NECKS COPPER COLLARS"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  106
+
+"ALL THESE POOR FELLOWS HAD DIED OF MISERY, SUFFERING, AND
+   STARVATION"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  128
+
+"THE BRIG WAS TOSSED ABOUT LIKE A CHILD'S TOY" (_Frontispiece_) .  134
+
+"THE WHALE SWAM AWAY FROM THE BRIG AND HASTENED TOWARDS THE
+   MOVING ICEBERGS" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  138
+
+"THE FORWARD IN WELLINGTON CHANNEL" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  148
+
+HATTERAS MADE USE OF A DEVICE WHICH WHALERS EMPLOY  . . . . . . .  153
+
+"A CRASH WAS HEARD, AND AS IT CAME AGAINST THE STARBOARD-QUARTER,
+   PART OF THE RAIL HAD GIVEN WAY"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  167
+
+"THE MOON SHONE WITH INCOMPARABLE PURITY, GLISTENING ON THE LEAST
+   ROUGHNESS IN THE ICE"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  180
+
+"ALMOST EVERY NIGHT THE DOCTOR COULD OBSERVE THE MAGNIFICENT
+   AURORAS" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  187
+
+"HE WAS ARMED, AND HE KEPT CONSTANT GUARD, WITHOUT MINDING THE
+   COLD, THE SNOW, OR THE ICE"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  195
+
+"THE LITTLE BAND MADE THEIR WAY TOWARDS THE SOUTHEAST"  . . . . .  202
+
+"THE DOCTOR HAD ENERGY ENOUGH TO ASCEND AN ICE-MOUNTAIN WHILE THE
+   SNOW-HUT WAS BUILDING" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  206
+
+"'FIRE!' SHOUTED THE CAPTAIN, DISCHARGING HIS PIECE"  . . . . . .  211
+
+"THEY COULD ONLY THINK OF THEIR PERILOUS POSITION"  . . . . . . .  218
+
+"SUDDENLY, WITH A LAST EFFORT, HE HALF ROSE"  . . . . . . . . . .  223
+
+"THEN A TERRIBLE EXPLOSION WAS HEARD" . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  230
+
+"THE LARGE PIECES OF THE ENGINE LAY HERE AND THERE, TWISTED OUT
+   OF SHAPE"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  241
+
+"THEY HARNESSED THE TIRED DOGS" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  242
+
+JOHNSON'S STORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  243
+
+"'YES!' SAID THE AMERICAN"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  250
+
+"THE DOCTOR WAS FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO FIND A SEAL"  . . . . . . . .  258
+
+"AT THE END OF TWO HOURS THEY FELL, EXHAUSTED"  . . . . . . . . .  263
+
+"HE PLUNGED HIS KNIFE INTO THE BEAST'S THROAT"  . . . . . . . . .  269
+
+"THESE CASTAWAYS LOOKED AT THEMSELVES AS COLONISTS WHO HAD
+   REACHED THEIR DESTINATION" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  277
+
+THE FORT WAS COMPLETED  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  283
+
+"I AM NOT AWARE THAT IT BEARS ANY NAME ON THE MOST RECENT MAPS" .  288
+
+"THE DOCTOR REACHED THE SUMMIT WITH SOME LITTLE DIFFICULTY" . . .  291
+
+"THEY ADVANCED IN FULL ILLUMINATION, AND THEIR SHARPLY CUT
+   SHADOWS RAN OUT BEHIND THEM OVER THE SNOW" . . . . . . . . . .  299
+
+"HE DID HIS BEST TO INSTRUCT AND INTEREST HIS COMPANIONS" . . . .  308
+
+"HATTERAS COULD ONLY KEEP HIS DISTANCE FROM THE ANIMALS BY
+   THROWING AWAY HIS CAP, HATCHET, AND EVEN HIS GUN"  . . . . . .  326
+
+"THE BEARS HEAPED THE ICE IN SUCH A WAY AS TO RENDER FLIGHT
+   IMPOSSIBLE"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  330
+
+"AN ENORMOUS BLACK BODY APPEARED IN THE GLOOM OF THE ROOM.
+   ALTAMONT RAISED HIS HAND TO STRIKE IT" . . . . . . . . . . . .  333
+
+"A LOUD EXPLOSION FOLLOWED" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  340
+
+"THE CARPENTER SET TO WORK AT ONCE" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  349
+
+"A HARD STRUGGLE WITH THE ICEBERGS" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  354
+
+"MACCLURE SAW A MAN RUNNING AND GESTICULATING"  . . . . . . . . .  355
+
+"THE DOCTOR, JOHNSON, AND BELL INTERVENED. IT WAS TIME; THE TWO
+   ENEMIES WERE GAZING AT ONE ANOTHER"  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  356
+
+"THEY WERE A CURIOUS AND TOUCHING SIGHT, FLYING ABOUT WITHOUT
+   FEAR, RESTING ON CLAWBONNY'S SHOULDERS," ETC.  . . . . . . . .  364
+
+"GAVE HIM A TERRIBLE BLOW WITH A HATCHET ON THE HEAD" . . . . . .  369
+
+"WELL, I'VE BROUGHT BACK TWO BROTHERS"  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  371
+
+"THE SEAL STRUGGLED FOR A FEW SECONDS, AND WAS THEN SUFFOCATED ON
+   THE BREAST OF HIS ADVERSARY" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  374
+
+"THEY LEFT AT SIX O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING" . . . . . . . . . . . .  377
+
+"ON THE 29TH BELL SHOT A FOX, AND ALTAMONT A MEDIUM-SIZED
+   MUSK-OX" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  383
+
+"THE MASSES OF ICE TOOK THE FORMS OF HUMMOCKS AND ICEBERGS" . . .  384
+
+"ON ALL SIDES RESOUNDED THE CRACKING OF THE ICE AMID THE ROAR OF
+   THE AVALANCHES"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  384
+
+"'WE OUGHT,' ANSWERED BELL, 'TO LIGHT TORCHES, AS IS DONE AT
+   LONDON AND LIVERPOOL'" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  386
+
+THE HUT WAS PITCHED IN A RAVINE FOR SHELTER . . . . . . . . . . .  390
+
+"THEY CLIMBED A HILL WHICH COMMANDED A WIDE VIEW" . . . . . . . .  392
+
+"THREE HOURS LATER THEY REACHED THE COAST. 'THE SEA! THE SEA!'
+   THEY ALL SHOUTED"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  392
+
+"THE LAUNCH WAS ROCKING GENTLY IN HER LITTLE HARBOR"  . . . . . .  393
+
+"AQUATIC BIRDS OF ALL SORTS WERE THERE" . . . . . . . . . . . . .  397
+
+"THEN THE EYE GLANCING DOWN INTO THE TRANSPARENT WATER, THE SIGHT
+   WAS EQUALLY STRANGE" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  398
+
+"'IT'S A VOLCANO!' HE CRIED"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  401
+
+"THE LAUNCH TOSSED HELPLESSLY ABOUT"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  404
+
+"THE FOG, WITHOUT LIFTING, WAS VERY BRIGHT" . . . . . . . . . . .  405
+
+"THIS DRIFTING FLOE WAS COVERED WITH WHITE BEARS, CROWDED
+   TOGETHER"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  406
+
+"HER SAIL FLEW AWAY LIKE A HUGE WHITE BIRD; A WHIRLPOOL, A NEW
+   MAELSTROM, FORMED AMONG THE WAVES" . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  407
+
+"THE MOUNTAIN WAS IN FULL ERUPTION" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  409
+
+"THEY NOTICED A LITTLE FIORD" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  410
+
+"ALTAMONT SOON FOUND A GROTTO IN THE ROCKS" . . . . . . . . . . .  412
+
+"THEY WERE ALL READY TO LISTEN TO THE DOCTOR" . . . . . . . . . .  413
+
+"THEY SAW THE CAPTAIN STANDING ON A ROCK" . . . . . . . . . . . .  421
+
+"HATTERAS APPEARED TO WAKE FROM HIS REVERY" . . . . . . . . . . .  421
+
+"THE DOCTOR PUT UP A CAIRN" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  429
+
+"DEAD--FROZEN"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  435
+
+"BUT HATTERAS DID NOT LOOK BACK. HE HAD MADE USE OF HIS STAFF AS
+   A POLE ON WHICH TO FASTEN THE ENGLISH FLAG"  . . . . . . . . .  437
+
+"TWO HOURS LATER, AFTER UNHEARD-OF EFFORTS, THE LAST MEN OF THE
+   FORWARD WERE TAKEN ABOARD THE DANISH WHALER HANS CHRISTIAN"  .  438
+
+"A STEAMBOAT CARRIED THEM TO KIEL"  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  438
+
+
+
+
+PART I.
+THE ENGLISH AT THE NORTH POLE.
+
+
+[Illustration: AVENTURES DU CAPITAINE HATTERAS]
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+THE FORWARD.
+
+
+"To-morrow, at the turn of the tide, the brig _Forward_, K. Z.,
+captain, Richard Shandon, mate, will clear from New Prince's Docks;
+destination unknown."
+
+This announcement appeared in the _Liverpool Herald_ of April 5, 1860.
+
+The sailing of a brig is not a matter of great importance for the
+chief commercial city of England. Who would take notice of it in so
+great a throng of ships of all sizes and of every country, that
+dry-docks covering two leagues scarcely contain them?
+
+Nevertheless, from early morning on the 6th of April, a large crowd
+collected on the quays of the New Prince's Docks; all the sailors of
+the place seemed to have assembled there. The workingmen of the
+neighboring wharves had abandoned their tasks, tradesmen had left
+their gloomy shops, and the merchants their empty warehouses. The
+many-colored omnibuses which pass outside of the docks were
+discharging, every minute, their load of sight-seers; the whole city
+seemed to care for nothing except watching the departure of the
+_Forward_.
+
+The _Forward_ was a vessel of one hundred and seventy tons, rigged as
+a brig, and carrying a screw and a steam-engine of one hundred and
+twenty horse-power. One would have very easily confounded it with the
+other brigs in the harbor. But if it presented no especial difference
+to the eye of the public, yet those who were familiar with ships
+noticed certain peculiarities which could not escape a sailor's keen
+glance.
+
+Thus, on the _Nautilus_, which was lying at anchor near her, a group
+of sailors were trying to make out the probable destination of the
+_Forward_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"What do you say to her masts?" said one; "steamers don't usually
+carry so much sail."
+
+"It must be," answered a red-faced quartermaster, "that she relies
+more on her sails than on her engine; and if her topsails are of that
+size, it's probably because the lower sails are to be laid back. So
+I'm sure the _Forward_ is going either to the Arctic or Antarctic
+Ocean, where the icebergs stop the wind more than suits a solid ship."
+
+"You must be right, Mr. Cornhill," said a third sailor. "Do you notice
+how straight her stem is?"
+
+"Besides," said Mr. Cornhill, "she carries a steel ram forward, as
+sharp as a razor; if the _Forward_, going at full speed, should run
+into a three-decker, she would cut her in two."
+
+"That's true," answered a Mersey pilot, "for that brig can easily run
+fourteen knots under steam. She was a sight to see on her trial trip.
+On my word, she's a swift boat."
+
+"And she goes well, too, under sail," continued the quartermaster;
+"close to the wind, and she's easily steered. Now that ship is going
+to the polar seas, or my name is not Cornhill. And then, see there! Do
+you notice that large helm-port over the head of her rudder?"
+
+"That's so," said some of the sailors; "but what does that prove?"
+
+"That proves, my men," replied the quartermaster with a scornful
+smile, "that you can neither see nor think; it proves that they wanted
+to leave the head of the rudder free, so that it might be unshipped
+and shipped again easily. Don't you know that's what they have to do
+very often in the ice?"
+
+"You are right," answered the sailors of the _Nautilus_.
+
+"And besides," said one, "the lading of the brig goes to prove what
+Mr. Cornhill has said. I heard it from Clifton, who has shipped on
+her. The _Forward_ carries provisions for five or six years, and coal
+in proportion. Coal and provisions are all she carries, and a quantity
+of woollen and sealskin clothing."
+
+"Well," said Mr. Cornhill, "there's no doubt about it. But, my friend,
+since you know Clifton, hasn't he told you where she's bound?"
+
+"He couldn't tell me, for he didn't know; the whole crew was shipped
+in that way. Where is he going? He won't know till he gets there."
+
+"Nor yet if they are going to Davy Jones's locker," said one scoffer,
+"as it seems to me they are."
+
+"But then, their pay," continued the friend of Clifton
+enthusiastically,--"their pay! it's five times what a sailor usually
+gets. If it had not been for that, Richard Shandon would not have got
+a man. A strangely shaped boat, going no one knows where, and as if it
+never intended coming back! As for me, I should not have cared to ship
+in her."
+
+"Whether you would or not," answered Mr. Cornhill, "you could never
+have shipped in the _Forward_."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because you would not have answered the conditions. I heard that
+married men were not taken. Now you belong to that class. So you need
+not say what you would or would not do, since it's all breath thrown
+away."
+
+The sailor who was thus snubbed burst out laughing, as did his
+companions, showing in this way that Mr. Cornhill's remarks were true.
+
+"There's nothing but boldness about the ship," continued Cornhill,
+well pleased with himself. "The _Forward_,--forward to what? Without
+saying that nobody knows who her captain is."
+
+"O, yes, they do!" said a young sailor, evidently a green-hand.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"What! They do know?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"My young friend," said Cornhill, "do you think Shandon is the captain
+of the _Forward_?"
+
+"Why--" answered the boy.
+
+"Shandon is only the mate, nothing else; he's a good and brave sailor,
+an old whaler, a good fellow, able to take command, but he's not the
+captain; he's no more captain than you or I. And who, under God, is
+going to have charge of the ship, he does not know in the least. At
+the proper time the captain will come aboard, I don't know how, and I
+don't know where; for Richard Shandon didn't tell me, nor has he leave
+to tell me in what direction he was first to sail."
+
+"Still, Mr. Cornhill," said the young sailor, "I can tell you that
+there's some one on board, some one who was spoken of in the letter in
+which Mr. Shandon was offered the place of mate."
+
+"What!" answered Cornhill, "do you mean to tell me that the _Forward_
+has a captain on board?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Cornhill."
+
+"You tell me that?"
+
+"Certainly, for I heard it from Johnson, the boatswain."
+
+"Boatswain Johnson?"
+
+"Yes, he told me himself."
+
+"Johnson told you?"
+
+"Not only did he tell me, but he showed him to me."
+
+"He showed him to you!" answered Cornhill in amazement.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"He showed him to me."
+
+"And you saw him?"
+
+"I saw him with my own eyes."
+
+"And who is it?"
+
+"It's a dog."
+
+"A dog?"
+
+"A four-footed dog?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The surprise of the sailors of the _Nautilus_ was great. Under any
+other circumstances they would have burst out laughing. A dog captain
+of a one hundred and seventy ton brig! It was certainly amusing
+enough. But the _Forward_ was such an extraordinary ship, that one
+thought twice before laughing, and before contradicting it. Besides,
+Quartermaster Cornhill showed no signs of laughing.
+
+"And Johnson showed you that new sort of captain, a dog?" he said to
+the young sailor. "And you saw him?"
+
+"As plainly as I see you, with all respect."
+
+"Well, what do you think of that?" asked the sailors, turning to
+Cornhill.
+
+"I don't think anything," he answered curtly, "except that the
+_Forward_ is a ship of the Devil, or of fools fit for Bedlam."
+
+Without saying more, the sailors continued to gaze at the _Forward_,
+which was now almost ready to depart; and there was no one of them who
+presumed to say that Johnson, the boatswain, had been making fun of
+the young sailor.
+
+This story of the dog had already spread through the city, and in the
+crowd of sight-seers there were many looking for the captain-dog, who
+were inclined to believe that he was some supernatural animal.
+
+Besides, for many months the _Forward_ had been attracting the public
+attention; the singularity of its build, the mystery which enshrouded
+it, the incognito maintained by the captain, the manner in which
+Richard Shandon received the proposition of superintending its outfit,
+the careful selection of the crew, its unknown destination, scarcely
+conjectured by any,--all combined to give this brig a reputation of
+something more than strangeness.
+
+For a thoughtful, dreamy mind, for a philosopher, there is hardly
+anything more touching than the departure of a ship; the imagination
+is ready to follow her in her struggles with the waves, her contests
+with the winds, in her perilous course, which does not always end in
+port; and if only there is something unusual about her, the ship
+appears like something fantastic, even to the least imaginative minds.
+
+So it was with the _Forward_. And if most of the spectators were
+unable to make the ingenious remarks of Quartermaster Cornhill, the
+rumors which had been prevailing for three months were enough to keep
+all the tongues of Liverpool busy.
+
+The brig had been built at Birkenhead, a suburb of the city on the
+left bank of the Mersey, and connected with it by numerous
+ferry-boats.
+
+The builders, Scott & Co., as skilful as any in England, had received
+from Richard Shandon careful plans and drawings, in which the tonnage,
+dimensions, and model of the brig were given with the utmost
+exactness. They bore proof of the work of an experienced sailor. Since
+Shandon had ample means at his command, the work began, and, in
+accordance with the orders of the unknown owner, proceeded rapidly.
+
+Every care was taken to have the brig made exceedingly strong; it was
+evidently intended to withstand enormous pressure, for its ribs of
+teak, an East Indian wood remarkable for its solidity, were further
+strengthened by thick iron braces. The sailors used to ask why the
+hull of a ship, which was intended to be so strong, was not made of
+iron like other steamers. But they were told that the mysterious
+designer had his own reasons for having it built in that way.
+
+Gradually the shape of the brig on the stocks could be clearly made
+out, and the strength and beauty of her model were clear to the eye of
+all competent judges. As the sailors of the _Nautilus_ had said, her
+stem formed a right angle with the keel, and she carried, not a ram,
+but a steel cutter from the foundry of R. Hawthorn, of Newcastle. This
+metallic prow, glistening in the sun, gave a singular appearance to
+the brig, although there was nothing warlike about it. However, a
+sixteen-pound gun was placed on her forecastle; its carriage was so
+arranged that it could be pointed in any direction. The same thing can
+be said of the cannon as of her bows, neither were positively warlike.
+
+On the 5th of February, 1860, this strange vessel was successfully
+launched in the sight of an immense number of spectators.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But if the brig was not a man-of-war, nor a merchant-vessel, nor a
+pleasure-yacht, for no one takes a pleasure trip with provisions for
+six years in the hold, what could she be?
+
+A ship intended for the search of the _Erebus_ and the _Terror_, and
+of Sir John Franklin? No; for in 1859, the previous year, Captain
+MacClintock had returned from the Arctic Ocean, with convincing proof
+of the loss of that ill-fated expedition.
+
+Did the _Forward_ want to try again the famous Northwest Passage? What
+for? Captain MacClure had discovered it in 1853, and his lieutenant,
+Cresswell, had the honor of first skirting the American continent from
+Behring Strait to Davis Strait.
+
+It was nevertheless absolutely certain to all competent observers that
+the _Forward_ was preparing for a voyage to icy regions. Was it going
+to push towards the South Pole, farther than the whaler Wedell,
+farther than Captain James Ross? But what was the use, and with what
+intention?
+
+It is easy to see that, although the field for conjecture was very
+limited, the imagination could easily lose itself.
+
+The day after the launching of the brig her machinery arrived from the
+foundry of R. Hawthorn at Newcastle.
+
+The engine, of one hundred and twenty horse-power, with oscillating
+cylinders, took up but little space; its force was large for a vessel
+of one hundred and seventy tons, which carried a great deal of sail,
+and was, besides, remarkably swift. Of her speed the trial trips left
+no doubt, and even the boatswain, Johnson, had seen fit to express his
+opinion to the friend of Clifton in these terms,--
+
+"When the _Forward_ is under both steam and sail, she gets the most
+speed from her sails."
+
+Clifton's friend had not understood this proposition, but he
+considered anything possible in a ship commanded by a dog.
+
+After the engines had been placed on board, the stowage of provisions
+began; and that was no light task, for she carried enough for six
+years. They consisted of salted and dried meats, smoked fish, biscuit,
+and flour; mountains of coffee and tea were deposited in the
+store-room. Richard Shandon superintended the arrangement of this
+precious cargo with the air of a man who perfectly understood his
+business; everything was put in its place, labelled, and numbered with
+perfect precision; at the same time there was stowed away a large
+quantity of pemmican, an Indian preparation, which contains a great
+deal of nutriment in a small compass.
+
+This sort of supply left no doubt as to the length of the cruise; but
+an experienced observer would have known at once that the _Forward_
+was to sail in polar waters, from the barrels of lime-juice, of lime
+lozenges, of bundles of mustard, sorrel, and of cochlearia,--in a
+word, from the abundance of powerful antiscorbutics, which are so
+necessary in journeys in the regions of the far north and south.
+Shandon had doubtless received word to take particular care about this
+part of the cargo, for he gave to it especial attention, as well as to
+the ship's medicine-chest.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+If the armament of the vessel was small enough to calm the timid
+souls, on the other hand, the magazine was filled with enough powder
+to inspire some uneasiness. The single gun on the forecastle could not
+pretend to require so large a supply. This excited curiosity. There
+were, besides, enormous saws and strong machinery, such as levers,
+masses of lead, hand-saws, huge axes, etc., without counting a
+respectable number of blasting-cylinders, which might have blown up
+the Liverpool custom-house. All this was strange, if not alarming, not
+to mention the rockets, signals, lights, and lanterns of every sort.
+
+Then, too, the numerous spectators on the quays of the New Prince's
+Docks gazed with admiration at a long mahogany whale-boat, a tin canoe
+covered with gutta-percha, and a number of halkett-boats, which are a
+sort of india-rubber cloaks, which can be inflated and thereby turned
+into canoes. Every one felt more and more puzzled, and even excited,
+for with the turn of the tide the _Forward_ was to set sail for its
+unknown destination.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+AN UNEXPECTED LETTER.
+
+
+This is a copy of the letter received by Richard Shandon eight months
+previously:--
+
+
+ABERDEEN, August 2, 1859.
+
+MR. RICHARD SHANDON, _Liverpool_.
+
+SIR,--This letter is to advise you of a remittance of 16,000 pounds,
+deposited with Messrs. Marcuart & Co., bankers, at Liverpool. Enclosed
+you will find a series of drafts, signed by me, which will enable you
+to draw upon Messrs. Marcuart & Co. to the amount mentioned above.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+You do not know me. No matter; I know you, and that is enough. I offer
+you the position of mate on board of the brig _Forward_, for a voyage
+which may be long and perilous.
+
+If you decline, well and good. If you accept, five hundred pounds will
+be assigned you as salary, and at the end of each year of the voyage
+your pay will be increased one tenth.
+
+The brig _Forward_ does not exist. You will be obliged to have it
+built so that it will be possible to set to sea in the beginning of
+April, 1860, at the latest. Enclosed is a drawing with estimates. You
+will follow them exactly. The ship will be built in the stocks of
+Scott & Co., who will arrange everything with you.
+
+I beg of you to be specially cautious in selecting the crew of the
+_Forward_; it will consist of a captain (myself), a mate (you), a
+second mate, a boatswain, two engineers, an ice-master, eight sailors,
+two stokers, in all eighteen men, including Dr. Clawbonny of this
+city, who will join you at the proper time.
+
+Those who are shipped on board of the _Forward_ must be Englishmen,
+independent, with no family ties, single and temperate; for the use of
+spirits, and even of beer, will be strictly forbidden on shipboard:
+the men must be ready to undertake and endure everything.
+
+In your selection you will prefer those of a sanguine temperament, and
+so inclined to maintain a higher degree of animal heat.
+
+You will offer the crew five times their usual pay, to be increased
+one tenth at the end of each year. At the end of the voyage each one
+shall receive five hundred pounds, and you yourself two thousand. The
+requisite sum shall be deposited with the above-named Messrs. Marcuart
+& Co.
+
+The voyage will be long and difficult, but one sure to bring renown.
+You need not hesitate, then, Mr. Shandon.
+
+Send your answer to the initials K. Z., at Gottenburg, Sweden, _poste
+restante_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+P. S. On the 15th of February next you will receive a large Danish
+dog, with hanging lips, of a dark tawny color, with black stripes
+running crosswise. You will find place for him on board, and you will
+feed him on barley bread mixed with a broth of lard. You will
+acknowledge the receipt of this dog by a letter to the same initials
+at Leghorn, Italy.
+
+The captain of the _Forward_ will appear and make himself known at the
+proper time. As you are about setting sail you will receive new
+instructions.
+
+K. Z.,
+_Captain of the Forward_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+DR. CLAWBONNY.
+
+
+Richard Shandon was a good sailor; for a long time he had commanded
+whalers in the Arctic seas, with a well-deserved reputation throughout
+all Lancaster. Such a letter was well calculated to astonish him; he
+was astonished, it is true, but with the calmness of a man who is
+accustomed to surprises.
+
+He suited all the required conditions; no wife, child, nor relatives.
+He was as independent as man could be. There being no one whose
+opinion he needed to consult, he betook himself to Messrs. Marcuart &
+Co.
+
+"If the money is there," he said to himself, "the rest is all right."
+
+At the banking-house he was received with the respect due to a man who
+has sixteen thousand pounds deposited to his credit; having made that
+point sure, Shandon asked for a sheet of white paper, and in his large
+sailor's handwriting he sent his acceptance of the plan to the address
+given above.
+
+That very day he made the necessary arrangements with the builders at
+Birkenhead, and within twenty-four hours the keel of the _Forward_ was
+laid on the stocks.
+
+Richard Shandon was a man about forty years old, strong, energetic,
+and fearless, three qualities most necessary for a sailor, for they
+give him confidence, vigor, and coolness. He was known to be severe
+and very hard to please; hence he was more feared than loved by his
+men. But this reputation was not calculated to interfere with his
+selection of a crew, for he was known to be skilful in avoiding
+trouble.
+
+Shandon feared that the mysterious nature of the expedition might
+stand in his way.
+
+"In that case," he said, "it's best not to say anything about it;
+there will always be plenty of men who will want to know the why and
+the wherefore of the whole matter, and, since I don't know anything
+about it myself, I should find it hard to answer them. This K. Z. is
+certainly an odd stick; but, after all, he knows me, he depends on me,
+and that is enough. As for his ship, it will be a good one, and if
+it's not going to the Arctic Ocean, my name is not Richard Shandon.
+But I shall keep that fact for myself and my officers."
+
+Thereupon Shandon began to choose his crew, bearing in mind the
+captain's wishes about the independence and health of the men.
+
+He knew a very capital fellow, and a good sailor, James Wall by name.
+Wall might have been about thirty years old, and had already made some
+voyages in the northern seas. Shandon offered him the place of second
+mate, and Wall accepted it at once; all he cared for was to be at sea.
+Shandon confided all the details of the affair to him and to a certain
+Johnson, whom he took as boatswain.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"All right," answered James Wall, "that's as good as anything. Even if
+it's to seek the Northwest Passage, some have come back from that."
+
+"Not all," said Johnson, "but that's no reason that we should not try
+it."
+
+"Besides, if our guesses are right," said Shandon, "it must be said
+that we start with a fair chance of success. The _Forward_ will be a
+stanch ship and she will carry good engines. She can go a great
+distance. We want a crew of only eighteen men."
+
+"Eighteen men," answered Johnson; "that's the number the American,
+Kane, took with him on his famous voyage towards the North Pole."
+
+"It's strange," said Wall, "that a private person should try to make
+his way from Davis Strait to Behring Strait. The expeditions in search
+of Sir John Franklin have already cost England more than seven hundred
+and sixty thousand pounds, without producing any practical good. Who
+in the world wants to throw away his money for such a purpose?"
+
+"In the first place, James," answered Shandon, "we are in the dark
+about it all. I don't know whether we are going to the northern or the
+southern seas. Perhaps there's some new discovery to be tried. At any
+rate, some day or other a Dr. Clawbonny is to come aboard who will
+probably know more about it and will be able to tell us. We shall
+see."
+
+"Let us wait, then," said Johnson; "as for me, I'm going to look after
+some good men, and I'll answer now for their animal heat, as the
+captain calls it. You can depend on me."
+
+Johnson was an invaluable man; he was familiar with high latitudes. He
+had been quartermaster aboard of the _Phoenix_, which belonged to one
+of the expeditions sent out in 1853 in search of Franklin; he had been
+an eye-witness of the death of the French lieutenant Bellot, whom he
+had accompanied in his expedition across the ice. Johnson knew all the
+sailors in Liverpool, and immediately set about engaging a crew.
+
+[Illustration: "Johnson knew all the sailors in Liverpool, and
+immediately set about engaging a crew."]
+
+Shandon, Wall, and he succeeded in filling the number by the middle of
+December, but they met with considerable difficulty; many who were
+attracted by the high pay were alarmed by the danger, and more than
+one who had boldly enlisted came later to say that he had changed his
+mind on account of the dissuasion of his friends. They all tried to
+pierce the mystery, and pursued Shandon with their questions. He used
+to refer them to Johnson.
+
+"What can I say, my man?" the boatswain used to answer; "I don't know
+any more about it than you do. At any rate you will be in good
+company, with men who won't shirk their work; that's something! So
+don't be thinking about it all day: take it or leave it!" And the
+greater number took it.
+
+"You understand," added Johnson, sometimes, "my only trouble is in
+making my choice. High pay, such as no sailor ever had before, with
+the certainty of finding a round sum when we get back. That's very
+tempting."
+
+"The fact is," answered the sailors, "that it is hard to refuse. It
+will support a man all the rest of his life."
+
+"I won't hide from you," continued Johnson, "that the voyage will be
+long, difficult, and dangerous; that's all stated in our instructions;
+it's well to know beforehand what one undertakes to do; probably it's
+to try all that men can possibly do, and perhaps even more. So, if you
+haven't got a bold heart and a strong body, if you can't say you have
+more than twenty chances to one of staying there, if, in short, you
+are particular about leaving your body in one place more than another,
+here rather than there, get away from here and let some bolder man
+have your place!"
+
+"But, at least," said the confused sailor,--"at least, you know the
+captain?"
+
+"The captain is Richard Shandon, my friend, until we receive another."
+
+Now it must be said that was what the commander thought; he allowed
+himself to think that at the last moment he would receive definite
+instructions as to the object of the voyage, and that he would remain
+in command of the _Forward_. He was fond of spreading this opinion
+about, either in conversation with his officers or in superintending
+the building of the brig, of which the timbers were now rising in the
+Birkenhead ship-yard like the sides of a huge whale.
+
+Shandon and Johnson conformed strictly with the recommendation about
+the health of the crew; they all looked hardy and possessed enough
+animal heat to run the engines of the _Forward_; their elastic limbs,
+their clear and ruddy skin, showed that they were fit to encounter
+intense cold. They were bold, determined men, energetic and stoutly
+built; they were not all equally vigorous. Shandon had even hesitated
+about accepting some of them; for instance, the sailors Gripper and
+Garry, and the harpooner Simpson, who seemed to him too thin; but, on
+the other hand, they were well built, they were earnest about it, and
+they were shipped.
+
+All the crew were members of the same church; in their long voyage
+their prayers and the reading of the Bible would call them together
+and console them in the hours of depression; so that it was advisable
+that there should be no diversity on this score. Shandon knew from
+experience the usefulness of this practice and its good influence on
+the men, so valuable that it is never neglected on board of ships
+which winter in the polar seas.
+
+When all the crew had been engaged, Shandon and his two officers
+busied themselves with the provisions; they followed closely the
+captain's instructions, which were definite, precise, and detailed, in
+which the quality and quantity of the smallest articles were clearly
+set down. Thanks to the drafts placed at the commander's order, every
+article was paid for, cash down, with a discount of eight per cent,
+which Richard carefully placed to the credit of K. Z.
+
+Crew, provisions, and outfit were all ready in January, 1860; the
+_Forward_ was approaching completion. Shandon never let a day pass
+without visiting Birkenhead.
+
+On the morning of the 23d of January he was, as usual, on one of the
+double-ended ferry-boats which ply between the two shores of the
+Mersey; everything was enveloped in one of the ordinary fogs of that
+region, which compel the pilot to steer by compass, although the trip
+is one of but ten minutes.
+
+[Illustration: "Everything was enveloped in one of the ordinary fogs
+of that region."]
+
+However, the thickness of the fog could not prevent Shandon from
+noticing a short, rather stout man, with a refined, agreeable face and
+pleasant expression, who came towards him, seized both his hands, and
+pressed them with a warmth and familiarity which a Frenchman would
+have said was "very southern."
+
+But if this stranger was not from the South, he had escaped it
+narrowly; he spoke and gesticulated freely; his thoughts seemed
+determined to find expression, even if they had to burst out. His
+eyes, small like the eyes of witty men, his large and mobile mouth,
+were safety-valves which enabled him to rid himself of too strong a
+pressure on his feelings; he talked; and he talked so much and
+joyously, that, it must be said, Shandon could not make out what he
+was saying.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Still the mate of the _Forward_ was not slow in recognizing this short
+man whom he had never seen; it flashed into his mind, and the moment
+that the other stopped to take breath, Shandon uttered these words,--
+
+"Dr. Clawbonny?"
+
+"The same, in person, Commander! For nearly a quarter of an hour I
+have been looking after you, asking for you of every one and
+everywhere. Imagine my impatience. Five minutes more and I should have
+lost my head! So this is you, officer Shandon? You really exist? You
+are not a myth? Your hand, your hand! Let me press it again in mine!
+Yes, that is indeed the hand of Richard Shandon. Now, if there is a
+commander Richard, there is a brig _Forward_ which he commands; and if
+he commands it, it will sail; and if it sails, it will take Dr.
+Clawbonny on board."
+
+"Well, yes, Doctor, I am Richard Shandon, there is a brig _Forward_,
+and it will sail."
+
+"There's logic," answered the doctor, taking a long breath,--"there's
+logic. So I am delighted, enchanted! For a long time I've been waiting
+for something of this sort to turn up, and I've been wanting to try a
+voyage of this sort. Now, with you--"
+
+"Excuse me--" said Shandon.
+
+"With you," continued Clawbonny, paying him no attention, "we are sure
+of going far without turning round."
+
+"But--" began Shandon.
+
+"For you have shown what stuff you are made of, and I know all you've
+done. Ah, you are a good sailor!"
+
+"If you please--"
+
+"No, I sha'n't let your courage and skill be doubted for a moment,
+even by yourself. The captain who chose you for mate is a man who knew
+what he was about; I can tell you that."
+
+"But that is not the question," said Shandon, impatiently.
+
+"What is it, then? Don't keep me anxious any longer."
+
+"But you won't let me say a word. Tell me, Doctor, if you please, how
+you came to join this expedition of the _Forward_?"
+
+"By a letter, a capital letter; here it is,--the letter of a brave
+captain, very short, but very full."
+
+With these words he handed Shandon a letter running as follows:--
+
+
+INVERNESS, January 22, 1860.
+
+_To_ DR. CLAWBONNY, _Liverpool_.
+
+If Dr. Clawbonny wishes to sail on the _Forward_ for a long voyage, he
+can present himself to the mate, Richard Shandon, who has been advised
+concerning him.
+
+K. Z.,
+_Captain of the Forward_.
+
+
+"The letter reached me this morning, and I'm now ready to go on board
+of the _Forward_."
+
+"But," continued Shandon, "I suppose you know whither we are bound."
+
+"Not the least idea in the world; but what difference does it make,
+provided I go somewhere? They say I'm a learned man; they are wrong; I
+don't know anything, and if I have published some books which have had
+a good sale, I was wrong; it was very kind of the public to buy them!
+I don't know anything, I tell you, except that I am very ignorant. Now
+I have a chance offered me to complete, or, rather, to make over my
+knowledge of medicine, surgery, history, geography, botany,
+mineralogy, conchology, geodesy, chemistry, physics, mechanics,
+hydrography; well, I accept it, and I assure you, I didn't have to be
+asked twice."
+
+"Then," said Shandon in a tone of disappointment, "you don't know
+where the _Forward_ is going."
+
+"O, but I do, commander; it's going where there is something to be
+learned, discovered; where one can instruct himself, make comparisons,
+see other customs, other countries, study the ways of other people; in
+a word, it's going where I have never been."
+
+"But more precisely?" cried Shandon.
+
+"More precisely," answered the doctor, "I have understood that it was
+bound for the Northern Ocean. Well, good for the North!"
+
+"At any rate," said Shandon, "you know the captain?"
+
+"Not at all! But he's a good fellow, you may depend on it."
+
+The mate and the doctor stepped ashore at Birkenhead; Shandon gave his
+companion all the information he had, and the mystery which lay about
+it all excited highly the doctor's imagination. The sight of the
+_Forward_ enchanted him. From that time he was always with Shandon,
+and he came every morning to inspect the hull of the _Forward_.
+
+In addition he was specially intrusted with the providing of the
+ship's medicine-chest.
+
+For Clawbonny was a physician, and a good one, although he had never
+practised much. At twenty-five he was an ordinary young doctor, at
+forty he was a learned man; being known throughout the whole city, he
+became a leading member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of
+Liverpool. His moderate fortune allowed him to give some advice which
+was no less valuable for being without charge; loved as a thoroughly
+kind-hearted man must be, he did no harm to any one else nor to
+himself; quick and garrulous, if you please, but with his heart in his
+hand, and his hand in that of all the world.
+
+When the news of his intended journey on board the _Forward_ became
+known in the city, all his friends endeavored to dissuade him, but
+they only made him cling more obstinately to his intention; and when
+the doctor had absolutely determined on anything, he was a skilful man
+who could make him change.
+
+From that day the rumors, conjectures, and apprehensions steadily
+increased; but that did not interfere with the launching of the
+_Forward_ on the 5th of February, 1860. Two months later she was ready
+for sea.
+
+On the 15th of March, as the captain's letter had said, a Danish dog
+was sent by rail from Edinburgh to Liverpool, to the address of
+Richard Shandon. He seemed morose, timid, and almost wicked; his
+expression was very strange. The name of the _Forward_ was engraved on
+his collar.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The commander gave him quarters on board, and sent a letter, with the
+news of his arrival, to Leghorn.
+
+Hence, with the exception of the captain, the crew of the _Forward_
+was complete. It was composed as follows:--
+
+1. K. Z., captain; 2. Richard Shandon, first mate, in command; 3.
+James Wall, second mate; 4. Dr. Clawbonny; 5. Johnson, boatswain; 6.
+Simpson, harpooner; 7. Bell, carpenter; 8. Brunton, first engineer; 9.
+Plover, second engineer; 10. Strong (negro), cook; 11. Foker,
+ice-master; 12. Wolston, gunner; 13. Bolton, sailor; 14. Garry,
+sailor; 15. Clifton, sailor; 16. Gripper, sailor; 17. Pen, sailor; 18.
+Warren, stoker.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+THE DOG-CAPTAIN.
+
+
+The 5th of April, the day of departure, came. The fact that the doctor
+had joined the expedition gave some comfort to those on board.
+Wherever he could go they could follow. Still, most of the sailors
+were very uneasy, and Shandon, fearing that their number might be
+diminished by desertion, was very anxious to get to sea. The land once
+out of sight, the men would soon be resigned.
+
+Dr. Clawbonny's cabin was situated on the poop, occupying the extreme
+after-part of the ship. The cabins of the captain and mate opened on
+the deck. That of the captain was kept tightly closed, after it had
+been provided with various instruments, furniture, clothing, books,
+and utensils, all of which had been set down in detail in a letter. As
+he had asked, the key was sent to the captain at Lubeck; so he alone
+had admission into the cabin.
+
+This fact annoyed Shandon, and diminished his chances of having chief
+command. As for his own cabin, he had arranged it suitably for the
+presumed voyage, for he knew very well what was necessary for a polar
+expedition.
+
+The second mate's cabin was on the lower deck, where the sailors were
+domiciled; the crew had very comfortable quarters; they would hardly
+have had such accommodations in any other ship. They were treated as
+if they were a valuable cargo; a huge stove stood in the middle of
+their sleeping-room.
+
+Dr. Clawbonny was very enthusiastic about it; he took possession of
+his cabin on the 6th of February, the day after the ship was launched.
+
+"The happiest animal in the world," he used to say, "would be a snail
+who could make himself just such a shell as he wanted; I shall try to
+be an intelligent snail."
+
+And, in fact, for a shell which he was not going to leave for some
+time, his cabin presented a very comfortable appearance; the doctor
+took a scientific or childlike pleasure in arranging his scientific
+paraphernalia. His books, his specimens, his cases, his instruments,
+his physical apparatus, his thermometers, barometers, field-glasses,
+compasses, sextants, charts, drawings, phials, powder, and
+medicine-bottles, all were classified in a way which would have done
+honor to the British Museum. This space of six feet square contained
+incalculable wealth; the doctor needed only to stretch out his hand
+without rising, to become at once a physician, a mathematician, an
+astronomer, a geographer, a botanist, or a conchologist.
+
+[Illustration: "This space of six feet square contained incalculable
+wealth."]
+
+To tell the truth, he was proud of his arrangements, and very
+contented in his floating sanctum, which three of his thinnest friends
+would have completely filled. They used to crowd there in great
+numbers, so that even so good-natured a man as the doctor was
+occasionally put out; and, like Socrates, he came at last to say,--
+
+"My house is small, but may Heaven grant that it never be filled with
+friends!"
+
+To complete our account of the _Forward_, it is only necessary to add
+that a kennel for the huge Danish dog was built just beneath the
+window of the closed cabin; but he preferred to keep himself between
+decks and in the hold; it seemed impossible to tame him; no one ever
+conquered his shyness; he could be heard, at night especially, howling
+dismally in the ship's hold.
+
+Was it because he missed his master? Had he an instinctive dread of
+the dangers of the voyage? Had he a presentiment of the coming perils?
+The sailors were sure that he had, and more than one said the same in
+jest, who in his heart regarded the dog as a sort of diabolic animal.
+
+Pen, a very brutal man, one day, while trying to kick him, slipped,
+and fell on the corner of the capstan in such a way that he cut his
+head badly. It is easy to see how the sailors put all the blame upon
+the dog.
+
+[Illustration: PEN.]
+
+Clifton, who was the most superstitious man in the crew, made, one
+day, the strange observation that the dog, when on the poop, would
+always walk on the windward side; and afterwards, when the brig was at
+sea and under sail, this singular animal would shift his position to
+the other side after every tack, so as to be windward, as the captain
+of the _Forward_ would have done.
+
+[Illustration: CLIFTON.]
+
+Dr. Clawbonny, who by his gentleness and caresses would have almost
+tamed the heart of a tiger, tried in vain to make friends with the
+dog; he met with no success.
+
+The dog, too, did not answer to any of the usual names of his kind. So
+the men used to call him "Captain," for he seemed perfectly familiar
+with all the ways on shipboard. He had evidently been to sea before.
+
+It is hence easy to understand the boatswain's answer to Clifton's
+friend, and how this idea found but few sceptics; more than one would
+repeat it jestingly, who was fully prepared to see the dog, some fine
+day, take human shape, and with a loud voice assume command.
+
+If Richard Shandon did not share such apprehensions, he was far from
+being undisturbed, and on the eve of departing, on the night of April
+5th, he was talking on this subject with the doctor, Wall, and
+Johnson, in the mess-room.
+
+These four persons were sipping their tenth grog, which was probably
+their last, too; for, in accordance with the letter from Aberdeen, all
+the crew, from the captain to the stoker, were teetotalers, never
+touching beer, wine, nor spirits, except in case of sickness, and by
+the advice of the doctor.
+
+For an hour past they had been talking about their departure. If the
+captain's instructions were to be completely carried out, Shandon
+would the next day receive a letter containing his last orders.
+
+"If that letter," said the mate, "doesn't tell me the captain's name,
+it must at least tell us whither we are bound. If not, in what
+direction shall we sail?"
+
+"Upon my word," answered the impatient doctor, "if I were in your
+place, Shandon, I should set sail even without getting a letter; one
+will come after us, you may be sure."
+
+"You have a great deal of faith, Doctor. But, if you please, to what
+part of the world would you sail?"
+
+"Towards the North Pole, of course; there can be no doubt about that."
+
+"No doubt indeed!" said Wall. "Why not towards the South Pole?"
+
+"The South Pole! Never!" cried the doctor. "Would the captain ever
+have thought of sending a brig across the whole Atlantic Ocean? Just
+think for a moment, my dear Wall."
+
+"The doctor has an answer for everything," was his only reply.
+
+"Granted it's northward," resumed Shandon. "But tell me, Doctor, is it
+to Spitzbergen, Greenland, or Labrador that we have to sail, or to
+Hudson's Bay? If all these routes come to the same end at last,--the
+impassable ice,--there is still a great number of them, and I should
+find it very hard to choose between them. Have any definite answer to
+that, Doctor?"
+
+"No," answered the doctor, annoyed that he had nothing to say; "but if
+you get no letter, what shall you do?"
+
+"I shall do nothing; I shall wait."
+
+"You won't set sail!" cried Clawbonny, twirling his glass in his
+despair.
+
+"No, certainly not."
+
+"That's the best course," said Johnson, mildly; while the doctor
+walked around the table, being unable to sit quiet any longer. "Yes,
+that's the best course; and still, too long a delay might have very
+disastrous consequences. In the first place, the season is a good one,
+and if it's north we are going, we ought to take advantage of the mild
+weather to get through Davis Straits; besides, the crew will get more
+and more impatient; the friends and companions of the men are urging
+them to leave the _Forward_, and they might succeed in playing us a
+very bad turn."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"And then, too," said James Wall, "if any panic should arise among the
+men, every one would desert us; and I don't know, Commander, how you
+could get together another crew."
+
+"But what is to be done?" cried Shandon.
+
+"What you said," answered the doctor: "wait; but wait till to-morrow
+before you despair. The captain's promises have all been fulfilled so
+far with such regularity that we may have the best hopes for the
+future; there's no reason to think that we shall not be told of our
+destination at the proper time. As for me, I don't doubt in the least
+that to-morrow we shall be sailing in the Irish Sea. So, my friends, I
+propose one last drink to a happy voyage; it begins in a mysterious
+way, but, with such sailors as you, there are a thousand chances of
+its ending well."
+
+And they all touched their glasses for the last time.
+
+"Now, Commander," resumed Johnson, "I have one piece of advice to give
+you, and that is, to make everything ready for sailing. Let the crew
+think you are certain of what you are about. To-morrow, whether a
+letter comes or not, set sail; don't start your fires; the wind
+promises to hold; nothing will be easier than to get off; take a pilot
+on board; at the ebb of the tide leave the docks; then anchor beyond
+Birkenhead Point; the crew will have no more communication with the
+land; and if this devilish letter does come at last, it can find us
+there as well as anywhere."
+
+"Well said, Johnson!" exclaimed the doctor, reaching out his hand to
+the old sailor.
+
+"That's what we shall do," answered Shandon.
+
+Each one then withdrew to his cabin, and took what sleep he could get
+till morning.
+
+The next day the first distribution of letters took place in the city,
+but there was none for Commander Richard Shandon.
+
+Nevertheless he made his preparations for departure; the news spread
+immediately throughout the city, and, as we have seen, a great
+concourse of spectators thronged the piers of the New Prince's Docks.
+
+[Illustration: "The news spread immediately throughout the city, and a
+great concourse of spectators thronged the piers."]
+
+A great many people came on board the brig,--some to bid a friend good
+by, or to urge him to leave the ship, or to gaze at this strange
+vessel; others to ascertain the object of the voyage; and there were
+many murmurs at the unusual silence of the commander.
+
+For that he had his reasons.
+
+Ten o'clock struck. Eleven. The tide was to turn at half past twelve.
+Shandon, from the upper deck, gazed with anxious eyes at the crowd,
+trying in vain to read on some one's face the secret of his fate. But
+in vain. The sailors of the _Forward_ obeyed his orders in silence,
+keeping their eyes fixed upon him, ever awaiting some information
+which he did not give.
+
+Johnson was finishing the preparations for setting sail. The day was
+overcast, and the sea, outside of the docks, rather high; a stiff
+southwest breeze was blowing, but they could easily leave the Mersey.
+
+At twelve o'clock still nothing. Dr. Clawbonny walked up and down
+uneasily, looking about, gesticulating, and "impatient for the sea,"
+as he said. In spite of all he could do, he felt excited. Shandon bit
+his lips till the blood came.
+
+At this moment Johnson came up to him and said,--
+
+"Commander, if we are going to take this tide, we must lose no time;
+it will be a good hour before we can get off from the docks."
+
+Shandon cast one last glance about him, and looked at his watch. It
+was after the time of the midday distribution of letters.
+
+"Cast off!" he said to his boatswain.
+
+"All ashore who are going!" cried the latter, ordering the spectators
+to leave the deck of the _Forward_.
+
+Thereupon the crowd, began to move toward the gangway and make its way
+on to the quay, while the crew began to cast off the last moorings.
+
+At once the inevitable confusion of the crowd, which was pushed about
+without much ceremony by the sailors, was increased by the barking of
+the dog. He suddenly sprang from the forecastle right through the mass
+of visitors, barking sullenly.
+
+All made way for him. He sprang on the poop-deck, and, incredible as
+it may seem, yet, as a thousand witnesses can testify, this
+dog-captain carried a letter in his mouth.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"A letter!" cried Shandon; "but is _he_ on board?"
+
+"_He_ was, without doubt, but he's not now," answered Johnson, showing
+the deck cleared of the crowd.
+
+"Here, Captain! Captain!" shouted the doctor, trying to take the
+letter from the dog, who kept springing away from him. He seemed to
+want to give the letter to Shandon himself.
+
+"Here, Captain!" he said.
+
+The dog went up to him; Shandon took the letter without difficulty,
+and then Captain barked sharply three times, amid the profound silence
+which prevailed on board the ship and along the quay.
+
+Shandon held the letter in his hand, without opening it.
+
+"Read it, read it!" cried the doctor. Shandon looked at it. The
+address, without date or place, ran simply,--"Commander Richard
+Shandon, on board the brig _Forward_."
+
+Shandon opened the letter and read:--
+
+
+You will sail towards Cape Farewell. You will reach it April 20. If
+the captain does not appear on board, you will pass through Davis
+Strait and go up Baffin's Bay as far as Melville Sound.
+
+K. Z.,
+_Captain of the Forward_.
+
+
+Shandon folded carefully this brief letter, put it in his pocket, and
+gave the order to cast off. His voice, which arose alone above the
+roaring of the wind, sounded very solemn.
+
+Soon the _Forward_ had left the docks, and under the care of a pilot,
+whose boat followed at a distance, put out into the stream. The crowd
+hastened to the outer quay by the Victoria Docks to get a last look at
+the strange vessel. The two topsails, the foresail, and staysail were
+soon set, and under this canvas the _Forward_, which well deserved its
+name, after rounding Birkenhead Point, sailed away into the Irish Sea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+AT SEA.
+
+
+The wind, which was uncertain, although in general favorable, was
+blowing in genuine April squalls. The _Forward_ sailed rapidly, and
+its screw, as yet unused, did not delay its progress. Towards three
+o'clock they met the steamer which plies between Liverpool and the
+Isle of Man, and which carries the three legs of Sicily on its
+paddle-boxes. Her captain hailed them, and this was the last good-by
+to the crew of the _Forward_.
+
+At five o'clock the pilot resigned the charge of the ship to Richard
+Shandon, and sailed away in his boat, which soon disappeared from
+sight in the southwest.
+
+Towards evening the brig doubled the Calf of Man, at the southern
+extremity of the island of that name. During the night the sea was
+very high; the _Forward_ rode the waves very well, however, and
+leaving the Point of Ayr on the northwest, she ran towards the North
+Channel.
+
+[Illustration: "Towards evening the brig doubled the Calf of Man."]
+
+Johnson was right; once at sea the sailors readily adapted themselves
+instinctively to the situation. They saw the excellence of their
+vessel and forgot the strangeness of their situation. The ship's
+routine was soon regularly established.
+
+The doctor inhaled with pleasure the sea-air; he paced up and down the
+deck in spite of the fresh wind, and showed that for a student he had
+very good sea-legs.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"The sea is a fine thing," he said to Johnson, as he went upon the
+bridge after breakfast; "I am a little late in making its
+acquaintance, but I shall make up for my delay."
+
+"You are right, Dr. Clawbonny; I would give all the land in the world
+for a bit of ocean. People say that sailors soon get tired of their
+business; but I've been sailing for forty years, and I like it as well
+as I did the first day."
+
+"What a pleasure it is to feel a stanch ship under one's feet! and, if
+I'm not mistaken, the _Forward_ is a capital sea-boat."
+
+"You are right, Doctor," answered Shandon, who had joined the two
+speakers; "she's a good ship, and I must say that there was never a
+ship so well equipped for a voyage in the polar regions. That reminds
+me that, thirty years ago, Captain James Ross, going to seek the
+Northwest Passage--"
+
+"Commanded the _Victory_," said the doctor, quickly, "a brig of about
+the tonnage of this one, and also carrying machinery."
+
+"What! did you know that?"
+
+"Say for yourself," retorted the doctor. "Steamers were then new
+inventions, and the machinery of the _Victory_ was continually
+delaying him. Captain Ross, after in vain trying to patch up every
+piece, at last took it all out and left it at the first place he
+wintered at."
+
+"The deuce!" said Shandon. "You know all about it, I see."
+
+"More or less," answered the doctor. "In my reading I have come across
+the works of Parry, Ross, Franklin; the reports of MacClure, Kennedy,
+Kane, MacClintock; and some of it has stuck in my memory. I might add
+that MacClintock, on board of the _Fox_, a propeller like ours,
+succeeded in making his way more easily and more directly than all his
+successors."
+
+"That's perfectly true," answered Shandon; "that MacClintock is a good
+sailor; I have seen him at sea. You might also say that we shall be,
+like him, in Davis Strait in the month of April; and if we can get
+through the ice our voyage will be very much advanced."
+
+"Unless," said the doctor, "we should be as unlucky as the _Fox_ in
+1857, and should be caught the first year by the ice in the north of
+Baffin's Bay, and we should have to winter among the icebergs."
+
+"We must hope to be luckier, Mr. Shandon," said Johnson; "and if, with
+a ship like the _Forward_, we can't go where we please, the attempt
+must be given up forever."
+
+"Besides," continued the doctor, "if the captain is on board he will
+know better than we what is to be done, and so much the better because
+we are perfectly ignorant; for his singularly brief letter gives us no
+clew to the probable aim of the voyage."
+
+"It's a great deal," answered Shandon, with some warmth, "to know what
+route we have to take; and now for a good month, I fancy, we shall be
+able to get along without his supernatural intervention and orders.
+Besides, you know what I think about him."
+
+"Ha, ha!" laughed the doctor; "I used to think as you did, that he was
+going to leave the command of the ship in your hands, and that he
+would never come on board; but--"
+
+"But what?" asked Shandon, with some ill-humor.
+
+"But since the arrival of the second letter, I have altered my views
+somewhat."
+
+"And why so, doctor?"
+
+"Because, although this letter does tell you in which direction to go,
+it still does not inform you of the final aim of the voyage; and we
+have yet to know whither we are to go. I ask you how can a third
+letter reach us now that we are on the open sea. The postal service on
+the shore of Greenland is very defective. You see, Shandon, I fancy
+that he is waiting for us at some Danish settlement up there,--at
+Holsteinborg or Upernavik. We shall find that he has been completing
+the supply of seal-skins, buying sledges and dogs,--in a word,
+providing all the equipment for a journey in the arctic seas. So I
+shall not be in the least surprised to see him coming out of his cabin
+some fine morning and taking command in the least supernatural way in
+the world."
+
+"Possibly," answered Shandon, dryly; "but meanwhile the wind's
+freshening, and there's no use risking our topsails in such weather."
+
+Shandon left the doctor, and ordered the topsails furled.
+
+"He still clings to that idea," said the doctor to the boatswain.
+
+"Yes," was the answer, "and it's a pity; for you may very well be
+right, Dr. Clawbonny."
+
+Towards the evening of Saturday the _Forward_ rounded the Mull of
+Galloway, on which the light could be seen in the northeast. During
+the night they left the Mull of Cantire to the north, and on the east
+Fair Head, on the Irish coast. Towards three o'clock in the morning,
+the brig, passing Rathlin Island on its starboard quarter, came out
+from the North Channel into the ocean.
+
+That was Sunday, April 8. The English, and especially sailors, are
+very observant of that day; hence the reading of the Bible, of which
+the doctor gladly took charge, occupied a good part of the morning.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The wind rose to a gale, and threatened to drive the ship back upon
+the Irish coast. The waves ran very high; the vessel rolled a great
+deal. If the doctor was not sea-sick, it was because he was determined
+not to be, for nothing would have been easier. At midday Malin Head
+disappeared from their view in the south; it was the last sight these
+bold sailors were to have of Europe, and more than one gazed at it for
+a long time who was doubtless fated never to set eyes on it again.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+By observation the latitude then was 55 degrees 57 minutes, and the
+longitude, according to the chronometer, 7 degrees 40 minutes.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Meridian of Greenwich.]
+
+The gale abated towards nine o'clock of the evening; the _Forward_, a
+good sailer, kept on its route to the northwest. That day gave them
+all a good opportunity to judge of her sea-going qualities; as good
+judges had already said at Liverpool, she was well adapted for
+carrying sail.
+
+During the following days, the _Forward_ made very good progress; the
+wind veered to the south, and the sea ran high. The brig set every
+sail. A few petrels and puffins flew about the poop-deck; the doctor
+succeeded in shooting one of the latter, which fortunately fell on
+board.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Simpson, the harpooner, seized it and carried it to the doctor.
+
+"It's an ugly bird, Dr. Clawbonny," he said.
+
+"But then it will make a good meal, my friend."
+
+"What, are you going to eat it?"
+
+"And you shall have a taste of it," said the doctor, laughing.
+
+"Never!" answered Simpson; "it's strong and oily, like all sea-birds."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"True," said the doctor; "but I have a way of dressing such game, and
+if you recognize it to be a sea-bird, I'll promise never to kill
+another in all my life."
+
+"So you are a cook, too, Dr. Clawbonny?" asked Johnson.
+
+"A learned man ought to know a little of everything."
+
+"Then take care, Simpson," said the boatswain; "the doctor is a clever
+man, and he'll make us take this puffin for a delicious grouse."
+
+In fact, the doctor was in the right about this bird; he removed
+skilfully the fat which lies beneath the whole surface of the skin,
+principally on its thighs, and with it disappeared all the rancid,
+fishy odor with which this bird can be justly charged. Thus prepared,
+the bird was called delicious, even by Simpson.
+
+During the recent storm, Richard Shandon had made up his mind about
+the qualities of his crew; he had tested his men one by one, as every
+officer should do who wishes to be prepared for future dangers; he
+knew on whom he could rely.
+
+James Wall, who was warmly attached to Richard, was intelligent and
+efficient, but he had very little originality; as second officer he
+was exactly in his place.
+
+Johnson, who was accustomed to the dangers of the sea, and an old
+sailor in arctic regions, lacked neither coolness nor courage.
+
+Simpson, the harpooner, and Bell, the carpenter, were steady men,
+obedient and well disciplined. The ice-master, Foker, an experienced
+sailor, who had sailed in northern waters, promised to be of the
+greatest service.
+
+Of the other men, Garry and Bolton seemed to be the best; Bolton was a
+jolly fellow, always laughing and joking; Garry, a man about
+thirty-five years old, had an energetic, but rather pale and sad face.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The three sailors, Clifton, Gripper, and Pen, seemed to be the least
+enthusiastic and determined; they were inclined to grumbling. Gripper
+had even wished to break his engagement when the time came for
+sailing, and only a feeling of shame prevented him. If things went
+well, if they encountered no excessive dangers, and their toil was not
+too severe, these three men could be counted on; but they were hard to
+please with their food, for they were inclined to gluttony. In spite
+of their having been forewarned, they were by no means pleased with
+being teetotalers, and at their meals they used to miss their brandy
+or gin; but they made up for it with the tea and coffee which were
+distributed with a lavish hand.
+
+As for the two engineers, Brunton and Plover, and the stoker, Warren,
+they had been so far well satisfied with having nothing to do.
+
+Shandon knew therefore what to expect from each man.
+
+On the 14th of April, the _Forward_ crossed the Gulf Stream, which,
+after following the eastern coast of America as far as Newfoundland,
+turns to the northeast and moves towards the shore of Norway. They
+were then in latitude 51 degrees 37 minutes, and longitude 22 degrees
+37 minutes, two hundred miles from the end of Greenland. The weather
+grew colder; the thermometer fell to 32 degrees, the freezing-point.
+
+The doctor, without yet putting on his arctic winter dress, was
+wearing a suit of sea-clothes, like all the officers and sailors; he
+was an amusing sight in his high boots, in which he could not bend his
+legs, his huge tarpaulin hat, his trousers and coat of the same
+material; in heavy rain, or when the brig was shipping seas, the
+doctor used to look like a sort of sea-monster, a comparison which
+always flattered him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+For two days the sea was very rough; the wind veered to the northwest,
+and delayed the _Forward_. From the 14th to the 16th of April there
+was still a high sea running; but on Monday there fell a heavy shower
+which almost immediately had the effect of calming the sea. Shandon
+called the doctor's attention to it.
+
+"Well," said the doctor, "that confirms the curious observations of
+the whaler Scoresby, who was a member of the Royal Society of
+Edinburgh, of which I have the honor to be a corresponding member. You
+see that while the rain is falling the waves are hardly to be noticed,
+even when the wind is strong. On the other hand, in dry weather the
+sea would be rougher even with a gentler wind."
+
+"But what is the explanation of it, Doctor?"
+
+"It's very simple; there is no explanation."
+
+At that moment the ice-master, who was on watch in the topmast
+cross-trees, cried out that there was a floating mass on the starboard
+quarter, about fifteen miles to windward.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"An iceberg in these latitudes!" cried the doctor.
+
+Shandon turned his glass in that direction, and corroborated the
+lookout's words.
+
+"That's strange," said the doctor.
+
+"Are you surprised?" asked the commander, laughing. "What! are we
+lucky enough to find anything that will surprise you?"
+
+"I am surprised without being surprised," answered the doctor,
+smiling, "since the brig _Ann Poole_, of Greenspond, was caught in the
+ice in the year 1813, in the forty-fourth degree of north latitude,
+and Dayement, her captain, saw hundreds of icebergs."
+
+"Good," said Shandon; "you can still teach us a great deal about
+them."
+
+"O, not so very much!" answered Clawbonny, modestly, "except that ice
+has been seen in very much lower latitudes."
+
+"That I know, my dear Doctor, for when I was a cabin-boy on the
+sloop-of-war, _Fly_--"
+
+"In 1818," continued the doctor, "at the end of March, or it might
+have been the beginning of April, you passed between two large fields
+of floating ice, in latitude forty-two."
+
+"That is too much!" exclaimed Shandon.
+
+"But it's true; so I have no need to be surprised, now that we are two
+degrees farther north, at our sighting an iceberg."
+
+"You are bottled full of information, Doctor," answered the commander;
+"one needs only draw the cork."
+
+"Very well, I shall be exhausted sooner than you think; and now,
+Shandon, if we can get a nearer view of this phenomenon, I should be
+the gladdest of doctors."
+
+"Exactly, Johnson," said Shandon, summoning the boatswain; "I think
+the wind is freshening."
+
+"Yes, Commander," answered Johnson, "we are making very little
+headway, and soon we shall feel the currents from Davis Strait."
+
+"You are right, Johnson, and if we mean to make Cape Farewell by the
+20th of April, we must go under steam, or we shall be cast on the
+coast of Labrador.--Mr. Wall, give the order to light the fires."
+
+The mate's orders were obeyed; an hour later the engines were in
+motion; the sails were furled; and the screw, turning through the
+waves, was driving the _Forward_ rapidly in the teeth of the northwest
+wind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+THE GREAT POLAR CURRENT.
+
+
+Soon more numerous flocks of birds, petrels, puffins, and others which
+inhabit those barren shores, gave token of their approach to
+Greenland. The _Forward_ was moving rapidly northward, leaving behind
+her a long line of dark smoke.
+
+Tuesday, the 17th of April, the ice-master caught the first sight of
+the _blink_[1] of the ice. It was visible at least twenty miles off to
+the north-northwest. In spite of some tolerably thick clouds it
+lighted up brilliantly all the air near the horizon. No one of those
+on board who had ever seen this phenomenon before could fail to
+recognize it, and they felt assured from its whiteness that this blink
+was due to a vast field of ice lying about thirty miles farther than
+they could see, and that it came from the reflection of its luminous
+rays.
+
+[Footnote 1: A peculiar and brilliant color of the air above a large
+expanse of ice.]
+
+Towards evening the wind shifted to the south, and became favorable;
+Shandon was able to carry sail, and as a measure of economy they
+extinguished the furnace fires. The _Forward_ under her topsails, jib,
+and foresail, sailed on towards Cape Farewell.
+
+At three o'clock on the 18th they made out an ice-stream, which, like
+a narrow but brilliant band, divided the lines of the water and sky.
+It was evidently descending rather from the coast of Greenland than
+from Davis Strait, for the ice tended to keep on the western side of
+Baffin's Bay. An hour later, and the _Forward_ was passing through the
+detached fragments of the ice-stream, and in the thickest part the
+pieces of ice, although closely welded together, were rising and
+falling with the waves.
+
+At daybreak the next morning the watch saw a sail; it was the
+_Valkyria_, a Danish corvette, sailing towards the _Forward_, bound to
+Newfoundland. The current from the strait became perceptible, and
+Shandon had to set more sail to overcome it.
+
+At that moment the commander, the doctor, James Wall, and Johnson were
+all together on the poop-deck, observing the force and direction of
+the current. The doctor asked if it were proved that this current was
+felt throughout Baffin's Bay.
+
+"There's no doubt of it," answered Shandon; "and sailing-vessels have
+hard work in making headway against it."
+
+"And it's so much the harder," added James Wall, "because it's met on
+the eastern coast of America, as well as on the western coast of
+Greenland."
+
+"Well," said the doctor, "that serves to confirm those who seek a
+Northwest Passage. The current moves at the rate of about five miles
+an hour, and it is hard to imagine that it rises at the bottom of a
+gulf."
+
+"That is very likely, Doctor," answered Shandon, "because, while this
+current flows from north to south, there is a contrary current in
+Behring Strait, which flows from south to north, and which must be the
+cause of this one."
+
+"Hence," said the doctor, "you must admit that America is completely
+separated from the polar regions, and that the water from the Pacific
+skirts its whole northern coast, until it reaches the Atlantic.
+Besides, the greater elevation of the water of the Pacific is another
+reason for its flowing towards the European seas."
+
+"But," said Shandon, "there must be some facts which support this
+theory; and if there are," he added with gentle irony, "our learned
+friend must be familiar with them."
+
+"Well," answered the latter, complacently, "if it interests you at all
+I can tell you that whales, wounded in Davis Strait, have been found
+afterwards on the coast of Tartary, still carrying a European harpoon
+in their side."
+
+"And unless they doubled Cape Horn, or the Cape of Good Hope,"
+answered Shandon, "they must have gone around the northern coast of
+America. There can be no doubt of that, Doctor."
+
+"And if you were not convinced, my dear Shandon," said the doctor,
+smiling, "I could produce still other evidence, such as the floating
+wood with which Davis Strait is filled, larch, aspen, and other
+southern kinds. Now we know that the Gulf Stream could not carry them
+into the strait; and if they come out from it they must have got in
+through Behring Strait."
+
+"I am perfectly convinced, Doctor, and I must say it would be hard to
+maintain the other side against you."
+
+"See there," said Johnson, "there's something that will throw light on
+this discussion. It's a large piece of wood floating on the water; if
+the commander will give us leave, we can put a rope about it, hoist it
+on board, and ask it the name of its country."
+
+"That's the way!" said the doctor; "after the rule we have the
+example."
+
+Shandon gave the necessary orders; the brig was turned towards the
+piece of wood, and soon the crew were hoisting it aboard, although not
+without considerable trouble.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was the trunk of a mahogany-tree, eaten to its centre by worms,
+which fact alone made it light enough to float.
+
+"This is a real triumph," exclaimed the doctor, enthusiastically,
+"for, since the Atlantic currents could not have brought it into Davis
+Strait, since it could not have reached the polar waters from the
+rivers of North America, as the tree grows under the equator, it is
+evident that it must have come direct from Behring Strait. And
+besides, see those sea-worms which have eaten it; they belong to warm
+latitudes."
+
+"It certainly gives the lie to those who deny the existence of a
+Northwest Passage."
+
+"It fairly kills them," answered the doctor. "See here, I'll give you
+the route of this mahogany-tree: it was carried to the Pacific Ocean
+by some river of the Isthmus of Panama or of Guatemala; thence the
+current carried it along the coast of America as far as Behring
+Strait, and so it was forced into the polar waters; it is neither so
+old nor so completely water-logged that we cannot set its departure at
+some recent date; it escaped all the obstacles of the many straits
+coming into Baffin's Bay, and being quickly seized by the arctic
+current it came through Davis Strait to be hoisted on board the
+_Forward_ for the great joy of Dr. Clawbonny, who asks the commander's
+permission to keep a piece as a memorial."
+
+"Of course," answered Shandon; "but let me tell you in my turn that
+you will not be the only possessor of such a waif. The Danish governor
+of the island of Disco--"
+
+"On the coast of Greenland," continued the doctor, "has a mahogany
+table, made from a tree found in the same way; I know it, my dear
+Shandon. Very well; I don't grudge him his table, for if there were
+room enough on board, I could easily make a sleeping-room out of
+this."
+
+On the night of Wednesday the wind blew with extreme violence;
+drift-wood was frequently seen; the approach to the coast became more
+dangerous at a time when icebergs are numerous; hence the commander
+ordered sail to be shortened, and the _Forward_ went on under merely
+her foresail and forestay-sail.
+
+The thermometer fell below the freezing-point. Shandon distributed
+among the crew suitable clothing, woollen trousers and jackets,
+flannel shirts, and thick woollen stockings, such as are worn by
+Norwegian peasants. Every man received in addition a pair of
+water-proof boots.
+
+As for Captain, he seemed contented with his fur; he appeared
+indifferent to the changes of temperature, as if he were thoroughly
+accustomed to such a life; and besides, a Danish dog was unlikely to
+be very tender. The men seldom laid eyes on him, for he generally kept
+himself concealed in the darkest parts of the vessel.
+
+Towards evening, through a rift in the fog, the coast of Greenland
+could be seen in longitude 37 degrees 2 minutes 7 seconds. Through his
+glass the doctor was able to distinguish mountains separated by huge
+glaciers; but the fog soon cut out this view, like the curtain of a
+theatre falling at the most interesting part of a play.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+On the morning of the 20th of April, the _Forward_ found itself in
+sight of an iceberg one hundred and fifty feet high, aground in this
+place from time immemorial; the thaws have had no effect upon it, and
+leave its strange shape unaltered. Snow saw it; in 1829 James Ross
+took an exact drawing of it; and in 1851 the French lieutenant,
+Bellot, on board of the _Prince Albert_, observed it. Naturally the
+doctor wanted to preserve a memorial of the famous mountain, and he
+made a very successful sketch of it.
+
+It is not strange that such masses should run aground, and in
+consequence become immovably fixed to the spot; as for every foot
+above the surface of the water they have nearly two beneath, which
+would give to this one a total height of about four hundred feet.
+
+At last with a temperature at noon as low as 12 degrees, under a
+snowy, misty sky, they sighted Cape Farewell. The _Forward_ arrived at
+the appointed day; the unknown captain, if he cared to assume his
+place in such gloomy weather, would have no need to complain.
+
+"Then," said the doctor to himself, "there is this famous cape, with
+its appropriate name! Many have passed it, as we do, who were destined
+never to see it again! Is it an eternal farewell to one's friends in
+Europe? You have all passed it, Frobisher, Knight, Barlow, Vaughan,
+Scroggs, Barentz, Hudson, Blosseville, Franklin, Crozier, Bellot,
+destined never to return home; and for you this cape was well named
+Cape Farewell!"
+
+It was towards the year 970 that voyagers, setting out from Iceland,
+discovered Greenland. Sebastian Cabot, in 1498, went as high as
+latitude 56 degrees; Gaspard and Michel Cotreal, from 1500 to 1502,
+reached latitude 60 degrees; and in 1576 Martin Frobisher reached the
+inlet which bears his name.
+
+To John Davis belongs the honor of having discovered the strait, in
+1585; and two years later in a third voyage this hardy sailor, this
+great whaler, reached the sixty-third parallel, twenty-seven degrees
+from the Pole.
+
+Barentz in 1596, Weymouth in 1602, James Hall in 1605 and 1607,
+Hudson, whose name was given to the large bay which runs so far back
+into the continent of America, James Poole in 1611, went more or less
+far into the straits, seeking the Northwest Passage, the discovery of
+which would have greatly shortened the route between the two worlds.
+
+Baffin, in 1616, found in the bay of that name Lancaster Sound; he was
+followed in 1619 by James Monk, and in 1719 by Knight, Barlow,
+Vaughan, and Scroggs, who were never heard of again.
+
+In 1776, Lieutenant Pickersgill, sent to meet Captain Cook, who tried
+to make his way through Behring Strait, reached latitude 68 degrees;
+the next year, Young, on the same errand, went as far as Woman's
+Island.
+
+Then came James Ross, who in 1818 sailed all around the shores of
+Baffin's Bay, and corrected the errors on the charts of his
+predecessors.
+
+Finally, in 1819 and 1820, the famous Parry made his way into
+Lancaster Sound. In spite of numberless difficulties he reached
+Melville Island, and won the prize of five thousand pounds offered by
+act of Parliament to the English sailors who should cross the meridian
+at a latitude higher than the seventy-seventh parallel.
+
+In 1826, Beechey touched at Chamisso Island; James Ross wintered, from
+1829 to 1833, in Prince Regent's Inlet, and, among other important
+services, discovered the magnetic pole.
+
+During this time Franklin, by a land-journey, defined the northern
+coast of America, from Mackenzie River to Turnagain Point; Captain
+Back followed the same route from 1823 to 1835; and these explorations
+were completed in 1839 by Dease, Simpson, and Dr. Rae.
+
+At last, Sir John Franklin, anxious to discover the Northwest Passage,
+left England in 1845, with the _Erebus_ and the _Terror_; he entered
+Baffin's Bay, and since his leaving Disco Island there has been no
+news of his expedition.
+
+His disappearance started numerous search-expeditions, which have
+effected the discovery of the passage, and given the world definite
+information about the rugged coasts of the polar lands. The boldest
+sailors of England, France, and the United States hastened to these
+terrible latitudes; and, thanks to their exertions, the tortuous,
+complicated map of these regions has at last been placed in the
+archives of the Royal Geographical Society of London.
+
+The strange history of these lands crowded on the imagination of the
+doctor, as he stood leaning on the rail, and gazing on the long track
+of the brig. The names of those bold sailors thronged into his memory,
+and it seemed to him that beneath the frozen arches of the ice he
+could see the pale ghosts of those who never returned.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+THE ENTRANCE OF DAVIS STRAIT.
+
+
+During that day the _Forward_ made easy progress through the loose
+ice; the breeze was in a good quarter, but the temperature was very
+low; the wind coming across the ice-fields was thoroughly chilled.
+
+At night the strictest care was necessary; the icebergs crowded
+together in this narrow passage; often they could be counted by the
+hundred on the horizon; they had been loosened from the lofty coasts
+by the incessant beating of the waves and the warmth of the spring
+month, and they were floating down to melt away in the depths of the
+ocean. Often, too, they came across large masses of floating wood,
+which they were obliged to avoid, so that the crow's-nest was placed
+in position on the top of the foremast; it consisted of a sort of tub,
+in which the ice-master, partly sheltered from the wind, scanned the
+sea, giving notice of the ice in sight, and even, if necessary,
+directing the ship's course.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The nights were short; since the 31st of January the sun had
+reappeared in refraction, and was every day rising higher and higher
+above the horizon. But it was hid by the snow, which, if it did not
+produce utter darkness, rendered navigation difficult.
+
+April 21st, Cape Desolation appeared through the mist; hard work was
+wearying the crew; since the brig had entered the ice, the sailors had
+had no rest; it was now necessary to have recourse to steam to force a
+way through the accumulated masses.
+
+The doctor and Johnson were talking together on the after-deck, while
+Shandon was snatching a few hours of sleep in his cabin. Clawbonny was
+very fond of talking with the old sailor, whose numerous voyages had
+given him a valuable education. The two had made great friends of one
+another.
+
+"You see, Dr. Clawbonny," said Johnson, "this country is not like any
+other; its name is Greenland, but there are very few weeks of the year
+in which it deserves this name."
+
+"But, Johnson," answered the doctor, "who can say whether in the tenth
+century this name did not suit it? More than one change of this sort
+has taken place on the globe, and I should astonish you much more by
+saying that, according to Icelandic chroniclers, two hundred villages
+flourished on this continent eight or nine hundred years ago."
+
+"You astonish me so much, Dr. Clawbonny, that I can't believe you; for
+it's a sterile country."
+
+"Well, sterile as it is, it supports a good many inhabitants, and
+among them are some civilized Europeans."
+
+"Without doubt; at Disco and at Upernavik we shall find men who are
+willing to live in such a climate; but I always supposed they stayed
+there from necessity, and not because they liked it."
+
+"I think you are right; still, men get accustomed to everything, and
+these Greenlanders appear to me better off than the workingmen of our
+large cities; they may be unfortunate, but they are not miserable. I
+say unfortunate, but that is not exactly what I mean; in fact, if they
+are not quite as comfortable as those who live in temperate regions,
+they, nevertheless, are accustomed to the severity of the climate, and
+find in it an enjoyment which we should never imagine."
+
+"We have to think so, Dr. Clawbonny, because Heaven is just; but I
+have often visited these coasts, and I am always saddened at the sight
+of its gloomy loneliness; the capes, promontories, and bays ought to
+have more attractive names, for Cape Farewell and Cape Desolation are
+not of a sort to cheer sailors."
+
+"I have often made the same remark," answered the doctor; "but these
+names have a geographical value which is not to be forgotten; they
+describe the adventures of those who gave them; along with the names
+of Davis, Baffin, Hudson, Ross, Parry, Franklin, Bellot, if I find
+Cape Desolation, I also find soon Mercy Bay; Cape Providence makes up
+for Port Anxiety, Repulse Bay brings me to Cape Eden, and after
+leaving Point Turnagain I rest in Refuge Bay; in that way I have under
+my eyes the whole succession of dangers, checks, obstacles, successes,
+despairs, and victories connected with the great names of my country;
+and, like a series of antique medals, this nomenclature gives me the
+whole history of these seas."
+
+"Well reasoned, Doctor; and may we find more bays of Success in our
+journey than capes of Despair!"
+
+"I hope so, Johnson; but, tell me, have the crew got over their
+fears?"
+
+"Somewhat, sir; and yet, to tell the truth, since we entered these
+straits, they have begun to be very uneasy about the unknown captain;
+more than one expected to see him appear at the end of Greenland; and
+so far no news of him. Between ourselves, Doctor, don't you think that
+is a little strange!"
+
+"Yes, Johnson, I do."
+
+"Do you believe the captain exists?"
+
+"Without any doubt."
+
+"But what reason can he have had for acting in this way?"
+
+"To speak frankly, Johnson, I imagine that he wants to get the crew so
+far away that it will be impossible for them to turn back. Now, if he
+had appeared on board when we set sail, and every one had known where
+we were going, he might have been embarrassed."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Why, if he wants to try any superhuman enterprise, if he wants to go
+where so many have failed, do you think he would have succeeded in
+shipping a crew? But, once on the way, it is easy to go so far that to
+go farther becomes an absolute necessity."
+
+"Possibly, Doctor; I have known more than one bold explorer, whose
+name alone would have frightened every one, and who would have found
+no one to accompany him on his perilous expeditions--"
+
+"Except me," said the doctor.
+
+"And me," continued Johnson. "I tell you our captain is probably one
+of those men. At any rate, we shall know sooner or later; I suppose
+that at Upernavik or Melville Bay he will come quietly on board, and
+let us know whither he intends to take the ship."
+
+"Very likely, Johnson; but the difficulty will be to get to Melville
+Bay; see how thick the ice is about us! The _Forward_ can hardly make
+her way through it. See there, that huge expanse!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"We whalers call that an ice-field, that is to say, an unbroken
+surface of ice, the limits of which cannot be seen."
+
+"And what do you call this broken field of long pieces more or less
+closely connected?"
+
+"That is a pack; if it's round we call it a patch, and a stream if it
+is long."
+
+"And that floating ice?"
+
+"That is drift-ice; if a little higher it would be icebergs; they are
+very dangerous to ships, and they have to be carefully avoided. See,
+down there on the ice-field, that protuberance caused by the pressure
+of the ice; we call that a hummock; if the base were under water, we
+should call it a cake; we have to give names to them all to
+distinguish them."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Ah, it is a strange sight," exclaimed the doctor, as he gazed at the
+wonders of the northern seas; "one's imagination is touched by all
+these different shapes!"
+
+"True," answered Johnson, "the ice takes sometimes such curious
+shapes; and we men never fail to explain them in our own way."
+
+"See there, Johnson; see that singular collection of blocks of ice!
+Would one not say it was a foreign city, an Eastern city, with
+minarets and mosques in the moonlight? Farther off is a long row of
+Gothic arches, which remind us of the chapel of Henry VII., or the
+Houses of Parliament."
+
+[Illustration: "Would one not say it was a foreign city, an Eastern
+city, with minarets and mosques in the moonlight?"]
+
+"Everything can be found there; but those cities or churches are very
+dangerous, and we must not go too near them. Some of those minarets
+are tottering, and the smallest of them would crush a ship like the
+_Forward_."
+
+"And yet men have dared to come into these seas under sail alone! How
+could a ship be trusted in such perils without the aid of steam?"
+
+"Still it has been done; when the wind is unfavorable, and I have
+known that happen more than once, it is usual to anchor to one of
+these blocks of ice; we should float more or less around with them,
+but we would wait for a fair wind; it is true that, travelling in that
+way, months would be sometimes wasted where we shall need only a few
+days."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"It seems to me," said the doctor, "that the temperature is falling."
+
+"That would be a pity," answered Johnson, "for there will have to be a
+thaw before these masses separate, and float away into the Atlantic;
+besides, they are more numerous in Davis Strait, because the two
+stretches of land approach one another between Cape Walsingham and
+Holsteinborg; but above latitude 67 degrees we shall find in May and
+June more navigable seas."
+
+"Yes; but we must get through this first."
+
+"We must get through, Doctor; in June and July we should have found
+the passage free, as do the whalers; but our orders were strict; we
+had to be here in April. If I'm not very much mistaken, our captain is
+a sound fellow with an idea firm in his head; his only reason for
+leaving so early was to go far. Whoever survives will see."
+
+The doctor was right about the falling of the temperature; at noon the
+thermometer stood at 6 degrees, and a breeze was blowing from the
+northwest, which, while it cleared the sky, aided the current in
+accumulating the floating ice in the path of the _Forward_. It did not
+all follow the same course; often some pieces, and very high ones,
+too, floated in the opposite direction under the influence of a
+submarine current.
+
+The difficulties of this navigation may be readily understood; the
+engineers had no repose; the engines were controlled from the bridge
+by means of levers, which started, stopped, and reversed them
+instantly, at the orders of the officer in command. Sometimes it was
+necessary to hasten forward to enter an opening in the ice, again to
+race with a mass of ice which threatened to block up their only
+egress, or some piece, suddenly upsetting, obliged the brig to back
+quickly, in order to escape destruction. This mass of ice, carried and
+accumulated by the great polar current, was hurried through the
+strait, and if the frost should unite it, it would present an
+impassable barrier to the _Forward_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In these latitudes numberless birds were to be found; petrels and
+contremaitres were flying here and there, with deafening cries; there
+were also many gulls, with their large heads, short necks, and small
+beaks, which were extending their long wings and braving the snow
+which the storm was whirling about. This profusion of winged beings
+enlivened the scene.
+
+Numerous pieces of wood were drifting along, clashing continually into
+one another; a few whales with large heads approached the ship; but
+they could not think of chasing them, although Simpson, the harpooner,
+earnestly desired it. Towards evening several seals were seen, which,
+with their noses just above the water, were swimming among the great
+pieces of ice.
+
+On the 22d the temperature was still falling; the _Forward_ carried a
+great deal of steam to reach an easier sailing-place; the wind blew
+steadily from the northwest; the sails were furled.
+
+During Sunday the sailors had little to do. After divine service,
+which was read by Shandon, the crew betook themselves to chasing wild
+birds, of which they caught a great many. These birds, prepared
+according to Dr. Clawbonny's method, were an agreeable addition to the
+messes of the officers and crew.
+
+At three o'clock in the afternoon, the _Forward_ sighted the Kin of
+Sael, which lay east one quarter northeast, and the Mount Sukkertop,
+southeast one quarter east half-east; the sea was very high; from time
+to time a dense fog descended suddenly from the gray sky.
+Notwithstanding, at noon they were able to take an observation. The
+ship was found to be in latitude 65 degrees 20 minutes and longitude
+54 degrees 22 minutes. They would have to go two degrees farther north
+before they would find clearer sailing.
+
+During the three following days, the 24th, 25th, and 26th of April,
+they had uninterruptedly to fight with the ice; the management of the
+engines became very tedious; every minute steam was shut off or
+reversed, and escaped from the safety-valve.
+
+In the dense mist their approach to the icebergs could be known only
+by the dull roar of the avalanches; then the vessel would shift its
+course at once; then there was the danger of running into the masses
+of frozen fresh water, which were as clear as crystal and as hard as
+stone. Richard Shandon used to take aboard a quantity of this ice
+every day to supply the ship with fresh water.
+
+The doctor could not accustom himself to the optical illusions
+produced by refraction; indeed, an iceberg ten or twelve miles distant
+used to seem to him to be a small piece of ice close by; he tried to
+get used to this strange phenomenon, in order to be able by and by to
+overcome the mistakes of his eyesight.
+
+At last, both by towing the brig along the fields of ice and by
+pushing off threatening blocks with poles, the crew was thoroughly
+exhausted; and yet, on the 27th of April, the _Forward_ was still
+detained on the impassable Polar Circle.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+THE TALK OF THE CREW.
+
+
+Nevertheless, by taking advantages of such openings as there were, the
+_Forward_ succeeded in getting a few minutes farther north; but,
+instead of escaping the enemy, it would soon be necessary to attack
+it; ice-fields of many miles in extent were drawing together, and as
+these moving masses often represent a pressure of ten millions of
+tons, they were obliged to take every precaution against being crushed
+by them. Ice-saws were placed outside the vessel, where they could be
+used without delay.
+
+Some of the crew endured their hard toil without a murmur, but others
+complained or even refused to obey orders. While they were putting the
+saws in place, Garry, Bolton, Pen, and Gripper exchanged their diverse
+opinions as follows.
+
+"Deuce take it," said Bolton, cheerfully; "I don't know why it just
+occurs to me that in Water Street there's a comfortable tavern, where
+one might be very well off between a glass of gin and a bottle of
+porter. Can you see it from here, Gripper?"
+
+"To tell the truth," answered the sailor who had been addressed, and
+who generally pretended to be very sullen, "I must say I can't see it
+from here."
+
+"That's merely your way of talking, Gripper; it is evident that, in
+those snow towns which Dr. Clawbonny is always admiring, there's no
+tavern where a poor sailor can moisten his throat with a drink or two
+of brandy."
+
+"You may be sure of that, Bolton; and you might add that on board of
+this ship there's no way of getting properly refreshed. A strange
+idea, sending people into the northern seas, and giving them nothing
+to drink!"
+
+"Well," answered Garry, "have you forgotten, Gripper, what the doctor
+said? One must go without spirits if he expects to escape the scurvy,
+remain in good health, and sail far."
+
+"I don't care to sail far, Garry; and I think it's enough to have come
+as far as this, and to try to get through here where the Devil doesn't
+mean to let us through."
+
+"Well, we sha'n't get through," retorted Pen. "O, when I think I have
+already forgotten how gin tastes!"
+
+"But," said Bolton, "remember what the doctor said."
+
+"O," answered Pen, with his rough voice, "that's all very well to say!
+I fancy that they are economizing it under the pretext of saving our
+health."
+
+"Perhaps that devil Pen is right," said Gripper.
+
+"Come, come!" replied Bolton, "his nose is too red for that; and if a
+little abstinence should make it a trifle paler, Pen won't need to be
+pitied."
+
+"Don't trouble yourself about my nose," was the answer, for Pen was
+rather vexed. "My nose doesn't need your advice; it doesn't ask for
+it; you'd better mind your own business."
+
+"Come, don't be angry, Pen; I didn't think your nose was so tender. I
+should be as glad as any one else to have a glass of whiskey,
+especially on such a cold day; but if in the long run it does more
+harm than good, why, I'm very willing to get along without it."
+
+"You may get along without it," said Warren, the stoker, who had
+joined them, "but it's not everybody on board who gets along without
+it."
+
+"What do you mean, Warren?" asked Garry, looking at him intently.
+
+"I mean that for one purpose or another there is liquor aboard, and I
+fancy that aft they don't get on without it."
+
+"What do you know about it?" asked Garry.
+
+Warren could not answer; he spoke for the sake of speaking.
+
+"You see, Garry," continued Bolton, "that Warren knows nothing about
+it."
+
+"Well," said Pen, "we'll ask the commander for a ration of gin; we
+deserve it, and we'll see what he'll say."
+
+"I advise you not to," said Garry.
+
+"Why not?" cried Pen and Gripper.
+
+"Because the commander will refuse it. You knew what the conditions
+were when you shipped; you ought to think of that now."
+
+"Besides," said Bolton, who was not averse to taking Garry's side, for
+he liked him, "Richard Shandon is not master; he's under orders like
+the rest of us."
+
+"Whose orders?" asked Pen.
+
+"The captain's."
+
+"Ah, that ridiculous captain's!" cried Pen. "Don't you know there's no
+more captain than there is tavern on the ice? That's a mean way of
+refusing politely what we ask for."
+
+"But there is a captain," persisted Bolton; "and I'll wager two
+months' pay that we shall see him before long."
+
+"All right!" said Pen; "I should like to give him a piece of my mind."
+
+"Who's talking about the captain?" said a new speaker.
+
+It was Clifton, who was inclined to be superstitious and envious at
+the same time.
+
+"Is there any news about the captain?" he asked.
+
+"No," a single voice answered.
+
+"Well, I expect to find him settled in his cabin some fine morning,
+and without any one's knowing how or whence he came aboard."
+
+"Nonsense!" answered Bolton; "you imagine, Clifton, that he's an imp,
+a hobgoblin such as are seen in the Scotch Highlands."
+
+"Laugh if you want to, Bolton; that won't alter my opinion. Every day
+as I pass the cabin I peep in through the keyhole, and one of these
+days I'll tell you what he looks like, and how he's made."
+
+"O, the devil!" said Pen; "he'll look like everybody else. And if he
+wants to lead us where we don't want to go, we'll let him know what we
+think about it."
+
+"All right," said Bolton; "Pen doesn't know him, and wants to quarrel
+with him already."
+
+"Who doesn't know all about him?" asked Clifton, with the air of a man
+who has the whole story at his tongue's end; "I should like to know
+who doesn't."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Gripper.
+
+"I know very well what I mean."
+
+"But we don't."
+
+"Well, Pen has already had trouble with him."
+
+"With the captain?"
+
+"Yes, the dog-captain; for it's the same thing precisely."
+
+The sailors gazed at one another, incapable of replying.
+
+"Dog or man," muttered Pen, between his teeth, "I'll bet he'll get his
+account settled one of these days."
+
+"Why, Clifton," asked Bolton, seriously, "do you imagine, as Johnson
+said in joke, that that dog is the real captain?"
+
+"Certainly, I do," answered Clifton, with some warmth; "and if you had
+watched him as carefully as I have, you'd have noticed his strange
+ways."
+
+"What ways? Tell us."
+
+"Haven't you noticed the way he walks up and down the poop-deck as if
+he commanded the ship, keeping his eye on the sails as if he were on
+watch?"
+
+"That's so," said Gripper; "and one evening I found him with his paws
+on the wheel."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Impossible!" said Bolton.
+
+"And then," continued Clifton, "doesn't he run out at night on the
+ice-fields without caring for the bears or the cold?"
+
+"That's true," said Bolton.
+
+"Did you ever see him making up to the men like an honest dog, or
+hanging around the kitchen, and following the cook when he's carrying
+a savory dish to the officers? Haven't you all heard him at night,
+when he's run two or three miles away from the vessel, howling so that
+he makes your blood run cold, and that's not easy in weather like
+this? Did you ever seen him eat anything? He never takes a morsel from
+any one; he never touches the food that's given him, and, unless some
+one on board feeds him secretly, I can say he lives without eating.
+Now, if that's not strange, I'm no better than a beast myself."
+
+"Upon my word," answered Bell, the carpenter, who had heard all of
+Clifton's speech, "it may be so."
+
+But all the other sailors were silent.
+
+"Well, as for me," continued Clifton, "I can say that if you don't
+believe, there are wiser people on board who don't seem so sure."
+
+"Do you mean the mate?" asked Bolton.
+
+"Yes, the mate and the doctor."
+
+"Do you think they fancy the same thing?"
+
+"I have heard them talking about it, and they could make no more out
+of it than we can; they imagined a thousand things which did not
+satisfy them in the least."
+
+"Did they say the same things about the dog that you did, Clifton?"
+asked the carpenter.
+
+"If they were not talking about the dog," answered Clifton, who was
+fairly cornered, "they were talking about the captain; it's exactly
+the same thing, and they confessed it was all very strange."
+
+"Well, my friends," said Bell, "do you want to hear my opinion?"
+
+"What is it!" they all cried.
+
+"It is that there is not, and there will not be, any other captain
+than Richard Shandon."
+
+"And the letter?" said Clifton.
+
+"The letter was genuine," answered Bell; "it is perfectly true that
+some unknown person has equipped the _Forward_ for an expedition in
+the ice; but the ship once off, no one will come on board."
+
+"Well," asked Bolton, "where is the ship going to?"
+
+"I don't know; at the right time, Richard Shandon will get the rest of
+the instructions."
+
+"But from whom?"
+
+"From whom?"
+
+"Yes, in what way?" asked Bolton, who was becoming persistent.
+
+"Come, Bell, an answer," said the other sailors.
+
+"From whom? in what way? O, I'm sure I don't know!"
+
+"Well, from the dog!" cried Clifton. "He has already written once, and
+he can again. O, if I only knew half as much as he does, I might be
+First Lord of the Admiralty!"
+
+"So," added Bolton, in conclusion, "you persist in saying that dog is
+the captain?"
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+"Well," said Pen, gruffly, "if that beast doesn't want to die in a
+dog's skin, he'd better hurry and turn into a man; for, on my word,
+I'll finish him."
+
+"Why so?" asked Garry.
+
+"Because I want to," answered Pen, brutally; "and I don't care what
+any one says."
+
+"You have been talking long enough, men," shouted the boatswain,
+advancing at the moment when the conversation threatened to become
+dangerous; "to work, and have the saws put in quicker! We must get
+through the ice."
+
+"Good! on Friday too," answered Clifton, shrugging his shoulders. "You
+won't find it so easy to cross the Polar Circle."
+
+Whatever the reason may have been, the exertions of the crew on that
+day were nearly fruitless. The _Forward_, plunging, under a full head
+of steam, against the floes, could not separate them; they were
+obliged to lie at anchor that night.
+
+On Saturday, the temperature fell still lower under the influence of
+an east-wind; the sky cleared up, and they all had a wide view over
+the white expense, which shone brilliantly beneath the bright rays of
+the sun. At seven o'clock in the morning, the thermometer stood at 8
+degrees above zero.
+
+The doctor was tempted to remain quietly in his cabin, or read over
+the accounts of arctic journeys; but he asked himself, following his
+usual habit, what would be the most disagreeable thing he could do at
+that moment. He thought that to go on deck on such a cold day and help
+the men would not be attractive. So, faithful to his line of conduct,
+he left his well-warmed cabin, and went out to help tow the ship. He
+looked strange with his green glasses, which he wore to protect his
+eyes against the brilliancy of the sun, and after that he always took
+good care to wear snow-spectacles as a security against the
+inflammation of the eyes, which is so common in these latitudes.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+By evening the _Forward_ had got several miles farther north, thanks
+to the energy of the men and the intelligence of Shandon, who was
+quick at utilizing every favorable circumstance; at midnight they
+crossed the sixty-sixth parallel, and the lead announcing a depth of
+twenty-three fathoms, Shandon knew that he was in the neighborhood of
+the shoal on which her Majesty's ship _Victory_ grounded. Land lay
+thirty miles to the east.
+
+But then the mass of ice, which had hitherto been stationary,
+separated, and began to move; icebergs seemed to rise in all points of
+the horizon; the brig was caught in a number of whirlpools of
+irresistible force; controlling her became so hard, that Garry, the
+best steersman, took the helm; the masses began to close behind the
+brig, hence it was necessary to cut through the ice; both prudence and
+duty commanded them to go forward. The difficulties were enhanced by
+the impossibility of Shandon's fixing the direction of the brig among
+all the changing points, which were continually shifting and
+presenting no definite point to be aimed at.
+
+The crew were divided into two forces, and one stationed on the
+starboard, the other on the larboard side; every man was given a long
+iron-headed pole, with which to ward off threatening pieces of ice.
+Soon the _Forward_ entered such a narrow passage between two lofty
+pieces, that the ends of the yards touched its solid walls; gradually
+it penetrated farther into a winding valley filled with a whirlwind of
+snow, while the floating ice was crashing ominously all about.
+
+But soon it was evident that there was no outlet to this gorge; a huge
+block, caught in the channel, was floating swiftly down to the
+_Forward_; it seemed impossible to escape it, and equally impossible
+to return through an already closed path.
+
+Shandon and Johnson, standing on the forward deck, were viewing their
+position. Shandon with his right hand signalled to the man at the
+wheel what direction he was to take, and with his left hand he
+indicated to James Wall the orders for the engines.
+
+"What will be the end of this?" asked the doctor of Johnson.
+
+"What pleases God," answered the boatswain.
+
+The block of ice, eight hundred feet high, was hardly more than a
+cable's length from the _Forward_, and threatened to crush it.
+
+Pen broke out with a fearful oath.
+
+"Silence!" cried a voice which it was impossible to recognize in the
+roar of the hurricane.
+
+The mass appeared to be falling upon the brig, and there was an
+indefinable moment of terror; the men, dropping their poles, ran aft
+in spite of Shandon's orders.
+
+Suddenly, a terrible noise was heard; a real water-spout fell on the
+deck of the brig, which was lifted in the air by a huge wave. The crew
+uttered a cry of terror, while Garry, still firm at the wheel, kept
+the course of the _Forward_ steady, in spite of the fearful lurch.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And when they looked for the mountain of ice, it had disappeared; the
+passage was free, and beyond, a long channel, lit up by the sun,
+allowed the brig to continue her advance.
+
+"Well, Dr. Clawbonny," said Johnson, "can you explain that?"
+
+"It's very simple, my friend," answered the doctor. "It happens very
+often; when these floating masses get detached in a thaw, they float
+away in perfect equilibrium; but as they get towards the south, where
+the water is relatively warmer, their base, eaten away by running into
+other pieces, begins to melt, and be undermined; then comes a moment
+when the centre of gravity is displaced, and they turn upside down.
+Only, if this had happened two minutes later, it would have fallen on
+the brig and crushed us beneath it."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+ANOTHER LETTER.
+
+
+The Polar Circle was crossed at last; on the 30th of April, at midday,
+the _Forward_ passed by Holsteinborg; picturesque mountains arose in
+the east. The sea appeared almost free of ice, or, more exactly, the
+ice could be avoided. The wind was from the southeast, and the brig,
+under foresail, staysail, and topsails, sailed up Baffin's Bay.
+
+That day was exceptionally calm and the crew was able to get some
+rest; numerous birds were swimming and flying about the ship; among
+others, the doctor noticed some wild birds which were very like teal,
+with black neck, wings, and back, and a white breast; they were
+continually diving, and often remained more than forty seconds under
+water.
+
+This day would not have been marked by any new incident, if the
+following extraordinary fact had not taken place.
+
+At six o'clock in the morning, on returning to his cabin after his
+watch was over, Richard Shandon found on his table a letter, addressed
+as follows:--
+
+_To_ COMMANDER RICHARD SHANDON,
+On board the _Forward_,
+BAFFIN'S BAY.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Shandon could not believe his eyes; but before reading it, he summoned
+the doctor, James Wall, and the boatswain, and showed them the letter.
+
+"It's getting interesting," said Johnson.
+
+"It's delightful," thought the doctor.
+
+"Well," cried Shandon, "at last we shall know his secret."
+
+He tore open the envelope rapidly, and read the following:--
+
+
+COMMANDER: The captain of the _Forward_ is satisfied with the
+coolness, skill, and courage which the crew, officers, and you,
+yourself, have shown of late; he begs of you to express his thanks to
+the crew.
+
+Be good enough to sail due north towards Melville Bay, and thence try
+to penetrate into Smith's Sound.
+
+K. Z.,
+_Captain of the Forward_.
+
+Monday, April 30, OFF CAPE WALSINGHAM.
+
+
+"And is that all?" cried the doctor.
+
+"That's all," answered Shandon.
+
+The letter fell from his hands.
+
+"Well," said Wall, "this imaginary captain says nothing about coming
+on board. I don't believe he ever will."
+
+"But how did this letter get here?" asked Johnson.
+
+Shandon was silent.
+
+"Mr. Wall is right," answered the doctor, who had picked up the
+letter, and who was turning it over with hands as well as in his mind.
+"The captain won't come on board, and for an excellent reason."
+
+"What is it?" asked Shandon, quickly.
+
+"Because he's on board now," answered the doctor, simply.
+
+"Now!" exclaimed Shandon, "what do you mean?"
+
+"How else can you explain the arrival of this letter?"
+
+Johnson nodded approvingly.
+
+"Impossible!" said Shandon, warmly. "I know all the men in the crew;
+can he have smuggled himself into their number since we left? It's
+impossible, I tell you. For more than two years I've seen every one of
+them more than a hundred times in Liverpool; so your conjecture,
+Doctor, is untenable."
+
+"Well, what do you admit, Shandon?"
+
+"Everything, except that. I admit that the captain or some tool of
+his, for all I know, may have taken advantage of the darkness, the
+mist, or whatever you please, to slip on board; we are not far from
+shore; there are the kayaks of the Esquimaux which could get through
+the ice without our seeing them; so some one may have come on board
+the ship, left the letter,--the fog was thick enough to make this
+possible."
+
+"And to prevent them from seeing the brig," answered the doctor; "if
+we didn't see the intruder slip aboard the _Forward_, how could he see
+the _Forward_ in the fog?"
+
+"That's true," said Johnson.
+
+"So I return to my explanation," said the doctor; "what do you think
+of it, Shandon?"
+
+"Whatever you please," answered Shandon, hotly, "except that the man
+is on board."
+
+"Perhaps," added Wall, "there is some man in the crew who is acting
+under his instructions."
+
+"Perhaps," said the doctor.
+
+"But who can it be?" asked Shandon. "I've known all my men for a long
+time."
+
+"At any rate," resumed Johnson, "if this captain presents himself,
+whether as man or devil, we shall receive him; but there's something
+else to be drawn from this letter."
+
+"What is that?" asked Shandon.
+
+"It is that we must go not only into Melville Bay, but also into
+Smith's Sound."
+
+"You are right," said the doctor.
+
+"Smith's Sound," repeated Shandon, mechanically.
+
+"So it's very plain," continued Johnson, "that the _Forward_ is not
+intended to seek the Northwest Passage, since we leave to the left,
+the only way towards it, that is to say, Lancaster Sound. This would
+seem to promise a difficult journey in unknown seas."
+
+"Yes, Smith's Sound," replied Shandon; "that's the route Kane, the
+American, took in 1853, and it was full of dangers. For a long time he
+was given up for lost. Well, if we must go, we'll go. But how far? To
+the Pole?"
+
+"And why not?" cried the doctor.
+
+The mention of such a foolhardy attempt made the boatswain shrug his
+shoulders.
+
+"Well," said James Wall, "to come back to the captain, if he exists. I
+don't see that there are any places on the coast of Greenland except
+Disco and Upernavik, where he can be waiting for us; in a few days
+that question will be settled."
+
+"But," asked the doctor of Shandon, "are you not going to tell the
+crew about this letter?"
+
+"With the commander's permission," answered Johnson, "I should not do
+so."
+
+"And why not?" asked Shandon.
+
+"Because everything mysterious and extraordinary tends to discourage
+the men; they are already very much troubled, as it is, about the
+nature of the journey. Now, if any supernatural circumstances should
+become known, it might be harmful, and perhaps at a critical moment we
+should not be able to count on them. What do you think, Commander?"
+
+"And what do you think, Doctor?" asked Shandon.
+
+"Boatswain Johnson seems to me to reason well," answered the doctor.
+
+"And you, James?"
+
+"Having no better opinion, I agree with these gentlemen."
+
+Shandon reflected for a few minutes; he reread the letter attentively.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, "your opinion is certainly worthy of respect,
+but I cannot adopt it."
+
+"Why not, Shandon?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Because the instructions in this letter are formal; it tells me to
+give the captain's thanks to the crew; now, hitherto I have strictly
+obeyed his orders, in whatever way they have been given to me, and I
+cannot--"
+
+"Still--" interposed Johnson, who had a warrantable dread of the
+effect of such communications on the men's spirits.
+
+"My dear Johnson," said Shandon, "I understand your objection; your
+reasons are very good, but read that:--
+
+"He begs of you to express his thanks to the crew."
+
+"Do as he bids," replied Johnson, who was always a strict
+disciplinarian. "Shall I assemble the crew on deck?"
+
+"Yes," answered Shandon.
+
+The news of a message from the captain was immediately whispered
+throughout the ship. The sailors took their station without delay, and
+the commander read aloud the mysterious letter.
+
+It was received with dead silence; the crew separated under the
+influence of a thousand suppositions; Clifton had plenty of material
+for any superstitious vagaries; a great deal was ascribed by him to
+the dog-captain, and he never failed to salute him every time he met
+him.
+
+"Didn't I tell you," he used to say to the sailors, "that he knew how
+to write?"
+
+No one made any answer, and even Bell, the carpenter, would have found
+it hard to reply.
+
+Nevertheless, it was plain to every one, that if the captain was not
+on board, his shade or spirit was watching them; henceforth, the
+wisest kept their opinions to themselves.
+
+At midday of May 1st, their observation showed them that they were in
+latitude 68 degrees and longitude 56 degrees 32 minutes. The
+temperature had risen, the thermometer standing at 25 degrees above
+zero.
+
+The doctor amused himself with watching the gambols of a she-bear and
+two cubs on some pack-ice near the shore. Accompanied by Wall and
+Simpson, he tried to chase them in a canoe; but she was in a very
+peaceful mood, and ran away with her young, so that the doctor had to
+give up his attempt.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+During the night a favorable breeze carried them well to the north,
+and soon the lofty mountains of Disco were peering above the horizon;
+Godharn Bay, where the governor of the Danish settlements lived, was
+left on the right. Shandon did not consider it necessary to land, and
+he soon passed by the canoes of the Esquimaux, who had put out to meet
+him.
+
+The island of Disco is also called Whale Island; it is from here that,
+on the 12th of July, 1845, Sir John Franklin wrote to the Admiralty
+for the last time, and it was also here that Captain MacClintock
+stopped on his way back, bringing too sure proofs of the loss of that
+expedition.
+
+This coincidence was not unknown to the doctor; the place was one of
+sad memories, but soon the heights of Disco were lost to view.
+
+There were many icebergs on its shores, which no thaws ever melt away;
+this gives the island a singular appearance from the sea.
+
+The next day, at about three o'clock, Sanderson's Hope appeared in the
+northeast; land lay about fifteen miles to starboard; the mountains
+appeared of a dusky red hue. During the evening many fin-backs were
+seen playing in the ice, and occasionally blowing.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was in the night of May 3d, that the doctor for the first time saw
+the sun touch the horizon without setting; since January 31st its
+orbit had been getting longer every day, and now there was unbroken
+daylight.
+
+For those who were unaccustomed to it, this continuance of the day is
+a cause of perpetual surprise, and even of weariness; it is difficult
+to believe how necessary the darkness of the night is for the eyes;
+the doctor actually suffered from the continual brilliancy, which was
+increased by the reflection from the ice.
+
+May 5th the _Forward_ passed the sixty-second parallel. Two months
+later they would have met numerous whalers in these latitudes; but the
+straits were not yet free enough to allow easy ingress into Baffin's
+Bay.
+
+The next day, the brig, after passing Woman's Island, came in sight of
+Upernavik, the northernmost station of Denmark in these lands.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+DANGEROUS SAILING.
+
+
+Shandon, Dr. Clawbonny, Johnson, Foker, and Strong, the cook, got into
+one of the boats and made their way to shore.
+
+The Governor, his wife and five children, all Esquimaux, received
+their visitors kindly. The doctor, who was the philologist of the
+party, knew enough Danish to establish friendly relations; moreover,
+Foker, the interpreter of the party as well as ice-master, knew a
+dozen or two words of the language of the Greenlanders, and with that
+number of words one can express a great deal, if he is not too
+ambitious.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The Governor was born on the island of Disco, and he has never left
+the place; he did the honors of his capital, which consisted of three
+wooden houses, for himself and the Lutheran minister, of a school, and
+shops which were supplied by what was cast upon the shore from wrecked
+ships. The rest of the town consisted of snow huts, into which the
+Esquimaux crawl through a single opening.
+
+A great part of the population came out to meet the _Forward_, and
+more than one of them went as far as the middle of the bay in his
+kayak, fifteen feet long and two broad at the widest part.
+
+The doctor knew that the word Esquimaux meant "eater of raw fish"; but
+he knew too that this name is considered an insult in this country, so
+he forbore giving it to the inhabitants of Greenland.
+
+And yet, from the oily sealskin clothes and boots, from their squat,
+fat figures, which make it hard to distinguish the men from the women,
+it was easy to declare the nature of their food; besides, like all
+fish-eating people, they were somewhat troubled by leprosy, but their
+general health was not impaired by it.
+
+The Lutheran minister and his wife, with whom the doctor had promised
+himself an interesting talk, happened to be away on the shore of
+Proven, south of Upernavik; hence he was compelled to seek the company
+of the Governor. The chief magistrate did not appear to be very well
+informed: a little less, he would have been a fool; a little more, and
+he would have known how to read.
+
+In spite of that, the doctor questioned him about the commerce,
+habits, and manners of the Esquimaux; and he learned, by means of
+gestures, that the seals were worth about forty pounds when delivered
+at Copenhagen; a bear-skin brought forty Danish dollars, the skin of a
+blue fox four, and of a white fox two or three dollars.
+
+In order to make his knowledge complete, the doctor wanted to visit an
+Esquimaux hut; a man who seeks information is capable of enduring
+anything; fortunately the opening of these huts was too small, and the
+enthusiastic doctor could not get through. It was fortunate for him,
+for there is nothing more repulsive than the sight of that crowd of
+living and dead objects, of seal's bodies and Esquimaux-flesh, decayed
+fish and unclean clothing, which fill a Greenland hut; there is no
+window to renew that suffocating air; there is only a hole at the top
+of the cabin which lets the smoke out, but gives no relief to the
+stench.
+
+[Illustration: "Fortunately the opening of these huts was too small,
+and the enthusiastic doctor could not get through."]
+
+Foker gave all these details to the doctor, but he none the less
+bewailed his portliness. He wanted to judge for himself these
+emanations _sui generis_.
+
+"I am sure," said he, "that one could get used to it in time." _In
+time_ shows clearly the doctor's character.
+
+During these ethnographic studies on his part, Shandon was busying
+himself, according to his instructions, with procuring means of travel
+on the ice; he was obliged to pay four pounds for a sledge and six
+dogs, and the natives were reluctant to sell even at this price.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Shandon would have liked to engage Hans Christian, the skilful driver
+of the dogs, who accompanied Captain MacClintock, but Hans was then in
+Southern Greenland.
+
+Then came up the great question of the day; was there at Upernavik a
+European awaiting the arrival of the _Forward_? Did the Governor know
+of any stranger, probably an Englishman, who had come into these
+latitudes? How recently had they seen any whalers or other ships?
+
+To these questions the Governor answered that no stranger had landed
+on that part of the coast for more than ten months.
+
+Shandon asked the names of the whalers which had last arrived; he
+recognized none. He was in despair.
+
+"You must confess, Doctor, that it passes all comprehension," he said
+to his companion. "Nothing at Cape Farewell! nothing at Disco! nothing
+at Upernavik!"
+
+"Tell me in a few days from now, nothing at Melville Bay, my dear
+Shandon, and I will salute you as sole captain of the _Forward_."
+
+The boat returned to the brig towards evening, bringing back the
+visitors to the shore; Strong had bought several dozen eider-duck's
+eggs, which were twice as large as hen's eggs, and of a greenish
+color. It was not much, but it was very refreshing for a crew
+accustomed to little but salt meat.
+
+The next day the wind was fair, but yet Shandon did not set sail; he
+wanted to wait another day, and, to satisfy his conscience, to give
+time for any member of the human race to rejoin the _Forward_; he even
+fired off, every hour, the ship's gun, which re-echoed among the
+icebergs; but he only succeeded in frightening the flocks of
+molly-mokes[1] and rotches.[1] During the night many rockets were set
+off; but in vain. He had to give the order to set sail.
+
+[Footnote 1: Sea-birds common in these latitudes.]
+
+The 8th of May, at six o'clock in the morning, the _Forward_, under
+her topsails, foresail, and main-top-gallant-sail, soon lost sight of
+the station of Upernavik, and hideous long poles on which were hanging
+along the shore the seals' entrails and deers' stomachs.
+
+The wind was southeast, the thermometer stood at 32 degrees. The sun
+pierced through the fog and the ice melted a little.
+
+The reflection, however, injured the sight of many of the crew.
+Wolston, the armorer, Gripper, Clifton, and Bell were attacked by
+snow-blindness, which is very common in the spring, and which totally
+blinds many of the Esquimaux. The doctor advised all, the unharmed as
+well as the suffering, to cover their faces with a green veil, and he
+was the first to follow his own recommendation.
+
+The dogs bought by Shandon at Upernavik were rather wild; but they
+soon got used to their new quarters, and Captain showed no dislike of
+his new companions; he seemed to know their ways. Clifton was not the
+last to remark that Captain seemed to be familiar with the dogs of
+Greenland. And they, always half starved on shore, only thought of
+making up for it when at sea.
+
+The 9th of May the _Forward_ passed within a few cable-lengths of the
+westernmost of the Baffin Islands. The doctor noticed many rocks
+between the islands and the mainland which were what are called
+crimson cliffs; they were covered with snow as red as carmine, which
+Dr. Kane says is of purely vegetable origin; Clawbonny wanted to
+examine this singular phenomenon, but the ice forbade their
+approaching them; although the temperature was rising, it was easy to
+see that the icebergs and ice-streams were accumulating toward the
+north of Baffin's Bay.
+
+After leaving Upernavik the land presented a different appearance, and
+huge glaciers were sharply defined against the gray horizon. On the
+10th the _Forward_ left on its right Kingston Bay, near the
+seventy-fourth degree of latitude; Lancaster Sound opened into the sea
+many hundred miles to the west.
+
+But then this vast expanse of water was hidden beneath enormous fields
+of ice, in which arose the hummocks, uniform as a homogeneous
+crystallization. Shandon had the furnace-fires lighted, and until the
+11th of May the _Forward_ advanced by a tortuous course, tracing with
+her smoke against the sky the path she was following through the
+water.
+
+But new obstacles soon presented themselves; the passages were closing
+in consequence of the incessant crowding of the floating masses; every
+moment threatened to close up the clear water before the _Forward_,
+and if she were nipped, it would be hard to get her out. Every one
+knew it and was thinking about it.
+
+Hence, on board of this ship without any definite aim, any known
+destination, which was blindly pushing on northward, some symptoms of
+hesitation began to appear; among these men accustomed to dangers,
+many, forgetting the advantages which were promised them, regretted
+having ventured so far. A certain demoralization became common, which
+was further increased by the fears of Clifton and the talk of two or
+three ringleaders, such as Pen, Gripper, Warren, and Wolston.
+
+Exhausting fatigue was added to the moral disquiet of the crew, for,
+on the 12th of May, the brig was caught fast; the steam was of no
+avail. A path had to be cut through the ice. It was no easy task to
+manage the saws in the floes which were six or seven feet thick; when
+two parallel grooves had divided the ice for a hundred feet, it was
+necessary to break the part that lay between with axes and bars; next
+they had to fasten anchors in a hole made by a huge auger; then the
+crew would turn the capstan and haul the ship along by the force of
+their arms; the greatest difficulty consisted in driving the detached
+pieces beneath the floes, so as to give space for the vessel, and they
+had to be pushed under by means of long iron-headed poles.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Moreover, this continued toil with saws, capstan, and poles, all of
+which was persistent, compulsory, and dangerous, amid the dense fog or
+snow, while the air was so cold, and their eyes so exposed, their
+doubt so great, did much to weaken the crew of the _Forward_ and to
+act on their imagination.
+
+When sailors have to deal with a man who is energetic, bold, and
+determined, who knows what he wants, whither he is going, what aim he
+has in view, confidence animates them all in spite of themselves; they
+are firmly united to their leader, strong with his force and calm with
+his calmness. But on board of the brig they were aware of the
+commander's uncertainty, they knew that he hesitated before the
+unknown aim and destination. In spite of the energy of his character,
+his uncertainty was clearly to be seen by his uncertain orders,
+incomplete manoeuvres, his sudden outbursts, and a thousand petty
+details which could not escape the sharp eyes of the crew.
+
+And then, Shandon was not the captain of the ship, the master under
+God, which was enough to encourage the discussion of his orders; and
+from discussion to disobedience is but a short step.
+
+The malcontents soon brought over to their number the first engineer,
+who, hitherto, had been a slave to his duty.
+
+The 16th of May, six days after the _Forward_ had reached the ice,
+Shandon had not made two miles to northward. They were threatened with
+being detained in the ice until the next season. Matters had a serious
+look.
+
+Towards eight o'clock of the evening, Shandon and the doctor,
+accompanied by Garry, went out to reconnoitre the vast plains; they
+took care not to go too far from the ship, for it was hard to find any
+fixed points in this white solitude, which was ever changing in
+appearance. Refraction kept producing strange effects, much to the
+doctor's astonishment; at one place, where he thought he had but an
+easy jump before him, he had to leap some five or six feet; or else
+the contrary happened, and in either case the result was a tumble,
+which if not dangerous was at any rate painful, for the ice was as
+hard and slippery as glass.
+
+Shandon and his two companions went out to seek a possible passage;
+three miles from the ship, they succeeded with some difficulty in
+ascending an iceberg about three hundred feet high. From that point
+nothing met their eyes but a confused mass, like the ruins of a vast
+city, with shattered monuments, overthrown towers, and prostrate
+palaces,--a real chaos. The sun was just peering above the jagged
+horizon, and sent forth long, oblique rays of light, but not of heat,
+as if something impassable for heat lay between it and this wild
+country.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The sea appeared perfectly covered as far as eye could reach.
+
+"How shall we get through?" asked the doctor.
+
+"I don't know," answered Shandon; "but we shall get through, if we
+have to blow our way through with powder. I certainly sha'n't stay in
+the ice till next spring."
+
+"But that happened to the _Fox_, and not far from here. Bah!" said the
+doctor; "we shall get through with a little philosophy. You will see
+that is worth all the machinery in the world."
+
+"I must say," answered Shandon, "this year does not begin very well."
+
+"True, Shandon, and I notice also that Baffin's Bay seems to be
+returning to the state it was in before 1817."
+
+"Don't you think, Doctor, it has always been as it is now?"
+
+"No, my dear Shandon, from time to time there have been great
+breakings of the ice which no one can explain; so, up to 1817 this sea
+was continually full, when an enormous sort of inundation took place,
+which cast the icebergs into the ocean, most of which reached the
+banks of Newfoundland. From that day Baffin's Bay was nearly free, and
+was visited by whalers."
+
+"So," asked Shandon, "from that time voyages to the North became
+easier?"
+
+"Incomparably; but for some years it has been noticed that the bay
+seems to be resuming its old ways and threatens to become closed,
+possibly for a long time, to sailors. An additional reason, by the
+way, for pushing on as far as possible. And yet it must be said, we
+look like people who are pushing on in unknown ways, with the doors
+forever closing behind us."
+
+"Would you advise me to go back?" asked Shandon, trying to read into
+the depths of the doctor's eyes.
+
+"I! I have never retreated yet, and, even if we should never get back,
+I say go on. Still, I want to make it clear that if we act
+imprudently, we do it with our eyes open."
+
+"And you, Garry, what do you think about it?" asked Shandon of the
+sailor.
+
+"I, Commander, should go straight on; I agree with Dr. Clawbonny; but
+do as you please; command, we shall obey."
+
+"They don't all talk as you do, Garry," resumed Shandon; "they are not
+all ready to obey. And if they refuse to obey my orders?"
+
+"I have given you my opinion, Commander," answered Garry, coldly,
+"because you asked for it; but you are not obliged to follow it."
+
+Shandon did not answer; he scanned the horizon closely, and then
+descended with his companions to the ice-fields.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+THE DEVIL'S THUMB.
+
+
+During the commander's absence the men had been variously busied in
+attempts to relieve the ship from the pressure of the ice. Pen,
+Clifton, Bolton, Gripper, and Simpson had this in charge; the fireman
+and the two engineers came to the aid of their comrades, for, as soon
+as the engines did not require their attention, they became sailors,
+and as such could be employed in all that was going on aboard the
+ship.
+
+But there was a great deal of discontent among them.
+
+"I declare I've had enough," said Pen; "and if we are not free in
+three days, I swear I sha'n't stir a finger to get the ship out."
+
+"Not stir a finger!" answered Plover; "you'd better use them in
+getting back. Do you think we want to stay here till next year?"
+
+"It certainly would be a hard winter," said Pen, "for we are exposed
+on all sides."
+
+"And who knows," said Brunton, "whether next spring the sea will be
+any freer than it is now?"
+
+"Never mind about next spring," answered Pen; "to-day is Thursday; if
+the way is not clear Sunday morning, we shall turn back to the south."
+
+"Good!" cried Clifton.
+
+"Don't you agree with me?" asked Pen.
+
+"We do," cried his companions.
+
+"That's so," said Warren; "for if we have to work in this way and haul
+the ship along with our own arms, I think it would be as well to haul
+her backwards."
+
+"We shall do that on Sunday," said Wolston.
+
+"Only give me the order," resumed Brunton, "and my fires shall be
+lighted."
+
+"Well," remarked Clifton, "we shall light them ourselves."
+
+"If any officer," said Pen, "is anxious to spend the winter here, he
+can; we can leave him here contentedly; he'll find it easy to build a
+hut like the Esquimaux."
+
+"Not at all, Pen," retorted Brunton, quickly; "we sha'n't abandon any
+one here; do you understand that, all of you? I think it won't be hard
+to persuade the commander; he seems to me to be very much discouraged,
+and if we propose it to him gently--"
+
+"But," interrupted Plover, "Richard Shandon is often very obstinate;
+we shall have to sound him cautiously."
+
+"When I think," said Bolton, with a sigh of longing, "that in a month
+we might be back in Liverpool! We can easily pass the line of ice at
+the south! Davis Strait will be open by the beginning of June, and
+then we shall have nothing but the free Atlantic before us."
+
+"Besides," said the cautious Clifton, "if we take the commander back
+with us, and act under his commands, we shall have earned our pay; but
+if we go back without him, it's not so sure."
+
+"True," said Plover; "Clifton talks sense. Let's try not to get into
+any trouble with the Admiralty, that's safer, and don't let us leave
+any one behind."
+
+"But if they refuse to come with us?" continued Pen, who wished to
+compel his companions to stand by him.
+
+They found it hard to answer the question thus squarely put them.
+
+"We shall see about that when the time comes," replied Bolton; "it
+will be enough to bring Richard Shandon over to our side, and I fancy
+that won't be hard."
+
+"There's one I shall leave here," exclaimed Pen with fierce oaths,
+"even if he should bite my arm off."
+
+"O, the dog!" said Plover.
+
+"Yes, that dog! I shall soon settle accounts with him."
+
+"So much the better," retorted Clifton, returning to his favorite
+theory; "he is the cause of all our troubles."
+
+"He has thrown an evil spell upon us," said Plover.
+
+"He led us into the ice," remarked Gripper.
+
+"He brought more ice in our way," said Wolston, "than was ever seen at
+this season."
+
+"He made my eyes sore," said Brunton.
+
+"He shut off the gin and brandy," cried Pen.
+
+"He's the cause of everything," they all exclaimed excitedly.
+
+"And then," added Clifton, "he's the captain."
+
+"Well, you unlucky Captain," cried Pen, whose unreasonable fury grew
+with the sound of his own words, "you wanted to come here, and here
+you shall stay!"
+
+"But how shall we get hold of him?" said Plover.
+
+"Well, now is a good time," answered Clifton. "The commander is away;
+the second mate is asleep in his cabin; the fog is so thick that
+Johnson can't see us--"
+
+"But the dog?" said Pen.
+
+"He's asleep in the coal," answered Clifton, "and if any one wants--"
+
+"I'll see to it," replied Pen, angrily.
+
+"Take care, Pen; his teeth would go through a bar of iron."
+
+"If he stirs, I'll rip him open," answered Pen, drawing his knife.
+
+And he ran down between decks, followed by Warren, who was anxious to
+help him.
+
+Soon they both returned, carrying the dog in their arms; his mouth and
+paws were securely tied; they had caught him asleep, and the poor dog
+could not escape them.
+
+"Hurrah for Pen!" cried Plover.
+
+"And what are you going to do with him now?" asked Clifton.
+
+"Drown him, and if he ever comes back--" answered Pen with a smile of
+satisfaction.
+
+Two hundred feet from the vessel there was a hole in the ice, a sort
+of circular crevasse, made by the seals with their teeth, and always
+dug out from the inside to the outside; it was there that the seals
+used to come to breathe on the surface of the ice; but they were
+compelled to take care to prevent the aperture from closing, for the
+shape of their jaws did not permit them to make the hole from the
+outside, and in any danger they would not be able to escape from their
+enemies.
+
+Pen and Warren hastened to this crevasse, and then, in spite of his
+obstinate struggles, the dog was pitilessly cast into the sea; a huge
+cake of ice they then rolled over the aperture, closing all means of
+escape for the poor dog, thus locked in a watery prison.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"A pleasant journey, Captain!" cried the brutal sailor.
+
+Soon they returned on board; Johnson had seen nothing of it all; the
+fog was growing thick about the ship, and the snow was beginning to
+fall with violence.
+
+An hour later, Richard Shandon, the doctor, and Garry regained the
+_Forward_.
+
+Shandon had observed in the northeast a passage, which he determined
+to try. He gave his orders to that effect; the crew obeyed with a
+certain activity; they wanted to convince Shandon of the impossibility
+of a farther advance, and besides, they had before them three days of
+obedience.
+
+During a part of the following night and day the sawing and towing
+went on busily; the _Forward_ made about two miles of progress. On the
+18th they were in sight of land, five or six cable-lengths from a
+strange peak, to which its singular shape had given the name of the
+Devil's Thumb.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+At this very place the _Prince Albert_, in 1851, the _Advance_, with
+Kane, in 1853, had been caught in the ice for many weeks.
+
+The odd shape of the Devil's Thumb, the barren and desolate
+surroundings, which consisted of huge icebergs often more than three
+hundred feet high, the cracking of the ice, repeated indefinitely by
+the echo, made the position of the _Forward_ a very gloomy one.
+Shandon saw that it was necessary to get away from there; within
+twenty-four hours, he calculated he would be able to get two miles
+from the spot. But that was not enough. Shandon felt himself
+embarrassed by fear, and the false position in which he was placed
+benumbed his energy; to obey his instructions in order to advance, he
+had brought his ship into a dangerous position; the towing wore out
+his men; more than three hours were necessary to cut a canal twenty
+feet in length through ice which was generally four or five feet
+thick; the health of the crew gave signs of failing. Shandon was
+astonished at the silence of the men, and their unaccustomed
+obedience; but he feared it was only the calm that foreboded a storm.
+
+We can, then, easily judge of the painful surprise, disappointment,
+and even despair which seized upon him, when he noticed that by means
+of an imperceptible movement in the ice, the _Forward_ lost in the
+night of the 18th all that had been gained by such toilsome efforts;
+on Saturday morning he was opposite the Devil's Thumb, in a still more
+critical position; the icebergs increased in number and passed by in
+the mist like phantoms.
+
+Shandon was thoroughly demoralized; it must be said that fear seized
+both this bold man and all his crew. Shandon had heard of the
+disappearance of the dog; but he did not dare to punish the guilty
+persons; he feared exciting a mutiny.
+
+The weather during that day was horrible; the snow, caught up in dense
+whirls, covered the brig with an impenetrable veil; at times, under
+the influence of the hurricane, the fog would rise, and their
+terror-stricken eyes beheld the Devil's Thumb rising on the shore like
+a spectre.
+
+The _Forward_ was anchored to a large piece of ice; there was nothing
+to be done, nothing to be tried; darkness was spreading about them,
+and the man at the helm could not see James Wall, who was on watch
+forward.
+
+Shandon withdrew to his cabin, a prey to perpetual disquiet; the
+doctor was arranging his notes of the expedition; some of the crew
+were on the deck, others in the common room.
+
+At a moment when the violence of the storm was redoubling, the Devil's
+Thumb seemed to rise immoderately from the mist.
+
+"Great God!" exclaimed Simpson, recoiling with terror.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Foker.
+
+Soon shouts were heard on all sides.
+
+"It's going to crush us!"
+
+"We are lost!"
+
+"Mr. Wall, Mr. Wall!"
+
+"It's all over!"
+
+"Commander, Commander!"
+
+All these cries were uttered by the men on watch.
+
+Wall hastened to the after-deck; Shandon, followed by the doctor, flew
+to the deck and looked out.
+
+Through a rift in the mist, the Devil's Thumb appeared to have
+suddenly come near the brig; it seemed to have grown enormously in
+size; on its summit was balanced a second cone, upside down, and
+revolving on its point; it threatened to crush the ship with its
+enormous mass; it wavered, ready to fall down. It was an alarming
+sight. Every one drew back instinctively, and many of the men, jumping
+upon the ice, abandoned the ship.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Let no one move!" cried the commander with a loud voice; "every one
+to his place!"
+
+"My friends, don't be frightened," said the doctor, "there is no
+danger! See, Commander, see, Mr. Wall, that's the mirage and nothing
+else."
+
+"You are right, Dr. Clawbonny," replied Johnson; "they've all been
+frightened by a shadow."
+
+When they had heard what the doctor said, most of the sailors drew
+near him, and from terror they turned to admiration of this wonderful
+phenomenon, which soon passed from their view.
+
+"They call that a mirage," said Clifton; "the Devil's at the bottom of
+it, I'm sure."
+
+"That's true," growled Gripper.
+
+But the break in the fog had given the commander a glimpse of a broad
+passage which he had not expected to find; it promised to lead him
+away from the shore; he resolved to make use of it at once; men were
+sent out on each side of the canal; hawsers were given them, and they
+began to tow the ship northward.
+
+During long hours this work was prosecuted busily but silently;
+Shandon had the furnace-fires lighted to help him through this passage
+so providentially discovered.
+
+"That's great luck," he said to Johnson, "and if we can only get on a
+few miles, we may be free. Make a hot fire, Mr. Brunton, and let me
+know as soon as you get steam on. Meanwhile, men, the farther on we
+get, the more gained! You want to get away from the Devil's Thumb;
+well, now is your chance!"
+
+Suddenly the brig stopped. "What's the matter?" shouted Shandon.
+"Wall, have the tow-ropes broken?"
+
+"No," answered Wall, leaning over the railing. "See, there are the men
+running back; they are climbing on board; they seem very much
+frightened."
+
+"What's happened?" cried Shandon, running forward.
+
+"On board, on board!" cried the sailors, evidently exceedingly
+terrified.
+
+Shandon looked towards the north, and shuddered in spite of himself.
+
+A strange animal, with alarming motions, whose steaming tongue hung
+from huge jaws, was bounding along within a cable's length from the
+ship; it seemed more than twenty feet high; its hair stood on end; it
+was chasing the sailors as if about to seize them, while its tail,
+which was at least ten feet long, lashed the snow and tossed it about
+in dense gusts. The sight of the monster froze the blood in the veins
+of the boldest.
+
+[Illustration: "A strange animal was bounding along within a cable's
+length from the ship."]
+
+"It's an enormous bear," said one.
+
+"It's the beast of Gevaudan!"
+
+"It's the lion of the Apocalypse!"
+
+Shandon ran to his cabin to get a gun which he kept always loaded; the
+doctor seized his arms, and made ready to fire at the beast, which by
+its size, recalled antediluvian monsters.
+
+It drew near with long leaps; Shandon and the doctor fired at the same
+time, and suddenly the report of the pieces agitated the air and
+produced an unlooked-for effect.
+
+The doctor gazed attentively, and could not help bursting out
+laughing. "It's refraction!" said he.
+
+"Refraction!" cried Shandon.
+
+But a terrible cry from the crew interrupted them.
+
+"The dog!" shouted Clifton.
+
+"The dog-captain!" repeated his companions.
+
+"It's he!" cried Pen.
+
+In fact, it was the dog who had burst his bonds and had made his way
+to the surface of the ice through another hole. At that moment the
+refraction, by a phenomenon common in these latitudes, exaggerated his
+size, and this had only been broken by the report of the guns; but,
+notwithstanding, a disastrous impression had been produced upon the
+minds of the sailors, who were not very much inclined to admit any
+explanation of the fact from physical causes. The adventure of the
+Devil's Thumb, the reappearance of the dog under such peculiar
+circumstances, completely upset them, and murmurs arose on all sides.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+CAPTAIN HATTERAS.
+
+
+The _Forward_ was advancing rapidly under steam between the ice-fields
+and the mountains of ice. Johnson was at the helm. Shandon was
+examining the horizon with his snow-spectacles; but his joy was brief,
+for he soon saw that the passage was blocked up by a circle of
+mountains.
+
+Nevertheless, he preferred to take his chances with pushing on, to
+returning.
+
+The dog followed the brig on the ice, but he kept at a respectful
+distance. Only, if he lagged too far, there was to be heard a singular
+whistle which at once brought him on.
+
+The first time that this whistle was heard, the sailors looked around;
+they were alone on the deck, talking together; there was no unknown
+person there; and yet this whistle was often repeated.
+
+Clifton was the first to take alarm.
+
+"Do you hear that?" he said; "and do you see how the dog starts as
+soon as he hears it?"
+
+"It's past belief," said Gripper.
+
+"Very well!" cried Pen; "I'm not going any farther."
+
+"Pen is right," said Brunton; "it's tempting Providence."
+
+"Tempting the Devil," answered Clifton. "I should rather give up all
+my share of the pay than go on."
+
+"We shall never get back," said Bolton, dejectedly.
+
+The crew was exceedingly demoralized.
+
+"Not a foot farther!" cried Wolston; "is that your opinion?"
+
+"Yes, yes!" answered the sailors.
+
+"Well," said Bolton, "let's go find the commander; I'll undertake to
+tell him."
+
+The sailors in a dense group made their way to the quarter-deck.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The _Forward_ was then advancing into a large arena, which had a
+diameter of about eight hundred feet; it was completely closed, with
+the exception of one place through which the ship entered.
+
+Shandon saw that he was locking himself in. But what was to be done?
+How could he retreat? He felt all the responsibility, and his hand
+nervously grasped his glass.
+
+The doctor looked on in silence, with folded arms; he gazed at the
+walls of ice, the average height of which was about three hundred
+feet. A cloud of fog lay like a dome above the gulf.
+
+Then it was that Bolton spoke to the commander.
+
+"Commander," said he in a broken voice, "we can't go any farther."
+
+"What's that you are saying?" said Shandon, who felt enraged at the
+slight given to his authority.
+
+"We have come to say, Commander," resumed Bolton, "that we have done
+enough for this invisible captain, and that we have made up our minds
+not to go on any farther."
+
+"Made up your minds?" cried Shandon. "Is that the way you talk to me,
+Bolton? Take care."
+
+"You need not threaten," retorted Pen, brutally, "we are not going any
+farther."
+
+Shandon stepped towards the mutinous sailors, when the boatswain said
+to him in a low voice,--
+
+"Commander, if we want to get out of this place, we have not a moment
+to lose. There's an iceberg crowding towards the entrance; it may
+prevent our getting out and imprison us here."
+
+Shandon returned to look at the state of affairs.
+
+"You will account for this afterwards," he said to the mutineers.
+"Now, go about!"
+
+The sailors hastened to their places. The _Forward_ went about
+rapidly; coal was heaped on the fires; it was necessary to beat the
+iceberg. There was a race between them; the brig stood towards the
+south, the berg was drifting northward, threatening to bar the way.
+
+"Put on all the steam, Brunton, do you hear?" said Shandon.
+
+The _Forward_ glided like a bird through the broken ice, which her
+prow cut through easily; the ship shook with the motion of the screw,
+and the gauge indicated a full pressure of steam, the deafening roar
+of which resounded above everything.
+
+"Load the safety-valve!" cried Shandon.
+
+The engineer obeyed at the risk of bursting the boilers.
+
+But these desperate efforts were vain; the iceberg, driven by a
+submarine current, moved rapidly towards the exit; the brig was still
+three cable-lengths distant, when the mountain, entering the vacant
+space like a wedge, joined itself to its companions, and closed the
+means of escape.
+
+"We are lost!" cried Shandon, who was unable to restrain that unwise
+speech.
+
+"Lost!" repeated the crew.
+
+"Lower the boats!" cried many.
+
+"To the steward's pantry!" cried Pen and some of his set; "if we must
+drown, let us drown in gin!"
+
+The wildest confusion raged among these half-wild men. Shandon felt
+unable to assert his authority; he wanted to give some orders; he
+hesitated, he stammered; his thoughts could find no words. The doctor
+walked up and down nervously. Johnson folded his arms stoically, and
+said not a word.
+
+Suddenly a strong, energetic, commanding voice was heard above the
+din, uttering these words:--
+
+"Every man to his place! Prepare to go about!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Johnson shuddered, and, without knowing what he did, turned the wheel
+rapidly.
+
+It was time; the brig, going under full steam, was about crashing
+against the walls of its prison.
+
+But while Johnson instinctively obeyed, Shandon, Clawbonny, the crew,
+all, even down to Warren the fireman, who had abandoned his fires, and
+Strong the cook, who had fled from his galley, were collected on the
+deck, and all saw issuing from the cabin, the key of which he alone
+possessed, a man.
+
+This man was the sailor Garry.
+
+"Sir!" cried Shandon, turning pale, "Garry--by what right do you give
+orders here?"
+
+"Duke!" said Garry, repeating the whistle which had so surprised the
+crew.
+
+The dog, on hearing his real name, sprang on the quarter-deck, and lay
+down quietly at his master's feet.
+
+The crew did not utter a word. The key which the captain alone should
+possess, the dog which he had sent and which had identified him, so to
+speak, the tone of command which it was impossible to mistake,--all
+this had a strong influence on the minds of the sailors, and was
+enough to establish firmly Garry's authority.
+
+Besides, Garry was hardly to be recognized; he had removed the thick
+whiskers which had surrounded his face, thereby giving it a more
+impassible, energetic, and commanding expression; he stood before them
+clothed in a captain's uniform, which he had had placed in his cabin.
+
+So the crew of the _Forward_, animated in spite of themselves,
+shouted,--
+
+"Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah for the captain!"
+
+"Shandon," he said to his first officer, "have the crew put in line; I
+want to inspect them."
+
+Shandon obeyed, and gave the requisite orders with an agitated voice.
+
+The captain walked in front of the officers and men, saying a word to
+each, and treating him according to his past conduct.
+
+When he had finished his inspection, he went back to the quarter-deck,
+and calmly uttered these words:--
+
+"Officers and sailors, I am an Englishman like you all, and my motto
+is that of Lord Nelson,--'England expects every man to do his duty.'
+
+"As Englishmen, I am unwilling, we are unwilling, that others should
+go where we have not been. As Englishmen, I shall not endure, we shall
+not endure, that others should have the glory of going farther north
+than we. If human foot is ever to reach the Pole, it must be the foot
+of an Englishman! Here is the flag of our country. I have equipped
+this ship, I have devoted my fortune to this undertaking, I shall
+devote to it my life and yours, but this flag shall float over the
+North Pole. Fear not. You shall receive a thousand pounds sterling for
+every degree that we get farther north after this day. Now we are at
+the seventy-second, and there are ninety in all. Figure it out. My
+name will be proof enough. It means energy and patriotism. I am
+Captain Hatteras."
+
+"Captain Hatteras!" cried Shandon. And this name, familiar to them
+all, soon spread among all the crew.
+
+"Now," resumed Hatteras, "let us anchor the brig to the ice; let the
+fires be put out, and every one return to his usual occupation.
+Shandon, I want to speak with you about the ship. You will join me in
+my cabin with the doctor, Wall, and the boatswain. Johnson, dismiss
+the men."
+
+Hatteras, calm and cold, quietly left the poop-deck, while Shandon had
+the brig made fast to the ice.
+
+Who was this Hatteras, and why did his name make so deep an impression
+upon the crew?
+
+John Hatteras, the only son of a London brewer, who died in 1852,
+worth six million pounds, took to the sea at an early age, unmindful
+of the large fortune which was to come to him. Not that he had any
+commercial designs, but a longing for geographical discovery possessed
+him; he was continually dreaming of setting foot on some spot
+untrodden of man.
+
+When twenty years old, he had the vigorous constitution of thin,
+sanguine men; an energetic face, with well-marked lines, a high
+forehead, rising straight from the eyes, which were handsome but cold,
+thin lips, indicating a mouth chary of words, medium height, well-knit
+muscular limbs, indicated a man ready for any experience. Any one who
+saw him would have called him bold, and any one who heard him would
+have called him coldly passionate; he was a man who would never
+retreat, and who would risk the lives of others as coldly as his own.
+One would hence think twice before following him in his expeditions.
+
+John Hatteras had a great deal of English pride, and it was he who
+once made this haughty reply to a Frenchman.
+
+The Frenchman said with what he considered politeness, and even
+kindness,--
+
+"If I were not a Frenchman, I should like to be an Englishman."
+
+"If I were not an Englishman, I should like to be an Englishman!"
+
+That retort points the nature of the man.
+
+He would have liked to reserve for his fellow-countrymen the monopoly
+of geographical discovery; but much to his chagrin, during previous
+centuries, they had done but little in the way of discovery.
+
+America was discovered by the Genoese, Christopher Columbus; the East
+Indies by the Portuguese, Vasco de Gama; China by the Portuguese,
+Fernao d'Andrada; Terra del Fuego by the Portuguese, Magellan; Canada
+by the Frenchman, Jacques Cartier; the islands of Sumatra, Java, etc.,
+Labrador, Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, the Azores, Madeira,
+Newfoundland, Guinea, Congo, Mexico, White Cape, Greenland, Iceland,
+the South Pacific Ocean, California, Japan, Cambodia, Peru,
+Kamschatka, the Philippine Islands, Spitzbergen, Cape Horn, Behring
+Strait, New Zealand, Van Diemen's Land, New Britain, New Holland, the
+Louisiana, Island of Jan-Mayen, by Icelanders, Scandinavians,
+Frenchmen, Russians, Portuguese, Danes, Spaniards, Genoese, and
+Dutchmen; but no Englishmen figured among them, and it was a constant
+source of grief to Hatteras to see his fellow-countrymen excluded from
+the glorious band of sailors who made the great discoveries of the
+fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
+
+Hatteras consoled himself somewhat when he considered modern times:
+the English took their revenge with Stuart, McDougall Stuart, Burke,
+Wells, King, Gray, in Australia; with Palliser in America; with
+Havnoan in Syria; with Cyril Graham, Waddington, Cunningham, in India;
+and with Barth, Burton, Speke, Grant, and Livingstone in Africa.
+
+But this was not enough; for Hatteras these men were rather finishers
+than discoverers; something better was to be done, so he invented a
+country in order to have the honor of discovering it.
+
+Now he had noticed that if the English were in a minority with regard
+to the early discoveries, that if it was necessary to go back to Cook
+to make sure of New Caledonia in 1774, and of the Sandwich Islands
+where he was killed in 1778, there was nevertheless one corner of the
+globe on which they had centred all their efforts.
+
+This was the northern seas and lands of North America.
+
+In fact, the list of polar discoveries runs as follows:--
+
+  Nova Zembla, discovered by Willoughby in 1553.
+  Island of Wiegehts, discovered by Barrow in 1556.
+  West Coast of Greenland, discovered by Davis in 1585.
+  Davis Strait, discovered by Davis in 1587.
+  Spitzbergen, discovered by Willoughby in 1596.
+  Hudson's Bay, discovered by Hudson in 1610.
+  Baffin's Bay, discovered by Baffin in 1616.
+
+During recent years Hearne, Mackenzie, John Ross, Parry, Franklin,
+Richardson, Beechey, James Ross, Back, Dease, Simpson, Rae,
+Inglefield, Belcher, Austin, Kellet, Moore, MacClure, Kennedy,
+MacClintock, were incessantly exploring these unknown regions.
+
+The northern coast of America had been accurately made out, the
+Northwest Passage nearly discovered, but that was not enough; there
+was something greater to be done, and this John Hatteras had twice
+tried, fitting out ships at his own expense; he wanted to reach the
+Pole itself, and thus to crown the list of English discoveries by a
+glorious success.
+
+To reach the Pole itself was the aim of his life.
+
+After many successful voyages in the southern seas, Hatteras tried for
+the first time in 1846 to reach the North through Baffin's Bay, but he
+could get no farther than latitude 74 degrees; he sailed in the sloop
+_Halifax_; his crew suffered terribly, and John Hatteras carried his
+temerity so far that henceforth sailors were averse to undertaking a
+similar expedition under such a leader.
+
+Notwithstanding, in 1850, Hatteras succeeded in obtaining for the
+schooner _Farewell_ about twenty determined men, but who were
+persuaded especially by the high pay offered their boldness. It was
+then that Dr. Clawbonny began to correspond with John Hatteras, whom
+he did not know, about accompanying him; but the post of surgeon was
+filled, fortunately for the doctor.
+
+The _Farewell_, following the route taken by the _Neptune_ of Aberdeen
+in 1817, went to the north of Spitzbergen, as far as latitude 76
+degrees. There they were obliged to winter; but their sufferings were
+such, and the cold so intense, that of all on board, Hatteras alone
+returned to England. He was picked up by a Danish whaler after he had
+walked more than two hundred miles across the ice.
+
+The excitement produced by the return of this man alone was intense;
+who, after this, would accompany Hatteras in his bold attempts? Still
+he did not abandon the hope of trying again. His father, the brewer,
+died, and he came into possession of an enormous fortune.
+
+Meanwhile something had happened which cut John Hatteras to the heart.
+
+A brig, the _Advance_, carrying seventeen men, equipped by Mr.
+Grinnell, a merchant, commanded by Dr. Kane, and sent out in search of
+Franklin, went as far north, through Baffin's Bay and Smith's Sound,
+as latitude 82 degrees, nearer to the Pole than any of his
+predecessors had gone.
+
+Now this was an American ship. Grinnell was an American, Kane was an
+American!
+
+It is easy to understand how the customary disdain of the Englishman
+for the Yankee turned to hatred in the heart of Hatteras; he made up
+his mind, at any price, to beat his bold rival, and to reach the Pole
+itself.
+
+For two years he lived at Liverpool incognito. He was taken for a
+sailor. He saw in Richard Shandon the man he wanted; he presented his
+plans by an anonymous letter to him and to Dr. Clawbonny. The
+_Forward_ was built and equipped. Hatteras kept his name a secret;
+otherwise no one would have gone with him. He resolved only to take
+command of the brig at some critical juncture, and when his crew had
+gone too far to be able to retreat; he kept in reserve, as we have
+seen, the power of making generous offers to the men, so that they
+would follow him to the end of the world.
+
+In fact, it was to the end of the world that he wanted to go.
+
+Now matters looked very serious, and John Hatteras made himself known.
+
+His dog, the faithful Duke, the companion of his expeditions, was the
+first to recognize him, and fortunately for the bold, and
+unfortunately for the timid, it was firmly established that the
+captain of the _Forward_ was John Hatteras.
+
+[Illustration: "John Hatteras."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+THE CAPTAIN'S PLANS.
+
+
+The appearance of this famous person was variously received by the
+different members of the crew: some allied themselves strongly with
+him, moved both by boldness and by avarice; others took renewed
+interest in the expedition, but they reserved to themselves the right
+of protesting later; besides, at that time, it was hard to make any
+resistance to such a man. Hence every man went back to his place. The
+20th of May was Sunday, and consequently a day of rest for the crew.
+
+The officers took counsel together in the doctor's cabin; there were
+present Hatteras, Shandon, Wall, Johnson, and the doctor.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the captain, with his peculiarly gentle but
+impressive voice, "you know my project of going to the Pole; I want to
+get your opinion of the undertaking. What do you think about it,
+Shandon?"
+
+"I have not to think, Captain," answered Shandon, coldly; "I have only
+to obey."
+
+Hatteras was not surprised at this answer.
+
+"Richard Shandon," he resumed with equal coldness, "I ask your opinion
+about our probable chance of success."
+
+"Well, Captain," answered Shandon, "facts must answer for me; all
+attempts hitherto have failed; I hope we may be more fortunate."
+
+"We shall be. And, gentlemen, what do you think?"
+
+"As for me," replied the doctor, "I consider your design practicable,
+Captain; and since there is no doubt but that at some time or other
+explorers will reach the Pole, I don't see why we should not do it."
+
+"There are very good reasons why we should," answered Hatteras, "for
+we have taken measures to make it possible, and we shall profit by the
+experience of others. And, Shandon, you must accept my thanks for the
+care you have given to the equipment of the brig; there are some
+ill-disposed men in the crew, whom I shall soon bring to reason; but
+on the whole, I can give nothing but praise."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Shandon bowed coldly. His position on the _Forward_, of which he had
+thought himself commander, was a false one. Hatteras understood this,
+and said nothing more about it.
+
+"As for you, gentlemen," he resumed, addressing Wall and Johnson, "I
+could not myself have chosen officers more skilled and intrepid."
+
+"On my word, Captain, I am your man," answered Johnson; "and although
+I think your plan a very bold one, you can count on me to the end."
+
+"And on me too," said Wall.
+
+"As for you, Doctor, I know your worth--"
+
+"Well, you know then a great deal more than I do," answered the
+doctor, quickly.
+
+"Now, gentlemen," said Hatteras, "it is well that you should know on
+what good grounds I have made up my mind about the accessibility of
+the Pole. In 1817 the _Neptune_, of Aberdeen, went to the north of
+Spitzbergen, as far as latitude 82 degrees. In 1826 the celebrated
+Parry, after his third voyage in polar seas, started also from the
+extremity of Spitzbergen, and on sledges went one hundred and fifty
+miles farther north. In 1852, Captain Inglefield reached, through
+Smith's Sound, latitude 78 degrees 35 minutes. All these were English
+ships, and were commanded by Englishmen, our fellow-countrymen."
+
+Here Hatteras paused.
+
+"I ought to add," he resumed with some formality, and as if he could
+hardly bring himself to utter the words,--"I ought to add that in 1854
+the American, Captain Kane, in the brig _Advance_, went still farther
+north, and that his lieutenant, Morton, journeying over the ice,
+hoisted the United States flag beyond the eighty-second degree. Having
+once said this, I shall not return to it. Now the main point is that
+the captains of the _Neptune_, the _Enterprise_, the _Isabella_, and
+the _Advance_ agree in the statement that beyond these high latitudes
+there is an open polar sea, entirely free from ice."
+
+"Free from ice!" cried Shandon, interrupting the captain, "it's
+impossible!"
+
+"You will notice, Shandon," observed Hatteras, quietly, while his eye
+lighted up for an instant, "that I quote both facts and authorities. I
+must add that in 1851, when Penny was stationed by the side of
+Wellington Channel, his lieutenant, Stewart, found himself in the
+presence of an open sea, and that his report was confirmed when, in
+1853, Sir Edward Belcher wintered in Northumberland Bay, in latitude
+76 degrees 52 minutes, and longitude 99 degrees 20 minutes; these
+reports are indisputable, and one must be very incredulous not to
+admit them."
+
+"Still, Captain," persisted Shandon, "facts are as contradictory--"
+
+"You're wrong, Shandon, you're wrong!" cried Dr. Clawbonny; "facts
+never contradict a scientific statement; the captain will, I trust,
+excuse me."
+
+"Go on, Doctor!" said Hatteras.
+
+"Well, listen to this, Shandon; it results very clearly from
+geographical facts, and from the study of isothermal lines, that the
+coldest spot on the globe is not on the Pole itself; like the magnetic
+pole, it lies a few degrees distant. So the calculations of Brewster,
+Berghaus, and other physicists prove that in our hemisphere there are
+two poles of extreme cold: one in Asia in latitude 79 degrees 30
+minutes N., and longitude 120 degrees E.; the other is in America, in
+latitude 78 degrees N., and longitude 97 degrees W. This last alone
+concerns us, and you see, Shandon, that it is more than twelve degrees
+below the Pole. Well, I ask you why, then, the sea should not be as
+free from ice as it often is in summer in latitude 66 degrees, that is
+to say, at the southern end of Baffin's Bay?"
+
+"Well put," answered Johnson; "Dr. Clawbonny talks of those things
+like a man who understands them."
+
+"It seems possible," said James Wall.
+
+"Mere conjectures! nothing but hypotheses!" answered Shandon,
+obstinately.
+
+"Well, Shandon," said Hatteras, "let us consider the two cases; either
+the sea is free from ice, or it is not, and in neither case will it be
+impossible to reach the Pole. If it is free, the _Forward_ will take
+us there without difficulty; if it is frozen, we must try to reach it
+over the ice by our sledges. You will confess that it is not
+impracticable; having once come with our brig to latitude 83 degrees,
+we shall have only about six hundred miles between us and the Pole."
+
+"And what are six hundred miles," said the doctor, briskly, "when it
+is proved that a Cossack, Alexis Markoff, went along the frozen sea,
+north of Russia, on sledges drawn by dogs, for a distance of eight
+hundred miles, in twenty-four days?"
+
+"You hear him, Shandon," answered Hatteras, "and will you say that an
+Englishman cannot do as much as a Cossack?"
+
+"Never!" cried the enthusiastic doctor.
+
+"Never!" repeated the boatswain.
+
+"Well, Shandon?" asked the captain.
+
+"Captain," answered Shandon, coldly, "I can only repeat what I have
+said,--I shall obey you."
+
+"Well. Now," continued Hatteras, "let us consider our present
+situation; we are caught in the ice, and it seems to me impossible for
+us to reach Smith's Sound this year. This is what we must do."
+
+Hatteras unfolded on the table one of the excellent charts published
+in 1859 by the order of the Admiralty.
+
+"Be good enough to look here. If Smith's Sound is closed, Lancaster
+Sound is not, to the west of Baffin's Bay; in my opinion, we ought to
+go up this sound as far as Barrow Strait, and thence to Beechey
+Island. This has been done a hundred times by sailing-vessels; we
+shall have no difficulty, going under steam. Once at Beechey Island,
+we shall follow Wellington Sound as far northward as possible, to
+where it meets the channel, connecting it with Queen's Sound, at the
+place where the open sea was seen. It is now only the 20th of May; if
+nothing happens, we shall be there in a month, and from there we shall
+start for the Pole. What do you say to that, gentlemen?"
+
+"Evidently," said Johnson, "it's the only way open to us."
+
+"Well, we shall take it, and to-morrow. Let Sunday be a day of rest;
+you will see, Shandon, that the Bible is read as usual; the religious
+exercises do the men good, and a sailor more than any one ought to put
+his trust in God."
+
+"Very well, Captain," answered Shandon, who went away with the second
+officer and the boatswain.
+
+"Doctor," said Hatteras, pointing at Shandon, "there's an offended
+man, whose pride has ruined him; I can no longer depend upon him."
+
+Early the next day the captain had the launch lowered; he went to
+reconnoitre the icebergs about the basin, of which the diameter was
+hardly more than two hundred yards. He noticed that by the gradual
+pressure of the ice, this space threatened to grow smaller; hence it
+became necessary to make a breach somewhere, to save the ship from
+being crushed; by the means he employed, it was easy to see that John
+Hatteras was an energetic man.
+
+In the first place he had steps cut, by which he climbed to the top of
+an iceberg; from that point he saw it would be easy to open a path to
+the southwest; by his orders an opening was made in the middle of an
+iceberg, a task which was completed by Monday evening.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Hatteras could not depend on his blasting-cylinders of eight or ten
+pounds of powder, whose action would have been insignificant against
+such large masses; they were only of use to break the field-ice; hence
+he placed in the opening a thousand pounds of powder, carefully laying
+it where it should be of the utmost service. This chamber, to which
+ran a long fuse, surrounded by gutta-percha, opened on the outside.
+The gallery, leading thereto, was filled with snow and lumps of ice,
+to which the cold of the next night gave the consistency of granite.
+In fact, the temperature, under the influence of the east-wind, fell
+to 12 degrees.
+
+The next day at seven o'clock the _Forward_ was under steam, ready to
+seize any chance of escape. Johnson was charged with lighting the
+mine; the fuse was calculated to burn half an hour before exploding
+the powder. Hence Johnson had plenty of time to get back to the ship;
+indeed, within ten minutes he was at his post.
+
+The crew were all on deck; the day was dry and tolerably clear; the
+snow was no longer falling; Hatteras, standing on the deck with
+Shandon and the doctor, counted the minutes on his watch.
+
+At thirty-five minutes after eight a dull explosion was heard, much
+less deafening than had been anticipated. The outline of the mountains
+was suddenly changed, as by an earthquake; a dense white smoke rose
+high in the air, and long cracks appeared in the side of the iceberg,
+of which the upper part was hurled to a great distance, and fell in
+fragments about the _Forward_.
+
+But the way was by no means free yet; huge lumps of ice were suspended
+upon the neighboring icebergs, and their fall threatened to close the
+exit.
+
+Hatteras saw their situation in a flash of the eye.
+
+"Wolston!" he shouted.
+
+The gunner hastened to him.
+
+"Captain!" he said.
+
+"Put a triple charge in the forward gun, and ram it in as hard as
+possible!"
+
+"Are we going to batter the iceberg down with cannon-balls?" asked the
+doctor.
+
+"No," answered Hatteras. "That would do no good. No balls, Wolston,
+but a triple charge of powder. Be quick!"
+
+In a few moments the gun was loaded.
+
+"What is he going to do without a ball?" muttered Shandon between his
+teeth.
+
+"We'll soon see," answered the doctor.
+
+"We are all ready, Captain," cried Wolston.
+
+"Well," answered Hatteras. "Brunton!" he shouted to the engineer,
+"make ready! Forward a little!"
+
+Brunton opened the valves, and the screw began to move; the _Forward_
+drew near the blown-up iceberg.
+
+"Aim carefully at the passage!" cried the captain to the gunner.
+
+He obeyed; when the brig was only half a cable-length distant,
+Hatteras gave the order,--
+
+"Fire!"
+
+A loud report followed, and the fragments of ice, detached by the
+commotion of the air, fell suddenly into the sea. The simple
+concussion had been enough.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Put on full steam, Brunton!" shouted Hatteras. "Straight for the
+passage, Johnson!"
+
+Johnson was at the helm; the brig, driven by the screw, which tossed
+the water freely, entered easily the open passage. It was time. The
+_Forward_ had hardly passed through the opening, before it closed
+behind it.
+
+It was an exciting moment, and the only calm and collected man on
+board was the captain. So the crew, amazed at the success of this
+device, could not help shouting,--
+
+"Hurrah for John Hatteras!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+THE EXPEDITIONS IN SEARCH OF FRANKLIN.
+
+
+Wednesday, the 21st of May, the _Forward_ resumed her perilous voyage,
+making her way dexterously through the packs and icebergs, thanks to
+steam, which is seldom used by explorers in polar seas; she seemed to
+sport among the moving masses; one would have said she felt the hand
+of a skilled master, and that, like a horse under a skilful rider, she
+obeyed the thought of her captain.
+
+The weather grew warmer. At six o'clock in the morning the thermometer
+stood at 26 degrees, at six in the evening at 29 degrees, and at
+midnight at 25 degrees; the wind was light from the southeast.
+
+Thursday, at about three o'clock in the morning, the _Forward_ arrived
+in sight of Possession Bay, on the American shore, at the entrance of
+Lancaster Sound; soon Cape Burney came into sight. A few Esquimaux
+came out to the ship; but Hatteras could not stop to speak with them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The peaks of Byam Martin, which rise above Cape Liverpool, were passed
+on the left, and they soon disappeared in the evening mist; this hid
+from them Cape Hay, which has a very slight elevation, and so is
+frequently confounded with ice about the shore, a circumstance which
+very often renders the determination of the coast-line in polar
+regions very difficult.
+
+Puffins, ducks, and white gulls appeared in great numbers. By
+observation the latitude was 74 degrees 1 minute, and the longitude,
+according to the chronometer, 77 degrees 15 minutes.
+
+The two mountains, Catherine and Elizabeth, raised their snowy heads
+above the clouds.
+
+At ten o'clock on Friday Cape Warrender was passed on the right side
+of the sound, and on the left Admiralty Inlet, a bay which has never
+been fully explored by navigators, who are always hastening westward.
+The sea ran rather high, and the waves often broke over the bows,
+covering the deck with small fragments of ice. The land on the north
+coast presented a strange appearance with its high, flat table-lands
+sparkling beneath the sun's rays.
+
+Hatteras would have liked to skirt these northern lands, in order to
+reach the sooner Beechey Island and the entrance of Wellington
+Channel; but, much to his chagrin, the bank-ice obliged him to take
+only the passes to the south.
+
+Hence, on the 26th of May, in the midst of a fog and a snow-storm, the
+_Forward_ found herself off Cape York; a lofty, steep mountain was
+soon recognized; the weather got a little clearer, and at midday the
+sun appeared long enough to permit an observation to be taken:
+latitude 74 degrees 4 minutes, and longitude 84 degrees 23 minutes.
+The _Forward_ was at the end of Lancaster Sound.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Hatteras showed the doctor on the chart the route he had taken and
+that which he was to follow. At that time the position of the brig was
+interesting.
+
+"I should have liked to be farther north," he said, "but it was
+impossible; see, here is our exact position."
+
+The captain pointed to a spot near Cape York.
+
+"We are in the middle of this open space, exposed to every wind; into
+it open Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, Wellington Channel, and
+Regent's Inlet; here, of necessity, come all northern explorers."
+
+"Well," answered the doctor, "so much the worse for them; it is indeed
+an open space, where four roads meet, and I don't see any sign-post to
+point out the right way! What did Parry, Ross, and Franklin do?"
+
+"They didn't do anything in particular; they let themselves be
+governed by circumstances; they had no choice, I can assure you; at
+one time Barrow Strait would be closed against one, and the next year
+it would be open for another; again the ship would be irresistibly
+driven towards Regent's Inlet. In this way we have at last been able
+to learn the geography of these confused seas."
+
+"What a strange region!" said the doctor, gazing at the chart. "How
+everything is divided and cut up, without order or reason! It seems as
+if all the land near the Pole were divided in this way in order to
+make the approach harder, while in the other hemisphere it ends in
+smooth, regular points, like Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, and
+the Indian peninsula! Is it the greater rapidity at the equator which
+has thus modified things, while the land lying at the extremity, which
+was fluid at the beginning of the world, could not condense and unite
+as elsewhere, on account of slower rotation?"
+
+"That may be, for there is a reason for everything, and nothing
+happens without a cause, which God sometimes lets students find out;
+so, Doctor, find it out if you can."
+
+"I shall not waste too much time over it, Captain. But what is this
+fierce wind?" added the doctor, wrapping himself up well.
+
+"The north-wind is the common one, and delays our progress."
+
+"Still it ought to blow the ice toward the south, and leave our way
+free."
+
+"It ought to, Doctor, but the wind doesn't always do what it ought to.
+See, that ice looks impenetrable. We shall try to reach Griffith
+Island, then to get around Cornwallis Island to reach Queen's Channel,
+without going through Wellington Channel. And yet I am anxious to
+touch at Beechey Island to get some more coal."
+
+"How will you do that?" asked the astonished doctor.
+
+"Easily; by order of the Admiralty, a great amount has been placed on
+this island, to supply future expeditions, and although Captain
+MacClintock took some in 1859, I can assure you there is still some
+left for us."
+
+"In fact, these regions have been explored for fifteen years, and
+until certain proof of Franklin's death was received, the Admiralty
+always kept five or six ships cruising in these waters. If I'm not
+mistaken, Griffith Island, which I see in the middle of the open
+space, has become a general rendezvous for explorers."
+
+"True, Doctor, and Franklin's ill-fated expedition has been the means
+of our learning so much about these parts."
+
+"Exactly; for there have been a great many expeditions since 1845. It
+was not till 1848 that there was any alarm about the continued
+non-appearance of the _Erebus_ and the _Terror_, Franklin's two ships.
+Then the admiral's old friend, Dr. Richardson, seventy years of age,
+went through Canada, and descended Coppermine River to the Polar Sea;
+on the other side, James Ross, in command of the _Enterprise_ and the
+_Investigator_, sailed from Upernavik in 1848, and reached Cape York,
+where we are now. Every day he threw overboard a cask containing
+papers telling where he was; during fogs he fired cannon; at night he
+burned signal-fires and sent off rockets, carrying always but little
+sail; finally, he wintered at Leopold's Harbor in 1848-49; there he
+caught a large number of white foxes; he had put on their necks copper
+collars on which was engraved a statement of the position of the ship
+and where supplies had been left, and he drove them away in every
+direction; then, in the spring, he explored the coast of North
+Somerset on sledges, amid dangers and privations which disabled nearly
+all his men. He built cairns, enclosing copper cylinders with
+instructions to the absent expedition; during his absence, Lieutenant
+MacClure explored fruitlessly the northern coast of Barrow Strait. It
+is noteworthy, Captain, that James Ross had among his officers two men
+who afterwards became celebrated,--MacClure, who found the Northwest
+Passage, and MacClintock, who found the last remains of the Franklin
+expedition."
+
+[Illustration: "He caught a large number of white foxes; he had put on
+their necks copper collars."]
+
+"Two good and brave captains, two brave Englishmen; go on, Doctor,
+with this account which you know so well; there is always something to
+be learned from the account of bold adventurers."
+
+"Well, to conclude with James Ross, I have only to add that he tried
+to go farther west from Melville Island; but he nearly lost his ships,
+and being caught in the ice he was carried, against his will, to
+Baffin's Bay."
+
+"Carried," said Hatteras, frowning,--"carried against his will!"
+
+"He had discovered nothing," resumed the doctor; "it was only after
+1850 that English ships were always exploring there, when a reward of
+twenty thousand pounds was offered to any one who should discover the
+crews of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_. Already, in 1848, Captains Kellet
+and Moore, in command of the _Herald_ and the _Plover_, tried to make
+their way through by Behring Strait. I ought to say that the winter of
+1850-51, Captain Austin passed at Cornwallis Island; Captain Penny,
+with the _Assistance_ and _Resolute_, explored Wellington Channel; old
+John Ross, who discovered the magnetic pole, started in his yacht, the
+_Felix_, in search of his friend; the brig _Prince Albert_ made her
+first voyage at the expense of Lady Franklin; and, finally, two
+American ships, sent out by Grinnell, under Captain Haven, carried
+beyond Wellington Channel, were cast into Lancaster Sound. It was
+during this year that MacClintock, Austin's lieutenant, pushed on to
+Melville Island and to Cape Dundas, the extreme points reached by
+Parry in 1819, and on Beechey Island were found traces of Franklin's
+wintering there in 1845."
+
+"Yes," answered Hatteras, "three of his sailors were buried there,
+three fortunate men!"
+
+"From 1851 to 1852," continued the doctor, with a gesture of
+agreement, "we find the _Prince Albert_ making a second attempt with
+the French lieutenant, Bellot; he winters at Batty Bay in Prince
+Regent's Sound, explores the southwest of Somerset, and reconnoitres
+the coast as far as Cape Walker. Meanwhile, the _Enterprise_ and
+_Investigator_, having returned to England, came under the command of
+Collinson and MacClure, and they rejoined Kellet and Moore at Behring
+Strait; while Collinson returned to winter at Hong-Kong, MacClure went
+on, and after three winters, 1850-51, 1851-52, and 1852-53, he
+discovered the Northwest Passage without finding any traces of
+Franklin. From 1852 to 1853, a new expedition, consisting of three
+sailing-vessels, the _Assistance_, the _Resolute_, the _North Star_,
+and two steam-vessels, the _Pioneer_ and the _Intrepid_, started out
+under the orders of Sir Edward Belcher, with Captain Kellet second in
+command; Sir Edward visited Wellington Channel, wintered in
+Northumberland Bay, and explored the coast, while Kellet, pushing on
+as far as Brideport on Melville Island, explored that region without
+success. But then it was rumored in England that two ships, abandoned
+in the ice, had been seen not far from New Caledonia. At once Lady
+Franklin fitted out the little screw-steamer _Isabella_, and Captain
+Inglefield, after ascending Baffin's Bay to Victoria Point, at the
+eightieth parallel, returned to Beechey Island with equal unsuccess.
+At the beginning of 1855 the American Grinnell defrays the expense of
+a new expedition, and Dr. Kane, trying to reach the Pole--"
+
+"But he did not succeed," cried Hatteras with violence, "and thank God
+he did not! What he did not do, we shall!"
+
+"I know it, Captain," answered the doctor, "and I only speak of it on
+account of its connection with the search for Franklin. Besides, it
+accomplished nothing. I nearly forgot to say that the Admiralty,
+regarding Beechey Island as a general rendezvous, ordered the steamer
+_Phoenix_, Captain Inglefield, in 1853, to carry provisions there; he
+sailed with Lieutenant Bellot, who for the second, and last, time
+offered his services to England; we can get full details about the
+catastrophe, for Johnson, our boatswain, was eye-witness of this sad
+affair."
+
+"Lieutenant Bellot was a brave Frenchman," said Hatteras, "and his
+memory is honored in England."
+
+"Then," resumed the doctor, "the ships of Belcher's squadron began to
+return one by one; not all, for Sir Edward had to abandon the
+_Assistance_ in 1854, as McClure had the _Investigator_ in 1853.
+Meanwhile Dr. Rae, in a letter dated July 29, 1854, written from
+Repulse Bay, gave information that the Esquimaux of King William's
+Land had in their possession different objects belonging to the
+_Erebus_ and _Terror_; then there was no doubt possible about the fate
+of the expedition; the _Phoenix_, the _North Star_, and the ship of
+Collinson returned to England; there was then no English ship in these
+waters. But if the government seemed to have lost all hope, Lady
+Franklin did not despair, and with what was left of her fortune she
+fitted out the _Fox_, commanded by MacClintock; he set sail in 1857,
+wintered about where you made yourself known to us, Captain; he came
+to Beechey Island, August 11, 1858; the next winter he passed at
+Bellot Sound; in February, 1859, he began his explorations anew; on
+the 6th of May he found the document which left no further doubt as to
+the fate of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_, and returned to England at the
+end of the same year. That is a complete account of all that has been
+done in these regions during the last fifteen years; and since the
+return of the _Fox_, no ship has ventured among these dangerous
+waters!"
+
+"Well, we shall try it!" said Hatteras.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+THE FORWARD DRIVEN SOUTHWARD.
+
+
+Towards evening the weather cleared up, and land was clearly to be
+seen between Cape Sepping and Cape Clarence, which juts out to the
+east, then to the south, and is connected to the mainland on the west
+by a low tongue of land. There was no ice at the entrance of Regent's
+Sound; but it was densely massed beyond Leopold Harbor, as if to form
+an impassable barrier to the northward progress of the _Forward_.
+
+Hatteras, who, although he carefully concealed his feelings, was
+exceedingly annoyed, had to blow out a way with powder in order to
+enter Leopold Harbor; he reached it at midday, on Sunday, May 27th;
+the brig was securely anchored to the large icebergs, which were as
+firm, solid, and hard as rock.
+
+At once the captain, followed by the doctor, Johnson, and his dog
+Duke, leaped out upon the ice and soon reached the land. Duke leaped
+about with joy; besides, since the captain had made himself known, he
+had become very sociable and very gentle, preserving his ill-temper
+for some of the crew, whom his master disliked as much as he did.
+
+The harbor was free from the ice which is generally forced there by
+the east-wind; the sharp peaks, covered with snow, looked like a
+number of white waves. The house and lantern, built by James Ross,
+were still in a tolerable state of preservation; but the provisions
+appeared to have been eaten by foxes, and even by bears, of which
+fresh traces were to be seen; part of the devastation was probably due
+to the hand of man, for some ruins of Esquimaux huts were to be seen
+on the shores of the bay.
+
+The six tombs, enclosing six sailors of the _Enterprise_ and the
+_Investigator_, were recognizable by little mounds of earth; they had
+been respected by all, by both men and beasts.
+
+On first setting his foot on this northern earth, the doctor was
+really agitated; it would not be easy to describe the emotions one
+feels at the sight of these ruined houses, tents, huts, supplies,
+which nature preserves so perfectly in cold countries.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"There," said he to his companions,--"there is the spot which James
+Ross himself named Camp Refuge! If Franklin's expedition had reached
+this spot, it would have been saved. Here is the engine which was
+taken out and left here, and the furnace which warmed the crew of the
+_Prince Albert_ in 1851; everything remains as it was left, and one
+might fancy that Kennedy, her captain, had sailed away from here
+yesterday. This is the launch that sheltered them for some days, for
+Kennedy was separated from his ship, and only saved by Lieutenant
+Bellot, who braved the cold of October to join him."
+
+"A brave and excellent officer he was," said Johnson. "I knew him."
+
+While the doctor eagerly sought for traces of previous winterings
+there, Hatteras busied himself with collecting the scanty fragments of
+fuel and provisions which lay there. The next day was devoted to
+carrying them on board ship. The doctor explored the whole
+neighborhood, never going too far from the brig, and sketched the most
+remarkable views. The weather gradually grew milder; the snow-drifts
+began to melt. The doctor made a tolerably large collection of
+northern birds, such as gulls, divers, molly-nochtes, and eider-ducks,
+which resemble ordinary ducks, with a white back and breast, a blue
+belly, the top of the head blue, the rest of the plumage white, shaded
+with different tints of green; many of them had already plucked from
+their bellies the eider-down, which both the male and the female
+devote to lining their nests. The doctor also saw great seals
+breathing at the surface of the water, but he was unable to draw one.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In his wanderings he discovered the stone on which is engraved the
+following inscription:--
+
+  [E I]
+  1849,
+
+which marks the passage of the _Enterprise_ and _Investigator_; he
+pushed on to Cape Clarence, to the spot where, in 1833, John and James
+Ross waited so impatiently for the ice to thaw. The earth was covered
+with the skulls and bones of animals, and traces of the dwellings of
+Esquimaux were to be seen.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The doctor thought of erecting a cairn at Leopold Harbor, and of
+leaving a letter there to indicate the passage of the _Forward_ and
+the aim of the expedition. But Hatteras formally objected; he did not
+wish to leave behind him any traces which might be of use to a rival.
+In spite of all he could say, the doctor was obliged to yield to the
+captain's will. Shandon was ready enough to blame this obstinacy, for,
+in case of accident, no ship could have put out to the aid of the
+_Forward_.
+
+Hatteras refused to comply. Having completed his preparations on
+Monday, he tried once more to go to the north through the ice, but,
+after dangerous efforts, he was obliged to descend again Regent's
+Channel; he was utterly averse to remaining at Leopold's Harbor, which
+is open one day and closed the next by the unheralded motion of the
+ice,--a frequent phenomenon in these seas, and one against which
+navigators have to be ever on their guard.
+
+If Hatteras kept his anxiety from the others, he was at heart very
+anxious; he wanted to go northward, and he was obliged to retreat to
+the south! Where would that bring him? Was he going as far back as
+Victoria Harbor in the Gulf of Boothia, where Sir John Ross wintered
+in 1833? Should he find Bellot Sound free at this time, and, by going
+around North Somerset, could he ascend through Peel Sound? Or should
+he, like his predecessors, be caught for many winters, and be obliged
+to consume all his supplies and provisions?
+
+These fears tormented him; but he had to decide; he put about and
+started for the south.
+
+Prince Regent's Channel is of nearly uniform width from Leopold's
+Harbor to Adelaide Bay. The _Forward_ went rapidly through the ice,
+with better fortune than many other ships, most of which required a
+month to descend the channel, even in a better season; it is true that
+none of these ships, except the _Fox_, had steam at their command, and
+were obliged to do their best against frequent unfavorable winds.
+
+The crew seemed overjoyed at leaving the northern regions; they had
+but a slight desire to reach the Pole; they were alarmed at Hatteras's
+plans, for his reputation as a fearless man inspired them with but
+little confidence. Hatteras tried to make use of every opportunity to
+go forward, whatever the consequences might be. And yet in these
+parts, to advance is all very well, but one must also maintain his
+position and not run the risk of losing it.
+
+The _Forward_ went on under full steam; the black smoke whirled in
+spirals about the sparkling summits of the icebergs; the weather was
+changeable, turning from a dry cold to a snowstorm with inconceivable
+rapidity. Since the brig drew but little water, Hatteras hugged the
+west shore; he did not want to miss the entrance of Bellot Sound, for
+the Gulf of Boothia has no other entrance towards the south than the
+slightly known sound of the _Fury_ and the _Hecla_; hence the gulf
+would be impassable, if Bellot Sound were missed or found
+impracticable.
+
+By evening the _Forward_ was in sight of Elwin Bay, which was
+recognized by its high, steep cliffs; Tuesday morning Batty Bay was
+seen, where, on the 10th of September, 1851, the _Prince Albert_
+anchored for the winter. The doctor examined the coast with interest
+through his glass. From this point started the expeditions which
+determined the shape of North Somerset. The weather was clear enough
+for them to see the deep ravines surrounding the bay.
+
+The doctor and Johnson were probably the only ones who took any
+interest in these deserted countries. Hatteras, always studying his
+charts, talked little; his silence increased as the ship drew
+southward; he often went upon the quarter-deck, and there he would
+remain for hours, with folded arms, gazing absently at the horizon.
+His orders, when he gave any, were short and quick. Shandon maintained
+a cold silence, and drawing more and more into himself, he had nothing
+more to do with Hatteras than was officially required; James Wall
+remained devoted to Shandon, and modelled his conduct after that of
+his friend. The rest of the crew waited for whatever might turn up,
+ready to make the best use of it for their own profit. On board there
+was none of the unanimity which is so necessary for the accomplishment
+of great things. Hatteras knew this well.
+
+During the day two whalers were seen making toward the south; a white
+bear, too, was saluted with a few rifle-shots, but apparently without
+success. The captain knew the worth of an hour at that time, and
+refused permission to chase the animal.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Wednesday morning the end of Regent Channel was passed; the angle of
+the west coast was followed by a deep curve in the land. On examining
+his chart, the doctor recognized Somerset-House Point, or Point Fury.
+
+"There," he said to his usual companion,--"there is where the first
+English ship was lost that was sent to these seas in 1815, in Parry's
+third voyage; the _Fury_ was so much injured by the ice in her second
+winter, that the crew were obliged to abandon her and to return to
+England in her companion, the _Hecla_."
+
+"A good reason for having another ship," answered Johnson; "that is a
+precaution which polar explorers should not neglect; but Captain
+Hatteras was not the man to burden himself with a companion!"
+
+"Do you consider him rash, Johnson?" asked the doctor.
+
+"I? O, I don't say anything of the sort, Dr. Clawbonny! But see those
+piles there, with fragments of a tent hanging to them."
+
+"Yes, Johnson, it is there Parry unloaded all his ship's supplies,
+and, if my memory serves me right, the roof of the hut he built was
+made out of a mainsail covered by the running-rigging of the _Fury_."
+
+"That must have changed a good deal since 1825."
+
+"Not so very much. In 1829, John Ross kept his crew safe and sound in
+this light building. In 1851, when Prince Albert sent out an
+expedition, this hut was still standing; Captain Kennedy repaired it
+nine years ago. It would be interesting to visit it, but Hatteras is
+unwilling to stop."
+
+"And he is probably right, Dr. Clawbonny; if in England time is money,
+here it is safety, and for the delay of a day, of an hour even, the
+whole voyage might be rendered useless. We must let him do as he
+pleases."
+
+On Thursday, June 1st, the _Forward_ sailed diagonally across Creswell
+Bay; from Point Fury the coast rises in steep rocks three hundred feet
+high; towards the south, it is lower; a few snowy summits are to be
+seen, of a regular shape, while others, more fantastic, were hidden in
+the clouds.
+
+During that day the weather grew milder, but cloudier; they lost sight
+of land; the thermometer rose to 32 degrees; a few water-quail were to
+be seen, and flocks of wild geese flew toward the north; the crew laid
+aside some of their thick clothes; they began to be aware of the
+approach of summer in the arctic regions.
+
+Toward evening the _Forward_ doubled Cape Garry, a quarter of a mile
+from the shore. The lead marked ten to twelve fathoms, and they bore
+along the shore to Brentford Bay. In this latitude they were to find
+Bellot Sound, a sound which entirely escaped the notice of Sir John
+Ross in his expedition of 1828; his charts indicated an unbroken
+coast-line, with the least irregularities indicated with the utmost
+care; hence it is to be supposed that when he passed by the entrance
+of the sound, it was completely closed with ice and so could not be
+distinguished from the land.
+
+This sound was really discovered by Captain Kennedy in an excursion
+made in April, 1852; he named it after Lieutenant Bellot, as "a just
+tribute," as he said, "to the important services rendered to our
+expedition by the French officer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+THE MAGNETIC POLE.
+
+
+As Hatteras drew near this sound he felt his anxiety redoubling; in
+fact, the success of his expedition was at stake; so far he had done
+nothing more than his predecessors, the most successful of whom,
+MacClintock, had consumed fifteen months in reaching this spot; but
+that was little, indeed nothing, if he could not make Bellot Sound;
+being unable to return, he would be kept a prisoner until the next
+year.
+
+Hence he took upon himself the care of examining the coast; he went up
+to the lookout, and on Saturday passed many hours there.
+
+The crew were all acquainted with the situation of the ship; an
+unbroken silence reigned on board; the engine was slackened; the
+_Forward_ ran as near shore as possible; the coast was lined with ice
+which the warmest summers could not melt; a practised eye was needed
+to make out an entrance through them.
+
+Hatteras was comparing his charts with the coast-line. The sun having
+appeared for a moment at noon, Shandon and Wall took an observation,
+the result of which was at once told him.
+
+There was half a day of anxiety for all. But suddenly, at about two
+o'clock, these words were shouted from aloft,--
+
+"Head to the west, and put on all steam."
+
+The brig obeyed at once, turning to the point directed; the screw
+churned the water, and the _Forward_ plunged under a full head of
+steam between two swiftly running ice-streams.
+
+The path was found; Hatteras came down to the quarter-deck, and the
+ice-master went aloft.
+
+"Well, Captain," said the doctor, "we have entered this famous sound
+at last!"
+
+"Yes," answered Hatteras; "but entering is not all, we have got to get
+out of it too."
+
+And with these words he went to his cabin.
+
+"He is right," thought the doctor; "we are in a sort of trap, without
+much space to turn about in, and if we had to winter here!--well, we
+shouldn't be the first to do it, and where others lived through it,
+there is no reason why we should not!"
+
+The doctor was right. It was at this very place, in a little sheltered
+harbor called Port Kennedy by MacClintock himself, that the _Fox_
+wintered in 1858. At that moment it was easy to recognize the lofty
+granite chains, and the steep beaches on each side.
+
+Bellot Sound, a mile broad and seventeen long, with a current running
+six or seven knots, is enclosed by mountains of an estimated height of
+sixteen hundred feet; it separates North Somerset from Boothia; it is
+easy to see that there is not too much sailing room there. The
+_Forward_ advanced carefully, but still she advanced; tempests are
+frequent in this narrow pass, and the brig did not escape their usual
+violence; by Hatteras's orders, all the topsail-yards were lowered,
+and the topmasts also; in spite of everything the ship labored
+fearfully; the heavy seas kept the deck continually deluged with
+water; the smoke flew eastward with inconceivable rapidity; they went
+on almost at haphazard through the floating ice; the barometer fell to
+29 degrees; it was hard to stay on deck, so most of the men were kept
+below to spare them unnecessary exposure.
+
+Hatteras, Johnson, and Shandon remained on the quarter-deck, in spite
+of the whirlwinds of snow and rain; and the doctor, who had just asked
+himself what was the most disagreeable thing to be done at that time,
+soon joined them there; they could not hear, and hardly could they
+see, one another; so he kept his thoughts to himself.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Hatteras tried to pierce the dense cloud of mist, for, according to
+his calculation, they should be through the strait at six o'clock of
+the evening. At that time exit seemed closed, and Hatteras was obliged
+to stop and anchor to an iceberg; but steam was kept up all night.
+
+The weather was terrible. Every moment the _Forward_ threatened to
+snap her cables; there was danger, too, lest the mountain should be
+driven by the wind and crush the brig. The officers kept on the alert,
+owing to their extreme anxiety; besides the snow, large lumps of
+frozen spray were blown about by the hurricane like sharp arrows.
+
+The temperature arose strangely in that terrible night; the
+thermometer marked 57 degrees; and the doctor, to his great surprise,
+thought he noticed some flashes of lightning followed by distant
+thunder. This seemed to corroborate the testimony of Scoresby, who
+noticed the same phenomenon above latitude 65 degrees. Captain Parry
+also observed it in 1821.
+
+Towards five o'clock in the morning the weather changed with singular
+rapidity; the temperature fell to the freezing-point; the wind shifted
+to the north and grew quiet. The western opening of the strait could
+be seen, but it was entirely closed. Hatteras gazed anxiously at the
+coast, asking himself if there really were any exit.
+
+Nevertheless, the brig put out slowly into the ice-streams, while the
+ice crushed noisily against her bows; the packs at this time were six
+or seven feet thick; it was necessary carefully to avoid them, for if
+the ship should try to withstand them, it ran the risk of being lifted
+half out of the water and cast on her beam-ends.
+
+At noon, for the first time, a magnificent solar phenomenon could be
+observed, a halo with two parhelions; the doctor observed it, and took
+its exact dimensions; the exterior arc was only visible for about
+thirty degrees each side of the horizontal diameter; the two images of
+the sun were remarkably clear; the colors within the luminous area
+were, going toward the outside, red, yellow, green, faint blue, and
+last of all white, gently fading away, without any sharp line of
+termination.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The doctor remembered Thomas Young's ingenious theory about these
+meteors; he supposed that certain clouds composed of prisms of ice are
+hanging in the air; the sun's rays falling on these prisms are
+refracted at angles of sixty and ninety degrees. The halos can only be
+formed in a clear sky. The doctor thought this an ingenious
+explanation.
+
+Sailors, who are familiar with northern seas, consider this phenomenon
+a forerunner of heavy snow. If this should be the case, the position
+of the _Forward_ was very critical. Hence Hatteras resolved to push
+on; during the rest of that day and the next night he took no rest,
+but examined the horizon through his glass, entering every inlet, and
+losing no opportunity to get out of the strait.
+
+But in the morning he was compelled to stop before the impenetrable
+ice. The doctor joined him on the quarter-deck. Hatteras led him clear
+aft where they could talk without fear of being overheard.
+
+"We are caught," said Hatteras. "It's impossible to go on."
+
+"Impossible?" said the doctor.
+
+"Impossible! All the powder on board the _Forward_ would not open a
+quarter of a mile to us."
+
+"What are we to do?" asked the doctor.
+
+"I don't know. Curse this unlucky year!"
+
+"Well, Captain, if we must go into winter-quarters, we'll do it. As
+well here as anywhere else!"
+
+"Of course," said Hatteras in a low voice, "but we ought not to be
+going into winter-quarters, especially in the month of June. It is
+demoralizing, and bad for the health. The spirits of the crew are soon
+cast down during this long rest among real sufferings. So I had made
+up my mind to winter at a latitude nearer the Pole."
+
+"Yes, but, unluckily, Baffin's Bay was closed."
+
+"Any one else would have found it open," cried Hatteras; "that
+American, that--"
+
+"Come, Hatteras," said the doctor, purposely interrupting him, "it's
+now only the 5th of June; we should not despair; a path may open
+before us suddenly; you know the ice often breaks into separate
+pieces, even when the weather is calm, as if it were driven apart by
+some force of repulsion; at any moment we may find the sea free."
+
+"Well, if that happens, we shall take advantage of it. It is not
+impossible that beyond Bellot Strait we might get northward through
+Peel Sound or MacClintock Channel, and then--"
+
+"Captain," said James Wall, approaching, "the ice threatens to tear
+away the rudder."
+
+"Well," answered Hatteras, "never mind; I sha'n't unship it; I want to
+be ready at any hour, day or night. Take every precaution, Mr. Wall,
+and keep the ice off; but don't unship it, you understand."
+
+"But--" began Wall.
+
+"I don't care to hear any remarks, sir," said Hatteras, severely.
+"Go!"
+
+Wall returned to his post.
+
+"Ah!" said Hatteras, angrily, "I would give five years of my life to
+be farther north! I don't know any more dangerous place; and besides,
+we are so near the magnetic pole that the compass is of no use; the
+needle is inactive, or always shifting its direction."
+
+"I confess," said the doctor, "that it is not plain sailing; but
+still, those who undertook it were prepared for such dangers, and
+there is no need to be surprised."
+
+"Ah, Doctor! the crew has changed very much, and you have seen that
+the officers have begun to make remarks. The high pay offered the
+sailors induced them to ship; but they have their bad side, for as
+soon as they are off they are anxious to get back. Doctor, I have no
+encouragement in my undertaking, and if I fail, it won't be the fault
+of such or such a sailor, but of the ill-will of certain officers. Ah,
+they'll pay dearly for it!"
+
+"You are exaggerating, Hatteras."
+
+"Not at all! Do you fancy the crew are sorry for the obstacles we are
+meeting? On the contrary, they hope I shall be compelled to abandon my
+plans. So they do not murmur, and when the _Forward_ is headed for the
+south, it will be the same thing. Fools! They imagine they are
+returning to England! But when I'm turned towards the north, you will
+see a difference! I swear solemnly that no living being shall make me
+swerve from my course! Give me a passage, an opening through which my
+brig can go, and I shall take it, if I have to leave half her
+sheathing behind!"
+
+The desires of the captain were destined to be satisfied in a measure.
+As the doctor had foretold, there was a sudden change in the evening;
+under some influence of the wind, the ice-fields separated; the
+_Forward_ pushed on boldly, breaking the ice with her steel prow; all
+the night they advanced, and towards six o'clock they were clear of
+Bellot Strait.
+
+But great was Hatteras's anger at finding the way to the north closed!
+He was able to hide his despair; and as if the only open path were the
+one of his choice, he turned the _Forward_ towards Franklin Sound.
+Being unable to go up Peel Sound, he determined to go around Prince of
+Wales Land, to reach MacClintock Channel. But he knew that Shandon and
+Wall could not be deceived, and were conscious of the failure of his
+hopes.
+
+Nothing especial happened on the 6th of June; snow fell, and the
+prophecy of the halo came true.
+
+For thirty-six hours the _Forward_ followed the sinuosities of the
+coast of Boothia, without reaching Prince of Wales Land. Hatteras put
+on all steam, burning his coal extravagantly; he still intended to get
+further supplies on Beechey Island; on Thursday he arrived at Franklin
+Sound, and he still found the way northward impassable.
+
+His position was a desperate one; he could not return; the ice pushed
+him onward, and he saw his path forever closing behind him, as if
+there were no open sea where he had passed but an hour before.
+
+Hence, not only was the _Forward_ unable to go toward the north, but
+she could not stop for a moment lest she should be imprisoned, and she
+fled before the ice like a ship before a storm.
+
+Friday, June 7th, she arrived near the coast of Boothia, at the
+entrance of James Ross Sound, which had to be avoided because its only
+exit is to the west, close to the shore of America.
+
+The observations taken at noon showed them to be in latitude 70
+degrees 5 minutes 17 seconds, and longitude 96 degrees 46 minutes 45
+seconds; when the doctor heard this he examined his chart, and found
+that they were at the magnetic pole, at the very point where James
+Ross, the nephew of Sir John, came to determine its situation.
+
+The land was low near the coast, and it rose only about sixty feet at
+the distance of a mile from the sea.
+
+The boiler of the _Forward_ needed cleaning; the captain anchored his
+ship to a field of ice, and gave the doctor leave to go ashore with
+the boatswain. For himself, being indifferent to everything outside of
+his own plans, he shut himself up in his cabin, and studied the chart
+of the Pole.
+
+The doctor and his companion easily reached land; the first-named
+carried a compass for his experiments; he wanted to test the work of
+James Ross; he easily made out the mound of stones erected by him; he
+ran towards it; an opening in the cairn let him see a tin box in which
+James Ross had placed an account of his discovery. No living being had
+visited this lonely spot for thirty years.
+
+At this place a needle suspended as delicately as possible assumed a
+nearly vertical position under the magnetic influence; hence the
+centre of attraction was near, if not immediately beneath, the needle.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The doctor made the experiment with all care. But if James Ross, owing
+to the imperfection of his instruments, found a declination of only 89
+degrees 50 minutes, the real magnetic point is found within a minute
+of this spot. Dr. Clawbonny was more fortunate, and at a little
+distance from there he found a declination of 90 degrees.
+
+"This is exactly the magnetic pole of the earth!" he cried, stamping
+on the ground.
+
+"Just here?" asked Johnson.
+
+"Precisely here, my friend!"
+
+"Well, then," resumed the boatswain, "we must give up all the stories
+of a magnetic mountain or large mass."
+
+"Yes, Johnson," answered the doctor, laughing, "those are empty
+hypotheses! As you see, there is no mountain capable of attracting
+ships, of drawing their iron from them anchor after anchor, bolt after
+bolt! and your shoes here are as light as anywhere in the world."
+
+"But how do you explain--"
+
+"There is no explanation, Johnson; we are not wise enough for that.
+But what is mathematically certain is that the magnetic pole is at
+this very spot!"
+
+"Ah, Dr. Clawbonny, how glad the captain would be to say as much of
+the North Pole!"
+
+"He'll say it, Johnson; he'll say it!"
+
+"God grant it!" was the answer.
+
+The doctor and his companion raised a cairn at the spot where they
+tried their experiment, and the signal for their return being made,
+they returned to the ship at five o'clock of the evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+THE FATE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN.
+
+
+The _Forward_ succeeded, though not without difficulty, in getting by
+James Ross Sound, by frequent use of the ice-saws and gunpowder; the
+crew was very much fatigued. Fortunately the temperature was
+agreeable, and even thirty degrees above what James Ross found at the
+same time of year. The thermometer marked 34 degrees.
+
+Saturday they doubled Cape Felix at the northern end of King William's
+Land, one of the smaller islands of northern seas.
+
+At that time the crew became very much depressed; they gazed wistfully
+and sadly at its far-stretching shores.
+
+In fact, they were gazing at King William's Land, the scene of one of
+the saddest tragedies of modern times! Only a few miles to the west
+the _Erebus_ and _Terror_ were lost.
+
+The sailors of the _Forward_ were familiar with the attempts made to
+find Franklin, and the result they had obtained, but they did not know
+all the sad details. Now, while the doctor was following on his chart
+the course of the ship, many of them, Bell, Bolton, and Simpson, drew
+near him and began to talk with him. Soon the others followed to
+satisfy their curiosity; meanwhile the brig was advancing rapidly, and
+the bays, capes, and promontories of the coast passed before their
+gaze like a gigantic panorama.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Hatteras was pacing nervously to and fro on the quarter-deck; the
+doctor found himself on the bridge, surrounded by the men of the crew;
+he readily understood the interest of the situation, and the
+impression that would be made by an account given under those
+circumstances, hence he resumed the talk he had begun with Johnson.
+
+"You know, my friends, how Franklin began: like Cook and Nelson, he
+was first a cabin-boy; after spending his youth in long sea-voyages,
+he made up his mind, in 1845, to seek the Northwest Passage; he
+commanded the _Erebus_ and the _Terror_, two stanch vessels, which had
+visited the antarctic seas in 1840, under the command of James Ross.
+The _Erebus_, in which Franklin sailed, carried a crew of seventy men,
+all told, with Fitz-James as captain; Gore and Le Vesconte,
+lieutenants; Des Voeux, Sargent, and Couch, boatswains; and Stanley,
+surgeon. The _Terror_ carried sixty-eight men. Crozier was the
+captain; the lieutenants were Little, Hodgson, and Irving; boatswains,
+Horesby and Thomas; the surgeon, Peddie. In the names of the bays,
+capes, straits, promontories, channels, and islands of these latitudes
+you find memorials of most of these unlucky men, of whom not one has
+ever again seen his home! In all one hundred and thirty-eight men! We
+know that the last of Franklin's letters were written from Disco
+Island, and dated July 12, 1845. He said, 'I hope to set sail to-night
+for Lancaster Sound.' What followed his departure from Disco Bay? The
+captains of the whalers, the _Prince of Wales_ and the _Enterprise_,
+saw these two ships for the last time in Melville Bay, and nothing
+more was heard of them. Still we can follow Franklin in his course
+westward; he went through Lancaster and Barrow Sounds and reached
+Beechey Island, where he passed the winter of 1845-46."
+
+"But how is this known?" asked Bell, the carpenter.
+
+"By three tombs which the Austin expedition found there in 1850. Three
+of Franklin's sailors had been buried there; and, moreover, by a paper
+found by Lieutenant Hobson of the _Fox_, dated April 25, 1848. We know
+also that, after leaving winter-quarters, the _Erebus_ and _Terror_
+ascended Wellington Channel as far as latitude 77 degrees; but instead
+of pushing to the north, which they doubtless found impossible, they
+returned towards the south--"
+
+"And that was a fatal mistake!" uttered a grave voice. "Safety lay to
+the north."
+
+Every one turned round. It was Hatteras, who, leaning on the rail of
+the quarter-deck, had just made that solemn remark.
+
+"Without doubt," resumed the doctor, "Franklin intended to make his
+way to the American shore; but tempests beset him, and September 12,
+1846, the two ships were caught in the ice, a few miles from here, to
+the northwest of Cape Felix; they were carried to the north-northwest
+of Point Victory; there," said the doctor, pointing out to the sea.
+"Now," he added, "the ships were not abandoned till April 22, 1848.
+What happened during these nineteen months? What did these poor men
+do? Doubtless they explored the surrounding lands, made every effort
+to escape, for the admiral was an energetic man; and if he did not
+succeed--"
+
+"It's because his men betrayed him," said Hatteras in a deep voice.
+
+The sailors did not dare to lift their eyes; these words made them
+feel abashed.
+
+"To be brief, this paper, of which I spoke, tells us, besides, that
+Sir John Franklin died, worn out by his sufferings, June 11, 1847. All
+honor to his memory!" said the doctor, removing his hat.
+
+The men did the same in silence.
+
+"What became of these poor men, deprived of their leader, during the
+next ten months? They remained on board of their ships, and it was not
+till April, 1848, that they made up their mind to abandon them; one
+hundred and five men survived out of the hundred and thirty-eight.
+Thirty-three had died! Then Captains Crozier and Fitz-James erected a
+cairn at Point Victory, and left their last paper there. See, my
+friends, we are passing by that point. You can see traces of the
+cairn, placed, so to speak, at the farthest point reached by John Ross
+in 1831! There is Cape Jane Franklin! There Point Franklin! There
+Point Le Vesconte! There Erebus Bay, where the launch, made of pieces
+of one of the ships, was found on a sledge! There were found silver
+spoons, plenty of food, chocolate, tea, and religious books. The
+hundred and five survivors, under the command of Captain Crozier, set
+out for Great Fish River. How far did they get? Did they reach
+Hudson's Bay? Have any survived? What became of them after that?--"
+
+"I will tell you what became of them," said John Hatteras in an
+energetic voice. "Yes, they tried to reach Hudson's Bay, and separated
+into several parties. They took the road to the south. In 1854 a
+letter from Dr. Rae states that in 1850 the Esquimaux had met in King
+William's Land a detachment of forty men, chasing sea-cows, travelling
+on the ice, dragging a boat along with them, thin, pale, and worn out
+with suffering and fatigue. Later, they discovered thirty corpses on
+the mainland and five on a neighboring island, some half buried,
+others left without burial; some lying beneath an overturned boat,
+others under the ruins of a tent; here lay an officer with his glass
+swung around his shoulder, and his loaded gun near him; farther on
+were kettles with the remains of a horrible meal. At this news, the
+Admiralty urged the Hudson's Bay Company to send its most skilful
+agents to this place. They descended Black River to its mouth. They
+visited Montreal and Maconochie Islands, and Point Ogle. In vain! All
+these poor fellows had died of misery, suffering, and starvation,
+after trying to prolong their lives by having recourse to cannibalism.
+That is what became of them along their way towards the south, which
+was lined with their mutilated bodies. Well, do you want to follow
+their path?"
+
+[Illustration: "All these poor fellows had died of misery, suffering,
+and starvation."]
+
+Hatteras's ringing voice, passionate gestures, and glowing face
+produced an indescribable effect. The crew, moved by the sight of
+these ill-omened lands, cried with one voice,--
+
+"To the north! to the north!"
+
+"Well, to the north! Safety and glory await us there at the north!
+Heaven is declaring for us! The wind is changing! The passage is free!
+Prepare to go about!"
+
+The sailors hastened to their places; the ice-streams grew slowly
+free; the _Forward_ went about rapidly, and ran under full steam
+towards MacClintock's Channel.
+
+Hatteras was justified in counting on a freer sea; on his way he
+retraced the probable path of Franklin; he went along the eastern side
+of Prince of Wales Land, which is clearly defined, while the other
+shore is still unknown. Evidently the clearing away of the ice towards
+the south took place through the eastern strait, for it appeared
+perfectly clear; so the _Forward_ was able to make up for lost time;
+she was put under full steam, so that the 14th they passed Osborne
+Bay, and the farthest points reached by the expeditions of 1851. There
+was still a great deal of ice about them, but there was every
+indication that the _Forward_ would have clear sailing-way before her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+THE WAY NORTHWARD.
+
+
+The crew seemed to have returned to their habits of discipline and
+obedience. Their duties were slight and infrequent, so that they had
+plenty of leisure. The temperature never fell below the
+freezing-point, and the thaw removed the greatest obstacles from their
+path.
+
+Duke had made friends with Dr. Clawbonny. They got on admirably
+together. But as in friendship one friend is always sacrificed to the
+other, it must be said that the doctor was not the other. Duke did
+with him whatever he pleased. The doctor obeyed him as a dog obeys his
+master. Moreover, Duke conducted himself very amicably with most of
+the officers and sailors; only, instinctively doubtless, he avoided
+Shandon; he had, too, a grudge against Pen and Foker; his hatred for
+them manifested itself in low growls when they came near him. They,
+for their part, did not dare attack the captain's dog, "his familiar
+spirit," as Clifton called him.
+
+In a word, the crew had taken courage again.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"It seems to me," said James Wall one day to Richard Shandon, "that
+the men took the captain's words for earnest; they seem to be sure of
+success."
+
+"They are mistaken," answered Shandon; "if they would only reflect,
+and consider our condition, they would see we are simply going from
+one imprudence to another."
+
+"Still," resumed Wall, "we are in a more open sea; we are going along
+a well-known route; don't you exaggerate somewhat, Shandon?"
+
+"Not a bit, Wall; the hate and jealousy, if you please, with which
+Hatteras inspires me, don't blind my eyes. Say, have you seen the
+coal-bunkers lately?"
+
+"No," answered Wall.
+
+"Well! go below, and you'll see how near we are to the end of our
+supply. By right, we ought to be going under sail, and only starting
+our engine to make headway against currents or contrary winds; our
+fuel ought to be burned only with the strictest economy, for who can
+say where and for how long we may be detained? But Hatteras is pushed
+by this mania of going forward, of reaching the inaccessible Pole, and
+he doesn't care for such a detail. Whether the wind is fair or foul,
+he goes on under steam; and if he goes on we run a risk of being very
+much embarrassed, if not lost."
+
+"Is that so, Shandon? That is serious!"
+
+"You are right, Wall, it is; not only would the engine be of no use to
+us if we got into a tight place, but what are we to do in the winter?
+We ought to take some precautions against the cold in a country where
+the mercury often freezes in the thermometer."
+
+"But if I'm not mistaken, Shandon, the captain intends getting a new
+supply at Beechey Island; they say there is a great quantity there."
+
+"Can any one choose where he'll go in these seas, Wall? Can one count
+on finding such or such a channel free of ice? And if he misses
+Beechey Island, or can't reach it, what is to become of us?"
+
+"You are right, Shandon; Hatteras seems to me unwise; but why don't
+you say something of this sort to him?"
+
+"No, Wall," answered Shandon, with ill-disguised bitterness, "I have
+made up my mind not to say a word; I am not responsible any longer for
+the ship; I shall await events; if I receive any commands, I obey, and
+I don't proclaim my opinions."
+
+"Let me tell you you are wrong, Shandon; for the well-being of all is
+at stake, and the captain's imprudence may cost us all dear."
+
+"And if I were to speak, Wall, would he listen to me?"
+
+Wall did not dare say he would.
+
+"But," he added, "he would perhaps listen to remonstrances of the
+crew."
+
+"The crew," said Shandon, shrugging his shoulders; "but, my dear Wall,
+haven't you noticed that they care for everything else more than for
+their safety? They know they're getting near latitude 72 degrees, and
+that a thousand pounds is paid for every degree of latitude beyond
+which is reached."
+
+"You are right, Shandon," answered Wall, "and the captain has taken
+the surest means of securing his men."
+
+"Without doubt," answered Shandon; "for the present, at least."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean that all will go very well in the absence of all dangers and
+fatigues, in an open sea; Hatteras has caught them by his money; but
+what is done for pay is ill done. But once let hardships, dangers,
+discomfort, sickness, melancholy, and fierce cold stare them in the
+face,--and we are flying towards them now,--and you will see whether
+they remember the pay they are to get."
+
+"So, in your opinion, Shandon, Hatteras will fail?"
+
+"Exactly; he will fail. In such an enterprise, there should be an
+identity of interests among the leaders, a sympathy which is lacking
+here. Besides, Hatteras is mad; his whole past proves it! But we shall
+see! Circumstances may arise in which the command of the ship will
+have to be given to a less foolhardy captain--"
+
+"Still," said Wall, shaking his head doubtfully, "Hatteras will always
+have on his side--"
+
+"He will have," interrupted Shandon,--"he will have that Dr.
+Clawbonny, who only cares to study; Johnson, who is a slave to
+discipline, and who never takes the trouble to reason; perhaps one or
+two besides, like Bell, the carpenter,--four at the most, and there
+are eighteen on board! No, Wall, Hatteras has not the confidence of
+the crew; he knows it well, and he tries to make up for it by bribery;
+he made a good use of the account of Franklin's catastrophe to create
+a different feeling in their excited minds; but that won't last, I
+tell you; and if he don't reach Beechey Island, he is lost!"
+
+"If the crew suspected--"
+
+"I beg of you," said Shandon, quickly, "not to say a word about this
+to the crew; they'll find it out for themselves. Now, at any rate, it
+is well to go on towards the north. But who can say whether what
+Hatteras takes for a step towards the Pole may not be really retracing
+our steps? At the end of MacClintock Channel is Melville Bay, and
+thence open the straits which lead back to Baffin's Bay. Hatteras had
+better take care! The way west is easier than the way north."
+
+From these words Shandon's state of mind may be judged, and how
+justified the captain was in suspecting a treacherous disposition in
+him.
+
+Shandon, moreover, was right when he ascribed the present satisfaction
+of the crew to the prospect they had of passing latitude 72 degrees.
+This greed of gold seized the least audacious. Clifton had made out
+every one's share with great exactness. Leaving out the captain and
+the doctor, who could not be admitted to the division, there were
+sixteen men on board the _Forward_. The amount was a thousand pounds,
+that was 72 pounds 10_s_. for each man, for every degree. If they
+should ever reach the Pole the eighteen degrees to be crossed would
+give each one a sum of 1,125 pounds, a fair fortune. This whim would
+cost the captain 18,000 pounds; but he was rich enough to pay for such
+a costly trip to the Pole.
+
+These calculations aroused wonderfully the avarice of the crew, as can
+be readily believed, and more than one longed to pass latitude 72
+degrees, who, a fortnight before, rejoiced to be sailing southward.
+
+The _Forward_ sailed by Cape Alworth June 16th. Mount Rawlinson raised
+its white peaks towards the sky; the snow and mist exaggerated its
+size so that it appeared colossal; the temperature remained a few
+degrees above the freezing-point; cascades and cataracts appeared on
+the sides of the mountain; avalanches kept falling with a roar like
+that of artillery. The long stretches of glaciers made a loud echo.
+The contrast between this wintry scene and the thaw made a wonderful
+sight. The brig sailed along very near the coast; they were able to
+see on some sheltered rocks a few bushes bearing modest little roses,
+some reddish moss, and a budding dwarf willow barely rising above the
+ground.
+
+At last, June 19th, in latitude 72 degrees, they doubled Point Minto,
+which forms one of the extremities of Ommanney Bay; the brig entered
+Melville Bay, called "the Sea of Money" by Bolton; this good-natured
+fellow used to be always jesting on this subject, much to Clawbonny's
+amusement.
+
+The obstacles to their course were but few, for June 23d, in the teeth
+of a strong northeasterly breeze, they passed latitude 74 degrees.
+This was at the middle of Melville Bay, one of the largest seas of
+this region. It was first crossed by Captain Parry, in his great
+expedition of 1819, and there it was that his crew won the 5,000
+pounds promised by act of Parliament.
+
+Clifton contented himself with remarking that there were two degrees
+between latitude 72 degrees and latitude 74 degrees: that was 125
+pounds to his credit. But they told him that a fortune did not amount
+to much up there, and that a man could be called rich only when he
+could have a chance to drink to his wealth; it seemed better to wait
+for the moment when they could meet at some tavern in Liverpool before
+rejoicing and rubbing their hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+A WHALE IN SIGHT.
+
+
+Melville Bay, although perfectly navigable, was not wholly free of
+ice; immense ice-fields could be seen stretching to the horizon; here
+and there appeared a few icebergs, but they stood motionless as if
+anchored in the ice. The _Forward_ went under full steam through broad
+passes where she had plenty of sailing-room. The wind shifted
+frequently from one point of the compass to another.
+
+The variability of the wind in the arctic seas is a remarkable fact,
+and very often only a few minutes intervene between a calm and a
+frightful tempest. This was Hatteras's experience on the 23d of June,
+in the middle of this huge bay.
+
+The steadiest winds blow generally from the ice to the open sea, and
+are very cold. On that day the thermometer fell several degrees; the
+wind shifted to the southward, and the heavy gusts, having passed over
+the ice, discharged themselves of their dampness under the form of a
+thick snow. Hatteras immediately ordered the sails which were aiding
+the engine to be reefed; but before this could be done his
+main-topsail was carried away.
+
+Hatteras gave his orders with the utmost coolness, and did not leave
+the deck during the storm; he was obliged to run before the gale. The
+wind raised very heavy waves which hurled about pieces of ice of every
+shape, torn from the neighboring ice-fields; the brig was tossed about
+like a child's toy, and ice was dashed against its hull; at one moment
+it rose perpendicularly to the top of a mountain of water; its steel
+prow shone like molten metal; then it sank into an abyss, sending
+forth great whirls of smoke, while the screw revolved out the water
+with a fearful clatter. Rain and snow fell in torrents.
+
+The doctor could not miss such a chance to get wet to the skin; he
+remained on deck, gazing at the storm with all the admiration such a
+spectacle cannot fail to draw forth. One standing next to him could
+not have heard his voice; so he said nothing, but looked, and soon he
+saw a singular phenomenon, one peculiar to the northern seas.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The tempest was confined to a small space of about three or four
+miles; in fact, the wind loses much of its force in passing over the
+ice, and cannot carry its violence very far; every now and then the
+doctor would see, through some rift in the storm, a clear sky and a
+quiet sea beyond the ice-fields; hence the _Forward_ had only to make
+her way through the passes to find smooth sailing; but she ran a risk
+of being dashed against the moving masses which obeyed the motion of
+the waves. Notwithstanding, Hatteras succeeded in a few hours in
+carrying his vessel into smooth water, while the violence of the
+storm, now at its worst at the horizon, was dying away within a few
+cable-lengths from the _Forward_.
+
+Melville Bay then looked very different; by the influence of the winds
+and waves a large number of icebergs had been detached from the shores
+and were now floating northward, continually crashing against one
+another. They could be counted by hundreds; but the bay is very broad,
+and the brig avoided them without difficulty. The sight of these
+floating masses, which seemed to be racing together, was indeed
+magnificent.
+
+The doctor was wild with enthusiasm about it, when Simpson, the
+harpooner, came up to him and asked him to notice the changing tints
+of the sea, which varied from deep blue to olive green; long bands ran
+from north to south with edges so sharply cut that the line of
+division could be seen as far as the horizon. Sometimes a transparent
+sheet would stretch out from an opaque one.
+
+"Well, Dr. Clawbonny, what do you think of that?" said Simpson.
+
+"I agree, my friend, with what Scoresby said about these differently
+colored waters," answered the doctor, "namely, that the blue water
+does not contain the millions of animalcules and medusae which the
+green water contains; he made a great many experiments to test it, and
+I am ready to agree with him."
+
+"O, but there's something else it shows!"
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"Well, if the _Forward_ were only a whaler, I believe we should have
+some sport."
+
+"But," answered the doctor, "I don't see any whales."
+
+"We shall very soon, though, I promise you. It's great luck for a
+whaler to see those green patches in these latitudes."
+
+"Why so?" asked the doctor, whose curiosity was aroused by these
+remarks of a man who had had experience in what he was talking about.
+
+"Because," answered Simpson, "it is in that green water that most of
+the whales are caught."
+
+"What is the reason, Simpson?"
+
+"Because they get more food there."
+
+"You are sure of that?"
+
+"O, I have seen it a hundred times in Baffin's Bay! I don't see why
+the same shouldn't be the case in Melville Bay."
+
+"You must be right, Simpson."
+
+"And see," Simpson continued as he leaned over the rail,--"see there,
+Doctor."
+
+"One would say it was the track of a ship."
+
+"Well," said Simpson, "it's an oily substance that the whale leaves
+behind it. Really, the whale itself can't be far off."
+
+In fact, the atmosphere was filled with a strong fishy smell. The
+doctor began to examine the surface of the sea, and the harpooner's
+prediction was soon verified. Foker was heard shouting from aloft,--
+
+"A whale to leeward!"
+
+All turned their eyes in that direction; a low spout was seen rising
+from the sea about a mile from the brig.
+
+"There she spouts!" shouted Simpson, whose experienced eye soon
+detected it.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"It's gone," said the doctor.
+
+"We could soon find it again, if it were necessary," said Simpson,
+regretfully.
+
+But to his great surprise, although no one had dared to ask it,
+Hatteras gave the order to lower and man the whale-boat; he was glad
+to give the men some distraction, and also to get a few barrels of
+oil. They heard the order with great satisfaction.
+
+Four sailors took their places in the whale-boat; Johnson took the
+helm; Simpson stood in the bow, harpoon in hand. The doctor insisted
+on joining the party. The sea was quite smooth. The whale-boat went
+very fast, and in about ten minutes she was a mile from the brig.
+
+The whale, having taken another breath, had dived again; but soon it
+came up and projected fifteen feet into the air that combination of
+gases and mucous fluid which escapes from its vent-holes.
+
+"There, there!" cried Simpson, pointing to a place about eight hundred
+yards from the boat.
+
+They approached it rapidly; and the brig, having also seen it, drew
+near slowly.
+
+The huge monster kept appearing above the waves, showing its black
+back, which resembled a great rock in the sea; a whale never swims
+rapidly unless pursued, and this one was letting itself be rocked by
+the waves.
+
+The hunters approached in silence, choosing the green water, which was
+so opaque as to prevent the whale from seeing them. It is always
+exciting to watch a frail boat attacking one of these monsters; this
+one was about one hundred and thirty feet long, and often between
+latitude 72 degrees and 80 degrees whales are found more than one
+hundred and twenty-four feet long; ancient writers have often spoken
+of some longer than seven hundred feet, but they are imaginary
+animals.
+
+Soon the boat was very near the whale. Simpson made a sign, the men
+stopped rowing, and, brandishing his harpoon, he hurled it skilfully;
+this, with sharp barbs, sank into the thick layers of fat. The wounded
+whale dived rapidly. At once the four oars were unshipped; the rope
+which was attached to the harpoon ran out rapidly, and the boat was
+dragged along while Johnson steered it skilfully.
+
+The whale swam away from the brig and hastened towards the moving
+icebergs; for half an hour it went on in this way; the cord had to be
+kept wet to prevent its taking fire from friction. When the animal
+seemed to go more slowly, the rope was dragged back and carefully
+coiled; the whale rose again to the surface, lashing violently with
+its tail; huge spouts of water were dashed up by it and fell in
+torrents on the boat, which now approached rapidly; Simpson had taken
+a long lance and was prepared to meet the whale face to face.
+
+[Illustration: "The whale swam away from the brig and hastened towards
+the moving icebergs."]
+
+But it plunged rapidly into a pass between two icebergs. Further
+pursuit seemed dangerous.
+
+"The devil!" said Johnson.
+
+"Forward, forward, my friends," shouted Simpson, eager for the chase;
+"the whale is ours."
+
+"But we can't follow it among the icebergs," answered Johnson, turning
+the boat away.
+
+"Yes, yes!" cried Simpson.
+
+"No, no!" said some of the sailors.
+
+"Yes!" cried others.
+
+During this discussion the whale had got between two icebergs which
+the wind and waves were driving together.
+
+The whale-boat was in danger of being dragged into this dangerous
+pass, when Johnson sprang forward, axe in hand, and cut the line.
+
+It was time; the two icebergs met with irresistible force, crushing
+the whale between them.
+
+"Lost!" cried Simpson.
+
+"Saved!" said Johnson.
+
+"Upon my word," said the doctor, who had not flinched, "that was well
+worth seeing!"
+
+The crushing power of these mountains is enormous. The whale was the
+victim of an accident that is very frequent in these waters. Scoresby
+tells us that in the course of a single summer thirty whalers have
+been lost in this way in Baffin's Bay; he saw a three-master crushed
+in one minute between two walls of ice, which drew together with
+fearful rapidity and sank the ship with all on board. Two other ships
+he himself saw cut through, as if by a long lance, by huge pieces of
+ice more than a hundred feet long.
+
+A few moments later the whale-boat returned to the brig, and was
+hauled up to its usual place on deck.
+
+"That's a lesson," said Shandon, aloud, "for those who are foolhardy
+enough to venture into the passes!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+BEECHEY ISLAND.
+
+
+June 25th the _Forward_ sighted Cape Dundas, at the northwest
+extremity of Prince of Wales Land. There they found more serious
+difficulties amid thicker ice. The channel here grows narrower, and
+the line of Crozier, Young, Day, and Lowther Islands ranged in a line,
+like forts in a harbor, drive the ice-streams nearer together. What
+would otherwise have taken the brig a day now detained her from June
+25th to the end of the month; she was continually obliged to stop, to
+retreat, and to wait for a favorable chance to reach Beechey Island.
+Meanwhile a great deal of coal was consumed; though during the
+frequent halts only small fires were kept burning, sufficient to keep
+steam up day and night.
+
+Hatteras knew as well as Shandon the reduced state of their supply;
+but feeling sure that he would find fuel at Beechey Island, he did not
+wish to lose a minute for the sake of economy; he had been very much
+delayed by running south; and, although he had taken the precaution of
+leaving England in April, he now found himself no farther advanced
+than previous expeditions had been at that time of year.
+
+The 30th they passed Cape Walker at the northeast extremity of Prince
+of Wales Land; this is the farthest point seen by Kennedy and Bellot,
+May 3d, 1852, after an expedition across North Somerset. In 1851,
+Captain Ommaney of the Austin expedition had been fortunate enough to
+get fresh supplies there for his detachment.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+This cape, which is very lofty, is remarkable for its reddish-brown
+color; in clear weather one can see as far as the entrance of
+Wellington Channel. Towards evening they saw Cape Bellot, separated
+from Cape Walker by MacLeon's Bay. Cape Bellot was so named in
+presence of that young French officer to whom the English expedition
+gave three cheers. At this place the coast consists of a yellowish
+limestone, very rough in appearance; it is protected by huge masses of
+ice which the north-wind collects there in the most imposing way. It
+was soon no longer to be seen from the _Forward's_ deck, as she was
+making her way amid the loose ice towards Beechey Island through
+Barrow Strait.
+
+Hatteras, having resolved to go on in a straight line, in order not to
+be carried past the island, hardly left the deck during the subsequent
+days; he would go aloft to the cross-trees in order to pick out the
+most favorable path for the brig. All that skill, coolness, boldness,
+and even maritime genius could do, was done by him while sailing
+through the strait. It is true that fortune did not favor him, for at
+that season he ought to have found the sea nearly open. But by dint of
+sparing neither steam, his men, nor himself, he succeeded in his aim.
+
+July 3d, at eleven o'clock in the morning, the ice-master saw land to
+the north; Hatteras soon made it out as Beechey Island, the general
+rendezvous for arctic explorers. Almost all the ships which sail in
+these latitudes touch here. Here Franklin passed his first winter
+before advancing into Wellington Channel. Here Creswell, MacClure's
+lieutenant, after a march of four hundred and sixty miles on the ice,
+rejoined the _Phoenix_ and returned to England. The last ship which
+anchored at Beechey Island before the _Forward_ was the _Fox_;
+MacClintock took in supplies there, August 11, 1855, and repaired the
+dwellings and storehouses; that was but a short time previous.
+Hatteras knew all these details.
+
+The boatswain's heart beat strongly at the sight of this island; when
+he had last seen it he had been quartermaster on the _Phoenix_;
+Hatteras asked him about the coast, the place for anchoring, the
+possible change of the bottom. The weather was perfect; the
+thermometer marked 57 degrees.
+
+"Well, Johnson," said the captain, "do you recognize this place?"
+
+"Yes, Captain, it's Beechey Island! Only we ought to bear a little
+farther north; the coast is more easily approached there."
+
+"But the buildings, the stores?" said Hatteras.
+
+"O, you can't see them till you get ashore; they are hidden behind
+those hillocks you see there!"
+
+"And did you carry large supplies there?"
+
+"Yes, they were large. The Admiralty sent us here in 1853, under the
+command of Captain Inglefield, with the steamer _Phoenix_ and a
+transport, the _Breadalbane_, loaded with supplies; we carried enough
+to revictual a whole expedition."
+
+"But did not the commander of the _Fox_ take a great deal away in
+1855?" said Hatteras.
+
+"O, don't be anxious, Captain!" answered Johnson; "there will be
+enough left for you; the cold keeps everything wonderfully, and we
+shall find everything as fresh and in as good condition as on the
+first day."
+
+"I'm not so anxious about the provisions," answered Hatteras; "I have
+enough for several years; what I stand in need of is coal."
+
+"Well, Captain, we left more than a thousand tons there; so you can
+feel easy about that."
+
+"Let us stand nearer," resumed Hatteras, who, glass in hand, kept
+examining the shore.
+
+"You see that point," said Johnson; "when we've doubled it, we shall
+be near our anchorage. Yes, it's from there we started for England
+with Lieutenant Creswell and twelve sick men of the _Investigator_.
+But if we were fortunate enough to be of service to Captain MacClure's
+lieutenant, Bellot, the officer who accompanied us on the _Phoenix_,
+never saw his home again! Ah, that's a sad memory! But, Captain, I
+think it's here we ought to anchor."
+
+"Very well," answered Hatteras.
+
+And he gave the proper orders. The _Forward_ lay in a little harbor
+sheltered from the north, east, and south winds, about a cable-length
+from the shore.
+
+"Mr. Wall," said Hatteras, "you will lower the launch and send six men
+to bring coal aboard."
+
+"Yes, sir," answered Wall.
+
+"I am going ashore in the gig with the doctor and the boatswain; Mr.
+Shandon, will you go with us?"
+
+"At your orders," answered Shandon.
+
+A few minutes later the doctor, with gun and baskets for any specimens
+he might find, took his place in the gig with his companions; ten
+minutes later they stepped out on a low, rocky shore.
+
+"Lead the way, Johnson," said Hatteras; "do you remember it?"
+
+"Perfectly, Captain; only here is a monument which I did not expect to
+find here."
+
+"That," shouted the doctor, "I know what it is; let's go look at it;
+it will tell us of itself why it was put here."
+
+The four men went up to it, and the doctor, baring his head, said,--
+
+"This, my friends, is a monument raised to the memory of Franklin and
+his companions."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In fact, Lady Franklin having, in 1855, sent a tablet of black marble
+to Dr. Kane, gave another in 1858 to MacClintock to be placed on
+Beechey Island. MacClintock discharged his duty, and placed this
+tablet near a funeral pile raised to the memory of Bellot by Sir John
+Barrow.
+
+This tablet bore the following inscription:--
+
+
+                        TO THE MEMORY OF
+                 FRANKLIN, CROZIER, FITZ-JAMES,
+  AND ALL THEIR GALLANT BROTHER OFFICERS AND FAITHFUL COMPANIONS
+                 Who have suffered and perished
+     in the cause of science and the service of their country.
+                          THIS TABLET
+   Is erected near the spot where they passed their first arctic
+                             Winter,
+     and whence they issued forth to conquer difficulties or
+                             TO DIE.
+  It commemorates the grief of their Admiring Countrymen and Friends,
+                and the anguish, subdued by Faith,
+   of her who has lost, in the heroic Leader of the Expedition, the
+                          Most Devoted
+                  and Affectionate of Husbands.
+
+   "_And so he bringeth them unto the Haven where they would be._"
+                              1855.
+
+
+This stone, on a lonely shore of these remote regions, touched every
+one's heart; the doctor felt the tears rising in his eyes. On the very
+spot whence Franklin and his men sailed, full of hope and strength,
+there was now merely a slab of marble to commemorate them; and in
+spite of this solemn warning of fate, the _Forward_ was about to
+follow the path of the _Erebus_ and _Terror_.
+
+Hatteras was the first to rouse himself; he ascended quickly a rather
+high hillock, which was almost entirely bare of snow.
+
+"Captain," said Johnson, following him, "from there we ought to see
+the stores."
+
+Shandon and the doctor joined them just as they reached the top of the
+hill.
+
+But their eyes saw nothing but large plains with no trace of a
+building.
+
+"This is very strange," said the boatswain.
+
+"Well, these stores?" said Hatteras, quickly.
+
+"I don't know,--I don't see--" stammered Johnson.
+
+"You must have mistaken the path," said the doctor.
+
+"Still it seems to me," resumed Johnson after a moment's reflection,
+"that at this very spot--"
+
+"Well," said Hatteras, impatiently, "where shall we go?"
+
+"Let's go down again," said the boatswain, "for it's possible I've
+lost my way! In seven years I may have forgotten the place."
+
+"Especially," said the doctor, "when the country is so monotonous."
+
+"And yet--" muttered Johnson.
+
+Shandon said not a word. After walking a few minutes, Johnson stopped.
+
+"No," he said, "I'm not mistaken."
+
+"Well," said Hatteras, looking around.
+
+"What makes you say so, Johnson?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Do you see this little rise in the earth?" asked the boatswain,
+pointing downwards to a mound in which three elevations could be
+clearly seen.
+
+"What does that mean?" asked the doctor.
+
+"There," answered Johnson, "are the three tombs of Franklin's sailors.
+I'm sure of it! I'm not mistaken, and the stores must be within a
+hundred paces of us, and if they're not there,--it's because--"
+
+He durst not finish his sentence; Hatteras ran forward, and terrible
+despair seized him. There ought to stand those much-needed
+storehouses, with supplies of all sorts on which he had been counting;
+but ruin, pillage, and destruction had passed over that place where
+civilized hands had accumulated resources for battered sailors. Who
+had committed these depredations? Wild animals, wolves, foxes, bears?
+No, for they would have destroyed only the provisions; and there was
+left no shred of a tent, not a piece of wood, not a scrap of iron, no
+bit of any metal, nor--what was more serious for the men of the
+_Forward_--a single lump of coal.
+
+Evidently the Esquimaux, who have often had much to do with European
+ships, had finally learned the value of these objects; since the visit
+of the _Fox_ they had come frequently to this great storehouse, and
+had pillaged incessantly, with the intention of leaving no trace of
+what had been there; and now a long drift of half-melted snow covered
+the ground.
+
+Hatteras was baffled. The doctor gazed and shook his head. Shandon
+said nothing, but an attentive observer would have noticed a wicked
+smile about his lips.
+
+At this moment the men sent by Wall arrived. They took it all in at a
+glance. Shandon went up to the captain and said,--
+
+"Mr. Hatteras, we need not despair; fortunately we are near the
+entrance to Barrow Strait, which will carry us back to Baffin's Bay."
+
+"Mr. Shandon," answered Hatteras, "we are fortunately near the
+entrance of Wellington Channel, and it will lead us to the north."
+
+"And how shall we go, Captain?"
+
+"Under sail, sir. We have two months' fuel left, and that is more than
+we shall need for next winter."
+
+"Permit me to say," began Shandon.
+
+"I permit you to follow me to the ship, sir," was Hatteras's answer.
+
+And turning his back on his first officer, he returned to the brig and
+locked himself in his cabin.
+
+For two days the wind was unfavorable; the captain did not come on
+deck. The doctor profited by this forced delay to examine Beechey
+Island; he collected a few plants which a comparatively high
+temperature let grow here and there on some rocks which projected from
+the snow, such as heather, a few lichens, a sort of yellow ranunculus,
+a plant like sorrel with leaves a trifle larger, and some sturdy
+saxifrages.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The fauna of this country was much richer; the doctor saw large flocks
+of geese and cranes flying northward; partridges, eider-ducks,
+northern divers, numerous ptarmigans, which are delicious eating,
+noisy flocks of kittiwakes, and great white-bellied loons represented
+the winged tribe. The doctor was lucky enough to kill some gray hares,
+which had not yet put on their white winter coat of fur, and a blue
+fox, which Duke skilfully caught. A few bears, evidently accustomed to
+fear men, could not be approached, and the seals were very timid,
+probably for the same reason. The harbor was full of a very good
+tasting shellfish. The genus _articulata_, order _diptera_, family
+_culicides_, division _nemocera_, was represented by a simple
+mosquito, a single one, which the doctor, though much bitten, had the
+pleasure of catching. As a conchologist, he was less fortunate, and he
+was obliged to content himself with a sort of mussel and some
+bivalves.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+THE DEATH OF BELLOT.
+
+
+The temperature remained at 57 degrees during July 3d and 4th; this
+was the highest temperature observed. But on Thursday, the 5th, the
+wind shifted to the southeast, with violent snow-squalls. The
+thermometer fell twenty-three degrees in the preceding night.
+Hatteras, indifferent to the hostility of the crew, gave the order to
+set sail. For thirteen days, ever since passing Cape Dundas, the
+_Forward_ had not gone a single degree farther north; hence the party
+represented by Clifton was dissatisfied; their wishes, it is true,
+coincided with those of the captain, namely, that they should make
+their way through Wellington Channel, and they were all glad to be off
+once more.
+
+It was with difficulty that sail was set; but having in the course of
+the night run up the mainsail and topsails, Hatteras plunged boldly
+into the ice, which the current was driving towards the south. The
+crew became very tired of this tortuous navigation, which kept them
+very busy with the sails.
+
+Wellington Channel is not very broad; it lies between North Devon on
+the east and Cornwallis Island on the west; for a long time this
+island was considered a peninsula. It was Sir John Franklin who
+circumnavigated it, in 1846, from the western side, going about its
+northern coast.
+
+[Illustration: "The _Forward_ in Wellington Channel."]
+
+The exploration of Wellington Channel was made in 1851, by Captain
+Penny, in the whale-ships _Lady Franklin_ and _Sophia_; one of his
+lieutenants, Stewart, who reached Cape Beechey, latitude 76 degrees 20
+minutes, discovered the open sea. The open sea! It was for that
+Hatteras longed.
+
+"What Stewart found, I shall find," he said to the doctor; "and I
+shall be able to get to the Pole under sail."
+
+"But," answered the doctor, "don't you fear lest the crew--"
+
+"The crew!" said Hatteras, coldly.
+
+Then in a lower tone he murmured,--
+
+"Poor men!" much to the doctor's surprise.
+
+It was the first sentiment of this sort which he had ever noticed in
+the captain.
+
+"No," he went on warmly, "they must follow me, and they shall."
+
+Still, if the _Forward_ need not fear collision with the ice-streams,
+she made but little way northward, being much delayed by contrary
+winds. With some difficulty they got by Capes Spencer and Innis, and
+Tuesday, the 10th, latitude 75 degrees was at last reached, much to
+Clifton's joy.
+
+The _Forward_ was now at the very spot where the American ships, the
+_Rescue_ and the _Advance_, commanded by Captain Haven, ran such
+terrible dangers. Dr. Kane accompanied this expedition; towards the
+end of September, 1850, these ships were caught in the ice, and
+carried with irresistible force into Lancaster Sound.
+
+Shandon told James Wall about it in the presence of some of the men.
+
+"The _Advance_ and the _Rescue_," he said, "were so tossed about by
+ice, that they could keep no fires on board; and yet the thermometer
+stood at 18 degrees below zero. During the whole winter the crews were
+kept imprisoned, ready to abandon their ships, and for three weeks
+they did not take off their clothes! It was a terrible situation;
+after drifting a thousand miles, they were driven to the middle of
+Baffin's Bay!"
+
+One may easily judge of the effect of such a narration on a crew
+already discontented.
+
+While this conversation was going on, Johnson was talking with the
+doctor about an event which had taken place here; the doctor, at his
+request, told him the exact moment when the brig reached latitude 75
+degrees 30 minutes.
+
+"There it is! there it is!" said Johnson, "there is that unlucky
+land!"
+
+And so speaking, tears came into the boatswain's eyes.
+
+"You mean Lieutenant Bellot's death," said the doctor.
+
+"Yes, sir, of that brave, good man!"
+
+"And it was here, you say, that it took place?"
+
+"Just here, on this part of the coast of North Devon. It was very
+great ill-luck, and this would not have happened if Captain Pullen had
+come on board sooner."
+
+"What do you mean, Johnson?"
+
+"Listen, Doctor, and you will see by how slight a thread life is held.
+You know that Lieutenant Bellot had already made an expedition in
+search of Franklin, in 1850?"
+
+"Yes; in the _Prince Albert_."
+
+"Well, in 1853, having returned to France, he got permission to sail
+in the _Phoenix_, in which I was a sailor, under Captain Inglefield.
+We came with the _Breadalbane_ to carry supplies to Beechey Island."
+
+"Those which we did not find!"
+
+"Exactly, Doctor. We arrived at Beechey Island at the beginning of
+August; the 10th of that month, Captain Inglefield left the _Phoenix_
+to rejoin Captain Pullen, who had been away for a month from his ship,
+the _North Star_. He intended on his return to send the Admiralty
+despatches to Sir Edward Belcher, who was wintering in Wellington
+Channel. Now, shortly after our captain's departure, Captain Pullen
+reached his ship. If he had only come back before Captain Inglefield
+had left! Lieutenant Bellot, fearing that our captain's absence might
+be a long one, and knowing that the Admiralty despatches were
+important, offered to carry them himself. He left the two ships under
+Captain Pullen's charge, and left August 12, with a sledge and an
+india-rubber canoe. He took with him Harvey, quartermaster of the
+_North Star_, and three sailors, Madden, David Hook, and me. We
+thought that Sir Edward Belcher would be somewhere near Cape Beecher,
+at the northern part of the channel; hence we made for that part in
+our sledge, keeping on the east bank. The first day we encamped three
+miles from Cape Innis; the next day we stopped on the ice nearly three
+miles from Cape Bowden. During the night, which was as bright as day,
+land being only three miles distant, Lieutenant Bellot determined to
+go and camp there; he tried to reach it in the canoe; a violent
+southeast breeze drove him back twice; Harvey and Madden tried in
+their turn, and with success; they carried a rope, and with it they
+established communication with the shore; three objects were carried
+across by it; but at the fourth attempt, we felt the ice moving away
+from us; Mr. Bellot shouted to his companions to loosen the rope, and
+we (the lieutenant, David Hook, and I) were carried to a great
+distance from the shore. Then a strong southeaster was blowing, and
+snow was falling. But we were not in any great danger, and he might
+have been saved, since the rest of us were saved."
+
+Johnson stopped for a moment, and gazed at the ill-fated shore, then
+he went on:--
+
+"After losing sight of our companions, we tried at first to shelter
+ourselves under the cover of our sledge, but in vain; then with our
+knives we began to cut a house in the ice. Mr. Bellot sat down for
+half an hour, and talked with us about the danger of our situation; I
+told him I was not afraid. 'With God's protection,' he said, 'not a
+hair of our heads shall be hurt.' I then asked him what time it was.
+He answered, 'About quarter past six.' It was quarter past six in the
+morning of Thursday, August 18th. Then Mr. Bellot bound on his books,
+and said he wanted to go and see how the ice was moving; he was gone
+only four minutes, when I went to seek him behind the floe which
+sheltered us; but I did not find him, and, returning to our retreat, I
+saw his stick on the opposite side of a crevasse about three fathoms
+wide, where the ice was all broken. I shouted, but there was no
+answer. At that time the wind was blowing very hard. I searched all
+around, but I could find no trace of the poor lieutenant."
+
+"And what do you suppose became of him?" asked the doctor, who was
+much moved by this account.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"I suppose that when he left the shelter, the wind drove him into the
+crevasse, and that, being thickly clad, he could not swim to the
+surface. O Dr. Clawbonny, I never felt worse in my life! I could not
+believe it! That brave officer fell a victim to his sense of duty! For
+you know that it was in order to obey Captain Pullen's instructions
+that he was trying to reach the land before the ice began to break! He
+was a brave man, liked by every one, faithful, courageous! All England
+mourned him, and even the Esquimaux, when they heard of his death from
+Captain Inglefield, when he returned from Pound Bay, did nothing but
+weep and repeat, 'Poor Bellot! Poor Bellot!'"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"But you and your companions, Johnson," asked the doctor, much moved
+by this touching account,--"how did you manage to get to shore?"
+
+"O, it was very simple! We remained twenty-four hours on the ice
+without food or fire, but finally we reached a firmly fastened
+ice-field; we sprang upon it, and with an oar we got near a floe
+capable of supporting us, and being controlled like a boat. In that
+way we reached the shore, but alone, without our brave officer."
+
+At the end of this account the _Forward_ had passed by this fatal
+shore, and Johnson soon lost sight of the scene of this terrible
+catastrophe. The next day they left Griffin's Bay on the starboard,
+and two days later, Capes Grinnell and Helpman; finally, July 14th,
+they doubled Osborne Point, and the 15th the brig anchored in Baring
+Bay at the end of the channel. The navigation had not been very
+difficult; Hatteras found a sea nearly as free as that by which
+Belcher profited to go and winter with the _Pioneer_ and _Assistance_
+in latitude 77 degrees. That was his first winter, 1852-53, for the
+next he spent in Baring Bay, where the _Forward_ now lay at anchor.
+
+It was in consequence of the most terrible dangers and trials that he
+was obliged to abandon the _Assistance_ in the midst of the eternal
+ice.
+
+Shandon gave a full account of this catastrophe to the demoralized
+sailors. Was Hatteras aware of the treachery of his first officer? It
+is impossible to say, but, at any rate, he said nothing about it.
+
+At the end of Baring Bay is a narrow canal uniting Wellington Channel
+with Queen's Strait. There the ice had accumulated very closely.
+Hatteras made vain efforts to get through the passages to the north of
+Hamilton Island; the wind was unfavorable; hence it was necessary to
+go between Hamilton and Cornwallis Islands; five precious days were
+lost in vain attempts. The air grew colder, and, July 19th, fell as
+low as 26 degrees; the next day was warmer, but this harbinger of the
+arctic winter warned Hatteras not to linger longer. The wind seemed to
+blow steadily from the west and delayed his progress. And yet he was
+in haste to reach the point whence Stewart saw an open sea. The 19th
+he resolved to enter the channel at any price; the wind blew dead
+against the brig, which, with her screw, could have made headway
+against the violent snow-squalls, but Hatteras had before all to be
+economical with the fuel; on the other hand, the channel was too broad
+to permit of the brig being towed. Hatteras, without taking into
+account the fatigue of his crew, made use of a device which whalers
+often employ under similar circumstances. He lowered the small boats
+to the surface of the water, not letting them free from their tackle;
+then they were made fast, fore and aft; oars were put out, to
+starboard on one side and to port on the other; the men sat on the
+thwarts and rowed vigorously, so as to propel the brig against the
+wind.
+
+[Illustration: Hatteras made use of a device which whalers employ.]
+
+The _Forward_ made slight headway; this method of working was very
+fatiguing; the men began to murmur. For four days they advanced in
+that way, until July 23d, when they reached Baring Island, in Queen's
+Channel.
+
+The wind was still unfavorable. The crew could go no farther. The
+doctor found the strength of the crew much pulled down, and he thought
+he detected the first symptoms of scurvy; he used every precaution
+against this terrible disease, having abundant supplies of lime-juice
+and chalk-pastilles.
+
+Hatteras soon saw there was nothing more to be got from his crew;
+kindness and persuasion were fruitless; he resolved to employ
+severity, and, if need be, to be pitiless; he distrusted especially
+Richard Shandon, and even James Wall, who, however, never dared to
+speak too loud. Hatteras had on his side the doctor, Johnson, Bell,
+and Simpson; these were all devoted to him body and soul. Among the
+uncertain were Foker, Bolton, Wolston, the gunner, Brunton, the first
+engineer, who might at any moment declare against him. As to the
+others, Pen, Gripper, Clifton, and Warren, they openly meditated
+mutiny; they wanted to bring their companions over and compel the
+_Forward_ to return to England.
+
+Hatteras soon saw that he could get no more work from his dispirited
+crew, who now were worn out with fatigue from their hard work. For
+twenty-four hours they remained in sight of Baring Island without
+getting a foot forward. Still the weather grew colder, and in these
+high latitudes even July felt the influence of the approaching winter.
+The 24th, the thermometer fell to 22 degrees. The young ice formed
+during the night to a depth of about half an inch; if snow should fall
+on it, it would soon be strong enough to bear the weight of a man. The
+sea soon acquired the turbid tint which indicates the formation of the
+first crystals.
+
+Hatteras read aright these alarming signs; if the passes should close,
+he would be obliged to winter here, far from the aim of his voyage,
+and without even having seen that open sea which he must have got very
+near, according to the accounts of his predecessors. Hence he resolved
+to get on at any price a few degrees farther north; seeing that he
+could neither try rowing with his crew exhausted, nor going under sail
+with the wind always unfavorable, he ordered the fires to be lighted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+THE FIRST SIGNS OF MUTINY.
+
+
+At this unexpected command, the surprise on board of the _Forward_ was
+very great.
+
+"Light the fires!" said some.
+
+"With what?" said others.
+
+"When we have only two months' supply in the hold!" cried Pen.
+
+"And how are we to keep warm in the winter?" asked Clifton.
+
+"We shall have to burn the ship down to the water-line, I suppose,"
+said Gripper.
+
+"And cram all the masts into the stove," answered Warren, "from the
+foretopmast to the jib-boom."
+
+Shandon gazed intently at Wall. The surprised engineers hesitated to
+go down into the engine-room.
+
+"Did you hear what I said?" shouted the captain, angrily.
+
+Brunton walked toward the hatchway; but he stopped before going down.
+
+"Don't go, Brunton," some one said.
+
+"Who spoke then?" shouted Hatteras.
+
+"I did," said Pen, approaching the captain.
+
+"And what is it you're saying?" asked the captain.
+
+"I say--I say," answered Pen with many oaths,--"I say that we have had
+enough of this, that we are not going any farther, that we don't want
+to wear ourselves out with fatigue and cold during the winter, and
+that the fires shall not be lighted."
+
+"Mr. Shandon," answered Hatteras, coldly, "have this man put in
+irons."
+
+"But, Captain," said Shandon, "what this man said--"
+
+"If you repeat what this man said," retorted Hatteras, "I shall order
+you to your cabin and confine you there. Seize that man! Do you hear?"
+
+Johnson, Bell, and Simpson stepped towards the sailor, who was beside
+himself with wrath.
+
+"The first man who lays a finger on me--" he cried, seizing a
+handspike, which he flourished about his head.
+
+Hatteras walked towards him.
+
+"Pen," he said very quietly, "if you move hand or foot, I shall blow
+your brains out!"
+
+With these words he drew a revolver and aimed it at the sailor.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A murmur arose from the crew.
+
+"Not a word from any of you," said Hatteras, "or he's a dead man."
+
+At that moment Johnson and Bell disarmed Pen, who no longer resisted,
+and suffered himself to be led to the bottom of the hold.
+
+"Now go below, Brunton," said Hatteras.
+
+The engineer, followed by Plover and Warren, went below. Hatteras
+returned to the quarter-deck.
+
+"That Pen is a worthless fellow," the doctor said to him.
+
+"No man was ever nearer death," answered the captain, simply.
+
+Soon there was enough steam on; the anchors of the _Forward_ were
+raised; and the brig started eastward, heading for Point Beecher, and
+cutting through the newly formed ice.
+
+A great number of islands lie between Baring Island and Point Beecher,
+scattered in the midst of the ice-fields; the ice-streams crowd in
+great numbers in the little straits into which they divide the sea;
+when the weather is cold they have a tendency to accumulate; here and
+there hummocks were forming, and it was easy to see that the floes,
+already harder and more crowded, would, under the influence of the
+first frosts, soon form an impenetrable mass.
+
+It was with great difficulty that the _Forward_ made her way through
+the whirling snow. Still, with the variability which is a peculiarity
+of these regions, the sun would appear from time to time; the air grew
+much milder; the ice melted as if by enchantment, and a clear expanse
+of water, a most welcome sight to the eyes of the crew, spread out
+before them where a few moments before the ice had blocked their
+progress. All over the horizon there spread magnificent orange tints,
+which rested their eyes, weary with gazing at the eternal snow.
+
+Thursday, July 26th, the _Forward_ coasted along Dundas Island, and
+then stood more northward; but there she found herself face to face
+with a thick mass of ice, eight or nine feet high, consisting of
+little icebergs washed away from the shore; they had to prolong the
+curve they were making to the west. The continual cracking of the ice,
+joining with the creaking of the rolling ship, sounded like a gloomy
+lamentation. At last the brig found a passage and advanced through it
+slowly; often a huge floe delayed her for hours; the fog embarrassed
+the steersman; at one moment he could see a mile ahead, and it was
+easy to avoid all obstacles; but again the snow-squalls would hide
+everything from their sight at the distance of a cable's length. The
+sea ran very high.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Sometimes the smooth clouds assumed a strange appearance, as if they
+were reflecting the ice-banks; there were days when the sun could not
+pierce the dense mist.
+
+The birds were still very numerous, and their cries were deafening;
+the seals, lying lazily on the drifting ice, raised their heads
+without being frightened, and turned their long necks to watch the
+ship go by. Often, too, the brig would leave bits of sheathing on the
+ice against which she grazed.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Finally, after six days of this slow sailing, August 1st, Point
+Beecher was made, sighted in the north; Hatteras passed the last hours
+in the lookout; the open sea, which Stewart had seen May 30, 1851,
+towards latitude 76 degrees 20 minutes, could not be far off, and yet,
+as far as Hatteras could see, he could make out no sign of an open
+polar sea. He came down without saying a word.
+
+"Do you believe in an open sea?" asked Shandon of the second mate.
+
+"I'm beginning to have my doubts," answered James Wall.
+
+"Wasn't I right in considering this pretended discovery as a mere
+hypothesis? No one agreed with me, and you too, Wall,--you sided
+against me."
+
+"They'll believe you next time, Shandon."
+
+"Yes," he answered, "when it's too late."
+
+And he returned to his cabin, where he had kept himself almost
+exclusively since his discussion with the captain.
+
+Towards evening the wind shifted to the south. Hatteras then set his
+sails and had the fires put out; for many days the crew were kept hard
+at work; every few minutes they had to tack or bear away, or to
+shorten sail quickly to stop the course of the brig; the braces could
+not run easily through the choked-up pulleys, and added to the fatigue
+of the crew; more than a week was required for them to reach Point
+Barrow. The _Forward_ had not made thirty miles in ten days.
+
+Then the wind flew around to the north, and the engine was started
+once more. Hatteras still hoped to find an open sea beyond latitude 77
+degrees, such as Edward Belcher had seen.
+
+And yet, if he believed in Penny's account, the part of the sea which
+he was now crossing ought to have been open; for Penny, having reached
+the limit of the ice, saw in a canoe the shores of Queen's Channel at
+latitude 77 degrees.
+
+Must he regard their reports as apochryphal, or had an unusually early
+winter fallen upon these regions?
+
+August 15th, Mount Percy reared into the mist its peaks covered with
+eternal snow; a violent wind was hurling in their teeth a fierce
+shower of hail. The next day the sun set for the first time,
+terminating at last the long series of days twenty-four hours long.
+The men had finally accustomed themselves to this perpetual daylight;
+but the animals minded it very little; the Greenland dogs used to go
+to sleep at the usual hour, and even Duke lay down at the same hour
+every evening, as if the night were dark.
+
+Still, during the nights following August 16th the darkness was never
+very marked; the sun, although it had set, still gave light enough by
+refraction.
+
+August 19th, after taking a satisfactory observation, Cape Franklin
+was seen on the eastern side, and opposite it Cape Lady Franklin; at
+what was probably the farthest point reached by this bold explorer,
+his fellow-countrymen wanted the name of his devoted wife should be
+remembered along with his own, as an emblem of the sympathy which
+always united them. The doctor was much moved by this sight in this
+distant country.
+
+In accordance with Johnson's advice, he began to accustom himself to
+enduring low temperature; he kept almost all the time on deck, braving
+the cold, wind, and snow. Although he had grown a little thinner, he
+did not suffer from the severity of the climate. Besides, he expected
+other dangers, and he rejoiced, almost, as he saw the winter
+approaching.
+
+"See," said he one day to Johnson,--"see those flocks of birds flying
+south! How they fly and cry adieu!"
+
+"Yes, Dr. Clawbonny," answered Johnson, "something has told them it
+was time to go, and they are off."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"More than one of our men, Johnson, would be glad to imitate them, I
+fancy."
+
+"They are timid fellows, Doctor; what a bird can't do, a man ought to
+try! Those birds have no supply of food, as we have, and they must
+support themselves elsewhere. But sailors, with a good deck under the
+feet, ought to go to the end of the world."
+
+"You hope, then, that Hatteras will succeed in his projects?"
+
+"He will succeed, Doctor."
+
+"I agree with you, Johnson, even if only one faithful man accompanies
+him--"
+
+"There will be two of us!"
+
+"Yes, Johnson," the doctor answered, pressing the brave sailor's hand.
+
+Prince Albert's Land, along which the _Forward_ was now coasting, is
+also called Grinnell's Land; and although Hatteras, from his dislike
+to Americans, never was willing to give it this name, nevertheless, it
+is the one by which it is generally known. This is the reason of this
+double title: at the same time that the Englishman Penny gave it the
+name of Prince Albert, the captain of the _Rescue_, Lieutenant
+DeHaven, named it Grinnell's Land, in honor of the American merchant
+who had fitted out the expedition in New York.
+
+As the brig followed the coast it met with serious difficulties, going
+sometimes under sail, sometimes under steam. August 18th, Mount
+Britannia was sighted through the mist, and the next day the _Forward_
+cast anchor in Northumberland Bay. The ship was completely protected.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+ATTACKED BY THE ICE.
+
+
+Hatteras, after seeing to the anchorage of the ship, returned to his
+cabin, took out his chart, and marked his position on it very
+carefully; he found himself in latitude 76 degrees 57 minutes, and
+longitude 99 degrees 20 minutes, that is to say, only three minutes
+from latitude 77 degrees. It was here that Sir Edward Belcher passed
+his first winter with the _Pioneer_ and _Assistance_. It was from here
+that he organized his sledge and canoe expeditions; he discovered
+Table Island, North Cornwall, Victoria Archipelago, and Belcher
+Channel. Having gone beyond latitude 78 degrees, he saw the coast
+inclining towards the southeast. It seemed as if it ought to connect
+with Jones's Strait, which opens into Baffin's Bay. But, says the
+report, an open sea, in the northwest, "stretched as far as the eye
+could reach."
+
+Hatteras gazed with emotion at that portion of the charts where a
+large white space marked unknown regions, and his eyes always returned
+to the open polar sea.
+
+"After so many statements," he said to himself,--"after the accounts
+of Stewart, Penny, and Belcher, doubt is impossible! These bold
+sailors saw, and with their own eyes! Can I doubt their word? No! But
+yet if this sea is closed by an early winter-- But no, these
+discoveries have been made at intervals of several years; this sea
+exists, and I shall find it! I shall see it!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Hatteras went upon the quarter-deck. A dense mist enveloped the
+_Forward_; from the deck one could hardly see the top of the mast.
+Nevertheless, Hatteras ordered the ice-master below, and took his
+place; he wanted to make use of the first break in the fog to look at
+the horizon in the northwest.
+
+Shandon took occasion to say to the second mate,--
+
+"Well, Wall, and the open sea?"
+
+"You were right, Shandon," answered Wall, "and we have only six weeks'
+coal in the bunkers."
+
+"The doctor will invent some scientific way," continued Shandon, "of
+heating us without fuel. I've heard of making ice with fire; perhaps
+he will make fire with ice."
+
+Shandon returned to his cabin, shrugging his shoulders.
+
+The next day, August 20th, the fog lifted for a few minutes. From the
+deck they saw Hatteras in his lofty perch gazing intently towards the
+horizon; then he came down without saying a word and ordered them to
+set sail; but it was easy to see that his hopes had been once more
+deceived.
+
+The _Forward_ heaved anchor and resumed her uncertain path northward.
+So wearisome was it that the main-topsail and fore-topsail yards were
+lowered with all their rigging; the masts were also lowered, and it
+was no longer possible to place any reliance on the varying wind,
+which, moreover, the winding nature of the passes made almost useless;
+large white masses were gathering here and there in the sea, like
+spots of oil; they indicated an approaching thaw; as soon as the wind
+began to slacken, the sea began to freeze again, but when the wind
+arose this young ice would break and disperse. Towards evening the
+thermometer fell to 17 degrees.
+
+When the brig arrived at the end of a closed pass, it rushed on at
+full steam against the opposing obstacle. Sometimes they thought her
+fairly stopped; but some unexpected motion of the ice-streams would
+open a new passage into which she would plunge boldly; during these
+stoppages the steam would escape from the safety-valves and fall on
+the deck in the form of snow. There was another obstacle to the
+progress of the brig; the ice would get caught in the screw, and it
+was so hard that the engine could not break it; it was then necessary
+to reverse the engines, turn the brig back, and send some men to free
+the snow with axes and levers; hence arose many difficulties,
+fatigues, and delays.
+
+It went on in this way for thirteen days; the _Forward_ advanced
+slowly through Penny Strait. The crew murmured, but obeyed; they knew
+that retreat was now impossible. The advance towards the north was
+less perilous than a return to the south; it was time to think of
+going into winter-quarters.
+
+The sailors talked together about their condition, and one day they
+even began to talk with Shandon, who, they knew, was on their side. He
+so far forgot his duty as an officer as to allow them to discuss in
+his presence the authority of his captain.
+
+"So you say, Mr. Shandon," asked Gripper, "that we can't go back now?"
+
+"No, it's too late," answered Shandon.
+
+"Then," said another sailor, "we need only look forward to going into
+winter-quarters?"
+
+"It's our only resource! No one would believe me--"
+
+"The next time," said Pen, who had returned to duty, "they will
+believe you."
+
+"Since I sha'n't be in command--" answered Shandon.
+
+"Who can tell?" remarked Pen. "John Hatteras is free to go as far as
+he chooses, but no one is obliged to follow him."
+
+"Just remember," resumed Gripper, "his first voyage to Baffin's Bay
+and what came of it!"
+
+"And the voyage of the _Farewell_," said Clifton, "which was lost in
+the Spitzenberg seas under his command."
+
+"And from which he came back alone," added Gripper.
+
+"Alone, but with his dog," said Clifton.
+
+"We don't care to sacrifice ourselves for the whims of that man,"
+continued Pen.
+
+"Nor to lose all the wages we've earned so hard."
+
+They all recognized Clifton by those words.
+
+"When we pass latitude 78 degrees," he added, "and we are not far from
+it, that will make just three hundred and seventy-five pounds for each
+man, six times eight degrees."
+
+"But," asked Gripper, "sha'n't we lose them if we go back without the
+captain?"
+
+"No," answered Clifton, "if we can prove that it was absolutely
+necessary to return."
+
+"But the captain--still--"
+
+"Don't be uneasy, Gripper," answered Pen; "we shall have a captain,
+and a good one, whom Mr. Shandon knows. When a captain goes mad, he is
+dismissed and another appointed. Isn't that so, Mr. Shandon?"
+
+"My friends," answered Shandon, evasively, "you will always find me
+devoted to you. But let us wait and see what turns up."
+
+The storm, as may be seen, was gathering over Hatteras's head; but he
+pushed on boldly, firm, energetic, and confident. In fact, if he had
+not always managed the brig as he wanted to, and carried her where he
+was anxious to go, he had still been very successful; the distance
+passed over in five months was as great as what it had taken other
+explorers two or three years to make. Hatteras was now obliged to go
+into winter-quarters, but this would not alarm men of courage,
+experience, and confidence. Had not Sir John Ross and MacClure spent
+three successive winters in the arctic regions? Could not he do what
+they had done?
+
+"Yes, of course," Hatteras used to say, "and more too, if need be.
+Ah!" he said regretfully to the doctor, "why was I unable to get
+through Smith's Sound, at the north of Baffin's Bay? I should be at
+the Pole now!"
+
+"Well," the doctor used invariably to answer,--if necessary he could
+have invented confidence,--"we shall get there, Captain, but, it is
+true, at the ninety-ninth meridian instead of the seventy-fifth; but
+what difference does that make? If every road leads to Rome, it is
+even surer that every meridian leads to the Pole."
+
+August 31st, the thermometer fell to 13 degrees. The end of the summer
+was evidently near; the _Forward_ left Exmouth Island to starboard,
+and three days afterward she passed Table Island, lying in the middle
+of Belcher Channel. Earlier in the season it would have been possible
+to reach Baffin's Bay through this channel, but at this time it was
+impossible to think of it. This arm of the sea was completely filled
+with ice, and would not have offered a drop of open water to the prow
+of the _Forward_; for the next eight months their eyes would see
+nothing but boundless, motionless ice-fields.
+
+Fortunately, they could still get a few minutes farther north, but
+only by breaking the new ice with huge beams, or by blowing it up with
+charges of powder. They especially had cause to fear calm weather
+while the temperature was so low, for the passes closed quickly, and
+they rejoiced even at contrary winds. A calm night, and everything was
+frozen!
+
+Now the _Forward_ could not winter where she was, exposed to the wind,
+icebergs, and the drift of the channel; a safe protection was the
+first thing to be found; Hatteras hoped to gain the coast of New
+Cornwall, and to find, beyond Point Albert, a bay sufficiently
+sheltered. Hence he persisted in crowding northward.
+
+But, September 8, an impenetrable, continuous mass of ice lay between
+him and the north; the temperature fell to 10 degrees. Hatteras, with
+an anxious heart, in vain sought for a passage, risking his ship a
+hundred times and escaping from his perils with wonderful skill. He
+might have been accused of imprudence, recklessness, folly, blindness,
+but he was one of the best of sailors.
+
+The situation of the _Forward_ became really dangerous; in fact, the
+sea was closing behind her, and in a few hours the ice grew so hard
+that men could run upon it and tow the brig in perfect safety.
+
+Hatteras, not being able to get around this obstacle, determined to
+attack it boldly in front. He made use of his strongest blasting
+cylinders, containing eight or ten pounds of powder. The men would dig
+a hole in the broadest part of the ice, close the orifice with snow,
+after having placed the cylinder in a horizontal position, so that a
+greater extent of ice might be exposed to the explosion; then a fuse
+was lighted, which was protected by a gutta-percha tube.
+
+In this way they tried to break the ice; it was impossible to saw it,
+for the fissures would close immediately. Still, Hatteras was hoping
+to get through the next day.
+
+But during the night the wind blew a gale; the sea raised the crust of
+ice, and the terrified pilot was heard shouting,--
+
+"Look out there aft, look out there aft!"
+
+Hatteras turned his eyes in that direction, and what he saw in the dim
+light was indeed alarming.
+
+A great mass of ice, drifting northward with the tide, was rushing
+towards the brig with the speed of an avalanche.
+
+"All hands on deck!" shouted the captain.
+
+This floating mountain was hardly half a mile away; the ice was all in
+confusion and crashing together like huge grains of sand before a
+violent tempest; the air was filled with a terrible noise.
+
+"That, Doctor," said Johnson, "is one of the greatest perils we have
+yet met with."
+
+"Yes," answered the doctor, quietly; "it is terrible enough."
+
+"A real attack which we must repel," resumed the boatswain.
+
+"In fact, one might well think it was an immense crowd of antediluvian
+animals, such as might have lived near the Pole. How they hurry on, as
+if they were racing!"
+
+"Besides," added Johnson, "some carry sharp lances, of which you had
+better take care, Doctor."
+
+"It's a real siege," shouted the doctor. "Well, let us run to the
+ramparts!"
+
+He ran aft where the crew, provided with beams and bars, were standing
+ready to repel this formidable assault.
+
+The avalanche came on, growing larger at every moment as it caught up
+the floating ice in its eddy; by Hatteras's orders the cannon was
+loaded with ball to break the threatening line. But it came on and ran
+towards the brig; a crash was heard, and as it came against the
+starboard-quarter, part of the rail had given way.
+
+[Illustration: "A crash was heard, and as it came against the
+starboard-quarter, part of the rail had given way."]
+
+"Let no one stir!" shouted Hatteras. "Look out for the ice!"
+
+They swarmed on board the ship with an irresistible force; lumps of
+ice, weighing many hundredweight, scaled the sides of the ship; the
+smallest, hurled as high as the yards, fell back in sharp arrows,
+breaking the shrouds and cutting the rigging. The men were overcome by
+numberless enemies, who were heavy enough to crush a hundred ships
+like the _Forward_. Every one tried to drive away these lumps, and
+more than one sailor was wounded by their sharp ends; among others,
+Bolton, who had his left shoulder badly torn. The noise increased
+immensely. Duke barked angrily at these new enemies. The darkness of
+the night added to the horrors of the situation, without hiding the
+ice which glowed in the last light of the evening.
+
+Hatteras's orders sounded above all this strange, impossible,
+supernatural conflict of the men with the ice. The ship, yielding to
+this enormous pressure, inclined to larboard, and the end of the
+main-yard was already touching the ice, at the risk of breaking the
+mast.
+
+Hatteras saw the danger; it was a terrible moment; the brig seemed
+about to be overturned, and the masts might be easily carried away.
+
+A large block, as large as the ship, appeared to be passing along the
+keel; it arose with irresistible power; it came on past the
+quarter-deck; if it fell on the _Forward_, all was over; soon it rose
+even above the topmasts, and began to totter.
+
+A cry of terror escaped from every one's lips. Every one ran back to
+starboard.
+
+But at that moment the ship was relieved. They felt her lifted up, and
+for an instant she hung in the air, then she leaned over and fell back
+on the ice, and then she rolled so heavily that her planks cracked.
+What had happened?
+
+Raised by this rising tide, driven by the ice which attacked her aft,
+she was getting across this impenetrable ice. After a minute of this
+strange sailing, which seemed as long as a century, she fell back on
+the other side of the obstacle on a field of ice; she broke it with
+her weight, and fell back into her natural element.
+
+"We have got by the thick ice!" shouted Johnson, who had run forward.
+
+"Thank God!" said Hatteras.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In fact, the brig lay in the centre of a basin of ice, which entirely
+surrounded her, and although her keel lay under water she could not
+stir; but if she were motionless, the field was drifting along.
+
+"We are drifting, Captain!" shouted Johnson.
+
+"All right," answered Hatteras.
+
+Indeed, how was it possible to resist it?
+
+Day broke, and it was evident that under the influence of a submarine
+current the bank of ice was floating northward with great rapidity.
+This floating mass carried the _Forward_ with it, in the midst of the
+ice-field, the edge of which could not be seen; to provide for any
+accident that might happen, Hatteras had a large supply of provisions
+carried on deck, as well as materials for camping, clothing, and
+cover; as MacClure had done under similar circumstances, he surrounded
+the ship with hammocks filled with air to protect her from damage.
+Soon it was so cold (7 degrees), that the ship was surrounded by a
+wall from which only the masts issued.
+
+For seven days they sailed in this way; Point Albert, which forms the
+western extremity of New Cornwall, was seen September 10th, and soon
+disappeared; the ice-field was seen to be drifting eastward from that
+time. Where was it going? Where would it stop? Who could say?
+
+The crew waited with folded arms. At last, September 15th, towards
+three o'clock in the afternoon, the ice-field, having probably run
+against another one, stopped suddenly; the ship was jarred violently;
+Hatteras, who had kept his reckoning all along, looked at his chart;
+he found himself in the north, with no land in sight, in longitude 95
+degrees 35 minutes, and latitude 78 degrees 15 minutes, in the centre
+of the region of the unknown sea, which geographers have considered
+the place of greatest cold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+PREPARATIONS FOR WINTERING.
+
+
+The same latitude is colder in the southern than in the northern
+hemisphere; but the temperature of the New World is fifteen degrees
+beneath that of the other parts of the world; and in America these
+countries, known under the name of the region of greatest cold, are
+the most inclement.
+
+The mean temperature for the whole year is two degrees below zero.
+Physicists have explained this fact in the following way, and Dr.
+Clawbonny shared their opinion.
+
+According to them, the most constant winds in the northern regions of
+America are from the southwest; they come from the Pacific Ocean, with
+an equal and agreeable temperature; but before they reach the arctic
+seas they are obliged to cross the great American continent, which is
+covered with snow; the contact chills them, and communicates to these
+regions their intense cold.
+
+Hatteras found himself at the pole of cold, beyond the countries seen
+by his predecessors; he consequently expected a terrible winter, on a
+ship lost amid the ice, with a turbulent crew. He resolved to meet
+these dangers with his usual energy. He faced what awaited him without
+flinching.
+
+He began, with Johnson's aid and experience, to take all the measures
+necessary for going into winter-quarters. According to his calculation
+the _Forward_ had been carried two hundred and fifty miles from any
+known land, that is to say, from North Cornwall; she was firmly fixed
+in a field of ice, as in a bed of granite, and no human power could
+extricate her.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+There was not a drop of open water in these vast seas chained by the
+fierce arctic winter. The ice-fields stretched away out of sight, but
+without presenting a smooth surface. Far from it. Numerous icebergs
+stood up in the icy plain, and the _Forward_ was sheltered by the
+highest of them on three points of the compass; the southeast wind
+alone reached them. Let one imagine rock instead of ice, verdure
+instead of snow, and the sea again liquid, and the brig would have
+quietly cast anchor in a pretty bay, sheltered from the fiercest
+blasts. But what desolation here! What a gloomy prospect! What a
+melancholy view!
+
+The brig, although motionless, nevertheless had to be fastened
+securely by means of anchors; this was a necessary precaution against
+possible thaws and submarine upheavals. Johnson, on hearing that the
+_Forward_ was at the pole of cold, took even greater precautions for
+securing warmth.
+
+"We shall have it severe enough," he had said to the doctor; "that's
+just the captain's luck, to go and get caught at the most disagreeable
+spot on the globe! Bah! you will see that we shall get out of it."
+
+As to the doctor, at the bottom of his heart he was simply delighted.
+He would not have changed it for any other. Winter at the pole of
+cold! What good luck!
+
+At first, work on the outside occupied the crew; the sails were kept
+furled on the yards instead of being placed at the bottom of the hold,
+as the earlier explorers did; they were merely bound up in a case, and
+soon the frost covered them with a dense envelope; the topmasts were
+not unshipped, and the crow's-nest remained in its place. It was a
+natural observatory; the running-rigging alone was taken down.
+
+It became necessary to cut away the ice from the ship to relieve the
+pressure. That which had accumulated outside was quite heavy, and the
+ship did not lie as deep as usual. This was a long and laborious task.
+At the end of some days the ship's bottom was freed, and could be
+inspected; it had not suffered, thanks to its solidity; only its
+copper sheathing was nearly torn away. The ship, having grown lighter,
+drew about nine inches less than she did earlier; the ice was cut away
+in a slope, following the make of the hull; in this way the ice formed
+beneath the brig's keel and so resisted all pressure.
+
+The doctor took part in this work; he managed the ice-cutter well; he
+encouraged the sailors by his good-humor. He instructed them and
+himself. He approved of this arrangement of the ice beneath the ship.
+
+"That is a good precaution," he said.
+
+"Without that, Dr. Clawbonny," answered Johnson, "resistance would be
+impossible. Now we can boldly raise a wall of snow as high as the
+gunwale; and, if we want to, we can make it ten feet thick, for there
+is no lack of material."
+
+"A capital idea," resumed the doctor; "the snow is a bad conductor of
+heat; it reflects instead of absorbing, and the inside temperature
+cannot escape."
+
+"True," answered Johnson; "we are building a fortification against the
+cold, and also against the animals, if they care to visit us; when
+that is finished, it will look well, you may be sure; in this snow we
+shall cut two staircases, one fore, the other aft; when the steps are
+cut in the snow, we shall pour water on them; this will freeze as hard
+as stone, and we shall have a royal staircase."
+
+"Precisely," answered the doctor; "and it must be said it is fortunate
+that cold produces both snow and ice, by which to protect one's self
+against it. Without that, one would be very much embarrassed."
+
+In fact, the ship was destined to disappear beneath a thick casing of
+ice, which was needed to preserve its inside temperature; a roof made
+of thick tarred canvas and covered with snow was built above the deck
+over its whole length; the canvas was low enough to cover the sides of
+the ship. The deck, being protected from all outside impressions,
+became their walk; it was covered with two and a half feet of snow;
+this snow was crowded and beaten down so as to become very hard; so it
+resisted the radiation of the internal heat; above it was placed a
+layer of sand, which as it solidified became a sort of macadamized
+cover of great hardness.
+
+"A little more," said the doctor, "and with a few trees I might
+imagine myself at Hyde Park, or even in the hanging-gardens at
+Babylon."
+
+A trench was dug tolerably near the brig; this was a circular space in
+the ice, a real pit, which had to be kept always open. Every morning
+the ice formed overnight was broken; this was to secure water in case
+of fire or for the baths which were ordered the crew by the doctor; in
+order to spare the fuel, the water was drawn from some distance below
+the ice, where it was less cold. This was done by means of an
+instrument devised by a French physicist (Francois Arago); this
+apparatus, lowered for some distance into the water, brought it up to
+the surface through a cylinder.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Generally in winter everything which encumbers the ship is removed,
+and stored on land. But what was practicable near land is impossible
+for a ship anchored on the ice.
+
+Every preparation was made to fight the two great enemies of this
+latitude, cold and dampness; the first produces the second, which is
+far more dangerous. The cold may be resisted by one who succumbs to
+dampness; hence it was necessary to guard against it.
+
+The _Forward_, being destined to a journey in arctic seas, contained
+the best arrangements for winter-quarters: the large room for the crew
+was well provided for; the corners, where dampness first forms, were
+shut off; in fact, when the temperature is very low, a film of ice
+forms on the walls, especially in the corners, and when it melts it
+keeps up a perpetual dampness. If it had been round, the room would
+have been more convenient; but, being heated by a large stove, and
+properly ventilated, it was very comfortable; the walls were lined
+with deerskins, not with wool, for wool absorbs the condensed moisture
+and keeps the air full of dampness.
+
+Farther aft the walls of the quarter were taken down, and the officers
+had a larger common-room, better ventilated, and heated by a stove.
+This room, like that of the crew, had a sort of antechamber, which cut
+off all communication with the outside. In this way, the heat could
+not be lost, and one passed gradually from one temperature to the
+other. In the anterooms were left the snow-covered clothes; the shoes
+were cleansed on the scrapers, so as to prevent the introduction of
+any unwholesomeness with one into the room.
+
+Canvas hose served to introduce air for the draught of the stoves;
+other pieces of hose permitted the steam to escape. In addition two
+condensers were placed in the two rooms, and collected this vapor
+instead of letting it form into water; twice a week they were emptied,
+and often they contained several bushels of ice. It was so much taken
+from the enemy.
+
+The fire was perfectly and easily controlled, by means of the canvas
+hose; by use of merely a small quantity of coal it was easy to keep
+the temperature of 50 degrees. Still, Hatteras, having examined the
+bunkers, soon saw that the greatest economy was necessary, for there
+was not two months' fuel on board.
+
+A drying-room was set apart for the clothes which were to be washed;
+they could not be dried in the open air, for they would freeze and
+tear.
+
+The delicate pieces of the machinery were carefully taken down, and
+the room which contained them was hermetically closed.
+
+The life on board became the object of serious meditation; Hatteras
+regulated it with the utmost caution, and the order of the day was
+posted up in the common-room. The men arose at six o'clock in the
+morning; three times a week the hammocks were aired; every morning the
+floors were scoured with hot sand; tea was served at every meal, and
+the bill of fare varied as much as possible for every day of the week;
+it consisted of bread, farina, suet and raisins for puddings, sugar,
+cocoa, tea, rice, lemon-juice, potted meats, salt beef and pork,
+cabbages, and vegetables in vinegar; the kitchen lay outside of the
+living-rooms; its heat was consequently lost; but cooking is a
+perpetual source of evaporation and dampness.
+
+The health of the men depends a great deal on the sort of food they
+get; in high latitudes, the greatest amount of animal food ought to be
+eaten. The doctor had supervised the sort of food to be given.
+
+"We ought to follow the Esquimaux," he used to say; "they have
+received their lessons from nature, and are our masters in that; if
+the Arabs and Africans can content themselves with a few dates and a
+handful of rice, here it is important to eat, and to eat a good deal.
+The Esquimaux take from ten to fifteen pounds of oil a day. If that
+fare does not please you, we must try food rich in sugar and fat. In a
+word, we need carbon, so let us manufacture carbon! It is well to put
+coal in the stove, but don't let us forget to fill that precious stove
+we carry about with us."
+
+With this bill of fare, strict cleanliness was enforced; every other
+day each man was obliged to bathe in the half-frozen water which the
+iron pump brought up, and this was an excellent way of preserving
+their health. The doctor set the example; he did it at first as a
+thing which ought to be very disagreeable; but this pretext was
+quickly forgotten, for he soon took real pleasure in this healthy
+bath.
+
+When work or hunting or distant expeditions took the men off in the
+severe cold, they had to take special care not to be frost-bitten; if
+they were, rubbing with snow would restore the circulation. Moreover,
+the men, who all wore woollen clothes, put on coats of deerskin and
+trousers of sealskin, which perfectly resist the wind.
+
+The different arrangements of the ship, the getting-to-rights on
+board, took about three weeks, and they reached October 10th without
+any special incident.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+ONE OF JAMES ROSS'S FOXES.
+
+
+On that day the thermometer fell to three degrees below zero. The day
+was calm; the cold was very endurable in the absence of wind. Hatteras
+took advantage of the clearness of the air to reconnoitre the
+surrounding plains; he ascended one of the highest icebergs to the
+north, but even with his glass he could make out nothing but a series
+of ice-mountains and ice-fields. There was no land in sight, nothing
+but gloomy confusion. He returned, and tried to calculate the probable
+length of their imprisonment.
+
+The hunters, and among them the doctor, James Wall, Simpson, Johnson,
+and Bell, kept them supplied with fresh meat. The birds had
+disappeared, seeking a milder climate in the south. The ptarmigans
+alone, a sort of rock-partridge peculiar to this latitude, did not
+flee the winter; it was easy to kill them, and there were enough to
+promise a perpetual supply of game.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Hares, foxes, wolves, ermines, and bears were plentiful; a French,
+English, or Norwegian hunter would have had no right to complain; but
+they were so shy that it was hard to approach them; besides, it was
+hard to distinguish them on the white plain, they being white
+themselves, for in winter they acquire that colored fur. In opposition
+to the opinions of some naturalists, the doctor held that this change
+was not due to the lowering of the temperature, since it took place
+before October; hence it was not due to any physical cause, but rather
+providential foresight, to secure these animals against the severity
+of an arctic winter.
+
+Often, too, they saw sea-cows and sea-dogs, animals included under the
+name of seals; all the hunters were specially recommended to shoot
+them, as much for their skins as for their fat, which was very good
+fuel. Besides, their liver made a very good article of food; they
+could be counted by hundreds, and two or three miles north of the ship
+the ice was continually perforated by these huge animals; only they
+avoided the hunter with remarkable instinct, and many were wounded who
+easily escaped by diving under the ice.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Still, on the 19th, Simpson succeeded in getting one four hundred
+yards distant from the ship; he had taken the precaution to close its
+hole in the ice, so that it could not escape from its pursuers. He
+fought for a long time, and died only after receiving many bullets. He
+was nine feet long; his bull-dog head, the sixteen teeth in his jaw,
+his large pectoral fins shaped like little wings, his little tail with
+another pair of fins, made him an excellent specimen. The doctor
+wished to preserve his head for his collection of natural history, and
+his skin for future contingences, hence he prepared both by a rapid
+and economical process. He plunged the body in the hole, and thousands
+of little prawns removed the flesh in small pieces; at the end of half
+a day the work was half finished, and the most skilful of the
+honorable corporation of tanners at Liverpool could not have done
+better.
+
+When the sun had passed the autumn equinox, that is to say, September
+23d, the winter fairly begins in the arctic regions. The sun, having
+gradually sunk to the horizon, disappeared at last, October 23d,
+lighting up merely the tops of the mountains with its oblique rays.
+The doctor gave it his last farewell. He could not see it again till
+the month of February.
+
+Still the darkness was not complete during this long absence of the
+sun; the moon did its best to replace it; the stars were exceedingly
+brilliant, the auroras were very frequent, and the refractions
+peculiar to the snowy horizons; besides, the sun at the time of its
+greatest southern declension, December 21st, approaches within
+thirteen degrees of the polar horizon; hence, every day there was a
+certain twilight for a few hours. Only the mist and snow-storms often
+plunged these regions in the deepest obscurity.
+
+Still, up to this time the weather was very favorable; the partridges
+and hares alone had reason to complain, for the hunters gave them no
+rest; a great many traps were set for foxes, but these crafty animals
+could not be caught; very often they scraped the snow away beneath the
+trap and took the bait without running any risk; the doctor cursed
+them, being very averse to making them such a present.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+October 25th, the thermometer fell as low as -4 degrees. A violent
+hurricane raged; the air was filled with thick snow, which permitted
+no ray of light to reach the _Forward_. For several hours there was
+some anxiety about the fate of Bell and Simpson, who had gone some
+distance away hunting; they did not reach the ship till the next day,
+having rested for a whole day wrapped up in their furs, while the
+hurricane swept over them and buried them under five feet of snow.
+They were nearly frozen, and the doctor found it very hard to restore
+their circulation.
+
+The tempest lasted eight days without interruption. No one could set
+foot outside. In a single day there were variations in the temperature
+of fifteen or twenty degrees.
+
+During this enforced leisure every one kept to himself, some sleeping,
+others smoking, others again talking in a low tone and stopping at the
+approach of Johnson or the doctor; there was no moral tie between the
+men of the crew; they only met at evening prayers and at Sunday
+services.
+
+Clifton knew perfectly well that when the seventy-eighth parallel was
+passed, his share of the pay would amount to three hundred and
+seventy-five pounds; he thought it a good round sum, and his ambition
+did not go any further. His opinion was generally shared, and all
+looked forward to the day when they should enjoy this hardly-earned
+fortune.
+
+Hatteras kept almost entirely out of sight. He never took part in the
+hunts or the walks from the ship. He took no interest in the
+meteorological phenomena which kept the doctor in a constant state of
+admiration. He lived with but a single idea; it consisted of three
+words,--The North Pole. He only thought of when the _Forward_, free at
+last, should resume her bold course.
+
+In fact, the general feeling on board was one of gloom. Nothing was so
+sad as the sight of this captive vessel, no longer resting in its
+natural element, but with its shape hidden beneath thick layers of
+ice; it looks like nothing; it cannot stir, though made for motion; it
+is turned into a wooden storehouse, a sedentary dwelling, this ship
+which knows how to breast the wind and the storms. This anomaly, this
+false situation, filled their hearts with an indefinable feeling of
+disquiet and regret.
+
+During these idle hours the doctor arranged the notes he had taken,
+from which this book is made up; he was never out of spirits, and
+never lost his cheerfulness. Yet he was glad to see the end of the
+storm, and prepared to resume his hunting.
+
+November 3d, at six o'clock in the morning, with a temperature of -5
+degrees, he set off in company with Johnson and Bell; the expanse of
+ice was unbroken; all the snow which had fallen so abundantly during
+the preceding days was hardened by the frost, and made good walking;
+the air was keen and piercing; the moon shone with incomparable
+purity, glistening on the least roughness in the ice; their footprints
+glowed like an illuminated trail, and their long shadows stood out
+almost black against the brilliant ice.
+
+[Illustration: "The moon shone with incomparable purity, glistening on
+the least roughness in the ice."]
+
+The doctor had taken Duke with him; he preferred him to the Greenland
+dogs to hunt game, and he was right; for they are of very little use
+under such circumstances, and they did not appear to possess the
+sacred fire of the race of the temperate zone. Duke ran along with his
+nose on the ground, and he often stopped on the recent marks of bears.
+Still, in spite of his skill, the hunters did not find even a hare in
+two hours' walking.
+
+"Has all the game felt it necessary to go south?" said the doctor,
+stopping at the foot of a hummock.
+
+"I should fancy it must be so, Doctor," answered the carpenter.
+
+"I don't think so," said Johnson; "the hares, foxes, and bears are
+accustomed to this climate; I think this last storm must have driven
+them away; but they will come back with the south-winds. Ah, if you
+were to talk about reindeer and musk-deer, that might be different!"
+
+"And yet at Melville Island numberless animals of this sort are
+found," resumed the doctor; "it lies farther south, it is true, and
+during the winters he spent there Parry always had plenty of this
+magnificent game."
+
+"We have much poorer luck," answered Bell; "if we could only get
+enough bear's meat, we would do very well."
+
+"The difficulty is," said the doctor, "the bears seem to me very rare
+and very wild; they are not civilized enough to come within gun-shot."
+
+"Bell is talking about the flesh of the bear," said Johnson, "but his
+grease is more useful than his flesh or his fur."
+
+"You are right, Johnson," answered Bell; "you are always thinking of
+the fuel."
+
+"How can I help it? Even with the strictest economy, we have only
+enough for three weeks!"
+
+"Yes," resumed the doctor, "that is the real danger, for we are now
+only at the beginning of November, and February is the coldest month
+in the frigid zone; still, if we can't get bear's grease, there's no
+lack of seal's grease."
+
+"But not for a very long time, Doctor," answered Johnson; "they will
+soon leave us; whether from cold or fright, soon they won't come upon
+the ice any more."
+
+"Then," continued the doctor, "we shall have to fall back on the bear,
+and I confess the bear is the most useful animal to be found in these
+countries, for he furnishes food, clothing, light, and fuel to men. Do
+you hear, Duke?" he said, patting the dog's head, "we want some bears,
+my friend, bears! bears!"
+
+Duke, who was sniffing at the ice at that time, aroused by the voices,
+and caresses of the doctor, started off suddenly with the speed of an
+arrow. He barked violently and, far off as he was, his loud barks
+reached the hunters' ears.
+
+The extreme distance to which sound is carried when the temperature is
+low is an astonishing fact; it is only equalled by the brilliancy of
+the constellations in the northern skies; the waves of light and sound
+are transmitted to great distances, especially in the dry cold of the
+nights.
+
+The hunters, guided by his distant barking, hastened after him; they
+had to run a mile, and they got there all out of breath, which happens
+very soon in such an atmosphere. Duke stood pointing about fifty feet
+from an enormous mass which was rolling about on the top of a small
+iceberg.
+
+"Just what we wanted!" shouted the doctor, cocking his gun.
+
+"A fine bear!" said Bell, following the doctor's example.
+
+"A curious bear!" said Johnson, who intended to fire after his
+companions.
+
+Duke barked furiously. Bell advanced about twenty feet, and fired; but
+the animal seemed untouched, for he continued rolling his head slowly.
+
+Johnson came forward, and, after taking careful aim, he pulled the
+trigger.
+
+"Good!" said the doctor; "nothing yet! Ah, this cursed refraction! We
+are too far off; we shall never get used to it! That bear is more than
+a mile away."
+
+"Come on!" answered Bell.
+
+The three companions hastened toward the animal, which had not been
+alarmed by the firing; he seemed to be very large, but, without
+weighing the danger, they gave themselves up already to the joy of
+victory. Having got within a reasonable distance, they fired; the bear
+leaped into the air and fell, mortally wounded, on the level ice
+below.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Duke rushed towards him.
+
+"That's a bear," said the doctor, "which was easily conquered."
+
+"Only three shots," said Bell with some scorn, "and he's down!"
+
+"That's odd," remarked Johnson.
+
+"Unless we got here just as he was going to die of old age," continued
+the doctor, laughing.
+
+"Well, young or old," added Bell, "he's a good capture."
+
+Talking in this way they reached the small iceberg, and, to their
+great surprise, they found Duke growling over the body of a white fox.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Upon my word," said Bell, "that's too much!"
+
+"Well," said the doctor, "we've fired at a bear, and killed a fox!"
+
+Johnson did not know what to say.
+
+"Well," said the doctor with a burst of laughter in which there was a
+trace of disappointment, "that refraction again! It's always deceiving
+us."
+
+"What do you mean, Doctor?" asked the carpenter.
+
+"Yes, my friend; it deceived us with respect to its size as well as
+the distance! It made us see a bear in a fox's skin! Such a mistake is
+not uncommon under similar circumstances! Well, our imagination alone
+was wrong!"
+
+"At any rate," answered Johnson, "bear or fox, he's good eating. Let's
+carry him off."
+
+But as the boatswain was lifting him to his shoulders:--
+
+"That's odd," he said.
+
+"What is it?" asked the doctor.
+
+"See there, Doctor, he's got a collar around his neck."
+
+"A collar?" asked the doctor again, examining the fox.
+
+In fact, a half-worn-out copper collar appeared under his white fur;
+the doctor thought he saw letters engraved upon it; he unfastened it
+from the animal's neck, about which it seemed to have been for a long
+time.
+
+"What does that mean?" asked Johnson.
+
+"That means," said the doctor, "that we have just killed a fox more
+than twelve years old,--a fox who was caught by James Ross in 1848."
+
+"Is it possible?" said Bell.
+
+"There's no doubt about it. I'm sorry we killed him! While he was in
+winter-quarters, James Ross thought of trapping a large number of
+white foxes; he fastened on their necks copper collars on which was
+engraved the position of his ships, the _Enterprise_ and
+_Investigator_, as well as where the supplies were left. These animals
+run over immense distances in search of food, and James Ross hoped
+that one of them might fall into the hands of one of the men of the
+Franklin expedition. That's the simple explanation; and this poor
+beast, who might have saved the life of two crews, has fallen
+uselessly beneath our guns."
+
+"Well, we won't eat it," said Johnson, "especially if it's twelve
+years old. But we shall keep the skin as a memento."
+
+Johnson raised it to his shoulders. The hunters made their way to the
+ship, guiding themselves by the stars; their expedition was not wholly
+without result; they were able to bring back several ptarmigans.
+
+An hour before reaching the _Forward_, there was a singular phenomenon
+which greatly interested the doctor. It was a real shower of
+shooting-stars; they could be counted by thousands, flying over the
+heavens like rockets; they dimmed the light of the moon. For hours
+they could have stood gazing at this beautiful sight. A similar
+phenomenon was observed in Greenland in 1799, by the Moravians. It
+looked like an exhibition of fireworks. The doctor after his return to
+the ship spent the whole night gazing at the sight, which lasted till
+seven o'clock in the morning, while the air was perfectly silent.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+THE LAST PIECE OF COAL.
+
+
+The bears, it seemed, could not be caught; a few seals were killed on
+the 4th, 5th, and 6th of November, and the wind shifted and the
+weather grew much milder; but the snow-drifts began again with
+incomparable severity. It became impossible to leave the ship, and it
+was hard to subdue the dampness. At the end of the week the condensers
+contained several bushels of ice.
+
+The weather changed again November 15th, and the thermometer, under
+the influence of certain atmospheric conditions, sank to -24 degrees.
+That was the lowest temperature they had yet observed. This cold would
+have been endurable in calm weather; but the wind was blowing at that
+time, and it seemed as if the air was filled with sharp needles.
+
+The doctor regretted his captivity, for the snow was hardened by the
+wind, so as to make good walking, and he might have gone very far from
+the ship.
+
+Still, it should be said that the slightest exercise in so low a
+temperature is very exhausting. A man can perform hardly more than a
+quarter of his usual work; iron utensils cannot be touched; if the
+hand seizes them, it feels as if it were burned, and shreds of skin
+cleave to the object which had been incautiously seized.
+
+The crew, being confined to the ship, were obliged to walk on the
+covered deck for two hours a day, where they had leave to smoke, which
+was forbidden in the common-room.
+
+There, when the fire got low, the ice used to cover the walls and the
+intervals between the planks; every nail and bolt and piece of metal
+was immediately covered with a film of ice.
+
+The celerity of its formation astonished the doctor. The breath of the
+men condensed in the air, and, changing from a fluid to a solid form,
+it fell about them in the form of snow. A few feet from the stove it
+was very cold, and the men stood grouped around the fire.
+
+Still, the doctor advised them to harden themselves, and to accustom
+themselves to the cold, which was not so severe as what yet awaited
+them; he advised them to expose their skin gradually to this intense
+temperature, and he himself set the example; but idleness or numbness
+nailed most of them to their place; they refused to stir, and
+preferred sleeping in that unhealthy heat.
+
+Yet, according to the doctor, there was no danger in exposing one's
+self to great cold after leaving a heated room; these sudden changes
+only inconvenience those who are in a perspiration; the doctor quoted
+examples in support of his opinion, but his lessons were for the most
+part thrown away.
+
+As for John Hatteras, he did not seem to mind the inclement cold. He
+walked to and fro silently, never faster or slower. Did not the cold
+affect his powerful frame? Did he possess to a very great degree the
+principle of natural heat which he wanted his men to possess? Was he
+so bound up in his meditations that he was indifferent to outside
+impressions? His men saw him with great astonishment braving a
+temperature of -24 degrees; he would leave the ship for hours, and
+come back without appearing to suffer from the cold.
+
+"He's a singular man," said the doctor to Johnson; "he astonishes me!
+He carries a glowing furnace within him! He is one of the strongest
+natures I ever saw!"
+
+"The fact is," answered Johnson, "he goes and comes and circulates in
+the open air, without dressing any more thickly than in the month of
+June."
+
+"O, it doesn't make much difference what one wears!" answered the
+doctor; "what is the use of dressing warmly if one can't produce heat
+within himself? It's like trying to heat ice by wrapping it up in
+wool! But Hatteras doesn't need it; he's built that way, and I should
+not be surprised if his side was as warm as the neighborhood of a
+glowing coal."
+
+Johnson, who was charged with clearing away the water-hole every
+morning, noticed that the ice was ten feet thick.
+
+Almost every night the doctor could observe the magnificent auroras;
+from four o'clock till eight of the evening, the sky in the north was
+slightly lighted up; then this took a regular shape, with a rim of
+light yellow, the ends of which seemed to touch the field of ice.
+Gradually the brilliancy arose in the heavens, following the magnetic
+meridian, and appeared striped with black bands; jets of luminosity
+shot with varying brightness here and there; when it reached the
+zenith it was often composed of several arcs bathed in waves of red,
+yellow, or green light. It was a dazzling sight. Soon the different
+curves met in a single point, and formed crowns of celestial richness.
+Finally the arcs all crowded together, the splendid aurora grew dim,
+the intense colors faded away into pale, vague, uncertain tints, and
+this wonderful phenomenon vanished gradually, insensibly, in the dark
+clouds of the south.
+
+[Illustration: "Almost every night the doctor could observe the
+magnificent auroras."]
+
+It is difficult to realize the wonderful, magical beauty of such a
+spectacle in high latitudes, less than eight degrees from the pole;
+the auroras which are seen in the temperate zone give no idea of it;
+it seems as if Providence wished to reserve the greatest wonders for
+these regions.
+
+Numerous mock-moons appeared also while the moon was shining, and a
+great many would appear in the sky, adding to the general brilliancy;
+often, too, simple lunar halos surrounded the moon with a circle of
+splendid lustre.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+November 26th the tide rose very high, and the water came through the
+hole with great violence; the thick crust of ice seemed pushed up by
+the force of the sea, and the frequent cracking of the ice proclaimed
+the conflict that was going on beneath; fortunately the ship remained
+firm in her bed, but her chains worked noisily; it was as a precaution
+against just such an event, that Hatteras had made the brig fast.
+
+The following days were still colder; a dense fog hid the sky; the
+wind tossed the snow about; it was hard to determine whether it came
+from the clouds or from the ice-fields; everything was in confusion.
+
+The crew kept busy with various interior occupations, the principal
+one being the preparation of the grease and oil from the seal; it was
+frozen into blocks of ice, which had to be cut with a hatchet; it was
+broken into small fragments, which were as hard as marble; ten barrels
+full were collected. As may be seen, every vessel became nearly
+useless, besides the risk of its breaking when the contents froze.
+
+The 28th the thermometer fell to -32 degrees; there was only ten days'
+coal on board, and every one awaited with horror the moment when it
+should come to an end.
+
+Hatteras, for the sake of economy, had the fire in the stove in the
+after-room put out; and from that time Shandon, the doctor, and he
+were compelled to betake themselves to the common-room of the crew.
+Hatteras was hence brought into constant communication with his men,
+who gazed at him with surly, dejected glances. He heard their
+fault-finding, their reproaches, even their threats, without being
+able to punish them. However, he seemed deaf to every remark. He never
+went near the fire. He remained in a corner, with folded arms, without
+saying a word.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In spite of the doctor's recommendations, Pen and his friends refused
+to take the slightest exercise; they passed whole days crouching about
+the stove or under their bedclothes; hence their health began to
+suffer; they could not react against the rigor of the climate, and
+scurvy soon made its appearance on board.
+
+The doctor had long since begun to distribute, every morning,
+lemon-juice and lime pastilles; but these precautions, which were
+generally so efficacious, did very little good to the sick; and the
+disease, following its usual course, soon showed its most horrible
+symptoms.
+
+Terrible indeed it was to see those wretches with their nerves and
+muscles contracted with pain! Their legs were fearfully swollen, and
+were covered with large bluish-black patches; their bleeding gums,
+their swollen lips, permitted them to utter only inarticulate sounds;
+their blood was poisoned, deprived of fibrine, and no longer carried
+life to the extremities.
+
+Clifton was the first to be attacked by this cruel malady; soon
+Gripper, Brunton, and Strong had to keep to their hammocks. Those whom
+the illness spared could not avoid the sight of the sufferings of
+their friends; the common-room was the only place where they could
+stay; so it was soon transformed into a hospital, for of the eighteen
+sailors of the _Forward_, thirteen were soon down with scurvy. It
+seemed as if Pen would escape the contagion; his strong constitution
+preserved him; Shandon felt the first symptoms, but it went no further
+with him, and plenty of exercise soon restored him to good health.
+
+The doctor tended his patients with the greatest devotion, and his
+heart would bleed at the sight of the sufferings he could not assuage.
+Still, he inspired as much cheerfulness as he could in the lonely
+crew; his words, his consolations, his philosophical reflections, his
+fortunate inventions, broke the monotony of those long days of
+suffering; he would read aloud to them; his wonderful memory kept him
+supplied with amusing anecdotes, while the men who were well stood
+pressing closely around the stove; but the groans of the sick, their
+complaints, and their cries of despair would continually interrupt
+him, and, breaking off in the middle of a story, he would become the
+devoted and attentive physician.
+
+Besides, his health remained good; he did not grow thin; his
+corpulence stood him in better stead than the thickest raiment, and he
+used to say he was as well clad as a seal or a whale, who, thanks to
+their thick layers of fat, easily support the rigors of the winter.
+
+Hatteras did not suffer physically or morally. The sufferings of the
+crew did not seem to depress him. Perhaps he would not let his
+emotions appear on his face, while an acute observer would have
+detected the heart of a man beneath this mask of iron.
+
+The doctor analyzed him, studied him, and could not classify this
+strange organization, this unnatural temperament.
+
+The thermometer fell still lower; the deck was entirely deserted; the
+Esquimaux dogs alone walked up and down it, barking dismally.
+
+There was always a man on guard near the stove, who superintended
+putting on the coal; it was important not to let it go out; when the
+fire got low the cold crept into the room, formed on the walls, and
+the moisture suddenly condensed and fell in the form of snow on the
+unfortunate occupants of the brig.
+
+It was among these terrible sufferings that they reached December 8th;
+that morning the doctor went as usual to look at the thermometer. He
+found the mercury entirely frozen in the bulb.
+
+"Forty-four degrees below zero!" he said with terror.
+
+And on that day the last piece of coal on board was thrown into the
+stove.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+THE GREAT COLD AT CHRISTMAS.
+
+
+For a moment he had a feeling of despair. The thought of death, and
+death by cold, appeared in all its horror; this last piece of coal
+burned with an ominous splutter; the fire seemed about to go out, and
+the temperature of the room fell noticeably. But Johnson went to get
+some of the new fuel which the marine animals had furnished to them,
+and with it he filled the stove; he added to it some tow filled with
+frozen oil, and soon obtained sufficient heat. The odor was almost
+unendurable; but how get rid of it? They had to get used to it.
+Johnson agreed that his plan was defective, and that it would not be
+considered a success in Liverpool.
+
+"And yet," he added, "this unpleasant smell will, perhaps, produce
+good results."
+
+"What are they?" asked the carpenter.
+
+"It will doubtless attract the bears this way, for they are fond of
+the smell."
+
+"Well," continued Bell, "what is the need of having bears?"
+
+"Bell," replied Johnson, "we can't count on seals any longer; they're
+gone away, and for a long time; if bears don't come in their place to
+supply us with their share of fuel, I don't know what is to become of
+us."
+
+"True, Johnson, our fate is very uncertain; our position is a most
+alarming one. And if this sort of fuel gives out, I don't see how--"
+
+"There might be another--"
+
+"Another?" asked Bell.
+
+"Yes, Bell! in despair on account of--but the captain would never--but
+yet we shall perhaps have to come to it."
+
+And Johnson shook his head sadly, and fell to thinking gloomily. Bell
+did not interrupt him. He knew that the supply of fat, which it had
+been so hard to acquire, would only last a week, even with the
+strictest economy.
+
+The boatswain was right. A great many bears, attracted by the scent,
+were seen to leeward of the _Forward_; the healthy men gave chase; but
+these animals are very swift of foot, and crafty enough to escape most
+stratagems; it was impossible to get near them, and the most skilful
+gunners could not hit them.
+
+The crew of the brig was in great danger of dying from the cold; it
+could not withstand, for forty-eight hours, such a temperature as
+would exist in the common-room. Every one looked forward with terror
+to getting to the end of the fuel.
+
+Now this happened December 20th, at three o'clock in the afternoon;
+the fire went out; the sailors, grouped about the empty stove, gazed
+at one another with haggard eyes. Hatteras remained without moving in
+his corner; the doctor, as usual, paced up and down excitedly; he did
+not know what was to be done.
+
+The temperature in the room fell at once to -7 degrees.
+
+But if the doctor was baffled and did not know what they should turn
+their hands to, others knew very well. So Shandon, cold and resolute,
+Pen, with wrath in his eyes, and two or three of his companions, such
+as he could induce to accompany him, walked towards Hatteras.
+
+"Captain!" said Shandon.
+
+Hatteras, absorbed in his thoughts, did not hear him.
+
+"Captain!" repeated Shandon, touching him with his hand.
+
+Hatteras arose.
+
+"Sir," he said.
+
+"Captain, the fire is out."
+
+"Well?" continued Hatteras.
+
+"If you intend that we shall freeze to death," Shandon went on with
+grim irony, "we should be glad if you would tell us."
+
+"My intention," answered Hatteras with a deep voice, "is that every
+man shall do his duty to the end."
+
+"There's something superior to duty, Captain," answered his first
+officer, "and that is the right of self-preservation. I repeat it, we
+have no fire; and if this goes on, in two days not one of us will be
+alive."
+
+"I have no wood," answered Hatteras, gloomily.
+
+"Well," shouted Pen, violently, "when the wood gives out, we must go
+cut it where it grows!"
+
+Hatteras grew pale with anger.
+
+"Where is that?" he asked.
+
+"On board," answered the sailor, insolently.
+
+"On board!" repeated the captain, with clinched fists and sparkling
+eyes.
+
+"Of course," answered Pen, "when the ship can't carry the crew, the
+ship ought to be burned."
+
+At the beginning of this sentence Hatteras had grasped an axe; at its
+end, this axe was raised above Pen's head.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Wretch!" he cried.
+
+The doctor sprang in front of Pen, and thrust him back; the axe fell
+on the floor, making a deep gash. Johnson, Bell, and Simpson gathered
+around Hatteras, and seemed determined to support him. But plaintive,
+grievous cries arose from the berths, transformed into death-beds.
+
+"Fire, fire!" they cried, shivering beneath their now insufficient
+covering.
+
+Hatteras by a violent effort controlled himself, and after a few
+moments of silence, he said calmly,--
+
+"If we destroy the ship, how shall we get back to England?"
+
+"Sir," answered Johnson, "perhaps we can without doing any material
+damage burn the less important parts, the bulwarks, the nettings--"
+
+"The small boats will be left," said Shandon; "and besides, why might
+we not make a smaller vessel out of what is left of the old one?"
+
+"Never!" answered Hatteras.
+
+"But--" interposed many of the men, shouting together.
+
+"We have a large quantity of spirits of wine," suggested Hatteras;
+"burn all of that."
+
+"All right; we'll take the spirits of wine!" answered Johnson,
+assuming an air of confidence which he was far from feeling.
+
+And with the aid of long wicks, dipped into this liquid of which the
+pale flame licked the walls of the stove, he was able to raise the
+temperature of the room a few degrees.
+
+In the following days the wind came from the south again and the
+thermometer rose; the snow, however, kept falling. Some of the men
+were able to leave the ship for the driest hours of the day; but
+ophthalmia and scurvy kept most of them on board; besides, neither
+hunting nor fishing was possible.
+
+But this was only a respite in the fearful severity of the cold, and
+on the 25th, after a sudden change of wind, the frozen mercury
+disappeared again in the bulb of the instrument; then they had to
+consult the spirit-thermometer, which does not freeze even in the most
+intense colds.
+
+The doctor, to his great surprise, found it marking -66 degrees.
+Seldom has man been called upon to endure so low a temperature.
+
+The ice stretched in long, dark lines upon the floor; a dense mist
+filled the room; the dampness fell in the form of thick snow; the men
+could not see one another; their extremities grew cold and blue; their
+heads felt as if they wore an iron band; and their thoughts grew
+confused and dull, as if they were half delirious. A terrible symptom
+was that their tongues refused to articulate a sound.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+From the day the men threatened to burn the ship, Hatteras would walk
+for hours upon the deck, keeping watch. This wood was flesh and blood
+to him. Cutting a piece from it would have been like cutting off a
+limb. He was armed, and he kept constant guard, without minding the
+cold, the snow, or the ice, which stiffened his clothing as if it
+covered it with a granite cuirass. Duke understood him, and followed
+him, barking and howling.
+
+[Illustration: "He was armed, and he kept constant guard, without
+minding the cold, the snow, or the ice."]
+
+Nevertheless, December 25th he went down into the common-room. The
+doctor, with all the energy he had left, went up to him and said,--
+
+"Hatteras, we are going to die from want of fire!"
+
+"Never!" said Hatteras, knowing very well what request he was
+refusing.
+
+"We must," continued the doctor, mildly.
+
+"Never!" repeated Hatteras more firmly; "I shall never give my
+consent! Whoever wishes, may disobey me."
+
+Thus was permission given them. Johnson and Bell hastened to the deck.
+Hatteras heard the wood of the brig crashing under the axe, and wept.
+
+That was Christmas Day, the great family festival in England, one
+specially devoted to the amusement of the children. What a painful
+recollection was that of the happy children gathered about the green
+Christmas tree! Every one recalled the huge pieces of roast meat, cut
+from the fattened ox, and the tarts, the mince-pies, and other
+luxuries so dear to the English heart! But here was nothing but
+suffering, despair, and wretchedness, and for the Christmas log, these
+pieces of a ship lost in the middle of the frigid zone!
+
+Nevertheless, under the genial influence of the fire, the spirits and
+strength of the men returned; the hot tea and coffee brought great and
+immediate consolation, and hope is so firm a friend of man, that they
+even began to hope for some luckier fate. It was thus that the year
+1860 passed away, the early winter of which had so interfered with
+Hatteras's plans.
+
+Now it happened that this very New Year's Day was marked by an
+unexpected discovery. It was a little milder than the previous days
+had been; the doctor had resumed his studies; he was reading Sir
+Edward Belcher's account of his expedition in the polar regions.
+Suddenly, a passage which he had never noticed before filled him with
+astonishment; he read it over again; doubt was no longer possible.
+
+Sir Edward Belcher states that, having come to the end of Queen's
+Channel, he found there many traces of the presence of men. He says:--
+
+"There are remains of dwellings far superior to what can be attributed
+to the savage habits of the wandering tribes of Esquimaux. The walls
+are firmly placed on deep-dug foundations; the inside, covered with a
+thick layer of gravel, has been paved. Skeletons of moose, reindeer,
+and seals abound. We found coal there."
+
+At these last words an idea occurred to the doctor; he took his book
+and ran to tell Hatteras.
+
+"Coal!" shouted the captain.
+
+"Yes, Hatteras, coal; that is to say, our preservation!"
+
+"Coal, on this lonely shore!" continued Hatteras; "no, that's
+impossible!"
+
+"How can you doubt it, Hatteras? Belcher would not have mentioned it
+if he had not been sure, without having seen it with his own eyes."
+
+"Well, what then, Doctor?"
+
+"We are not a hundred miles from the place where Belcher saw this
+coal! What is a journey of a hundred miles? Nothing. Longer
+expeditions have often been made on the ice, and with the cold as
+intense. Let us go after it, Captain!"
+
+"We'll go!" said Hatteras, who had made up his mind quickly; and with
+his active imagination he saw the chance of safety.
+
+Johnson was informed of the plan, of which he approved highly; he told
+his companions; some rejoiced, others heard of it with indifference.
+
+"Coal on these shores!" said Wall from his sick-bed.
+
+"We'll let them go," answered Shandon, mysteriously.
+
+But before they had begun to make preparations for the trip, Hatteras
+wanted to fix the position of the _Forward_ with the utmost
+exactitude. The importance of this calculation it is easy to see. Once
+away from the ship, it could not be found again without knowing its
+position precisely.
+
+So Hatteras went up on deck; he took observations at different moments
+of several lunar distances, and the altitude of the principal stars.
+He found, however, much difficulty in doing this, for when the
+temperature was so low, the glass and the mirrors of the instrument
+were covered with a crust of ice from Hatteras's breath; more than
+once his eyelids were burned by touching the copper eye-pieces. Still,
+he was able to get very exact bases for his calculations, and he
+returned to the common-room to work them out. When he had finished, he
+raised his head with stupefaction, took his chart, marked it, and
+looked at the doctor.
+
+"Well?" asked the latter.
+
+"What was our latitude when we went into winter-quarters?"
+
+"Our latitude was 78 degrees 15 minutes, and the longitude 95 degrees
+35 minutes, exactly the pole of cold."
+
+"Well," added Hatteras in a low voice, "our ice-field is drifting! We
+are two degrees farther north and farther west,--at least three
+hundred miles from your coal-supply!"
+
+"And these poor men who know nothing about it!" cried the doctor.
+
+"Not a word!" said Hatteras, raising his finger to his lips.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+PREPARATIONS FOR DEPARTURE.
+
+
+Hatteras did not wish to let his crew know about this new condition of
+affairs. He was right. If they had known that they were being driven
+towards the north with irresistible force, they would have given way
+to despair. The doctor knew this, and approved of the captain's
+silence.
+
+Hatteras had kept to himself the impressions which this discovery had
+caused within him. It was his first moment of joy during these long
+months of struggle with the hostile elements. He was one hundred and
+fifty miles farther north; hardly eight degrees from the Pole! But he
+hid his joy so well that the doctor did not even suspect it; he asked
+himself why Hatteras's eye shone with so unusual a lustre; but that
+was all, and the natural reply to this question did not enter his
+head.
+
+The _Forward_, as it approached the Pole, had drifted away from the
+coal which had been seen by Sir Edward Belcher; instead of a hundred
+miles, it would have to be sought two hundred and fifty miles farther
+south. Still, after a short discussion between Hatteras and Clawbonny,
+they determined to make the attempt.
+
+If Belcher was right, and his accuracy could not be doubted, they
+would find everything just at he had left it. Since 1853, no new
+expedition had visited these remote continents. Few, if any, Esquimaux
+are found in this latitude. The disaster which had befallen at Beechey
+Island could not be repeated on the shores of North Cornwall.
+Everything seemed to favor an excursion across the ice.
+
+They estimated that they would be gone forty days at the outside, and
+preparations were made by Johnson for that time of absence.
+
+In the first place, he saw about the sledge; it was of the shape of
+those used in Greenland, thirty-five inches broad and twenty-four feet
+long. The Esquimaux sometimes make them fifty feet long. It was built
+of long planks, bent at each end, and kept in position by two strong
+cords. This shape adapted it to resist violent shocks. The sledge ran
+easily upon the ice; but before the snow had hardened, it was
+necessary to place two vertical frames near together, and being raised
+in this way, it could run on without cutting too much into the snow.
+Besides, by rubbing it with a mixture of sulphur and snow in the
+Esquimaux fashion, it ran very easily.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was drawn by six dogs; they were strong in spite of their thinness,
+and did not appear to be injured by the severity of the winter; the
+harnesses of deerskin were in good condition; perfect reliance could
+be placed on the equipment, which the Greenlanders at Upernavik had
+sold in conscience. These six animals alone could draw a weight of two
+thousand pounds without inordinate fatigue.
+
+They carried with them a tent, in case it should be impossible to
+build a snow-house; a large sheet of mackintosh to spread over the
+snow, so that it should not melt at contact with their bodies; and,
+last of all, many coverings of wool and buffalo-skin. In addition,
+they carried the Halkett-boat.
+
+Their provisions consisted of five chests of pemmican, weighing four
+hundred and fifty pounds; a pound of pemmican was allotted for each
+man and dog; of the latter there were seven, including Duke; there
+were to be four men. They carried, besides, twelve gallons of spirits
+of wine, weighing nearly a hundred and fifty pounds; tea and biscuit,
+in proper amounts; a little portable kitchen, with a great many wicks;
+and much tow, ammunition, and four double-barrelled guns. The men of
+the party made use of Captain Parry's invention, and wore girdles of
+india-rubber in which the heat of the body and the motion in walking
+could keep tea, coffee, and water in a liquid state.
+
+Johnson took special care of the preparation of snow-shoes, with their
+wooden frames and leathern straps; they served as skates; on
+thoroughly frozen spots deerskin moccasins could be worn with comfort;
+every man carried two pairs of each.
+
+These preparations, which were so important because the omission of a
+single detail might have caused the ruin of the whole expedition,
+required four whole days. Every day at noon Hatteras took an
+observation of the ship's position; it was no longer drifting, and
+this had to be perfectly sure in order to secure their return.
+
+Hatteras undertook to choose the four men who were to accompany him.
+It was not an easy decision to take; some it was not advisable to
+take, but then the question of leaving them on board had also to be
+considered. Still, the common safety demanded the success of this
+trip, and the captain deemed it right to choose sure and experienced
+men.
+
+Hence Shandon was left out, but not much to his regret. James Wall was
+too ill to go. The sick grew no worse; their treatment consisted of
+repeated rubbing and strong doses of lemon-juice; this was easily seen
+to without the presence of the doctor being essential. Hence he
+enrolled himself among those who should go, and no voice was raised
+against it. Johnson would have gladly gone with the captain in his
+dangerous expedition; but Hatteras drew him to one side and said to
+him in an affectionate, almost weeping voice,--
+
+"Johnson, you are the only man I can trust. You are the only officer
+with whom I can leave the ship. I must know that you are here to keep
+an eye on Shandon and the others. They are kept to the ship by the
+winter; but who can say what plans they are not capable of forming?
+You shall receive my formal instructions, which shall place the
+command in your hands. You shall take my place. We shall be absent
+four or five weeks at the most, and I shall be at ease having you here
+where I cannot be. You need wood, Johnson. I know it! But, as much as
+possible, spare my ship. Do you understand, Johnson?"
+
+"I understand, Captain," answered the old sailor, "and I will remain
+if you prefer it."
+
+"Thanks!" said Hatteras, pressing the boatswain's hand; and he added,
+"In case we don't come back, Johnson, wait till the next thaw, and try
+to push on to the Pole. If the rest refuse, don't think of us, but
+take the _Forward_ back to England."
+
+"That is your wish, Captain?"
+
+"It is," answered Hatteras.
+
+"Your orders shall be obeyed," said Johnson, quietly.
+
+The doctor regretted that his friend was not going to accompany him,
+but he was obliged to recognize the wisdom of Hatteras's plan.
+
+His two other companions were Bell the carpenter, and Simpson. The
+first, who was sturdy, brave, and devoted, would be of great service
+in their camping in the snow; the other, although less resolute,
+nevertheless determined to take part in this expedition in which he
+might be of use as hunter and fisher.
+
+So this detachment consisted of Hatteras, Clawbonny, Bell, Simpson,
+and the faithful Duke, making in all four men and seven dogs to be
+fed. A suitable amount of provisions was made ready.
+
+During the early days of January the mean temperature was -33 degrees.
+Hatteras waited impatiently for milder weather; he frequently
+consulted the barometer, but no confidence could be placed in this
+instrument, which in these high latitudes seems to lose some of its
+customary accuracy; in these regions there are many exceptions to the
+general laws of nature: for instance, a clear sky was not always
+accompanied by cold, nor did a fall of snow raise the temperature; the
+barometer was uncertain, as many explorers in these seas have noticed;
+it used to fall when the wind was from the north or east; when low it
+foretold fine weather; when high, rain or snow. Hence its indications
+could hardly be relied on.
+
+Finally, January 5th an easterly breeze brought with it a rise in the
+thermometer of fifteen degrees, so that it stood at -18 degrees.
+Hatteras resolved to start the next day; he could no longer endure
+seeing his ship torn to pieces before his eyes; the whole quarter-deck
+had been burned up.
+
+So, January 6th, amid squalls of snow, the order to depart was given;
+the doctor gave his last words of advice to the sick; Bell and Simpson
+shook hands silently with their companions. Hatteras wanted to make a
+farewell speech to the men, but he saw nothing but angry faces around
+him. He fancied he saw an ironical smile playing about Shandon's lips.
+He held his peace. Perhaps he had a momentary pang at parting as he
+gazed at the _Forward_.
+
+But it was too late for him to change his mind; the sledge, loaded and
+harnessed, was waiting on the ice; Bell was the first to move; the
+others followed. Johnson accompanied the travellers for a quarter of a
+mile; then Hatteras asked him to return, which he did after a long
+leave-taking. At that moment, Hatteras, turning for the last time
+towards the brig, saw the tops of her masts disappearing in the dark
+snow-clouds.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+ACROSS THE ICE-FIELDS.
+
+
+The little band made their way towards the southeast. Simpson drove
+the sledge. Duke aided him much, without being disturbed at the
+occupation of his mates. Hatteras and the doctor followed behind on
+foot, while Bell, who was charged with making a road, went on in
+advance, testing the ice with the iron point of his stick.
+
+[Illustration: "The little band made their way towards the
+southeast."]
+
+The rise in the thermometer foretold a fall of snow, and soon it came,
+beginning in large flakes. This added to the hardships of their
+journey; they kept straying from a straight line; they could not go
+quickly; nevertheless, they averaged three miles an hour.
+
+The ice-field, under the pressure of the frost, presented an unequal
+surface; the sledge was often nearly turned over, but they succeeded
+in saving it.
+
+Hatteras and his companions wrapped themselves up in their fur clothes
+cut in the Greenland fashion; they were not cut with extraordinary
+neatness, but they suited the needs of the climate; their faces were
+enclosed in a narrow hood which could not be penetrated by the snow or
+wind; their mouths, noses, and eyes were alone exposed to the air, and
+they did not need to be protected against it; nothing is so
+inconvenient as scarfs and nose-protectors, which soon are stiff with
+ice; at night they have to be cut away, which, even in the arctic
+seas, is a poor way of undressing. It was necessary to leave free
+passage for the breath, which would freeze at once on anything it met.
+
+The boundless plain stretched out with tiresome monotony; everywhere
+there appeared heaped-up ice-hills, hummocks, blocks, and icebergs,
+separated by winding valleys; they walked staff in hand, saying but
+little. In this cold atmosphere, to open the mouth was painful; sharp
+crystals of ice suddenly formed between the lips, and the heat of the
+breath could not melt them. Their progress was silent, and every one
+beat the ice with his staff. Bell's footsteps were visible in the
+fresh snow; they followed them mechanically, and where he had passed,
+the others could go safely.
+
+Numerous tracks of bears and foxes crossed one another everywhere; but
+during this first day not one could be seen; to chase them would have
+been dangerous and useless: they would only have overloaded the
+already heavy sledge.
+
+Generally, in excursions of this sort, travellers take the precaution
+of leaving supplies along their path; they hide them from the animals,
+in the snow, thus lightening themselves for their trip, and on their
+return they take the supplies which they did not have the trouble of
+carrying with them.
+
+Hatteras could not employ this device on an ice-field which perhaps
+was moving; on firm land it would have been possible; and the
+uncertainty of their route made it doubtful whether they would return
+by the same path.
+
+At noon, Hatteras halted his little troop in the shelter of an
+ice-wall; they dined off pemmican and hot tea; the strengthening
+qualities of this beverage produced general comfort, and the
+travellers drank a large quantity. After an hour's rest they started
+on again; in the first day they walked about twenty miles; that
+evening men and dogs were tired out.
+
+Still, in spite of their fatigue, they had to build a snow-house in
+which to pass the night; the tent would not have been enough. This
+took them an hour and a half. Bell was very skilful; the blocks of
+ice, which were cut with a knife, were placed on top of one another
+with astonishing rapidity, and they took the shape of a dome, and a
+last piece, the keystone of the arch, established the solidity of the
+building; the soft snow served as mortar in the interstices; it soon
+hardened and made the whole building of a single piece.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Access was had into this improvised grotto by means of a narrow
+opening, through which it was necessary to crawl on one's hands and
+knees; the doctor found some difficulty in entering, and the others
+followed. Supper was soon prepared on the alcohol cooking-stove. The
+temperature inside was very comfortable; the wind, which was raging
+without, could not get in.
+
+"Sit down!" soon shouted the doctor in his most genial manner.
+
+And this meal, though the same as the dinner, was shared by all. When
+it was finished their only thought was sleep; the mackintoshes, spread
+out upon the snow, protected them from the dampness. At the flame of
+the portable stove they dried their clothes; then three of them,
+wrapped up in their woollen coverings, fell asleep, while one was left
+on watch; he had to keep a lookout on the safety of all, and to
+prevent the opening from being closed, otherwise they ran a risk of
+being buried alive.
+
+Duke shared their quarters; the other dogs remained without, and after
+they had eaten their supper they lay down and were soon hidden by the
+snow.
+
+Their fatigue soon brought sound sleep. The doctor took the watch
+until three of the morning. In the night the hurricane raged
+furiously. Strange was the situation of these lonely men lost in the
+snow, enclosed in this vault with its walls rapidly thickening under
+the snow-fall.
+
+The next morning at six o'clock their monotonous march was resumed;
+there were ever before them the same valleys and icebergs, a
+uniformity which made the choice of a path difficult. Still, a fall of
+several degrees in the temperature made their way easier by hardening
+the snow. Often they came across little elevations, which looked like
+cairns or storing-places of the Esquimaux; the doctor had one
+destroyed to satisfy his curiosity, but he found nothing except a cake
+of ice.
+
+"What do you expect to find, Clawbonny?" asked Hatteras; "are we not
+the first men to penetrate into this part of the globe?"
+
+"Probably," answered the doctor, "but who knows?"
+
+"Don't let us waste our time in useless searching," resumed the
+captain; "I am in a hurry to rejoin the ship, even if this long-wanted
+fuel should not be found."
+
+"I have great hopes of finding it," said the doctor.
+
+"Doctor," Hatteras used to say frequently, "I did wrong to leave the
+_Forward_; it was a mistake! The captain's place is on board, and
+nowhere else."
+
+"Johnson is there."
+
+"Yes! but--let us hurry on!"
+
+They advanced rapidly; Simpson's voice could be heard urging on the
+dogs; they ran along on a brilliant surface, all aglow with a
+phosphorescent light, and the runners of the sledge seemed to toss up
+a shower of sparks. The doctor ran on ahead to examine this snow, when
+suddenly, as he was trying to jump upon a hummock, he disappeared from
+sight. Bell, who was near him, ran at once towards the place.
+
+"Well, Doctor," he cried anxiously, while Hatteras and Simpson joined
+him, "where are you?"
+
+"Doctor!" shouted the captain.
+
+"Down here, at the bottom of a hole," was the quiet answer. "Throw me
+a piece of rope, and I'll come up to the surface of the globe."
+
+They threw a rope down to the doctor, who was at the bottom of a pit
+about ten feet deep; he fastened it about his waist, and his three
+companions drew him up with some difficulty.
+
+"Are you hurt?" asked Hatteras.
+
+"No, there's no harm done," answered the doctor, wiping the snow from
+his smiling face.
+
+"But how did it happen?"
+
+"O, it was in consequence of the refraction," he answered, laughing;
+"I thought I had about a foot to step over, and I fell into this deep
+hole! These optical illusions are the only ones left me, my friends,
+and it's hard to escape from them! Let that be a lesson to us all
+never to take a step forward without first testing the ice with a
+staff, for our senses cannot be depended on. Here our ears hear wrong,
+and our eyes deceive us! It's a curious country!"
+
+"Can you go on?" asked the captain.
+
+"Go on, Hatteras, go on! This little fall has done me more good than
+harm."
+
+They resumed their march to the southeast, and at evening they halted,
+after walking about twenty-five miles; they were all tired, but still
+the doctor had energy enough to ascend an ice-mountain while the
+snow-hut was building.
+
+[Illustration: "The doctor had energy enough to ascend an ice-mountain
+while the snow-hut was building."]
+
+The moon, which was nearly at its full, shone with extraordinary
+brilliancy in a clear sky; the stars were wonderfully brilliant; from
+the top of the iceberg a boundless plain could be seen, which was
+covered with strangely formed hillocks of ice; in the moonlight they
+looked like fallen columns or overthrown tombstones; the scene
+reminded the doctor of a huge, silent graveyard barren of trees, in
+which twenty generations of human beings might be lying in their long
+sleep.
+
+In spite of the cold and fatigue, Clawbonny remained for a long time
+in a revery, from which it was no easy task for his companions to
+arouse him; but they had to think of resting; the snow-hut was
+completed; the four travellers crawled in like moles, and soon were
+all asleep.
+
+The following days went on without any particular incident; at times
+they went on slowly, at times quickly, with varying ease, according to
+the changes in the weather; they wore moccasins or snow-shoes, as the
+nature of the ice demanded.
+
+In this way they went on till January 15th; the moon, now in its last
+quarter, was hardly visible; the sun, although always beneath the
+horizon, gave a sort of twilight for six hours every day, but not
+enough to light up the route, which had to be directed by the compass.
+Then Bell went on ahead; Hatteras followed next; Simpson and the
+doctor sought also to keep in a straight line behind, with their eyes
+on Hatteras alone; and yet, in spite of all their efforts, they often
+got thirty or forty degrees from the right way, much to their
+annoyance.
+
+Sunday, January 15th, Hatteras judged that they had come about one
+hundred miles to the south; this morning was set aside to mending
+their clothes and materials; the reading of divine service was not
+forgotten.
+
+At noon they started again; the temperature was very low; the
+thermometer marked only -22 degrees; the air was very clear.
+
+Suddenly, without warning, a frozen vapor arose into the air from the
+ice, to a height of about ninety feet, and hung motionless; no one
+could see a foot before him; this vapor formed in long, sharp crystals
+upon their clothing.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The travellers, surprised by this phenomenon, which is called
+frost-rime, only thought of getting together; so immediately various
+shouts were heard:--
+
+"O Simpson!"
+
+"Bell, this way!"
+
+"Dr. Clawbonny!"
+
+"Doctor!"
+
+"Captain, where are you?"
+
+They began to look for one another with outstretched arms, wandering
+through the fog which their eyes could not pierce. But to their
+disappointment they could hear no answer; the vapor seemed incapable
+of carrying sound.
+
+Each one then thought of firing his gun as a signal to the others. But
+if their voices were too feeble, the reports of the fire-arms were too
+loud; for the echoes, repeated in every direction, made but a confused
+roar, in which no particular direction could be perceived.
+
+Then they began to act, each one as he thought best. Hatteras stood
+still and folded his arms. Simpson contented himself with stopping the
+sledge. Bell retraced his steps, feeling them with his hand. The
+doctor, stumbling over the blocks of ice, wandered here and there,
+getting more and more bewildered.
+
+At the end of five minutes he said to himself,--
+
+"This can't last long! Singular climate! This is too much! There is
+nothing to help us, without speaking of these sharp crystals which cut
+my face. Halloo, Captain!" he shouted again.
+
+But he heard no answer; he fired his gun, but in spite of his thick
+gloves the iron burned his hands. Meanwhile he thought he saw a
+confused mass moving near him.
+
+"There's some one," he said. "Hatteras! Bell! Simpson! Is that you?
+Come, answer!"
+
+A dull roar was alone heard.
+
+"Ah!" thought the doctor, "what is that?"
+
+The object approached; it lost its first size and appeared in more
+definite shape. A terrible thought flashed into the doctor's mind.
+
+"A bear!" he said to himself.
+
+In fact, it was a huge bear; lost in the fog, it came and went with
+great danger to the men, whose presence it certainly did not suspect.
+
+"Matters are growing complicated!" thought the doctor, standing still.
+
+Sometimes he felt the animal's breath, which was soon lost in the
+frost-rime; again he would see the monster's huge paws beating the air
+so near him that his clothes were occasionally torn by its sharp
+claws; he jumped back, and the animal disappeared like a
+phantasmagoric spectre.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But as he sprang back he found an elevation beneath his feet; he
+climbed up first one block of ice, then another, feeling his way with
+his staff.
+
+"An iceberg!" he said to himself; "if I can get to the top I am safe."
+
+With these words he climbed up an elevation of about ninety feet with
+surprising agility; he arose above the frozen mist, the top of which
+was sharply defined.
+
+"Good!" he said to himself; and looking about him he saw his three
+companions emerging from the vapor.
+
+"Hatteras!"
+
+"Dr. Clawbonny!"
+
+"Bell!"
+
+"Simpson!"
+
+These names were shouted out almost at the same time; the sky, lit up
+by a magnificent halo, sent forth pale rays which colored the
+frost-rime as if it were a cloud, and the top of the icebergs seemed
+to rise from a mass of molten silver. The travellers found themselves
+within a circle of less than a hundred feet in diameter. Thanks to the
+purity of the air in this upper layer in this low temperature, their
+words could be easily heard, and they were able to talk on the top of
+this iceberg. After the first shots, each one, hearing no answer, had
+only thought of climbing above the mist.
+
+"The sledge!" shouted the captain.
+
+"It's eighty feet beneath us," answered Simpson.
+
+"Is it all right?"
+
+"All right."
+
+"And the bear?" asked the doctor.
+
+"What bear?" said Bell.
+
+"A bear!" said Hatteras; "let's go down."
+
+"No!" said the doctor; "we shall lose our way, and have to begin it
+all over again."
+
+"And if he eats our dogs--" said Hatteras.
+
+At that moment Duke was heard barking, the sound rising through the
+mist.
+
+"That's Duke!" shouted Hatteras; "there's something wrong. I'm going
+down."
+
+All sorts of howling arose to their ears; Duke and the dogs were
+barking furiously. The noise sounded like a dull murmur, like the roar
+of a crowded, noisy room. They knew that some invisible struggle was
+going on below, and the mist was occasionally agitated like the sea
+when marine monsters are fighting.
+
+"Duke, Duke!" shouted the captain, as he made ready to enter again
+into the frost-rime.
+
+"Wait a moment, Hatteras,--wait a moment! It seems to me that the fog
+is lifting."
+
+It was not lifting, but sinking, like water in a pool; it appeared to
+be descending into the ground from which it had risen; the summits of
+the icebergs grew larger; others, which had been hidden, arose like
+new islands; by an optical illusion, which may be easily imagined, the
+travellers, clinging to these ice-cones, seemed to be rising in the
+air, while the top of the mist sank beneath them.
+
+Soon the top of the sledge appeared, then the harnessed dogs, and then
+about thirty other animals, then great objects moving confusedly, and
+Duke leaping about with his head alternately rising and sinking in the
+frozen mist.
+
+"Foxes!" shouted Bell.
+
+"Bears!" said the doctor; "one, two, three."
+
+"Our dogs, our provisions!" cried Simpson.
+
+A troop of foxes and bears, having come across the sledge, were
+ravaging the provisions. Their instinct of pillaging united them in
+perfect harmony; the dogs were barking furiously, but the animals paid
+no heed, but went on in their work of destruction.
+
+"Fire!" shouted the captain, discharging his piece.
+
+[Illustration: "'Fire!' shouted the captain, discharging his piece."]
+
+His companions did the same. But at the combined report the bears,
+raising their heads and uttering a singular roar, gave the signal to
+depart; they fell into a little trot which a galloping horse could not
+have kept up with, and, followed by the foxes, they soon disappeared
+amid the ice to the north.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+THE CAIRN.
+
+
+This phenomenon, which is peculiar to the polar regions, had lasted
+three quarters of an hour; the bears and foxes had had plenty of time;
+these provisions arrived opportunely for these animals, who were
+nearly starved during the inclement weather; the canvas cover of the
+sledge was torn by their strong claws, the casks of pemmican were
+opened and emptied; the biscuit-sacks pillaged, the tea spilled over
+the snow, a barrel of alcohol torn open and its contents lost, their
+camping materials scattered and damaged, bore witness to the ferocity
+of these wild beasts, and their greediness.
+
+"This is a misfortune," said Bell, gazing at this scene of ruin.
+
+"Which is probably irreparable," said Simpson.
+
+"Let us first estimate the loss," interrupted the doctor, "and we'll
+talk about it afterwards."
+
+Hatteras, without saying a word, began to gather the scattered boxes
+and sacks; they collected the pemmican and biscuits which could be
+eaten; the loss of part of their alcohol was much to be regretted; for
+if that was gone there would be nothing warm to drink; no tea, no
+coffee. In making an inventory of the supplies left, the doctor found
+two hundred pounds of pemmican gone, and a hundred and fifty pounds of
+biscuit; if their journey continued they would have to subsist on
+half-rations.
+
+They then began to discuss what should be done, whether they should
+return to the ship and start out again. But how could they make up
+their minds to lose the hundred and fifty miles they had already made?
+To return without fuel would have a depressing effect upon the spirits
+of the crew. Could men be found again to resume their march across the
+ice?
+
+Evidently it was better to push on, even at the risk of severe
+privations.
+
+The doctor, Hatteras, and Bell were of this opinion; Simpson wanted to
+go back; the fatigue of the journey had worn upon his health; he was
+visibly weaker; but finding himself alone of this opinion, he resumed
+his place at the head of the sledge, and the little caravan continued
+its journey to the south.
+
+During the three next days, from the 15th to the 17th of January, all
+the monotonous incidents of the voyage were repeated; they advanced
+more slowly, and with much fatigue; their legs grew tired; the dogs
+dragged the sledge with difficulty; their diminished supply of food
+could not comfort men or beasts. The weather was very variable,
+changing from intense, dry cold to damp, penetrating mists.
+
+January 18th the aspect of the ice-fields changed suddenly; a great
+number of peaks, like sharp-pointed pyramids, and very high, appeared
+at the horizon; the ground in certain places came through the snow; it
+seemed formed of gneiss, schist, and quartz, with some appearance of
+limestone. The travellers at last touched earth again, and this land
+they judged to be that called North Cornwall.
+
+The doctor could not help striking the earth with joy; they had now
+only a hundred miles to go before reaching Cape Belcher, but their
+fatigue increased strangely on this soil, covered with sharp rocks,
+and interspersed with dangerous points, crevasses, and precipices;
+they had to go down into the depths of these abysses, climb steep
+ascents, and cross narrow gorges, in which the snow was drifted to the
+depth of thirty or forty feet.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The travellers soon regretted the almost easy journey over the
+ice-fields, which so well suited the sledge; now it had to be dragged
+by main force; the weary dogs were insufficient; the men, compelled to
+take their place alongside of them, wore themselves out with hauling;
+often they had to take off the whole load to get over some steep
+hills; a place only ten feet wide often kept them busy for hours; so
+in this first day they made only five miles in North Cornwall, which
+is certainly well named, for it exhibits all the roughness, the sharp
+points, the steep gorges, the confused rockiness, of the southwest
+coast of England.
+
+The next day the sledge reached the top of the hills near the shore;
+the exhausted travellers, being unable to make a snow-hut, were
+obliged to pass the night under the tent, wrapped up in buffalo-skins,
+and drying their wet stockings by placing them about their bodies. The
+inevitable consequences of such conduct are easily comprehended; that
+night the thermometer fell below -44 degrees, and the mercury froze.
+
+Simpson's health caused great anxiety; a persistent cough, violent
+rheumatism, and intolerable pain obliged him to lie on the sledge
+which he could no longer guide. Bell took his place; he too was
+suffering, but not so much as to be incapacitated. The doctor also
+felt the consequences of this trip in this terrible weather; but he
+uttered no complaint; he walked on, resting on his staff; he made out
+the way and helped every one. Hatteras, impassible, and as strong as
+on the first day, followed the sledge in silence.
+
+January 20th the weather was so severe that the slightest effort
+produced complete prostration. Still, the difficulties of the way were
+so great, that Hatteras, the doctor, and Bell harnessed themselves
+with the dogs; sudden shocks had broken the front of the sledge, and
+they had to stop to repair it. Such delays were frequent every day.
+
+The travellers followed a deep ravine, up to their waists in snow, and
+perspiring violently in spite of the intense cold. They did not say a
+word. Suddenly Bell, who was near the doctor, looked at him with some
+alarm; then, without uttering a word, he picked up a handful of snow
+and began rubbing his companion's face violently.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Well, Bell!" said the doctor, resisting.
+
+But Bell continued rubbing.
+
+"Come, Bell," began the doctor again, his mouth, nose, and eyes full
+of snow, "are you mad? What's the matter?"
+
+"If you have a nose left," answered Bell, "you ought to be grateful to
+me."
+
+"A nose!" answered the doctor, quickly, clapping his hand to his face.
+
+"Yes, Doctor, you were frost-bitten; your nose was white when I looked
+at you, and if I had not done as I did, you would have lost that
+ornament which is in the way on a journey, but agreeable to one's
+existence."
+
+In fact, the doctor's nose was almost frozen; the circulation of the
+blood was restored in time, and, thanks to Bell, all danger was gone.
+
+"Thanks, Bell!" said the doctor; "I'll be even with you yet."
+
+"I hope so, Doctor," the carpenter answered; "and may Heaven protect
+us from worse misfortunes!"
+
+"Alas, Bell," continued the doctor, "you mean Simpson! The poor fellow
+is suffering terribly."
+
+"Do you fear for his life?" asked Hatteras, quickly.
+
+"Yes, Captain," answered the doctor.
+
+"And why?"
+
+"He has a violent attack of scurvy; his legs have begun to swell, and
+his gums too; the poor fellow lies half frozen on the sledge, and
+every movement redoubles his suffering. I pity him, Hatteras, and I
+can't do anything to relieve him."
+
+"Poor Simpson!" murmured Bell.
+
+"Perhaps we shall have to halt for a day or two," resumed the doctor.
+
+"Halt!" shouted Hatteras, "when the lives of eighteen men are hanging
+on our return!"
+
+"Still--" said the doctor.
+
+"Clawbonny, Bell, listen to me," said Hatteras; "we have food for only
+twenty days! Judge for yourselves whether we can stop for a moment!"
+
+Neither the doctor nor Bell made any reply, and the sledge resumed its
+progress, which had been delayed for a moment. That evening they
+stopped beneath a hillock of ice, in which Bell at once cut a cavern;
+the travellers entered it; the doctor passed the night attending to
+Simpson; the scurvy had already made fearful ravages, and his
+sufferings caused perpetual laments to issue from his swollen lips.
+
+"Ah, Dr. Clawbonny!"
+
+"Courage, my dear fellow!" said the doctor.
+
+"I shall never get well! I feel it! I'd rather die!"
+
+The doctor answered these despairing words by incessant cares;
+although worn out by the fatigue of the day, he spent the night in
+composing a soothing potion for his patient; but the lime-juice was
+ineffectual, and continual friction could not keep down the progress
+of the scurvy.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The next day he had to be placed again upon the sledge, although he
+besought them to leave him behind to die in peace; then they resumed
+their dreary and difficult march.
+
+The frozen mists penetrated the three men to the bone; the snow and
+sleet dashed against them; they were working like draught-horses, and
+with a scanty supply of food.
+
+Duke, like his master, kept coming and going, enduring every fatigue,
+always alert, finding out by himself the best path; they had perfect
+confidence in his wonderful instinct.
+
+During the morning of January 23d, amid almost total darkness, for the
+moon was new, Duke had run on ahead; for many hours he was not seen;
+Hatteras became uneasy, especially because there were many traces of
+bears to be seen; he was uncertain what to do, when suddenly a loud
+barking was heard.
+
+Hatteras urged on the sledge, and soon he found the faithful animal at
+the bottom of a ravine. Duke stood as motionless as if turned to
+stone, barking before a sort of cairn made of pieces of limestone,
+covered with a cement of ice.
+
+"This time," said the doctor, detaching his harness, "it's a cairn,
+there's no doubt of that."
+
+"What's that to us?" asked Hatteras.
+
+"Hatteras, if it is a cairn, it may contain some document of value for
+us; perhaps some provisions, and it would be worth while to see."
+
+"What European could have come as far as this?" asked Hatteras,
+shrugging his shoulders.
+
+"But in lack of Europeans," answered the doctor, "cannot Esquimaux
+have made it here to contain what they have fished or shot? It's their
+habit, I think."
+
+"Well, go and look at it," continued Hatteras; "but I'm afraid it will
+be hardly worth your while."
+
+Clawbonny and Bell walked to the cairn with picks in their hands. Duke
+continued barking furiously. The limestones were firmly fastened
+together by the ice; but a few blows scattered them on the ground.
+
+"There's something there, evidently," said the doctor.
+
+"I think so," answered Bell.
+
+They rapidly destroyed the cairn. Soon they found a bundle and in it a
+damp paper. The doctor took it with a beating heart. Hatteras ran
+forward, seized the paper, and read:--
+
+"Altam..., _Porpoise_, December 13, 1860, longitude 12.. degrees,
+latitude 8.. degrees 35 minutes."
+
+"The _Porpoise_?" said the doctor.
+
+"The _Porpoise_!" replied Hatteras. "I never heard of a ship of this
+name in these seas."
+
+"It is clear," resumed the doctor, "that travellers, perhaps
+shipwrecked sailors, have been here within two months."
+
+"That is sure," said Bell.
+
+"What are we going to do?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Push on," answered Hatteras, coldly. "I don't know anything about any
+ship called the _Porpoise_, but I know that the brig _Forward_ is
+waiting for our return."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+THE DEATH OF SIMPSON.
+
+
+They resumed their journey; the mind of every one was filled with new
+and unexpected ideas, for to meet any one in these regions is about
+the most remarkable event that can happen. Hatteras frowned uneasily.
+
+"The _Porpoise_!" he kept saying to himself; "what ship is that? And
+what is it doing so near the Pole?"
+
+At the thought, he shuddered. The doctor and Bell only thought of the
+two results which might follow the discovery of this document, that
+they might be of service in saving some one, or, possibly, that they
+might be saved by them. But the difficulties, obstacles, and dangers
+soon returned, and they could only think of their perilous position.
+
+[Illustration: "They could only think of their perilous position."]
+
+Simpson's condition grew worse; the doctor could not be mistaken about
+the symptoms of a speedy death. He could do nothing; he was himself
+suffering from a painful ophthalmia, which might be accompanied by
+deafness if he did not take care. The twilight at that time gave light
+enough, and this light, reflected by the snow, was bad for the eyes;
+it was hard to protect them from the reflection, for glasses would be
+soon covered with a layer of ice which rendered them useless. Hence
+they had to guard carefully against accident by the way, and they had
+to run the risk of ophthalmia; still, the doctor and Bell covered
+their eyes and took turns in guiding the sledge. It ran far from
+smoothly on its worn runners; it became harder and harder to drag it;
+their path grew more difficult; the land was of volcanic origin, and
+all cut up with craters; the travellers had been compelled gradually
+to ascend fifteen hundred feet to reach the top of the mountains. The
+temperature was lower, the storms were more violent, and it was a
+sorry sight to see these poor men on these lonely peaks.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+They were also made sick by the whiteness of everything; the uniform
+brilliancy tired them; it made them giddy; the earth seemed to wave
+beneath their feet with no fixed point on the immense white surface;
+they felt as one does on shipboard when the deck seems to be giving
+way beneath the foot; they could not get over the impression, and the
+persistence of the feeling wearied their heads. Their limbs grew
+torpid, their minds grew dull, and often they walked like men half
+asleep; then a slip or a sudden fall would rouse them for a few
+moments from their sluggishness.
+
+January 25th they began to descend the steep slopes, which was even
+more fatiguing; a false step, which it was by no means easy to avoid,
+might hurl them down into deep ravines where they would certainly have
+perished. Towards evening a violent tempest raged about the snowy
+summit; it was impossible to withstand the force of the hurricane;
+they had to lie down on the ground, but so low was the temperature
+that they ran a risk of being frozen to death at once.
+
+Bell, with Hatteras's aid, built with much difficulty a snow-house, in
+which the poor men sought shelter; there they partook of a few
+fragments of pemmican and a little hot tea; only four gallons of
+alcohol were left; and they had to use this to allay their thirst, for
+snow cannot be absorbed if taken in its natural state; it has to be
+melted first. In the temperate zone, where the cold hardly ever sinks
+much below the freezing-point, it can do no harm; but beyond the Polar
+Circle it is different; it reaches so low a temperature that the bare
+hand can no more touch it than it can iron at a white heat, and this,
+although it is a very poor conductor of heat; so great is the
+difference of temperature between it and the stomach that its
+absorption produces real suffocation. The Esquimaux prefer severe
+thirst to quenching it with this snow, which does not replace water,
+and only augments the thirst instead of appeasing it. The only way the
+travellers could make use of it was by melting it over the
+spirit-lamp.
+
+At three in the morning, when the tempest was at its height, the
+doctor took his turn at the watch; he was lying in a corner of the hut
+when a groan of distress from Simpson attracted his attention; he
+arose to see to him, but in rising he hit his head sharply against the
+icy roof; without paying any attention to that, he bent over Simpson
+and began to rub his swollen, discolored legs; after doing this for a
+quarter of an hour he started to rise, and bumped his head again,
+although he was on his knees.
+
+"That's odd," he said to himself.
+
+He raised his hand above his head; the roof was perceptibly sinking.
+
+"Great God!" he cried; "wake up, my friends!"
+
+At his shouts Hatteras and Bell arose quickly, striking their heads
+against the roof; they were in total darkness.
+
+"We shall be crushed!" said the doctor; "let's get out!"
+
+And all three, dragging Simpson after them, abandoned their dangerous
+quarters; and it was high time, for the blocks of ice, ill put
+together, fell with a loud crash.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The poor men found themselves then without shelter against the
+hurricane. Hatteras attempted to raise the tent, but it was
+impossible, so severe was the wind, and they had to shelter themselves
+beneath the canvas, which was soon covered with a thick layer of snow;
+but this snow prevented the radiation of their warmth and kept them
+from being frozen to death.
+
+The storm lasted all night; Bell, when he was harnessing the
+half-starved dogs, noticed that three of them had begun to eat the
+leather straps; two were very sick and seemed unable to go on. Still,
+they set out as well as they could; they had sixty miles between them
+and the point they wished to reach.
+
+On the 26th, Bell, who was ahead, shouted suddenly to his companions.
+They ran towards him, and he pointed with astonishment to a gun
+resting on a piece of ice.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"A gun!" cried the doctor.
+
+Hatteras took it; it was in good condition, and loaded.
+
+"The men of the _Porpoise_ can't be far off."
+
+Hatteras, as he was examining the gun, noticed that it was of American
+make; his hands clinched nervously its barrel.
+
+"Forward!" he said calmly.
+
+They continued to descend the mountains. Simpson seemed deprived of
+all feeling; he had not even strength left to moan.
+
+The tempest continued to rage; the sledge went on more and more
+slowly; they made but a few miles in twenty-four hours, and, in spite
+of the strictest economy, their supplies threatened to give out; but
+so long as enough was left to carry them back, Hatteras pushed on.
+
+On the 27th they found, partly buried beneath the snow, a sextant and
+then a flask, which contained brandy, or rather a piece of ice, in the
+middle of which all the spirit of the liquor had collected in the form
+of snow; it was of no use.
+
+Evidently, without meaning it, Hatteras was following in the wake of
+some great disaster; he went on by the only possible route, collecting
+the traces of some terrible shipwreck. The doctor kept a sharp lookout
+for other cairns, but in vain.
+
+Sad thoughts beset him: in fact, if he should discover these wretches,
+of what service could he be to them? He and his companions were
+beginning to lack everything; their clothing was torn, their supplies
+were scanty. If the survivors were many, they would all starve to
+death. Hatteras seemed inclined to flee from them! Was he not
+justified, since the safety of the crew depended upon him? Ought he to
+endanger the safety of all by bringing strangers on board?
+
+But then strangers were men, perhaps their countrymen! Slight as was
+their chance of safety, ought they to be deprived of it? The doctor
+wanted to get Bell's opinion; but Bell refused to answer. His own
+sufferings had hardened his heart. Clawbonny did not dare ask
+Hatteras: so he sought aid from Providence.
+
+Towards the evening of that day, Simpson appeared to be failing fast;
+his cold, stiff limbs, his impeded breathing, which formed a mist
+about his head, his convulsive movements, announced that his last hour
+had come. His expression was terrible to behold; it was despairing,
+with a look of impotent rage at the captain. It contained a whole
+accusation, mute reproaches which were full of meaning, and perhaps
+deserved.
+
+Hatteras did not go near the dying man. He avoided him, more silent,
+more shut into himself than ever!
+
+The following night was a terrible one; the violence of the tempest
+was doubled; three times the tent was thrown over, and snow was blown
+over the suffering men, blinding them, and wounding them with the
+pieces torn from the neighboring masses. The dogs barked incessantly.
+Simpson was exposed to all the inclemency of the weather. Bell
+succeeded in again raising the canvas, which, if it did not protect
+them from the cold, at least kept off the snow. But a sudden squall
+blew it down for the fourth time and carried it away with a fierce
+blast.
+
+"Ah, that is too much!" shouted Bell.
+
+"Courage, courage!" answered the doctor, stooping down to escape being
+blown away.
+
+Simpson was gasping for breath. Suddenly, with a last effort, he half
+rose, stretched his clinched fist at Hatteras, who was gazing steadily
+at him, uttered a heart-rending cry, and fell back dead in the midst
+of his unfinished threat.
+
+[Illustration: "Suddenly, with a last effort, he half rose."]
+
+"Dead!" said the doctor.
+
+"Dead!" repeated Bell.
+
+Hatteras, who was approaching the corpse, drew back before the
+violence of the wind.
+
+He was the first of the crew who succumbed to the murderous climate,
+the first to offer up his life, after incalculable sufferings, to the
+captain's persistent obstinacy. This man had considered him an
+assassin, but Hatteras did not quail before the accusation. But a
+tear, falling from his eyes, froze on his pale cheek.
+
+The doctor and Bell looked at him in terror. Supported by his long
+staff, he seemed like the genius of these regions, straight in the
+midst of the fierce blast, and terrible in his stern severity.
+
+He remained standing, without stirring, till the first rays of the
+twilight appeared, bold and unconquerable, and seeming to defy the
+tempest which was roaring about him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+THE RETURN TO THE FORWARD.
+
+
+Toward six o'clock in the morning the wind fell, and, shifting
+suddenly to the north, it cleared the clouds from the sky; the
+thermometer stood at -33 degrees. The first rays of the twilight
+appeared on the horizon above which it would soon peer.
+
+Hatteras approached his two dejected companions and said to them,
+sadly and gently,--
+
+"My friends, we are more than sixty miles from the point mentioned by
+Sir Edward Belcher. We have only just enough food left to take us back
+to the ship. To go farther would only expose us to certain death,
+without our being of service to any one. We must return."
+
+"That is a wise decision, Hatteras," answered the doctor; "I should
+have followed you anywhere, but we are all growing weaker every day;
+we can hardly set one foot before the other; I approve of returning."
+
+"Is that your opinion, Bell?" asked Hatteras.
+
+"Yes, Captain," answered the carpenter.
+
+"Well," continued Hatteras, "we will take two days for rest. That's
+not too much. The sledge needs a great many repairs. I think, too, we
+ought to build a snow-house in which we can repose."
+
+This being decided, the three men set to work energetically. Bell took
+the necessary precautions to insure the solidity of the building, and
+soon a satisfactory retreat arose at the bottom of the ravine where
+they had last halted.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It was doubtless after a hard struggle that Hatteras had decided to
+discontinue his journey. So much effort and fatigue thrown away! A
+useless trip, entailing the death of one of his men! To return without
+a scrap of coal: what would the crew say? What might it not do under
+the lead of Shandon? But Hatteras could not continue the struggle any
+longer.
+
+He gave all his attention to their preparations for returning; the
+sledge was repaired; its load, too, had become much lighter, and only
+weighed two hundred pounds. They mended their worn-out, torn clothes,
+all soaked through and through by the snow; new moccasins and
+snow-shoes replaced those which were no longer serviceable. This kept
+them busy the whole of the 29th and the morning of the 30th; then they
+all sought what rest they could get, and prepared for what was before
+them.
+
+During the thirty-six hours spent in or near the snow-house, the
+doctor had been noticing Duke, whose singular behavior did not seem to
+him to be natural; the dog kept going in circles which seemed to have
+a common centre; there was a sort of elevation in the soil, produced
+by accumulated layers of ice; Duke, as he ran around this place, kept
+barking gently and wagging his tail impatiently, looking at his master
+as if asking something.
+
+The doctor, after reflecting a moment, ascribed this uneasiness to the
+presence of Simpson's corpse, which his companions had not yet had
+time to bury. Hence he resolved to proceed to this sad ceremony on
+that very day; the next morning they were to start. Bell and the
+doctor, picks in hand, went to the bottom of the ravine; the elevation
+which Duke had noticed offered a suitable place for the grave, which
+would have to be dug deep to escape the bears.
+
+The doctor and Bell began by removing the soft snow, then they
+attacked the solid ice; at the third blow of his pick the doctor
+struck against some hard body; he picked up the pieces and found them
+the fragments of a glass bottle. Bell brought to light a stiffened
+bag, in which were a few crumbs of fresh biscuit.
+
+"What's this?" said the doctor.
+
+"What can it be?" asked Bell, stopping his work.
+
+The doctor called to Hatteras, who came at once.
+
+Duke barked violently, and with his paws tried to tear up the ice.
+
+"Have we by any possibility come across a supply of provisions?" said
+the doctor.
+
+"It looks like it," answered Bell.
+
+"Go on!" said Hatteras.
+
+A few bits of food were found and a box quarter full of pemmican.
+
+"If we have," said Hatteras, "the bears have visited it before we did.
+See, these provisions have been touched already."
+
+"It is to be feared," answered the doctor, "for--"
+
+He did not finish his sentence; a cry from Bell interrupted him; he
+had turned over a tolerably large piece of ice and showed a stiff,
+frozen human leg in the ice.
+
+"A corpse!" cried the doctor.
+
+"It's a grave," said Hatteras.
+
+It was the body of a sailor about thirty years old, in a perfect state
+of preservation; he wore the usual dress of Arctic sailors; the doctor
+could not say how long he had been dead.
+
+After this, Bell found another corpse, that of a man of fifty,
+exhibiting traces of the sufferings that had killed him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"They were never buried," cried the doctor; "these poor men were
+surprised by death as we find them."
+
+"You are right, Doctor," said Bell.
+
+"Go on, go on!" said Hatteras.
+
+Bell hardly dared. Who could say how many corpses lay hidden here?
+
+"They were the victims of just such an accident as we nearly perished
+by," said the doctor; "their snow-house fell in. Let us see if one may
+not be breathing yet!"
+
+The place was rapidly cleared away, and Bell brought up a third body,
+that of a man of forty; he looked less like a corpse than the others;
+the doctor bent over him and thought he saw some signs of life.
+
+"He's alive!" he shouted.
+
+Bell and he carried this body into the snow-house, while Hatteras
+stood in silence, gazing at the sunken dwelling.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The doctor stripped the body; it bore no signs of injury; with Bell's
+aid he rubbed it vigorously with tow dipped in alcohol, and he saw
+life gradually reviving within it; but the man was in a state of
+complete prostration, and unable to speak; his tongue clove to his
+palate as if it were frozen.
+
+The doctor examined his patient's pockets; they were empty. No paper.
+He let Bell continue rubbing, and went out to Hatteras.
+
+He found him in the ruined snow-house, clearing away the floor; soon
+he came out, bearing a half-burned piece of an envelope. A few words
+could be deciphered:--
+
+  ....tamont
+    ...._orpoise_
+      ....w York.
+
+"Altamont!" shouted the doctor, "of the _Porpoise_! of New York!"
+
+"An American!" said Hatteras.
+
+"I shall save him," said the doctor; "I'll answer for it, and we shall
+find out the explanation of this puzzle."
+
+He returned to Altamont, while Hatteras remained pensive. The doctor
+succeeded in recalling the unfortunate man to life, but not to
+consciousness; he neither saw, heard, nor spoke, but at any rate he
+was alive!
+
+The next morning Hatteras said to the doctor,--
+
+"We must start."
+
+"All right, Hatteras! The sledge is not loaded; we shall carry this
+poor fellow back to the ship with us.
+
+"Very well," said Hatteras. "But first let us bury these corpses."
+
+The two unknown sailors were placed beneath the ruins of the
+snow-house; Simpson's body took the place of Altamont's.
+
+The three travellers uttered a short prayer over their companion, and
+at seven o'clock in the morning they set off again for the ship.
+
+Two of the dogs were dead. Duke volunteered to drag the sledge, and he
+worked as resolutely as a Greenland dog.
+
+For twenty days, from January 31st to February 19th, the return was
+very much like the first part of the journey. Save that it was in the
+month of February, the coldest of the whole year, and the ice was
+harder; the travellers suffered terribly from the cold, but not from
+the wind or snow-storm.
+
+The sun reappeared for the first time January 31st; every day it rose
+higher above the horizon. Bell and the doctor were at the end of their
+strength, almost blind and quite lame; the carpenter could not walk
+without crutches. Altamont was alive, but continued insensible;
+sometimes his life was despaired of, but unremitting care kept him
+alive! And yet the doctor needed to take the greatest care of himself,
+for his health was beginning to suffer.
+
+Hatteras thought of the _Forward_! In what condition was he going to
+find it? What had happened on board? Had Johnson been able to
+withstand Shandon and his allies? The cold had been terrible! Had they
+burned the ship? Had they spared her masts and keel?
+
+While thinking of this, Hatteras walked on as if he had wished to get
+an early view of the _Forward_.
+
+February 24th, in the morning, he stopped suddenly. Three hundred
+paces before him appeared a reddish glow, above which rose an immense
+column of black smoke, which was lost in the gray clouds of the sky.
+
+"See that smoke!" he shouted.
+
+His heart beat as if it would burst.
+
+"See that smoke!" he said to his companions. "My ship is on fire!"
+
+"But we are more than three miles from it," said Bell. "It can't be
+the _Forward_!"
+
+"Yes, but it is," answered the doctor; "the mirage makes it seem
+nearer."
+
+"Let us run!" cried Hatteras.
+
+They left the sledge in charge of Duke, and hastened after the
+captain. An hour later they came in sight of the ship. A terrible
+sight! The brig was burning in the midst of the ice, which was melting
+about her; the flames were lapping her hull, and the southerly breeze
+brought to Hatteras's ears unaccustomed sounds.
+
+Five hundred feet from the ship stood a man raising his hands in
+despair; he stood there, powerless, facing the fire which was
+destroying the _Forward_.
+
+The man was alone; it was Johnson.
+
+Hatteras ran towards him.
+
+"My ship! my ship!" he cried.
+
+"You! Captain!" answered Johnson; "you! stop! not a step farther!"
+
+"Well?" asked Hatteras with a terrible air.
+
+"The wretches!" answered Johnson, "they've been gone forty-eight
+hours, after firing the ship!"
+
+"Curse them!" groaned Hatteras.
+
+Then a terrible explosion was heard; the earth trembled; the icebergs
+fell; a column of smoke rose to the clouds, and the _Forward_
+disappeared in an abyss of fire.
+
+[Illustration: "Then a terrible explosion was heard."]
+
+At that moment the doctor and Bell came up to Hatteras. He roused
+himself suddenly from his despair.
+
+"My friends," he said energetically, "the cowards have taken flight!
+The brave will succeed! Johnson, Bell, you are bold; Doctor, you are
+wise; as for me, I have faith! There is the North Pole! Come, to
+work!"
+
+Hatteras's companions felt their hearts glow at these brave words.
+
+And yet the situation was terrible for these four men and the dying
+man, abandoned without supplies, alone at the eighty-fourth degree of
+latitude, in the very heart of the polar regions.
+
+
+END OF PART I.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+THE DESERT OF ICE.
+
+
+
+
+THE DESERT OF ICE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+THE DOCTOR'S INVENTORY.
+
+
+The design which Captain Hatteras had formed of exploring the North,
+and of giving England the honor of discovering the Pole, was certainly
+a bold one. This hardy sailor had just done all that human skill could
+do. After struggling for nine months against contrary winds and seas,
+after destroying icebergs and ice-fields, after enduring the severity
+of an unprecedentedly cold winter, after going over all that his
+predecessors had done, after carrying the _Forward_ beyond the seas
+which were already known, in short, after completing half his task, he
+saw his grand plans completely overthrown. The treachery, or rather
+the demoralization of his wearied crew, the criminal folly of some of
+the ringleaders, left him in a terrible situation; of the eighteen men
+who had sailed in the brig, four were left, abandoned without
+supplies, without a boat, more than twenty-five hundred miles from
+home!
+
+The explosion of the _Forward_, which had just blown up before their
+eyes, took from them their last means of subsistence. Still,
+Hatteras's courage did not abandon him at this terrible crisis. The
+men who were left were the best of the crew; they were genuine heroes.
+He made an appeal to the energy and wisdom of Dr. Clawbonny, to the
+devotion of Johnson and Bell, to his own faith in the enterprise; even
+in these desperate straits he ventured to speak of hope; his brave
+companions listened to him, and their courage in the past warranted
+confidence in their promises for the future.
+
+The doctor, after listening to the captain's words, wanted to get an
+exact idea of their situation; and, leaving the others about five
+hundred feet from the ship, he made his way to the scene of the
+catastrophe.
+
+Of the _Forward_, which had been built with so much care, nothing was
+left; pieces of ice, shapeless fragments all blackened and charred,
+twisted pieces of iron, ends of ropes still burning like fuse, and
+scattered here and there on the ice-field, testified to the force of
+the explosion. The cannon had been hurled to some distance, and was
+lying on a piece of ice that looked like a gun-carriage. The surface
+of the ice, for a circle of six hundred feet in diameter, was covered
+with fragments of all sorts; the brig's keel lay under a mass of ice;
+the icebergs, which had been partly melted by the fire, had already
+recovered their rock-like hardness.
+
+The doctor then began to think of his ruined cabin, of his lost
+collections, of his precious instruments destroyed, his books torn,
+burned to ashes. So much that was valuable gone! He gazed with tearful
+eyes at this vast disaster, thinking not of the future, but of the
+irreparable misfortune which dealt him so severe a blow. He was
+immediately joined by Johnson; the old sailor's face bore signs of his
+recent sufferings; he had been obliged to struggle against his
+revolted companions, defending the ship which had been intrusted to
+his care. The doctor sadly pressed the boatswain's hand.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Well, my friend, what is going to become of us?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Who can say?" answered Johnson.
+
+"At any rate," continued the doctor, "don't let us give way to
+despair; let us be men!"
+
+"Yes, Doctor," answered the old sailor, "you are right; it's when
+matters look worst that we most need courage; we are in a bad way; we
+must see how we can best get out of it."
+
+"Poor ship!" said the doctor, sighing; "I had become attached to it; I
+had got to look on it as on my own home, and there's not left a piece
+that can be recognized!"
+
+"Who would think, Doctor, that this mass of dust and ashes could be so
+dear to our heart?"
+
+"And the launch," continued the doctor, gazing around, "was it
+destroyed too?"
+
+"No, Doctor; Shandon and the others, who left, took it with them."
+
+"And the gig?"
+
+"Was broken into a thousand pieces. See, those sheets of tin are all
+that's left of her."
+
+"Then we have nothing but the Halkett-boat?"[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: Made of india-rubber, and capable of being inflated at
+pleasure.]
+
+"That is all, and it is because you insisted on our taking it, that we
+have that."
+
+"It's not of much use," said the doctor.
+
+"They were a pack of miserable, cowardly traitors who ran away!" said
+Johnson. "May they be punished as they deserve!"
+
+"Johnson," answered the doctor, mildly, "we must remember that their
+suffering had worn upon them very much. Only exceptional natures
+remain stanch in adversity, which completely overthrows the weak. Let
+us rather pity than curse them!"
+
+After these words the doctor remained silent for a few minutes, and
+gazed around uneasily.
+
+"What is become of the sledge?" asked Johnson.
+
+"We left it a mile back."
+
+"In care of Simpson?"
+
+"No, my friend; poor Simpson sank under the toil of the trip."
+
+"Dead!" cried the boatswain.
+
+"Dead!" answered the doctor.
+
+"Poor fellow!" said Johnson; "but who knows whether we may not soon be
+reduced to envying his fate?"
+
+"But we have brought back a dying man in place of the one we lost,"
+answered the doctor.
+
+"A dying man?"
+
+"Yes, Captain Altamont."
+
+The doctor gave the boatswain in a few words an account of their
+finding him.
+
+"An American!" said Johnson, thoughtfully.
+
+"Yes; everything seems to point that way. But what was this _Porpoise_
+which had evidently been shipwrecked, and what was he doing in these
+waters?"
+
+"He came in order to be lost," answered Johnson; "he brought his crew
+to death, like all those whose foolhardiness leads them here. But,
+Doctor, did the expedition accomplish what it set out for?"
+
+"Finding the coal?"
+
+"Yes," answered Johnson.
+
+The doctor shook his head sadly.
+
+"None at all?" asked the old sailor.
+
+"None; our supplies gave out, fatigue nearly conquered us. We did not
+even reach the spot mentioned by Edward Belcher."
+
+"So," continued Johnson, "you have no fuel?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor food?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And no boat with which to reach England?"
+
+They were both silent; they needed all their courage to meet this
+terrible situation.
+
+"Well," resumed the boatswain, "there can be no doubts about our
+condition! We know what we have to expect! But the first thing to do,
+when the weather is so cold, is to build a snow-house."
+
+"Yes," answered the doctor, "with Bell's aid that will be easy; then
+we'll go after the sledge, we'll bring the American here, and then
+we'll take counsel with Hatteras."
+
+"Poor captain!" said Johnson, forgetting his own griefs; "he must
+suffer terribly."
+
+With these words they returned to their companions. Hatteras was
+standing with folded arms, as usual, gazing silently into space. His
+face wore its usual expression of firmness. Of what was this
+remarkable man thinking? Of his desperate condition and shattered
+hopes? Was he planning to return, since both men and the elements had
+combined against his attempt?
+
+No one could have read his thoughts, which his face in no way
+expressed. His faithful Duke was with him, braving a temperature of
+-32 degrees.
+
+Bell lay motionless on the ice; his insensibility might cost him his
+life; he was in danger of being frozen to death. Johnson shook him
+violently, rubbed him with snow, and with some difficulty aroused him
+from his torpor.
+
+"Come, Bell, take courage!" he said; "don't lose heart; get up; we
+have to talk matters over, and we need a shelter. Have you forgotten
+how to make a snow-house? Come, help me, Bell! There's an iceberg we
+can cut into! Come, to work! That will give us what we need, courage!"
+
+Bell, aroused by these words, obeyed the old sailor.
+
+"Meanwhile," Johnson went on, "the doctor will be good enough to go to
+the sledge and bring it back with the dogs."
+
+"I am ready," answered the doctor; "in an hour I shall be back."
+
+"Shall you go too, Captain?" added Johnson, turning to Hatteras.
+
+Although he was deep in thought, the captain heard the boatswain's
+question, for he answered gently,--
+
+"No, my friend, if the doctor is willing to go alone. We must form
+some plan of action, and I want to be alone to think matters over. Go.
+Do what you think right for the present. I will be thinking of the
+future."
+
+Johnson turned to the doctor.
+
+"It's singular," he said; "the captain seems to have forgotten his
+anger; his voice never was so gentle before."
+
+"Well!" answered the doctor; "he has recovered his presence of mind.
+Mark my words, Johnson, that man will be able to save us!"
+
+Thereupon the doctor wrapped himself up as well as he could, and,
+staff in hand, walked away towards the sledge in the midst of a fog
+which the moonlight made almost bright. Johnson and Bell set to work
+immediately; the old sailor encouraged the carpenter, who wrought on
+in silence; they did not need to build, but to dig into the solid ice;
+to be sure it was frozen very hard, and so rendered the task
+difficult, but it was thereby additionally secure; soon Johnson and
+Bell could work comfortably in the orifice, throwing outside all that
+they took from the solid mass.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+From time to time Hatteras would walk fitfully, stopping suddenly
+every now and then; evidently he did not wish to reach the spot where
+his brig had been. As he had promised, the doctor was soon back; he
+brought with him Altamont, lying on the sledge beneath all the
+coverings; the Greenland dogs, thin, tired, and half starved, could
+hardly drag the sledge, and were gnawing at their harness; it was high
+time that men and beasts should take some rest.
+
+While they were digging the house, the doctor happened to stumble upon
+a small stove which had not been injured by the explosion, and with a
+piece of chimney that could be easily repaired: the doctor carried it
+away in triumph. At the end of three hours the house was inhabitable;
+the stove was set in and filled with pieces of wood; it was soon
+roaring and giving out a comfortable warmth.
+
+The American was brought in and covered up carefully; the four
+Englishmen sat about the fire. The last supplies of the sledge, a
+little biscuit and some hot tea, gave them some comfort. Hatteras did
+not speak; every one respected his silence. When the meal was finished
+the doctor made a sign for Johnson to follow him outside.
+
+"Now," he said, "we are going to make an inventory of what is left. We
+must know exactly what things we have; they are scattered all about;
+we must pick them up; it may snow at any moment, and then it would be
+impossible to find a scrap."
+
+"Don't let us lose any time, then," answered Johnson; "food and wood
+is what we need at once."
+
+"Well, let us each take a side," answered the doctor, "so as to cover
+the whole ground; let us begin at the centre and go out to the
+circumference."
+
+They went at once to the bed of ice where the _Forward_ had lain; each
+examined with care all the fragments of the ship beneath the dim light
+of the moon. It was a genuine hunt; the doctor entered into this
+occupation with all the zest, not to say the pleasure, of a sportsman,
+and his heart beat high when he discovered a chest almost intact; but
+most were empty, and their fragments were scattered everywhere.
+
+The violence of the explosion had been considerable; many things were
+but dust and ashes; the large pieces of the engine lay here and there,
+twisted out of shape; the broken flanges of the screw were hurled
+twenty fathoms from the ship and buried deeply in the hardened snow;
+the bent cylinders had been torn from their pivots; the chimney, torn
+nearly in two, and with chains still hanging to it, lay half hid under
+a large cake of ice; the bolts, bars, the iron-work of the helm, the
+sheathing, all the metal-work of the ship, lay about as if it had been
+fired from a gun.
+
+[Illustration: "The large pieces of the engine lay here and there,
+twisted out of shape."]
+
+But this iron, which would have made the fortune of a tribe of
+Esquimaux, was of no use under the circumstances; before anything else
+food had to be found, and the doctor did not discover a great deal.
+
+"That's bad," he said to himself; "it is evident that the store-room,
+which was near the magazine, was entirely destroyed by the explosion;
+what wasn't burned was shattered to dust. It's serious; and if Johnson
+is not luckier than I am, I don't see what's going to become of us."
+
+Still, as he enlarged his circles, the doctor managed to collect a few
+fragments of pemmican, about fifteen pounds, and four stone bottles,
+which had been thrown out upon the snow and so had escaped
+destruction; they held five or six pints of brandy.
+
+Farther on he picked up two packets of grains of cochlearia, which
+would well make up for the loss of their lime-juice, which is so
+useful against the scurvy.
+
+Two hours later the doctor and Johnson met. They told one another of
+their discoveries; unfortunately they had found but little to eat:
+some few pieces of salt pork, fifty pounds of pemmican, three sacks of
+biscuit, a little chocolate, some brandy, and about two pounds of
+coffee, picked up berry by berry on the ice.
+
+No coverings, no hammocks, no clothing, were found; evidently the fire
+had destroyed all. In short, the doctor and boatswain had found
+supplies for three weeks at the outside, and with the strictest
+economy; that was not much for them in their state of exhaustion. So,
+in consequence of these disasters, Hatteras found himself not only
+without any coal, but also short of provisions.
+
+As to the fuel supplied by the fragments of the ship, the pieces of
+the masts and the keel, they might hold out about three weeks; but
+then the doctor, before using it to heat their new dwelling, asked
+Johnson whether out of it they might not build a new ship, or at least
+a launch.
+
+"No, Doctor," answered the boatswain, "it's impossible; there's not a
+piece of wood large enough; it's good for nothing except to keep us
+warm for a few days and then--"
+
+"Then?" asked the doctor.
+
+"God alone knows," answered the sailor.
+
+Having made out their list, the doctor and Johnson went after the
+sledge; they harnessed the tired dogs, returned to the scene of the
+explosion, packed up the few precious objects they had found, and
+carried them to their new house; then, half frozen, they took their
+place near their companions in misfortune.
+
+[Illustration: "They harnessed the tired dogs."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+ALTAMONT'S FIRST WORDS.
+
+
+Towards eight o'clock in the evening the snow-clouds cleared away for
+a few minutes; the constellations shone brilliantly in the clear air.
+Hatteras made use of this change to get the altitude of some stars; he
+went out without saying a word, carrying his instruments with him. He
+wished to ascertain his position and see if the ice-field had not been
+drifting again. After an absence of half an hour he came back, lay
+down in a corner, and remained perfectly still, although not asleep.
+
+The next day snow began to fall heavily; the doctor could not help
+being glad that he had made his examination the day before, for a
+white curtain soon covered the whole expanse, and every trace of the
+explosion was hidden under three feet of snow.
+
+On that day they could not set foot outside; fortunately their
+quarters were comfortable, or at least seemed so to the exhausted
+travellers. The little stove worked well, except occasionally when
+violent gusts drove the smoke into the room; with its heat they could
+make coffee and tea, which are both so serviceable beverages when the
+temperature is low.
+
+The castaways, for they deserve the name, found themselves more
+comfortable than they had been for a long time; hence they only
+thought of the present, of the agreeable warmth, of the brief rest,
+forgetting, or even indifferent to the future, which threatened with
+speedy death.
+
+The American suffered less, and gradually returned to life; he opened
+his eyes, but he did not say anything; his lips bore traces of the
+scurvy, and could not utter a sound; he could hear, and was told where
+he was and how he got there. He moved his head as a sign of gratitude;
+he saw that he had been saved from burial beneath the snow; the doctor
+forbore telling him how very short a time his death had been delayed,
+for, in a fortnight or three weeks at the most, their supply of food
+would be exhausted.
+
+Towards midday Hatteras arose and went up to the doctor, Johnson, and
+Bell.
+
+"My friends," he said to them, "we are going to take a final
+resolution as to the course we must follow. In the first place, I must
+ask Johnson to tell me under what circumstances this act of treachery
+came to pass."
+
+"Why should we know?" said the doctor; "the fact is certain, we need
+give it no more thought."
+
+"I am thinking of it, all the same," answered Hatteras. "But after
+I've heard what Johnson has to say, I shall not think of it again."
+
+[Illustration: Johnson's Story.]
+
+"This is the way it happened," went on the boatswain; "I did all I
+could to prevent the crime--"
+
+"I am sure of that, Johnson, and I will add that the leaders had been
+plotting it for some time."
+
+"So I thought," said the doctor.
+
+"And I too," continued Johnson; "for very soon after your departure,
+Captain, on the very next day, Shandon, who was angry with you and was
+egged on by the others, took command of the ship; I tried to resist,
+but in vain. After that, every one acted as he saw fit; Shandon did
+not try to control them; he wanted to let the crew see that the time
+of suffering and privation had gone by. Hence there was no economy; a
+huge fire was lighted in the stove; they began to burn the brig. The
+men had the provisions given them freely, and the spirits too, and you
+can easily imagine the abuse they made of them after their long
+abstinence. Things went on in this way from the 7th to the 15th of
+January."
+
+"So," said Hatteras, in a grave voice, "it was Shandon who incited the
+men to revolt?"
+
+"Yes, Captain."
+
+"Say nothing more about him. Go on, Johnson."
+
+"It was towards January 24th or 25th, that the plan of leaving the
+ship was formed. They determined to reach the western coast of
+Baffin's Bay; from there, in the launch, they could meet whalers, or,
+perhaps, the settlements on the eastern side. Their supplies were
+abundant; the sick grew better with the hope of reaching home. So they
+made their plans for leaving; they built a sledge for the transport of
+their food, fuel, and the launch; the men were to drag it themselves.
+This occupied them until February 15th. I kept anxiously awaiting your
+return, Captain, and yet I feared having you present; you would have
+had no influence over the crew, who would rather have killed you than
+have remained on board. They were wild with the hope of escape. I took
+all my companions aside and spoke to them, I besought them to stay; I
+pointed out all the dangers of such a journey, as well as the
+cowardliness of abandoning you. I could get nothing, even from the
+best. They chose February 22d for leaving. Shandon was impatient. They
+heaped upon the sledge all the food and liquor it could hold; they
+took a great deal of wood; the whole larboard side had been cut away
+to the water-line. The last day they passed carousing; they ravaged
+and stole everything, and it was during this drunkenness that Pen and
+two or three others set fire to the ship. I resisted, and struggled
+against them; they threw me down and struck me; at last, these
+villains, with Shandon at their head, fled to the east, and
+disappeared from my sight. I remained alone; what could I do against
+this fire which was seizing the whole ship? The water-hole was frozen
+over; I hadn't a drop of water. For two days the _Forward_ was wrapped
+in flames, and you know the rest."
+
+Having finished this account, a long silence prevailed in this
+ice-house; the gloomy tale of the burning of the ship, the loss of
+their precious brig, appeared so vividly before the minds of the
+castaways; they found themselves before an impossibility, and that was
+a return to England. They did not dare to look at one another, for
+fear of seeing on each other's faces blank despair. There was nothing
+to be heard save the hasty breathing of the American.
+
+At last Hatteras spoke.
+
+"Johnson," said he, "I thank you; you have done all you could to save
+my ship. But you could not do anything alone. Again I thank you, and
+now don't let us speak again of this misfortune. Let us unite our
+efforts for the common safety. There are four of us here, four
+friends, and the life of one is of no more worth than the life of
+another. Let each one give his opinion on what should be done."
+
+"Ask us, Hatteras," answered the doctor; "we are all devoted to you,
+our answers shall be sincere. And, in the first place, have you any
+plan?"
+
+"I can't have any alone," said Hatteras, sadly. "My opinion might seem
+interested; I want to hear your opinion first."
+
+"Captain," said Johnson, "before speaking on such weighty matters, I
+have an important question to ask you."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"You ascertained our position yesterday; well, has the ice-field
+drifted any more, or are we in just the same place?"
+
+"It has not stirred," answered Hatteras. "The latitude before we left
+was 80 degrees 15 minutes, and longitude 97 degrees 35 minutes."
+
+"And," said Johnson, "how far are we from the nearest sea to the
+west?"
+
+"About six hundred miles," answered Hatteras.
+
+"And this water is--"
+
+"Smith's Sound."
+
+"The same which we could not cross last April?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"Well, Captain, now we know where we are, and we can make up our minds
+accordingly."
+
+"Speak, then," said Hatteras, letting his head sink into his hands.
+
+In that way he could hear his friends without looking at them.
+
+"Well, Bell," said the doctor, "what do you think is the best course
+to follow?"
+
+"It isn't necessary to reflect a long time," answered the carpenter;
+"we ought to return, without wasting a day or an hour, either to the
+south or the west, and reach the nearest coast, even if it took us two
+months!"
+
+"We have supplies for only three weeks," answered Hatteras, without
+raising his head.
+
+"Well," continued Johnson, "we must make that distance in three weeks,
+since it's our only chance of safety; if we have to crawl on our knees
+at the end, we must leave, and arrive in twenty-five days."
+
+"This part of the northern continent is not known," answered Hatteras.
+"We may meet obstacles, such as mountains and glaciers, which will
+completely bar our progress."
+
+"I don't consider that," answered the doctor, "a sufficient reason for
+not attempting the journey; evidently, we shall suffer a great deal;
+we ought to reduce our daily supply to the minimum, unless luck in
+hunting--"
+
+"There's only half a pound of powder left," answered Hatteras.
+
+"Come, Hatteras," resumed the doctor, "I know the weight of all your
+objections, and I don't nourish any vain hopes. But I think I can read
+your thoughts; have you any practicable plan?"
+
+"No," answered the captain, after a few moments' hesitation.
+
+"You do not doubt our courage," continued the doctor; "we are willing
+to follow you to the last, you know very well; but should we not now
+abandon all hope of reaching the Pole? Mutiny has overthrown your
+plans; you fought successfully against natural obstacles, but not
+against the weakness and perfidy of men; you have done all that was
+humanly possible, and I am sure you would have succeeded; but, in the
+present condition of affairs, are you not compelled to give up your
+project, and in order to take it up again, should you not try to reach
+England without delay?"
+
+"Well, Captain?" asked Johnson, when Hatteras had remained a long time
+silent.
+
+At last the captain raised his head, and said in a constrained tone,--
+
+"Do you think you are sure of reaching the shore of the sound, tired
+as you are, and almost without food?"
+
+"No," answered the doctor; "but it's sure the shore won't come to us;
+we must go to it. Perhaps we shall find to the south tribes of
+Esquimaux who may aid us."
+
+"Besides," added Johnson, "may we not find in the sound some ship that
+has been forced to winter there."
+
+"And if need be," continued the doctor, "when we've reached the sound,
+may we not cross it, and reach the west coast of Greenland, and then,
+either by Prudhoe's Land, or Cape York, get to some Danish settlement?
+Nothing of that sort is to be found on the ice-field. The way to
+England is down there to the south, and not here to the north!"
+
+"Yes," said Bell, "Dr. Clawbonny is right; we must go, and go at once.
+Hitherto we have forgotten home too much, and those who are dear to
+us."
+
+"Do you agree, Johnson?" Hatteras asked again.
+
+"Yes, Captain."
+
+"And you, Doctor?"
+
+"Yes, Hatteras."
+
+Hatteras still remained silent; in spite of all he could do, his face
+expressed his agitation. His whole life depended on the decision he
+should take; if he should return, it was all over with his bold plans;
+he could not hope to make the attempt a fourth time.
+
+The doctor, seeing the captain was silent, again spoke.
+
+"I ought to add, Hatteras," he said, "that we ought not to lose an
+instant; we ought to load the sledge with all our provisions, and take
+as much wood as possible. A journey of six hundred miles under such
+circumstances is long, I confess, but not insuperable; we can, or
+rather we ought, to make twenty miles a day, which would bring us to
+the coast in a month, that is to say, towards March 26th."
+
+"But," said Hatteras, "can't we wait a few days?"
+
+"What do you hope for?" answered Johnson.
+
+"I don't know. Who can foretell the future? Only a few days yet! It's
+hardly enough to rest your wearied bodies. We couldn't go two stages
+without dropping from weariness, without any snow-house to shelter
+us!"
+
+"But a terrible death certainly awaits us here!" cried Bell.
+
+"My friends," continued Hatteras in a tone almost of entreaty, "you
+are despairing too soon! I should propose to seek safety to the north,
+were it not that you would refuse to follow me. And yet are there not
+Esquimaux near the Pole, as well as at Smith's Sound? That open sea,
+of which the existence is uncertain, ought to surround a continent.
+Nature is logical in everything it does. Well, we ought to believe
+that vegetation appears when the greatest cold ceases. Is there not a
+promised land awaiting us at the north, and which you want to fly from
+without hope of return?"
+
+Hatteras warmed as he spoke; his heated imagination called up
+enchanting visions of these countries, whose existence was still so
+problematical.
+
+"One more day," he repeated, "a single hour!"
+
+Dr. Clawbonny, with his adventurous character and his glowing
+imagination, felt himself gradually aroused; he was about to yield;
+but Johnson, wiser and colder, recalled him to reason and duty.
+
+"Come, Bell," he said, "to the sledge!"
+
+"Come along!" answered Bell.
+
+The two sailors turned towards the door of the snow-house.
+
+"O Johnson! you! you!" shouted Hatteras. "Well, go! I shall stay!"
+
+"Captain!" said Johnson, stopping in spite of himself.
+
+"I shall stay, I say! Go! leave me like the rest! Go!--Come, Duke, we
+two shall stay!"
+
+The brave dog joined his master, barking. Johnson looked at the
+doctor. He did not know what to do; the best plan was to calm
+Hatteras, and to sacrifice a day to his fancies. The doctor was about
+making up his mind to this effect, when he felt some one touch his
+arm.
+
+He turned round. The American had just left the place where he had
+been lying; he was crawling on the floor; at last he rose to his
+knees, and from his swollen lips a few inarticulate sounds issued.
+
+The doctor, astonished, almost frightened, gazed at him silently.
+Hatteras approached the American, and examined him closely. He tried
+to make out the words which the poor fellow could not pronounce. At
+last, after trying for five minutes, he managed to utter this word:--
+
+"_Porpoise_."
+
+"The _Porpoise_?" asked the captain.
+
+The American bowed affirmatively.
+
+"In these seas?" asked Hatteras with beating heart.
+
+The same sign from the sick man.
+
+"To the north?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you know where it lies?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Exactly?"
+
+There was a moment's silence. The bystanders were all excited.
+
+"Now, listen carefully," said Hatteras to the sick man; "we must know
+where this ship lies. I am going to count the degrees aloud; you will
+stop me by a sign."
+
+The American bowed his head to show that he understood.
+
+"Come," said Hatteras, "we'll begin with the longitude. One hundred
+and five? No.--Hundred and six? Hundred and seven? Hundred and eight?
+Far to the west?"
+
+"Yes," said the American.
+
+"Let us go on. Hundred and nine? Ten? Eleven? Twelve? Fourteen?
+Sixteen? Eighteen? Nineteen? Twenty?"
+
+"Yes," answered Altamont.
+
+"Longitude one hundred and twenty?" said Hatteras. "And how many
+minutes? I shall count."
+
+Hatteras began at number one. At fifteen Altamont made a sign for him
+to stop.
+
+"All right!" said Hatteras. "Now for the latitude. You understand?
+Eighty? Eighty-one? Eighty-two? Eighty-three?"
+
+The American stopped him with a gesture.
+
+"Well! And the minutes? Five? Ten? Fifteen? Twenty? Twenty-five?
+Thirty? Thirty-five?"
+
+Another sign from Altamont, who smiled slightly.
+
+"So," continued Hatteras, in a deep voice, "the _Porpoise_ lies in
+longitude 120 degrees 15 minutes, and 83 degrees 35 minutes latitude?"
+
+"Yes!" said the American, as he fell fainting into the doctor's arms.
+This exertion had exhausted him.
+
+[Illustration: "'Yes!' said the American."]
+
+"My friends," cried Hatteras, "you see that safety lies to the north,
+always to the north! We shall be saved!"
+
+But after these first words of joy, Hatteras seemed suddenly struck by
+a terrible thought. His expression changed, and he felt himself stung
+by the serpent of jealousy.
+
+Some one else, an American, had got three degrees nearer the Pole! And
+for what purpose?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+SEVENTEEN DAYS OF LAND JOURNEY.
+
+
+This new incident, these first words which Altamont uttered, had
+completely altered the situation of the castaways; but just now they
+had been far from any possible aid, without a reasonable chance of
+reaching Baffin's Bay, threatened with starvation on a journey too
+long for their wearied bodies, and now, within four hundred miles from
+their snow-house, there was a ship which offered them bounteous
+supplies, and perhaps the means of continuing their bold course to the
+Pole. Hatteras, the doctor, Johnson, and Bell, all began to take heart
+after having been so near despair; they were nearly wild with joy.
+
+But Altamont's account was still incomplete, and, after a few moments'
+repose, the doctor resumed his talk with him; he framed his questions
+in such a way that a simple sign of the head or a motion of the eyes
+would suffice for an answer.
+
+Soon he made out that the _Porpoise_ was an American bark from New
+York, that it had been caught in the ice with a large supply of food
+and fuel; and, although she lay on her beam-ends, she must have
+withstood the ice, and it would be possible to save her cargo.
+
+Two months before, Altamont and the crew had abandoned her, carrying
+the launch upon a sledge; they wanted to get to Smith's Sound, find a
+whaling-vessel, and be carried in her to America; but gradually
+fatigue and disease had fallen upon them, and they fell aside on the
+way. At last only the captain and two sailors were left of a crew of
+thirty men, and Altamont's life was the result of what was really a
+miracle.
+
+Hatteras wanted to find out from the American what he was doing in
+these high latitudes.
+
+Altamont managed to make him understand that he had been caught in the
+ice and carried by it without possibility of resisting it.
+
+Hatteras asked him anxiously for what purpose he was sailing.
+
+Altamont gave them to understand that he had been trying the Northwest
+Passage.
+
+Hatteras did not persist, and asked no other question of the sort.
+
+The doctor then began to speak.
+
+"Now," he said, "all our efforts should be directed to finding the
+_Porpoise_; instead of struggling to Baffin's Bay, we may, by means of
+a journey only two thirds as long, reach a ship which will offer us
+all the resources necessary for wintering."
+
+"There's nothing more to be done," said Bell.
+
+"I should add," said the boatswain, "that we should not lose a moment;
+we should calculate the length of our journey by the amount of our
+supplies, instead of the other and usual way, and be off as soon as
+possible."
+
+"You are right, Johnson," said the doctor; "if we leave to-morrow,
+Tuesday, February 26th, we ought to reach the _Porpoise_ March 15th,
+at the risk of starving to death. What do you think of that,
+Hatteras?"
+
+"Let us make our preparations at once," said the captain, "and be off.
+Perhaps we shall find the way longer than we suppose."
+
+"Why so?" asked the doctor. "This man seemed certain of the situation
+of his ship."
+
+"But," answered Hatteras, "supposing the _Porpoise_ has been drifting
+as the _Forward_ did?"
+
+"True," said the doctor, "that's not unlikely."
+
+Johnson and Bell had nothing to urge against the possibility of a
+drift of which they had themselves been victims.
+
+But Altamont, who was listening to the conversation, gave the doctor
+to understand that he wished to speak. After an effort of about a
+quarter of an hour, Clawbonny made out that the _Porpoise_ was lying
+on a bed of rocks, and so could not have drifted away. This
+information calmed the anxiety of the Englishmen; still it deprived
+them of their hope of returning to Europe, unless Bell should be able
+to build a small boat out of the timbers of the _Porpoise_. However
+that might be, it was now of the utmost importance that they should
+reach the wreck.
+
+The doctor put one more question to the American, namely, whether he
+had found an open sea at latitude 83 degrees.
+
+"No," answered Altamont.
+
+There the conversation stopped. They began at once to prepare for
+departure; Bell and Johnson first began to see about the sledge, which
+needed complete repairing. Since they had plenty of wood, they made
+the uprights stronger, availing themselves of the experience of their
+southern trip. They had learned the dangers of this mode of transport,
+and since they expected to find plenty of deep snow, the runners were
+made higher.
+
+On the inside Bell made a sort of bed, covered with the canvas of the
+tent, for the American; the provisions, which were unfortunately
+scanty, would not materially augment the weight of the sledge, but
+still they made up for that by loading it with all the wood it could
+carry.
+
+The doctor, as he packed all the provisions, made out a very careful
+list of their amount; he calculated that each man could have three
+quarters of a ration for a journey of three weeks. A whole ration was
+set aside for the four dogs which should draw it. If Duke aided them,
+he was to have a whole ration.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+These preparations were interrupted by the need of sleep and rest,
+which they felt at seven o'clock in the evening; but before going to
+bed they gathered around the stove, which was well filled with fuel,
+and these poor men luxuriated in more warmth than they had enjoyed for
+a long time; some pemmican, a few biscuits, and several cups of coffee
+soon put them in good-humor, especially when their hopes had been so
+unexpectedly lighted up. At seven in the morning they resumed work,
+and finished it at three in the afternoon. It was already growing
+dark. Since January 31st the sun had appeared above the horizon, but
+it gave only a pale and brief light; fortunately the moon would rise
+at half past six, and with this clear sky it would make their path
+plain. The temperature, which had been growing lower for several days,
+fell at last to -33 degrees.
+
+The time for leaving came. Altamont received the order with joy,
+although the jolting of the sledge would increase his sufferings; he
+told the doctor that medicine against the scurvy would be found on
+board of the _Porpoise_. He was carried to the sledge and placed there
+as comfortably as possible; the dogs, including Duke, were harnessed
+in; the travellers cast one last glance at the spot where the
+_Forward_ had lain. A glow of rage passed over Hatteras's face, but he
+controlled it at once, and the little band set out with the air very
+dry at first, although soon a mist came over them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Each one took his accustomed place, Bell ahead pointing out the way,
+the doctor and Johnson by the sides of the sledge, watching and
+lending their aid when it was necessary, and Hatteras behind,
+correcting the line of march.
+
+They went along tolerably quickly; now that the temperature was so
+low, the ice was hard and smooth for travel; the five dogs easily drew
+the sledge, which weighed hardly more than nine hundred pounds. Still,
+men and beasts panted heavily, and often they had to stop to take
+breath.
+
+Towards seven o'clock in the evening, the moon peered through mist on
+the horizon. Its rays threw out a light which was reflected from the
+ice; towards the northwest the ice-field looked like a perfectly
+smooth plain; not a hummock was to be seen. This part of the sea
+seemed to have frozen smooth like a lake.
+
+It was an immense, monotonous desert.
+
+Such was the impression that this spectacle made on the doctor's mind,
+and he spoke of it to his companion.
+
+"You are right, Doctor," answered Johnson; "it is a desert, but we
+need not fear dying of thirst."
+
+"A decided advantage," continued the doctor; "still, this immensity
+proves one thing to me, and that is that we are far distant from any
+land; in general, the proximity of land is indicated by a number of
+icebergs, and not one is to be seen near us."
+
+"We can't see very far for the fog," said Johnson.
+
+"Without doubt; but since we started we have crossed a smooth field of
+which we cannot see the end."
+
+"Do you know, Doctor, it's a dangerous walk we are taking! We get used
+to it and don't think of it, but we are walking over fathomless
+depths."
+
+"You are right, my friend, but we need not fear being swallowed; with
+such cold as this the ice is very strong. Besides, it has a constant
+tendency to get thicker, for snow falls nine days out of ten, even in
+April, May, and June, and I fancy it must be something like thirty or
+forty feet thick."
+
+"That is a comfort," said Johnson.
+
+"In fact, we are very much better off than those who skate on the
+Serpentine, and who are in constant dread of falling through; we have
+no such fear."
+
+"Has the resistance of ice been calculated?" asked the old sailor, who
+was always seeking information from the doctor.
+
+"Yes," the latter answered: "everything almost that can be measured is
+now known, except human ambition! and is it not that which is carrying
+us towards the North Pole? But to return to your question, my answer
+is this. Ice two inches thick will bear a man; three and a half inches
+thick, a horse and rider; five inches thick, an eight-pound cannon;
+eight inches, a fully harnessed artillery-piece; and ten inches, an
+army, any number of men! Where we are now, the Liverpool Custom House
+or the Halls of Parliament in London could be built."
+
+"One can hardly imagine such strength," said Johnson; "but just now,
+Doctor, you spoke of snow falling nine days out of ten; that is true,
+but where does all the snow come from? The sea is all frozen, and I
+don't see how the vapor can rise to form the clouds."
+
+"A very keen observation, Johnson; but, in my opinion, the greatest
+part of the snow or rain which we receive in the polar regions is
+formed from the water of the seas in the temperate zones. One flake
+arose into the air under the form of vapor from some river in Europe,
+it helped make a cloud, and finally came here to be condensed; it is
+not impossible that we who drink it may be quenching our thirst at the
+rivers of our own country."
+
+"That is true," answered Johnson.
+
+At that moment Hatteras's voice was heard directing their steps and
+interrupting their conversation. The fog was growing thicker, and
+making a straight line hard to follow.
+
+Finally the little band halted at about eight o'clock in the evening,
+after walking nearly fifteen miles; the weather was dry; the tent was
+raised, the fire lighted, supper cooked, and all rested peacefully.
+
+Hatteras and his companions were really favored by the weather. The
+following days brought no new difficulties, although the cold became
+extremely severe and the mercury remained frozen in the thermometer.
+If the wind had risen, no one could have withstood the temperature.
+The doctor was able to corroborate Parry's observations, which he made
+during his journey to Melville Island; he said that a man comfortably
+dressed could walk safely in the open air exposed to great cold, if
+the air were only calm; but as soon as the slightest wind arose, a
+sharp pain was felt in the face, and an extreme headache which is soon
+followed by death. The doctor was very anxious, for a slight wind
+would have frozen the marrow in their bones.
+
+March 5th he observed a phenomenon peculiar to these latitudes: the
+sky was clear and thick with stars, and thick snow began to fall
+without any cloud being visible; the constellations shone through the
+flakes which fell regularly on the ice-field. This went on for about
+two hours, and stopped before the doctor had found a satisfactory
+explanation of its fall.
+
+The last quarter of the moon had then disappeared; total darkness
+reigned for seventeen hours out of the twenty-four; the travellers had
+to tie themselves together by a long cord, to avoid being separated;
+it was almost impossible for them to go in a straight line.
+
+Still, these bold men, although animated by an iron will, began to
+grow weary; their halts were more frequent, and yet they ought not to
+lose an hour, for their supplies were rapidly diminishing. Hatteras
+would often ascertain their position by observation of the moon and
+stars. As he saw the days pass by and the destination appear as remote
+as before, he would ask himself sometimes if the _Porpoise_ really
+existed, whether the American's brain might not have been deranged by
+his sufferings, or whether, through hate of the English, and seeing
+himself without resources, he did not wish to drag them with him to
+certain death.
+
+He expressed his fears to the doctor, who discouraged them greatly,
+but he readily understood the lamentable rivalry which existed between
+the American and English captains.
+
+"They are two men whom it will be hard to make agree," he said to
+himself.
+
+March 14th, after journeying for sixteen days, they had only reached
+latitude 82 degrees; their strength was exhausted, and they were still
+a hundred miles from the ship; to add to their sufferings, they had to
+bring the men down to a quarter-ration, in order to give the dogs
+their full supply.
+
+They could not depend on their shooting for food, for they had left
+only seven charges of powder and six balls; they had in vain fired at
+some white hares and foxes, which besides were very rare. None had
+been hit.
+
+Nevertheless, on the 18th, the doctor was fortunate enough to find a
+seal lying on the ice; he wounded him with several balls; the animal,
+not being able to escape through his hole in the ice, was soon slain.
+He was of very good size. Johnson cut him up skilfully, but he was so
+very thin that he was of but little use to the men, who could not make
+up their minds to drink his oil, like the Esquimaux. Still the doctor
+boldly tried to drink the slimy fluid, but he could not do it. He
+preserved the skin of the animal, for no special reason, by a sort of
+hunter's instinct, and placed it on the sledge.
+
+[Illustration: "The doctor was fortunate enough to find a seal."]
+
+The next day, the 16th, they saw a few icebergs on the horizon. Was it
+a sign of a neighboring shore, or simply a disturbance of the ice? It
+was hard to say.
+
+When they had reached one of these hummocks, they dug in it with a
+snow-knife a more comfortable retreat than that afforded by the tent,
+and after three hours of exertion they were able to rest about their
+glowing stove.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+THE LAST CHARGE OF POWDER.
+
+
+Johnson had admitted the tired dogs into the snow-house; when the snow
+is falling heavily it serves as a covering to the animals, preserving
+their natural heat. But in the open air, with a temperature of -40
+degrees, they would soon have frozen to death.
+
+Johnson, who made an excellent dog-driver, tried feeding the dogs with
+the dark flesh of the seals which the travellers could not swallow,
+and to his great surprise they made a rich feast out of it; the old
+sailor in his delight told the doctor. He, however, was not in the
+least surprised; he knew that in the north of America the horses make
+fish their main article of food, and what a herbivorous horse could
+content himself with would certainly satisfy an omnivorous dog.
+
+Before going to rest, although sleep became an imperious necessity for
+men who had walked fifteen miles on the ice, the doctor wished to have
+a few serious words with his companions about the dangers of their
+situation.
+
+"We are only at latitude 82 degrees," he said, "and our supplies are
+already running short."
+
+"A reason for losing no time," answered Hatteras; "we must push on;
+the strong can draw the feeble."
+
+"Shall we find a ship when we get there?" asked Bell, who was much
+depressed by the fatigue of the journey.
+
+"Why doubt it?" said Johnson; "the American's safety depends on ours."
+
+To make sure, the doctor was anxious to question Altamont again. He
+could speak easily, although his voice was weak; he confirmed all the
+statements he had already made; he repeated that the ship was aground
+on some granite rocks, where it could not stir, and that it lay in
+longitude 120 degrees 15 minutes, and latitude 83 degrees 35 minutes.
+
+"We can't doubt this statement," resumed the doctor; "the difficulty
+is not whether the _Porpoise_ is there, but the way of getting to
+her."
+
+"How much food have we left?" asked Hatteras.
+
+"Enough for three days at the outside," answered the doctor.
+
+"Well, we must get to her in three days," said the captain, firmly.
+
+"We must indeed," continued the doctor, "and if we succeed we shall
+have no need to complain, for we shall have been favored by faultless
+weather; the snow has given us a fortnight's respite, and the sledge
+has glided easily on the hardened ice! Ah, if it only carried two
+hundred pounds of food! Our dogs could have managed it easily enough.
+But still we can't help it!"
+
+"With luck and skill," said Johnson, "we might put to some use the few
+charges of powder which are left us. If we should kill a bear we
+should be supplied for all the rest of the journey."
+
+"Without doubt," answered the doctor, "but these animals are rare and
+shy; and then, when one thinks of the importance of a shot, his hand
+will shake and his aim be lost."
+
+"But you are a good shot," answered Bell.
+
+"Yes, when four men's dinners do not depend on my hitting; still, I
+will do my best if I get a chance. Meanwhile let us try to satisfy
+ourselves with this thin soup of scraps of pemmican, then go to sleep,
+and to-morrow early we'll start forth again."
+
+A few moments later excessive fatigue outweighed every other feeling,
+and they all sank into a heavy sleep. Early on Saturday Johnson awoke
+his companions; the dogs were harnessed to the sledge, and they took
+up again their journey northward.
+
+The heavens were magnificent, the air was very clear, the temperature
+very low; when the sun appeared above the horizon it appeared like an
+elongated ellipse; its horizontal diameter appeared, in consequence of
+refraction, to be double its vertical diameter. It sent forth its
+clear, cold rays over the vast icy plain. This return to light, if not
+to heat, rejoiced them all.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The doctor, gun in hand, walked off for a mile or two, braving the
+cold and solitude; before going he measured the supply carefully; only
+four charges of powder were left, and three balls; that was a small
+supply when one remembers that a strong animal like the polar bear
+often falls only after receiving ten or twelve shots. Hence the doctor
+did not go in search of so fierce game; a few hares or two or three
+foxes would have satisfied him and given him plenty of provisions. But
+during that day, if he saw one, or could not approach one, or if he
+were deceived by refraction, he would lose his shot; and this day, as
+it was, cost him a charge of powder and a ball. His companions, who
+trembled with hope at the report of his gun, saw him returning with
+downcast looks; they did not say anything; that evening they went to
+sleep as usual, after putting aside two quarter-rations reserved for
+the two following days. The next day their journey seemed more
+laborious; they hardly walked, they rather dragged along; the dogs had
+eaten even the entrails of the seal, and they were beginning to gnaw
+their harness.
+
+A few foxes passed at some distance from the sledge, and the doctor,
+having missed another shot as he chased them, did not dare to risk his
+last ball and his last charge save one of powder.
+
+That evening they halted early, unable to set one foot before the
+other, and, although their way was lighted by a brilliant aurora, they
+could not go on. This last meal, eaten Sunday evening under their icy
+tent, was very melancholy. If Heaven did not come to their aid, they
+were lost. Hatteras did not speak, Bell did not even think, Johnson
+reflected in silence, but the doctor did not yet despair.
+
+Johnson thought of setting some traps that night; but since he had no
+bait, he had very little hope of success, and in the morning he found,
+as he expected, that, although a great many foxes had left their marks
+around, yet not one had been caught. He was returning much
+disappointed, when he saw an enormous bear sniffing the air at about
+thirty yards from the sledge. The old sailor thought Providence had
+sent this animal to him to be slain; without awakening his companions
+he seized the doctor's gun and made his way towards the bear.
+
+Having got quite near he took aim, but just as he was about to pull
+the trigger he felt his arm trembling; his large fur gloves were in
+his way; he took them off quickly, and seized his gun with a firmer
+hand. Suddenly, a cry of pain escaped him; the skin of his fingers,
+burned by the cold of the gun-barrel, remained clinging to it, while
+the gun fell to the ground, and went off from the shock, sending the
+last ball off into space. At the sound of the report the doctor ran;
+he understood everything at a glance; he saw the animal trot quickly
+away; Johnson was in despair, and thought no more of the pain.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"I'm as tender as a baby," he cried, "not to be able to endure that
+pain! And an old man like me!"
+
+"Come back, Johnson," the doctor said to him, "you'll get frozen; see,
+your hands are white already; come back, come!"
+
+"I don't deserve your attentions, Doctor," answered the boatswain;
+"leave me!"
+
+"Come along, you obstinate fellow! Come along! It will soon be too
+late!"
+
+And the doctor, dragging the old sailor under the tent, made him
+plunge his hands into a bowl of water, which the heat of the stove had
+kept liquid, although it was not much above the freezing-point; but
+Johnson's hands had no sooner touched it than it froze at once.
+
+"You see," said the doctor, "it was time to come back, otherwise I
+should have had to amputate your hands."
+
+Thanks to his cares, all danger was gone in an hour; but it was no
+easy task, and constant friction was necessary to recall the
+circulation into the old sailor's fingers. The doctor urged him to
+keep his hands away from the stove, the heat of which might produce
+serious results.
+
+That morning they had to go without breakfast; of the pemmican and the
+salt meat nothing was left. There was not a crumb of biscuit, and only
+half a pound of coffee. They had to content themselves with drinking
+this hot, and then they set out.
+
+"There's nothing more!" said Bell to Johnson, in a despairing accent.
+
+"Let us trust in God," said the old sailor; "he is able to preserve
+us!"
+
+"This Captain Hatteras!" continued Bell; "he was able to return from
+his first expeditions, but he'll never get back from this one, and we
+shall never see home again!"
+
+"Courage, Bell! I confess that the captain is almost foolhardy, but
+there is with him a very ingenious man."
+
+"Dr. Clawbonny?" said Bell.
+
+"Yes," answered Johnson.
+
+"What can he do in such circumstances?" retorted Bell, shrugging his
+shoulders. "Can he change these pieces of ice into pieces of meat? Is
+he a god, who can work by miracles?"
+
+"Who can say?" the boatswain answered his companion's doubts; "I trust
+in him."
+
+Bell shook his head, and fell into a silent apathy, in which he even
+ceased to think.
+
+That day they made hardly three miles; at evening they had nothing to
+eat; the dogs threatened to devour one another; the men suffered
+extremely from hunger. Not a single animal was to be seen. If there
+had been one, of what use would it have been? They could not go
+hunting with a knife. Only Johnson thought he recognized a mile to
+leeward the large bear, who was following the ill-fated little party.
+
+"It is spying us!" he said to himself; "it sees a certain prey in us!"
+
+But Johnson said no word to his companions; that evening they made
+their accustomed halt, and their supper consisted only of coffee. They
+felt their eyes growing haggard, their brain growing confused, and,
+tortured by hunger, they could not get an hour's sleep; strange and
+painful dreams took possession of their minds.
+
+At a latitude in which the body imperiously demands refreshment, these
+poor men had not eaten solid food for thirty-six hours, when Tuesday
+morning came. Nevertheless, inspired by superhuman energy, they
+resumed their journey, pushing on the sledge which the dogs were
+unable to draw. At the end of two hours they fell, exhausted. Hatteras
+wanted to push on. He, still strong, besought his companions to rise,
+but they were absolutely unable. Then, with Johnson's assistance, he
+built a resting-place in an iceberg. It seemed as if they were digging
+their own graves.
+
+[Illustration: "At the end of two hours they fell, exhausted."]
+
+"I am willing to die of hunger," said Hatteras, "but not of cold."
+
+After much weariness the house was ready, and they all entered it.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+So that day passed. In that evening, while his companions lay inert,
+Johnson had a sort of hallucination; he dreamed of an immense bear.
+That word, which he kept repeating, attracted the doctor's attention,
+so that he shook himself free from his stupor, and asked the old
+sailor why he kept talking about a bear, and what bear he meant.
+
+"The bear which is following us," answered Johnson.
+
+"The bear which is following us?" repeated the doctor.
+
+"Yes, the last two days."
+
+"The last two days! Have you seen him?"
+
+"Yes, he's a mile to leeward."
+
+"And you didn't tell us, Johnson?"
+
+"What was the use?"
+
+"True," said the doctor; "we have no ball to fire at him."
+
+"Not a slug, a bit of iron, nor a bolt!" said the old sailor.
+
+The doctor was silent, and began to think intently. Soon he said to
+the boatswain,--
+
+"You are sure the bear is following us?"
+
+"Yes, Doctor, he's lying in wait to eat us. He knows we can't escape
+him!"
+
+"Johnson!" said the doctor, touched by the despairing accent of his
+companion.
+
+"His food is sure," continued the poor man, who was beginning to be
+delirious; "he must be half famished, and I don't see why we need keep
+him waiting any longer!"
+
+"Be quiet, Johnson!"
+
+"No, Doctor; if we've got to come to it, why should we prolong the
+animal's sufferings? He's hungry as we are; he has no seal to eat!
+Heaven sends him us men; well, so much the better for him!"
+
+Thereupon Johnson went out of his mind; he wanted to leave the
+snow-house. The doctor had hard work to prevent him, and he only
+succeeded by saying, as if he meant it,--
+
+"To-morrow I shall kill that bear!"
+
+"To-morrow!" said Johnson, as if he had awakened from a bad dream.
+
+"Yes, to-morrow."
+
+"You have no ball!"
+
+"I shall make one."
+
+"You have no lead!"
+
+"No, but I have some quicksilver."
+
+Thereupon the doctor took the thermometer; it marked +50 degrees. He
+went outside, placed the instrument on the ice, and soon returned. The
+outside temperature was -50 degrees. Then he said to the old sailor,--
+
+"Now go to sleep, and wait till to-morrow."
+
+That night they endured the horrors of hunger; only the doctor and the
+boatswain were able to temper them with a little hope. The next
+morning, at dawn, the doctor rushed out, followed by Johnson, and ran
+to the thermometer; all the mercury had sunk into the bulb, in the
+form of a compact cylinder. The doctor broke the instrument, and
+seized in his gloved fingers a piece of very hard metal. It was a real
+bullet.
+
+"Ah, Doctor," shouted the old sailor, "that's a real miracle! You are
+a wonderful man!"
+
+"No, my friend," answered the doctor, "I am only a man with a good
+memory, who has read a good deal."
+
+"Why, what do you mean?"
+
+"I happened to remember something Captain Ross related in the account
+of his voyage: he said he shot through an inch plank with a bullet of
+frozen mercury; if I had any oil it would amount to nearly the same
+thing, for he speaks of a ball of sweet almond, which was fired
+against a post and fell back to the ground unbroken."
+
+"That is hardly credible!"
+
+"But it is true, Johnson; this piece of metal may save our lives; let
+us leave it here in the air before we take it, and go and see whether
+the bear is still following us."
+
+At that moment Hatteras came out of the hut; the doctor showed him the
+bullet, and told him what he thought of doing; the captain pressed his
+hand, and the three went off to inspect. The air was very clear.
+Hatteras, who was ahead of his companions, discovered the bear about a
+half-mile off. The animal, seated on his hind quarters, was busily
+moving his head about, sniffing towards these new arrivals.
+
+"There he is!" shouted the captain.
+
+"Silence!" said the doctor.
+
+But the huge beast did not stir when he saw the hunters. He gazed at
+them without fear or anger. Still, it would be found hard to approach
+him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"My friends," said Hatteras, "we have not come out for sport, but to
+save our lives. Let us act cautiously."
+
+"Yes," answered the doctor; "we can only have one shot, and we must
+not miss; if he were to run away, he would be lost, for he can run
+faster than a hare."
+
+"Well, we must go straight for him," said Johnson; "it is dangerous,
+but what does it matter? I am willing to risk my life."
+
+"No, let me go!" cried the doctor.
+
+"No, I shall go," answered Hatteras, quietly.
+
+"But," said Johnson, "are not you of more use to the others than I
+should be?"
+
+"No, Johnson," answered the captain, "let me go; I shall run no
+needless risk; perhaps, too, I shall call on you to help me."
+
+"Hatteras," asked the doctor, "are you going to walk straight towards
+the bear?"
+
+"If I were sure of hitting him, I would do so, even at the risk of
+having my head torn open, but he would flee at my approach. He is very
+crafty; we must try to be even craftier."
+
+"What do you intend to do?"
+
+"To get within ten feet of him without his suspecting it."
+
+"How are you going to do it?"
+
+"By a simple but dangerous method. You kept, did you not, the skin of
+the seal you shot?"
+
+"Yes, it is on the sledge."
+
+"Well, let us go back to the snow-house, while Johnson stays here on
+watch."
+
+The boatswain crept behind a hummock which hid him entirely from the
+sight of the bear, who stayed in the same place, continually sniffing
+the air.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+THE SEAL AND THE BEAR.
+
+
+Hatteras and the doctor went back to the house.
+
+"You know," said the captain, "that the polar bears chase seals, which
+are their principal food. They watch for days at their
+breathing-holes, and seize them the moment they come upon the ice. So
+a bear will not be afraid of a seal; far from it."
+
+"I understand your plan," said the doctor, "but it's dangerous."
+
+"But there is a chance of success," answered the captain, "and we must
+try it. I am going to put on the sealskin and crawl over the ice. Let
+us lose no time. Load the gun and give it to me."
+
+The doctor had nothing to say; he would himself have done what his
+companion was about to try; he left the house, carrying two axes, one
+for Johnson, the other for himself; then, accompanied by Hatteras, he
+went to the sledge.
+
+There Hatteras put on the sealskin, which very nearly covered him.
+Meanwhile, Hatteras loaded the gun with the last charge of powder, and
+dropped in it the quicksilver bullet, which was as hard as steel and
+as heavy as lead. Then he handed Hatteras the gun, which he hid
+beneath the sealskin. Then he said to the doctor,--
+
+"You go and join Johnson; I shall wait a few moments to puzzle the
+enemy."
+
+"Courage, Hatteras!" said the doctor.
+
+"Don't be uneasy, and above all don't show yourselves before you hear
+my gun."
+
+The doctor soon reached the hummock which concealed Johnson.
+
+"Well?" the latter asked.
+
+"Well, we must wait. Hatteras is doing all this to save us."
+
+The doctor was agitated; he looked at the bear, which had grown
+excited, as if he had become conscious of the danger which threatened
+him. A quarter of an hour later the seal was crawling over the ice; he
+made a circuit of a quarter of a mile to baffle the bear; then he
+found himself within three hundred feet of him. The bear then saw him,
+and settled down as if he were trying to hide. Hatteras imitated
+skilfully the movements of a seal, and if he had not known, the doctor
+would certainly have taken him for one.
+
+"That's true!" whispered Johnson.
+
+The seal, as he approached the bear, did not appear to see him; he
+seemed to be seeking some hole through which to reach the water. The
+bear advanced towards him over the ice with the utmost caution; his
+eager eyes betrayed his excitement; for one or perhaps two months he
+had been fasting, and fortune was now throwing a sure prey before him.
+The seal had come within ten feet of his enemy; the bear hastened
+towards him, made a long leap, and stood stupefied three paces from
+Hatteras, who, casting aside the sealskin, with one knee resting on
+the ground, was aiming at the bear's heart.
+
+The report was sounded, and the bear rolled over on the ice.
+
+"Forward!" shouted the doctor. And, followed by Johnson, he hastened
+to the scene of combat. The huge beast rose, and beat the air with one
+paw while with the other he tore up a handful of snow to stanch the
+wound. Hatteras did not stir, but waited, knife in hand. But his aim
+had been accurate, and his bullet had hit its mark; before the arrival
+of his friends he had plunged his knife into the beast's throat, and
+it fell, never to rise.
+
+[Illustration: "He plunged his knife into the beast's throat."]
+
+"Victory!" shouted Johnson.
+
+"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" cried the doctor.
+
+Hatteras, with folded arms, was gazing calmly at the corpse of his
+foe.
+
+"It's now my turn," said Johnson; "it's very well to have killed it,
+but there is no need of waiting till it's frozen as hard as a stone,
+when teeth and knife will be useless for attacking it."
+
+Johnson began by skinning the bear, which was nearly as large as an
+ox; it was nine feet long and six feet in circumference; two huge
+tusks, three inches long, issued from his mouth. On opening him,
+nothing was found in his stomach but water; the bear had evidently
+eaten nothing for a long time; nevertheless, he was very fat, and he
+weighed more than fifteen hundred pounds; he was divided into four
+quarters, each one of which gave two hundred pounds of meat, and the
+hunters carried this flesh back to the snow-house, without forgetting
+the animal's heart, which went on beating for three hours.
+
+The others wanted to eat the meat raw, but the doctor bade them wait
+until it should be roasted. On entering the house he was struck by the
+great cold within it; he went up to the stove and found the fire out;
+the occupations as well as the excitement of the morning had made
+Johnson forget his customary duty. The doctor tried to rekindle the
+fire, but there was not even a spark lingering amid the cold ashes.
+
+"Well, we must have patience!" he said to himself. He then went to the
+sledge to get some tinder, and asked Johnson for his steel, telling
+him that the fire had gone out. Johnson answered that it was his
+fault, and he put his hand in his pocket, where he usually kept it; he
+was surprised not to find it there. He felt in his other pockets with
+the same success; he went into the snow-house and examined carefully
+the covering under which he had slept in the previous night, but he
+could not find it.
+
+"Well?" shouted the doctor.
+
+Johnson came back, and stared at his companions.
+
+"And haven't you got the steel, Dr. Clawbonny?" he asked.
+
+"No, Johnson."
+
+"Nor you, Captain?"
+
+"No," answered Hatteras.
+
+"You have always carried it," said the doctor.
+
+"Well, I haven't got it now--" murmured the old sailor, growing pale.
+
+"Not got it!" shouted the doctor, who could not help trembling. There
+was no other steel, and the loss of this might bring with it terrible
+consequences.
+
+"Hunt again!" said the doctor.
+
+Johnson ran to the piece of ice behind which he had watched the bear,
+then to the place of combat, where he had cut him up; but he could not
+find anything. He returned in despair. Hatteras looked at him without
+a word of reproach.
+
+"This is serious," he said to the doctor.
+
+"Yes," the latter answered.
+
+"We have not even an instrument, a glass from which we might take the
+lens to get fire by means of it!"
+
+"I know it," answered the doctor; "and that is a great pity, because
+the rays of the sun are strong enough to kindle tinder."
+
+"Well," answered Hatteras, "we must satisfy our hunger with this raw
+meat; then we shall resume our march and we shall try to reach the
+ship."
+
+"Yes," said the doctor, buried in reflection; "yes, we could do that
+if we had to. Why not? We might try--"
+
+"What are you thinking of?" asked Hatteras.
+
+"An idea which has just occurred to me--"
+
+"An idea," said Johnson; "one of your ideas! Then we are saved!"
+
+"It's a question," answered the doctor, "whether it will succeed."
+
+"What is your plan?" said Hatteras.
+
+"We have no lens; well, we will make one."
+
+"How?" asked Johnson.
+
+"With a piece of ice which we shall cut out."
+
+"Why, do you think--"
+
+"Why not? We want to make the sun's rays converge to a common focus,
+and ice will do as much good as crystal."
+
+"Is it possible?" asked Johnson.
+
+"Yes, only I should prefer fresh to salt water; it is more
+transparent, and harder."
+
+"But, if I am not mistaken," said Johnson, pointing to a hummock a
+hundred paces distant, "that dark green block shows--"
+
+"You are right; come, my friends; bring your hatchet, Johnson."
+
+The three men went towards the block which, as they supposed, was
+formed of fresh water.
+
+The doctor had a piece, a foot in diameter, cut through, and he began
+to smooth it with the hatchet; then he equalized the surface still
+further with his knife; then he polished it with his hand, and he
+obtained soon a lens as transparent as if it had been made of the most
+magnificent crystal. Then he returned to the snow-house, where he took
+a piece of tinder and began his experiment. The sun was shining
+brightly; the doctor held the lens so that the rays should be focused
+on the tinder, which took fire in a few seconds.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried Johnson, who could hardly trust his eyes. "O
+Doctor, Doctor!"
+
+The old sailor could not restrain his joy; he was coming and going
+like a madman. The doctor had returned to the house; a few minutes
+later the stove was roaring, and soon a delicious odor of cooking
+aroused Bell from his torpor. It may be easily imagined how the feast
+was enjoyed; still the doctor advised his friends to partake in
+moderation; he set an example, and while eating he again began to
+talk.
+
+"To-day is a lucky day," he said; "we have food enough for our
+journey. But we mustn't fall asleep in the delights of Capua, and we'd
+better start out again."
+
+"We can't be more than forty-eight hours from the _Porpoise_," said
+Altamont, who could now begin to speak once more.
+
+"I hope," said the doctor, smiling, "that we shall find material for a
+fire there."
+
+"Yes," said the American.
+
+"For, if my ice lens is good," continued the doctor, "there would
+still be something desired on cloudy days, and there are many of them
+less than four degrees from the Pole."
+
+"True!" said Altamont with a sigh, "less than four degrees! My ship
+has gone nearer than any yet has been!"
+
+"Forward!" said Hatteras, quickly.
+
+"Forward!" repeated the doctor, gazing uneasily at the two captains.
+
+The strength of the travellers soon returned; the dogs had eaten
+freely of the bear's flesh, and they continued their journey
+northward. During their walk the doctor tried to draw from Altamont
+the object of his expedition, but the American gave only evasive
+answers.
+
+"There are two men to be watched," he whispered to the boatswain.
+
+"Yes," answered Johnson.
+
+"Hatteras never says a word to the American, and the American seems to
+show very little gratitude. Fortunately I am here."
+
+"Dr. Clawbonny," answered Johnson, "since this Yankee has returned to
+life, I don't like his face much."
+
+"Either I'm mistaken," answered the doctor, "or he suspects Hatteras's
+plans."
+
+"Do you think that the stranger has the same plans?"
+
+"Who can tell? The Americans are bold; an American may well try what
+an Englishman tries!"
+
+"You think that Altamont--"
+
+"I don't think anything about it," answered the doctor; "but the
+situation of this ship on the way to the Pole gives one material for
+thought."
+
+"But Altamont said he had drifted there."
+
+"He said so! Yes, but he was smiling in a very strange way."
+
+"The devil, Dr. Clawbonny; it would be unfortunate if there should be
+any rivalry between two such men."
+
+"Heaven grant that I may be mistaken, Johnson, for this misfortune
+might produce serious complications, if not some catastrophe."
+
+"I hope Altamont will not forget that we saved his life."
+
+"But isn't he going to save us? I confess that without us he would not
+be alive; but what would become of us without him, without his ship,
+without its resources?"
+
+"Well, Doctor, you are here, and I hope with your aid all will go
+well."
+
+"I hope so, Johnson."
+
+The voyage went on without incident; there was no lack of bear's
+flesh, and they made copious meals of it; there was a certain
+good-humor in the little band, thanks to the jests of the doctor and
+his pleasant philosophy; this worthy man always had some scrap of
+information to give to his companions. His health continued good; he
+had not grown very thin, in spite of his fatigues and privations; his
+friends at Liverpool would have recognized him without difficulty;
+especially would they have recognized his unaltered good-humor.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+During the morning of Saturday the appearance of the plain of ice
+changed materially; the perturbed fragments, the frequent packs, the
+hummocks, showed that the ice-field was enduring some severe pressure;
+evidently some unknown continent, some new island, might have caused
+this by narrowing the passes. Blocks of fresh water, more frequent and
+larger, indicated the coast to be near. Hence, there was near them a
+new land, and the doctor yearned with a desire to add to the charts of
+the northern regions. Great is the pleasure of ascertaining the line
+of these unknown coasts, and of tracing it with a pencil; that was the
+doctor's aim, while that of Hatteras was merely to place his foot upon
+the Pole, and he took pleasure in advance in thinking of the names he
+was going to give to the seas, straits, bays, and slightest
+promontories in these new continents; certainly he would not forget
+the names of his companions, his friends, nor her Gracious Majesty,
+nor the royal family; and he foresaw a certain "Cape Clawbonny" with
+great satisfaction.
+
+These thoughts kept him busy all day; that evening they encamped as
+usual, and each one took his turn at watching near these unknown
+lands. The next day, Sunday, after a heavy breakfast of bear's paws,
+which were very good, the travellers pushed on to the north, inclining
+a little to the west; the road grew difficult, but yet they advanced
+rapidly. Altamont, from the top of the sledge, scanned the horizon
+with feverish attention; his companions were the victims of
+involuntary uneasiness. The last solar observations gave them latitude
+83 degrees 35 minutes, and longitude 120 degrees 15 minutes; that was
+the place where the American ship was said to be lying; the question
+of life and death was to be solved that day. At last, at about half
+past two in the afternoon, Altamont stood straight, stopped the little
+band by a loud cry, and, pointing with his hand to a white mass, which
+all the rest had taken for an iceberg, he cried with a loud voice,--
+
+"The _Porpoise_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+THE PORPOISE.
+
+
+March 24th was Palm Sunday,--that day when the streets of the towns
+and villages of Europe are filled with flowers and leaves; bells are
+ringing, and the air is filled with rich perfumes. But here, in this
+desolate country, what sadness and silence! The wind was keen and
+bitter; not a leaf of foliage was to be seen! But still, this Sunday
+was a day of rejoicing for our travellers, for at last they were about
+to find supplies which would save them from certain death. They
+hastened their steps; the dogs drew the sledge briskly, Duke barked
+joyously, and they all soon reached the American ship. The _Porpoise_
+was wholly buried beneath the snow; there was no sign of mast, yard,
+or rigging; all had been lost at the time of the shipwreck; the ship
+lay on a bed of rocks now completely hidden. The _Porpoise_ was
+careened to one side by the violence of the shock, her bottom was torn
+open, so that the ship seemed uninhabitable. This was soon seen by the
+captain, the doctor, and Johnson, after they had entered the vessel;
+they had to cut away fifteen feet of ice to get to the hatchway; but
+to their great joy they saw that the animals, many traces of which
+were to be seen, had spared the supplies.
+
+"If we have here," said Johnson, "plenty of food and fuel, this hull
+does not seem inhabitable."
+
+"Well, we must build a snow-house," answered Hatteras, "and make
+ourselves as comfortable as possible on the mainland."
+
+"Without doubt," continued the doctor; "but don't let us hurry; let us
+do things carefully; if need be we can fit out some quarters in the
+ship; meanwhile we can build a strong house, capable of protecting us
+against the cold and wild beasts. I am willing to be the architect,
+and you'll see what I can do."
+
+"I don't doubt your skill, Doctor," answered Johnson; "we'll make
+ourselves as comfortable as possible here, and we'll make an inventory
+of all that the ship contains; unfortunately, I don't see any launch,
+or boat, and these ruins are in too bad a state to permit of our
+making a small boat."
+
+"Who can say?" answered the doctor. "With time and thought a great
+deal can be done; now we have not to trouble ourselves about
+navigation, but about a house to live in; I propose not to form any
+other plans, and to let everything have its turn."
+
+"That is wise," answered Hatteras; "let us begin with the beginning."
+
+The three companions left the ship, returned to the sledge, and
+announced their determination to Bell and the American; Bell said he
+was ready to work; the American shook his head, on learning that
+nothing could be done with his ship; but since all discussion would
+have been idle, they determined at first to take refuge in the
+_Porpoise_, and to build a large building on the shore.
+
+At four o'clock in the afternoon the five travellers were installed as
+comfortably as possible between decks; by means of spars and fragments
+of masts, Bell had made a nearly level floor; there they placed
+coverings stiffened by the frost, which the heat of the stove soon
+brought back to their natural state; Altamont, leaning on the doctor,
+was able to make his way to the corner which had been set aside for
+him; on setting foot on his ship, he had sighed with a feeling of
+relief, which did not encourage the boatswain.
+
+"He feels at home," the old sailor thought, "and one would say that he
+had invited us here."
+
+The rest of the day was devoted to repose; the weather threatened to
+change under the influence of the westerly winds; the thermometer
+outside stood at -26 degrees. In fact, the _Porpoise_ lay beyond the
+pole of cold, at a latitude relatively less severe, though farther to
+the north. On that day they finished the bear, with some biscuits they
+found on the ship, and a few cups of tea; then fatigue overcame them,
+and each one sank into a sound sleep.
+
+The next morning they all awoke rather late; they soon recalled the
+difference in their situation; they were no longer perplexed with
+uncertainty about the morrow; they only thought of establishing
+themselves comfortably. These castaways looked at themselves as
+colonists who had reached their destination, and, forgetting the
+sufferings of their long march, they had no other thought than that of
+securing a comfortable future.
+
+[Illustration: "These castaways looked at themselves as colonists who
+had reached their destination."]
+
+"Well," said the doctor, stretching his arms, "it's something not to
+have to wonder where one will sleep to-night and what one will have to
+eat to-morrow."
+
+"Let us first make an inventory of the ship," answered Johnson.
+
+The _Porpoise_ had been carefully equipped for a long voyage.
+
+The inventory, when complete, indicated the following supplies:--
+
+  6,150 lbs. of flour, fat and raisins for puddings;
+  2,000  "   "  beef and salt pork;
+  1,500  "   "  pemmican;
+    700  "   "  sugar;
+    700  "   "  chocolate;
+    500  "   "  rice;
+      1-1/2 chests of tea, weighing 87 lbs;
+many barrels of canned fruits and vegetables, lime-juice in abundance,
+cochlearia, sorrel and water-cresses, and three hundred gallons of rum
+and brandy; in the hold there was a large supply of ammunition; there
+was plenty of coal and wood. The doctor collected carefully the
+nautical instruments, and he also found a Bunsen's Pile, which had
+been carried for electrical tests and experiments. In short, they had
+supplies enough to keep five men on whole rations for two years; all
+fear of starving or freezing to death was hence wholly removed.
+
+"Our means of living are certain," said the doctor to the captain,
+"and there is nothing to prevent our reaching the Pole."
+
+"The Pole!" answered Hatteras, trembling with excitement.
+
+"Certainly," continued the doctor; "what's to prevent our pushing on
+during the summer across the land?"
+
+"Across the land! true! But how about the sea?"
+
+"Can't we build a small boat out of the timber of the _Porpoise_?"
+
+"An American boat, you mean," answered Hatteras, scornfully, "and
+commanded by this American!"
+
+The doctor understood the captain's repugnance, and judged it best to
+change the conversation.
+
+"Now that we know what our supplies are," he went on, "we must build
+some safe place for them, and a house for ourselves. We have plenty of
+material, and we can settle ourselves very comfortably. I hope, Bell,"
+he added, turning to the carpenter, "that you are going to distinguish
+yourself; I may be able to help you too, I trust."
+
+"I'm ready, Doctor," answered Bell; "if it were necessary I could
+easily build a whole city with houses and streets out of these blocks
+of ice--"
+
+"We sha'n't need as much as that; let us follow the example of the
+agents of the Hudson's Bay Company; they build forts which protect
+them from the wild beasts and the Indians; that is all we need; let us
+make it no larger than necessary; on one side the dwelling, on the
+other the stores, with a sort of curtain, and two bastions. I'll try
+to rub up what I know about fortification."
+
+"Upon my word, Doctor," said Johnson, "I don't doubt that we shall
+make something very fine under your direction."
+
+"Well, my friends, we must first choose a site; a good engineer should
+first study the lay of the land. Will you come with me, Hatteras?"
+
+"I shall trust to you, Doctor," answered the captain. "You see about
+that, while I explore the coast."
+
+Altamont, who was still too feeble to get to work, was left on board
+of his ship, and the two Englishmen set foot on the mainland. The
+weather was thick and stormy; at noon the thermometer stood at -11
+degrees, but, there being no wind, that temperature was comfortable.
+Judging from the outline of the shore, a large sea, at that time
+wholly frozen, stretched out farther than eye could reach in the west;
+on the east it was limited by a rounded coast, cut into by numerous
+estuaries, and rising suddenly about two hundred yards from the shore;
+it formed a large bay, full of dangerous rocks, on which the
+_Porpoise_ had been wrecked; far off on the land rose a mountain,
+which the doctor conjectured to be about three thousand feet high.
+Towards the north a promontory ran into the sea, after hiding a part
+of the bay. An island of moderate size rose from the field of ice,
+three miles from the mainland, so that it offered a safe anchorage to
+any ship that could enter the bay. In a hollow cut of the shore was a
+little inlet, easily reached by ships, if this part of the arctic seas
+was ever open. Yet, according to the accounts of Beecher and Penny,
+this whole sea was open in the summer months.
+
+In the middle of the coast the doctor noticed a sort of plateau about
+two hundred feet in diameter; on three sides it was open to the bay;
+the fourth was enclosed by an elevation about a hundred and twenty
+feet high; this could be ascended only by steps cut in the ice. This
+seemed a proper place for a solid building, and it could be easily
+fortified; nature had adapted it for the purpose; it was only
+necessary to make use of the place. The doctor, Bell, and Johnson
+reached this place by means of steps cut in the ice. As soon as the
+doctor saw the excellence of the place, he determined to dig away the
+ten feet of hardened snow which covered it; the buildings had to be
+built on a solid foundation.
+
+During Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, work went on without
+relaxation; at last the ground appeared; it consisted of a hard, dense
+granite, with the angles as sharp as glass; it contained, moreover,
+garnets and large crystals of feldspar, against which the pickaxe
+struck fire.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The doctor then gave them the dimensions and plan of the snow-house;
+it was to be forty feet long, twenty broad, and ten deep; it was
+divided into three rooms, a sitting-room, a bedroom, and a kitchen;
+more was not needed. To the left was the kitchen, to the right the
+bedroom, in the middle the sitting-room. For five days they worked
+busily. There was no lack of material; the ice walls were thick enough
+to resist thawing, for they could not risk being wholly without
+protection, even in summer. In proportion as the house rose, it became
+agreeable to see; there were four front windows, two in the
+sitting-room, one in the kitchen, another in the bedroom; for panes of
+glass they substituted large sheets of ice, in the Esquimaux fashion,
+which served as well as unpolished glass for the passage of light. In
+front of the sitting-room, between two windows, there ran a long entry
+like a tunnel, which gave admission to the house; a solid door,
+brought from the _Porpoise_, closed it hermetically. When the house
+was finished, the doctor was delighted with his handiwork; it would
+have been impossible to say to what school of architecture the
+building belonged, although the architect would have avowed his
+preferences for the Saxon Gothic, so common in England; but the main
+point was, that it should be solid; therefore the doctor placed on the
+front short uprights; on top a sloping roof rested against the granite
+wall. This served to support the stove-pipes, which carried the smoke
+away. When the task was completed, they began to arrange the interior.
+They carried into the bedroom the sleeping-accommodations from the
+_Porpoise_; they were arranged in a circle about a large stove.
+Benches, chairs, sofas, tables, wardrobes, were arranged in the
+sitting-room, which was also used as a dining-room; the kitchen
+received the cooking-stoves of the ship, and the various utensils.
+Sails, stretched on the floor, formed the carpet, and also served as
+hangings to the inner doors, which had no other way of closing. The
+walls of the house averaged five feet in thickness, and the recesses
+for the windows looked like embrasures in a fort. It was all built
+with great solidity; what more was to be desired? Ah, if they had
+listened to the doctor, there is no knowing what they would not have
+made of this ice and snow, which can be so easily manipulated! He all
+day long would ponder over plans which he never hoped to bring about,
+but he thereby lightened the dull work of all by the ingenuity of his
+suggestions. Besides, he had come across, in his wide reading, a
+rather rare book by one Kraft, entitled "Detailed Description of the
+Snow-Palace built at St. Petersburg, in January, 1740, and of all the
+Objects it contained." The recollection of this book impressed him.
+One evening he gave his companions a full account of the wonders of
+that snow-palace.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Why couldn't we do here," he asked, "what they did at St. Petersburg?
+What do we need? Nothing, not even imagination!"
+
+"So it was very handsome?" said Johnson.
+
+"It was fairy-like, my friend. The house, built by order of the
+Empress Anna, and in which she had celebrated the marriage of one of
+her buffoons in 1740, was nearly as large as ours; but in front stood
+six cannons of ice; they were often fired without bursting; there were
+also mortars to hold sixty-pound shells; so we could have some
+formidable artillery; the bronze is handy, and falls even from heaven.
+But the triumph of taste and art was on the front of the palace, which
+was adorned with handsome statues; the steps were garnished with vases
+of flowers of the same material; on the right stood an enormous
+elephant, who played water through his trunk by day, and burning
+naphtha by night. What a menagerie we might have if we only wanted
+to!"
+
+"As for animals," answered Johnson, "we sha'n't lack them, I fancy,
+and they won't be any the less interesting for not being made of ice."
+
+"Well," said the doctor, "we shall be able to defend ourselves against
+their attacks; but to return to the palace, I should add that inside
+there were mirrors, candelabra, beds, mattresses, pillows, curtains,
+clocks, chairs, playing-cards, wardrobes well furnished, and all cut
+out of ice; in fact, nothing was lacking."
+
+"It was then a true palace?" said Bell.
+
+"A splendid palace, worthy of a sovereign! Ice! It was kind of
+Providence to invent it, since it lends itself to so many miracles and
+accommodates so readily to the needs of castaways!"
+
+It took them until March 31st to get the house ready; this was Easter
+Sunday, and the day was set aside for rest; the whole day was spent in
+the sitting-room, where divine service was read, and each was able to
+judge of the excellent arrangements of the snow-house.
+
+The next morning they set about building stores and a magazine; this
+took them about a week, including the time employed for emptying the
+_Porpoise_, which was not done without difficulty, for the low
+temperature did not permit them to work very long. At last, April 8th,
+provisions, food, and supplies were safely sheltered on land; the
+stores were placed to the north, and the powder-house to the south,
+about sixty feet from the end of the house; a sort of dog-kennel was
+built near the stores; it was destined for the Greenland dogs, and the
+doctor honored it with the title of "Dog-Palace." Duke partook of the
+common quarters.
+
+Then the doctor passed to the means of defence of the place. Under his
+direction the plateau was surrounded by a real fortification of ice
+which secured it against every invasion; its height made a natural
+protection, and as there was no salient, it was equally strong on all
+sides. The doctor's system of defence recalled strongly the method of
+Sterne's Uncle Toby, whose gentleness and good-humor he also shared.
+He was a pleasant sight when he was calculating the inclination of the
+platform and the breadth of the causeway; but this task was so easy
+with the snow, that he enjoyed it, and he was able to make the wall
+seven feet thick; besides the plateau overlooking the bay, he had to
+build neither counterscarp nor glacis; the parapet of snow, after
+following the outlines of the plateau, joined the rock on the other
+side. The work of fortification was finished April 15th. The fort was
+completed, and the doctor seemed very proud of his work.
+
+[Illustration: The fort was completed.]
+
+In truth, this fortified enclosure could have withstood for a long
+time against a tribe of Esquimaux, if such enemies were met under that
+latitude; but there was no trace of human beings there; Hatteras, in
+making out the outline of the bay, did not see any ruins of the huts
+which are so commonly found in the places resorted to by Greenland
+tribes; the castaways of the _Forward_ and the _Porpoise_ appeared to
+be the first ever to set foot on this unknown shore. But if they need
+not fear men, animals were to be dreaded, and the fort, thus defended,
+would have to protect the little garrison against their attacks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+A DISCUSSION ABOUT CHARTS.
+
+
+During these preparations for going into winter-quarters, Altamont had
+entirely recovered his health and strength; he was even able to aid in
+unloading the ship. His vigorous constitution at last carried the day,
+and his pallor soon gave way before the vigor of his blood.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+They saw in him a sanguine, robust citizen of the United States, an
+intelligent, energetic man with a resolute character, a bold, hardy
+American ready for everything; he was originally from New York, and
+had been a sailor from infancy, as he told his companions; his ship,
+the _Porpoise_, had been equipped and sent out by a society of wealthy
+American merchants, at the head of whom was the famous Mr. Grinnell.
+
+There was a certain similarity between his disposition and that of
+Hatteras, but their sympathies were different. This similarity did not
+incline them to become friends; indeed, it had the opposite effect. A
+close observer would have detected serious discordances between them;
+and this, although they were very frank with one another. Altamont was
+less so, however, than Hatteras; with greater ease of manner, he was
+less loyal; his open character did not inspire as much confidence as
+did the captain's gloomy temperament. Hatteras would say what he had
+to say, and then he held his peace. The other would talk a great deal,
+but say very little. Such was the doctor's reading of the American's
+character, and he was right in his presentiment of a future
+disagreement, if not hatred, between the captains of the _Porpoise_
+and the _Forward_.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And yet only one could command. To be sure, Hatteras had all the right
+of commanding, by virtue of anterior right and superior force. But if
+one was at the head of his own men, the other was on board of his own
+ship. And that was generally felt. Either from policy or
+instinctively, Altamont was at first attracted towards the doctor; it
+was to him he owed his life, but it was sympathy rather than gratitude
+which moved him. This was the invariable effect of Clawbonny's nature;
+friends grew about him like wheat under the summer sun. Every one has
+heard of people who rise at five o'clock in the morning to make
+enemies; the doctor could have got up at four without doing it.
+Nevertheless, he resolved to profit by Altamont's friendship to the
+extent of learning the real reason of his presence in the polar seas.
+But with all his wordiness the American answered without answering,
+and kept repeating what he had to say about the Northwest Passage. The
+doctor suspected that there was some other motive for the expedition,
+the same, namely, that Hatteras suspected. Hence he resolved not to
+let the two adversaries discuss the subject; but he did not always
+succeed. The simplest conversations threatened to wander to that
+point, and any word might kindle a blaze of controversy. It happened
+soon. When the house was finished, the doctor resolved to celebrate
+the fact by a splendid feast; this was a good idea of Clawbonny's, who
+wanted to introduce in this continent the habits and pleasures of
+European life. Bell had just shot some ptarmigans and a white rabbit,
+the first harbinger of spring. This feast took place April 14, Low
+Sunday, on a very pleasant day; the cold could not enter the house,
+and if it had, the roaring stoves would have soon conquered it. The
+dinner was good; the fresh meat made an agreeable variety after the
+pemmican and salt meat; a wonderful pudding, made by the doctor's own
+hand, was much admired; every one asked for another supply; the head
+cook himself, with an apron about his waist and a knife hanging by his
+side, would not have disgraced the kitchen of the Lord High Chancellor
+of England. At dessert, liquors appeared; the American was not a
+teetotaler; hence there was no reason for his depriving himself of a
+glass of gin or brandy; the other guests, who were never in any way
+intemperate, could permit themselves this infraction of their rule;
+so, by the doctor's command, each one was able to drain a glass at the
+end of the merry meal. When a toast was drunk to the United States,
+Hatteras was simply silent. It was then that the doctor brought
+forward an interesting subject.
+
+"My friends," he said, "it is not enough that we have crossed the
+waters and ice and have come so far; there is one thing left for us to
+do. Hence I propose that we should give names to this hospitable land
+where we have found safety and rest; that is the course pursued by all
+navigators, and there is not one who has neglected it; therefore we
+ought to carry back with us not only a map of the shores, but also the
+names of the capes, bays, points, and promontories which we find. That
+is absolutely necessary."
+
+"Good!" cried Johnson; "besides, when one can give all these lands
+their own names, it looks like genuine work, and we can't consider
+ourselves as cast away on an unknown shore."
+
+"Besides," added Bell, "that simplifies instructions and facilitates
+the execution of orders; we may be compelled to separate during some
+expedition or in hunting, and the best way for finding our way back is
+to know the names of the places."
+
+"Well," said the doctor, "since we are all agreed, let us try to
+settle on some names without forgetting our country and friends."
+
+"You are right, Doctor," answered the American, "and you give what you
+say additional value by your warmth."
+
+"Well," continued the doctor, "let us go on in order."
+
+Hatteras had not taken part in the conversation; he was thinking.
+Still the eyes of his companions were fastened on him; he rose and
+said,--
+
+"If you are all willing, and I don't think any one will dissent,"--at
+those words Hatteras looked at Altamont,--"it seems to me proper to
+name this house after its skilful architect, and to call it 'Doctor's
+House.'"
+
+"That's true," said Bell.
+
+"Good!" shouted Johnson; "Doctor's House!"
+
+"Couldn't be better," added Altamont. "Hurrah for Dr. Clawbonny!"
+
+Three cheers were then given, to which Duke added an approving bark.
+
+"So," resumed Hatteras, "let this house bear that name until some new
+land is discovered to bear the name of our friend."
+
+"Ah!" said Johnson, "if the earthly Paradise were to be named over
+again, the name of Clawbonny would suit it to a miracle!"
+
+The doctor, much moved, wanted to defend himself by modesty, but he
+was unable. It was then formally agreed that the feast had been eaten
+in the grand dining-hall of Doctor's House, after being cooked in the
+kitchen of Doctor's House, and that they would go comfortably to bed
+in the chamber of Doctor's House.
+
+"Now," said the doctor, "let us take the more important points of our
+discoveries."
+
+"There is," said Hatteras, "this immense sea which surrounds us, and
+in which no ship has ever floated."
+
+"No ship!" interrupted Altamont; "it seems to me the _Porpoise_ should
+not be forgotten, unless indeed it came by land," he added jestingly.
+
+"One might think it had," retorted Hatteras, "to see the rocks on
+which it is now resting."
+
+"Indeed, Hatteras," answered Altamont with some vexation; "but, on the
+whole, isn't even that better than blowing up as the _Forward_ did!"
+
+Hatteras was about to make some angry reply, when the doctor
+interrupted him.
+
+"My friends," he said, "we are not talking about ships, but about the
+new sea--"
+
+"It is not new," interrupted Altamont. "It already bears a name on all
+the charts of the Pole. It is the Arctic Ocean, and I don't see any
+reason for changing its name; if we should find out in the future that
+it is only a sound or gulf, we can see what is to be done."
+
+"Very well," said Hatteras.
+
+"Agreed," said the doctor, regretting that he had aroused a discussion
+between rival nationalities.
+
+"Let us come to the land which we are now in," resumed Hatteras. "I am
+not aware that it bears any name on the most recent maps."
+
+[Illustration: "I am not aware that it bears any name on the most
+recent maps."]
+
+At these words he turned to Altamont, who did not lower his eyes, but
+answered,--
+
+"You may be mistaken again, Hatteras."
+
+"Mistaken! this unknown land, this new country--"
+
+"Has a name already," answered the American, quietly.
+
+Hatteras was silent. His lips trembled.
+
+"And what is its name?" asked the doctor, a little surprised at the
+American's statement.
+
+"My dear Clawbonny," answered Altamont, "it is the custom, not to say
+the habit, of every explorer to give a name to the continent which he
+has discovered. It seems to me that on this occasion it was in my
+power and that it was my duty to use this indisputable right--"
+
+"Still--" said Johnson, whom Altamont's coolness annoyed.
+
+"It seems to me hard to pretend," the American resumed, "that the
+_Porpoise_ did not discover this coast, and even on the supposition
+that it came by land," he added, glancing at Hatteras, "there can't be
+any question."
+
+"That is a claim I can't admit," answered Hatteras, gravely, forcibly
+restraining himself. "To give a name, one should be the discoverer,
+and that I fancy you were not. Without us, besides, where would you
+be, sir, you who presume to impose conditions upon us? Twenty feet
+under the snow!"
+
+"And without me, sir," replied the American, "without my ship, where
+would you be at this moment? Dead of cold and hunger?"
+
+"My friends," said the doctor, intervening for the best, "come, a
+little calm, it can all settle itself. Listen to me!"
+
+"That gentleman," continued Altamont, pointing to the captain, "can
+give a name to all the lands he discovers, if he discovers any; but
+this continent belongs to me! I cannot admit of its bearing two names,
+like Grinnell Land and Prince Albert's Land, because an Englishman and
+American happened to find it at the same time. Here it's different. My
+rights of precedence are beyond dispute! No ship has ever touched this
+shore before mine. No human being before me has ever set foot upon it;
+now, I have given it its name, and it shall keep it."
+
+"And what is its name?" asked the doctor.
+
+"New America," answered Altamont.
+
+Hatteras clinched his fists on the table. But with a violent effort he
+controlled himself.
+
+"Can you prove to me," Altamont went on, "that any Englishman has ever
+set foot on this soil before me?"
+
+Johnson and Bell were silent, although they were no less angry than
+the captain at the haughty coolness of their opponent. But there was
+nothing to be said. The doctor began again after a few moments of
+painful silence.
+
+"My friends," he said, "the first law of humanity is justice; it
+embraces all the rest. Let us then be just, and not give way to evil
+feelings. Altamont's priority appears to me incontestable. There is no
+question about it; we shall have our revenge later, and England will
+have a good share in future discoveries. Let us leave to this land,
+then, the name of New America. But Altamont, in giving it this name,
+has not, I imagine, disposed of the bays, capes, points, and
+promontories which it encloses, and I don't see anything to prevent
+our calling it Victoria Bay."
+
+"None at all," answered Altamont, "provided that the cape jutting into
+the sea over there is named Cape Washington."
+
+"You might have chosen, sir," cried Hatteras, beside himself, "a name
+less offensive to an English ear."
+
+"But none dearer to an American ear," answered Altamont, with much
+pride.
+
+"Come, come," continued the doctor, who found it hard to keep the
+peace in this little world, "no discussion about that! Let an American
+be proud of his great men! Let us honor genius wherever it is found,
+and since Altamont has made his choice, let us now speak for ourselves
+and our friends. Let our captain--"
+
+"Doctor," answered Hatteras, "since this is an American land, I don't
+care to have my name figure here."
+
+"Is that opinion unchangeable?" asked the doctor.
+
+"It is," answered Hatteras.
+
+The doctor did not insist any further.
+
+"Well, then, it's our turn," he said, addressing the old sailor and
+the carpenter; "let us leave a trace of our passage here. I propose
+that we call that island about three miles from here Johnson Island,
+in honor of our boatswain."
+
+"O," said the latter, a little embarrassed, "O doctor!"
+
+"As to the mountain which we have seen in the west, we shall call it
+Bell Mountain, if our carpenter is willing."
+
+"It's too much honor for me," answered Bell.
+
+"It's only fair," said the doctor.
+
+"Nothing better," said Altamont.
+
+"Then we have only to name our fort," resumed the doctor; "there need
+be no discussion about that; it's neither to Her Royal Highness Queen
+Victoria nor to Washington that we owe our protection in it at this
+moment, but to God, who brought us together and saved us all. Let it
+be called Fort Providence!"
+
+"A capital plan!" answered Altamont.
+
+"Fort Providence," added Johnson, "that sounds well! So, then, in
+returning from our excursions in the north, we shall start from Cape
+Washington to reach Victoria Bay, and from there to Fort Providence,
+where we shall find rest and plenty in Doctor's House."
+
+"Then that's settled," answered the doctor; "later, as we make
+discoveries, we shall have other names to give, which I hope will not
+give rise to discussion; for, my friends, we ought to stand by one
+another and love one another; we represent humanity on this distant
+shore; let us not give ourselves up to the detestable passions which
+infest society; let us rather remain unattackable by adversity. Who
+can say what dangers Heaven has in store for us, what sufferings we
+may not have to support before we return to our own country? Let us
+five be like one man, and leave on one side the rivalry which is wrong
+anywhere, and especially here. You understand me, Altamont? And you,
+Hatteras?"
+
+The two men made no reply, but the doctor did not seem to notice their
+silence. Then they talked about other things; about hunting, so as to
+get a supply of fresh meat; with the spring, hares, partridges, even
+foxes, would return, as well as bears; they resolved accordingly not
+to let a favorable day pass without exploring the land of New America.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+EXCURSION TO THE NORTH OF VICTORIA BAY.
+
+
+The next morning, as soon as the sun appeared, Clawbonny ascended the
+wall of rock which rose above Doctor's House; it terminated suddenly
+in a sort of truncated cone; the doctor reached the summit with some
+little difficulty, and from there his eye beheld a vast expanse of
+territory which looked as if it were the result of some volcanic
+convulsion; a huge white canopy covered land and sea, rendering them
+undistinguishable the one from the other. The doctor, when he saw that
+this rock overlooked all the surrounding plain, had an idea,--a fact
+which will not astonish those who are acquainted with him. This idea
+he turned over, pondered, and made himself master of by the time he
+returned to the house, and then he communicated it to his companions.
+
+[Illustration: "The doctor reached the summit with some little
+difficulty."]
+
+"It has occurred to me," he said to them, "to build a lighthouse at
+the top of the cone up there."
+
+"A lighthouse?" they cried.
+
+"Yes, a lighthouse; it will be of use to show us our way back at night
+when we are returning from distant excursions, and to light up the
+neighborhood in the eight months of winter."
+
+"Certainly," answered Altamont, "such an apparatus would be useful;
+but how will you build it?"
+
+"With one of the _Porpoise's_ lanterns."
+
+"Very good; but with what will you feed the lamp? With seal-oil?"
+
+"No; it doesn't give a bright enough light; it could hardly pierce the
+fog."
+
+"Do you think you can get hydrogen from our coal and make illuminating
+gas?"
+
+"Well, that light would not be bright enough, and it would be wrong to
+use up any of our fuel."
+
+"Then," said Altamont, "I don't see--"
+
+"As for me," answered Johnson, "since the bullet of mercury, the ice
+lens, the building of Fort Providence, I believe Dr. Clawbonny is
+capable of anything."
+
+"Well," resumed Altamont, "will you tell us what sort of a light you
+are going to have?"
+
+"It's very simple," answered the doctor; "an electric light."
+
+"An electric light!"
+
+"Certainly; didn't you have on board of the _Porpoise_ a Bunsen's pile
+in an uninjured state?"
+
+"Yes," answered the American.
+
+"Evidently, when you took it, you intended to make some experiments,
+for it is complete. You have the necessary acid, and the wires
+isolated, hence it would be easy for us to get an electric light. It
+will be more brilliant, and will cost nothing."
+
+"That is perfect," answered the boatswain, "and the less time we
+lose--"
+
+"Well, the materials are there," answered the doctor, "and in an hour
+we shall have a column ten feet high, which will be enough."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The doctor went out; his companions followed him to the top of the
+cone; the column was promptly built and was soon surmounted by one of
+the _Porpoise's_ lanterns. Then the doctor arranged the conducting
+wires which were connected with the pile; this was placed in the
+parlor of the ice-house, and was preserved from the frost by the heat
+of the stoves. From there the wires ran to the lantern. All this was
+quickly done, and they waited till sunset to judge of the effect. At
+night the two charcoal points, kept at a proper distance apart in the
+lantern, were brought together, and flashes of brilliant light, which
+the wind could neither make flicker nor extinguish, issued from the
+lighthouse. It was a noteworthy sight, these sparkling rays, rivalling
+the brilliancy of the plains, and defining sharply the outlines of the
+surrounding objects. Johnson could not help clapping his hands.
+
+"Dr. Clawbonny," he said, "has made another sun!"
+
+"One ought to do a little of everything," answered the doctor,
+modestly.
+
+The cold put an end to the general admiration, and each man hastened
+back to his coverings.
+
+After this time life was regularly organized. During the following
+days, from the 15th to the 20th of April, the weather was very
+uncertain; the temperature fell suddenly twenty degrees, and the
+atmosphere experienced severe changes, at times being full of snow and
+squally, at other times cold and dry, so that no one could set foot
+outside without precautions. However, on Saturday, the wind began to
+fall; this circumstance made an expedition possible; they resolved
+accordingly to devote a day to hunting, in order to renew their
+provisions. In the morning, Altamont, the doctor, Bell, each one
+taking a double-barrelled gun, a proper amount of food, a hatchet, a
+snow-knife in case they should have to dig a shelter, set out under a
+cloudy sky. During their absence Hatteras was to explore the coast and
+take their bearings. The doctor took care to start the light; its rays
+were very bright; in fact, the electric light, being equal to that of
+three thousand candles or three hundred gas-jets, is the only one
+which at all approximates to the solar light.
+
+The cold was sharp, dry, and still. The hunters set out towards Cape
+Washington, finding their way made easier over the hardened snow. In
+about half an hour they had made the three miles which separated the
+cape from Fort Providence. Duke was springing about them. The coast
+inclined to the east, and the lofty summits of Victoria Bay tended to
+grow lower toward the north. This made them believe that New America
+was perhaps only an island; but they did not have then to concern
+themselves with its shape. The hunters took the route by the sea and
+went forward rapidly. There was no sign of life, no trace of any
+building; they were walking over a virgin soil. They thus made about
+fifteen miles in the first three hours, eating without stopping to
+rest; but they seemed likely to find no sport. They saw very few
+traces of hare, fox, or wolf. Still, a few snow-birds flew here and
+there, announcing the return of spring and the arctic animals. The
+three companions had been compelled to go inland to get around some
+deep ravines and some pointed rocks which ran down from Bell Mountain;
+but after a few delays they succeeded in regaining the shore; the ice
+had not yet separated. Far from it. The sea remained fast; still a few
+traces of seals announced the beginning of their visit, and that they
+were already come to breathe at the surface of the ice-field. It was
+evident from the large marks, the fresh breaking of the ice, that many
+had very recently been on the land. These animals are very anxious for
+the rays of the sun, and they like to bask on the shore in the sun's
+heat. The doctor called his companions' attention to these facts.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Let us notice this place," he said. "It is very possible that in
+summer we shall find hundreds of seals here; they can be approached
+and caught without difficulty, if they are unfamiliar with men. But we
+must take care not to frighten them, or they will disappear as if by
+magic and never return; in that way, careless hunters, instead of
+killing them one by one, have often attacked them in a crowd, with
+noisy cries, and have thereby driven them away."
+
+"Are they only killed for their skin and oil?" asked Bell.
+
+"By Europeans, yes, but the Esquimaux eat them; they live on them, and
+pieces of seal's flesh, which they mix with blood and fat, are not at
+all unappetizing. After all, it depends on the way it's treated, and I
+shall give you some delicate cutlets if you don't mind their dark
+color."
+
+"We shall see you at work," answered Bell; "I'll gladly eat it,
+Doctor."
+
+"My good Bell, as much as you please. But, however much you eat, you
+will never equal a Greenlander, who eats ten or fifteen pounds of it a
+day."
+
+"Fifteen pounds!" said Bell. "What stomachs!"
+
+"Real polar stomachs," answered the doctor; "prodigious stomachs which
+can be dilated at will, and, I ought to add, can be contracted in the
+same way, so that they support starving as well as gorging. At the
+beginning of his dinner, the Esquimaux is thin; at the end, he is fat,
+and not to be recognized! It is true that his dinner often lasts a
+whole day."
+
+"Evidently," said Altamont, "this voracity is peculiar to the
+inhabitants of cold countries!"
+
+"I think so," answered the doctor; "in the arctic regions one has to
+eat a great deal; it is a condition not only of strength, but of
+existence. Hence the Hudson's Bay Company gives each man eight pounds
+of meat a day, or twelve pounds of fish, or two pounds of pemmican."
+
+"That's a generous supply," said the carpenter.
+
+"But not so much as you imagine, my friend; and an Indian crammed in
+that way does no better work than an Englishman with his pound of beef
+and his pint of beer a day."
+
+"Then, Doctor, all is for the best."
+
+"True, but still an Esquimaux meal may well astonish us. While
+wintering at Boothia Land, Sir John Ross was always surprised at the
+voracity of his guides; he says somewhere that two men--two, you
+understand--ate in one morning a whole quarter of a musk-ox; they tear
+the meat into long shreds, which they place in their mouths; then each
+one, cutting off at his lips what his mouth cannot hold, passes it
+over to his companion; or else the gluttons, letting the shreds hang
+down to the ground, swallow them gradually, as a boa-constrictor
+swallows an animal, and like it stretched out at full length on the
+ground."
+
+"Ugh!" said Bell, "the disgusting brutes!"
+
+"Every one eats in his own way," answered the American,
+philosophically.
+
+"Fortunately!" replied the doctor.
+
+"Well," said Altamont, "since the need of food is so great in these
+latitudes, I'm no longer surprised that in accounts of arctic voyages
+there is always so much space given to describing the meals."
+
+"You are right," answered the doctor; "and it is a remark which I have
+often made myself; it is not only that plenty of food is needed, but
+also because it is often hard to get it. So one is always thinking of
+it and consequently always talking of it!"
+
+"Still," said Altamont, "if my memory serves me right, in Norway, in
+the coldest countries, the peasants need no such enormous supply: a
+little milk, eggs, birch-bark bread, sometimes salmon, never any meat;
+and yet they are hardy men."
+
+"It's a matter of organization," answered the doctor, "and one which I
+can't explain. Still, I fancy that the second or third generation of
+Norwegians, carried to Greenland, would end by feeding themselves in
+the Greenland way. And we too, my friends, if we were to remain in
+this lovely country, would get to live like the Esquimaux, not to say
+like gluttons."
+
+"Dr. Clawbonny," said Bell, "it makes me hungry to talk in this way."
+
+"It doesn't make me," answered Altamont; "it disgusts me rather, and
+makes me dislike seal's flesh. But I fancy we shall have an
+opportunity to try the experiment. If I'm not mistaken, I see some
+living body down there on the ice."
+
+"It's a walrus," shouted the doctor; "forward silently!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Indeed, the animal was within two hundred feet of the hunters; he was
+stretching and rolling at his ease in the pale rays of the sun. The
+three men separated so as to surround him and cut off his retreat; and
+they approached within a few fathoms' lengths of him, hiding behind
+the hummocks, and then fired. The walrus rolled over, still full of
+strength; he crushed the ice in his attempts to get away; but Altamont
+attacked him with his hatchet, and succeeded in cutting his dorsal
+fins. The walrus made a desperate resistance; new shots finished him,
+and he remained stretched lifeless on the ice-field stained with his
+blood. He was a good-sized animal, being nearly fifteen feet long from
+his muzzle to the end of his tail, and he would certainly furnish many
+barrels of oil. The doctor cut out the most savory parts of the flesh,
+and he left the corpse to the mercies of a few crows, which, at this
+season of the year, were floating through the air. The night began to
+fall. They thought of returning to Fort Providence; the sky had become
+perfectly clear, and while waiting for the moon to rise, the splendor
+of the stars was magnificent.
+
+"Come, push on," said the doctor, "it's growing late; to be sure,
+we've had poor luck; but as long as we have enough for supper, there's
+no need of complaining. Only let's take the shortest way and try not
+to get lost; the stars will help us."
+
+But yet in countries where the North Star shines directly above the
+traveller's head, it is hard to walk by it; in fact, when the north is
+directly in the zenith, it is hard to determine the other cardinal
+points; fortunately the moon and great constellations aided the doctor
+in determining the route. In order to shorten their way, he resolved
+to avoid the sinuosities of the coast, and to go directly across the
+land; it was more direct, but less certain; so, after walking for a
+few hours, the little band had completely lost its way. They thought
+of spending the night in an ice-house and waiting till the next day to
+find out where they were, even if they should have to return along the
+shore; but the doctor, fearing that Hatteras and Johnson might be
+anxious, insisted on their going on.
+
+"Duke is showing us the way," he said, "and he can't be wrong; he has
+an instinct which is surer than needle or star. Let us follow him."
+
+Duke went forward, and they all followed confidently. And they were
+justified in so doing. Soon a distant light appeared on the horizon;
+it was not to be confounded with a star in the low clouds.
+
+"There's our light!" cried the doctor.
+
+"Do you think so, Doctor!" asked the carpenter.
+
+"I'm sure of it. Let us push on."
+
+As they approached the light grew brighter, and soon they enjoyed its
+full brilliancy; they advanced in full illumination, and their sharply
+cut shadows ran out behind them over the snow. They hastened their
+gait, and in about half an hour they were climbing up the steps of
+Fort Providence.
+
+[Illustration: "They advanced in full illumination, and their sharply
+cut shadows ran out behind them over the snow."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+COLD AND HEAT.
+
+
+Hatteras and Johnson had waited for the three hunters with some
+uneasiness. When they returned they were delighted to find a warm and
+comfortable shelter. That evening the temperature had decidedly
+fallen, and the thermometer outside stood at -31 degrees. The three
+were very much fatigued and almost frozen, so that they could hardly
+drag one foot after the other; fortunately the stoves were drawing
+well; the doctor became cook, and roasted a few walrus cutlets. At
+nine o'clock they all five sat down before a nourishing supper.
+
+"On my word," said Bell, "at the risk of passing for an Esquimaux, I
+will say that food is an important thing in wintering; one ought to
+take what one can get."
+
+Each of them having his mouth full, it was impossible for any one to
+answer the carpenter at once; but the doctor made a sign that he was
+right. The walrus cutlets were declared excellent; or, if they made no
+declarations about it, they ate it all up, which is much more to the
+purpose. At dessert the doctor made the coffee, as was his custom; he
+intrusted this task to no one else; he made it at the table, in an
+alcohol machine, and served it boiling hot. He wanted it hot enough to
+scald his throat, or else he did not think it worth drinking. That
+evening he drank it so hot that his companions could not imitate him.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"But you'll burn yourself, Doctor," said Altamont.
+
+"O no!" was the answer.
+
+"Is your throat lined with copper?" asked Johnson.
+
+"No, my friends; I advise you to take counsel from me. There are some
+persons, and I am of the number, who drink coffee at a temperature of
+131 degrees."
+
+"One hundred and thirty-one degrees!" cried Altamont; "but the hand
+can't support that heat!"
+
+"Evidently, Altamont, since the hand can't endure more than 122
+degrees in the water; but the palate and tongue are not so tender as
+the hand; they can endure much more."
+
+"You surprise me," said Altamont.
+
+"Well, I'm going to convince you."
+
+And the doctor, bringing the thermometer from the parlor, plunged the
+bulb into his cup of boiling coffee; he waited until it stood at a 131
+degrees, and then he drank it with evident joy. Bell tried to do the
+same thing, but he burned himself and shouted aloud.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"You are not used to it," said the doctor.
+
+"Clawbonny," asked Altamont, "can you tell me the highest temperature
+the human body can support?"
+
+"Easily," answered the doctor; "various experiments have been made and
+curious facts have been found out. I remember one or two, and they
+serve to show that one can get accustomed to anything, even to not
+cooking where a beefsteak would cook. So, the story goes that some
+girls employed at the public bakery of the city of La Rochefoucauld,
+in France, could remain ten minutes in the oven in a temperature of
+300 degrees, that is to say, 89 degrees hotter than boiling water,
+while potatoes and meat were cooking around them."
+
+"What girls!" said Altamont.
+
+"Here is another indisputable example. Nine of our fellow-countrymen
+in 1778, Fordyce, Banks, Solander, Blagden, Home, North, Lord
+Seaforth, and Captain Phillips, endured a temperature of 295 degrees,
+while eggs and roast beef were cooking near them."
+
+"And they were Englishmen!" said Bell, with an accent of pride.
+
+"Yes, Bell," answered the doctor.
+
+"O, Americans could have done better!" said Altamont.
+
+"They would have roasted," said the doctor, laughing.
+
+"And why not?" answered the American.
+
+"At any rate, they have not tried; still, I stand up for my
+countrymen. There's one thing I must not forget; it is incredible if
+one can doubt of the accuracy of the witnesses. The Duke of Ragusa and
+Dr. Jung, a Frenchman and an Austrian, saw a Turk dive into a bath
+which stood at 170 degrees."
+
+"But it seems to me," said Johnson, that that is not equal to other
+people you mentioned."
+
+"I beg your pardon," answered the doctor; there is a great difference
+between entering warm air and entering warm water; warm air induces
+perspiration, and that protects the skin, while in such hot water
+there is no perspiration and the skin is burned. Hence a bath is
+seldom hotter than 107 degrees. This Turk must have been an
+extraordinary man to have been able to endure so great heat."
+
+"Dr. Clawbonny," asked Johnson, "what is the usual temperature of
+living beings?"
+
+"It varies very much," answered the doctor; "birds are the warmest
+blooded, and of these the duck and hen are the most remarkable; their
+temperature is above 110 degrees, while that of the owl is not more
+than 104 degrees; then come the mammalia, men; the temperature of
+Englishmen is generally 101 degrees."
+
+"I'm sure Mr. Altamont is going to claim something more for the
+Americans," said Johnson.
+
+"Well," said Altamont, "there are some very warm; but as I've never
+placed a thermometer into their thorax or under their tongue, I can't
+be sure about it."
+
+"The difference of temperature," resumed the doctor, "between men of
+different races is quite imperceptible when they are placed in the
+same circumstances, whatever be the nature of their bringing-up; I
+should add, that the temperature varies but little between men at the
+equator and at the pole."
+
+"So," said Altamont, "our temperature is about the same here as in
+England?"
+
+"About the same," answered the doctor; "as to the other mammalia,
+their temperature is a trifle higher than that of man. The horse is
+about the same, as well as the hare, the elephant, the porpoise, the
+tiger; but the cat, the squirrel, the rat, panther, sheep, ox, dog,
+monkey, goat, reach 103 degrees; and the warmest of all, the pig, goes
+above 104 degrees."
+
+"That is humiliating for us," said Altamont.
+
+"Then come amphibious animals and fish, whose temperature varies very
+much according to that of the water. The serpent does not go above 86
+degrees, the frog 70 degrees, and the shark the same in a medium a
+degree and a half cooler; insects appear to have the temperature of
+the water and the air."
+
+"That is all very well," said Hatteras, who had not yet spoken, "and
+I'm much obliged to the doctor for his information; but we are talking
+as if we had to endure torrid heats. Would it not be wiser to talk
+about the cold, to know to what we are exposed, and what is the lowest
+temperature that has ever been observed?"
+
+"True," added Johnson.
+
+"There's nothing easier," continued the doctor, "and I may be able to
+give you some information."
+
+"I dare say," said Johnson; "you know everything."
+
+"My friends, I only know what others have taught me, and when I've
+finished you'll know exactly as much. This is what I know about cold
+and the lowest temperatures observed in Europe. A great many
+noteworthy winters have been known, and it seems as if the severest
+has a periodic return about every forty-one years,--a period which
+nearly corresponds with the greater appearance of spots on the sun. I
+can mention the winter of 1364, when the Rhone was frozen as far as
+Arles; that of 1408, when the Danube was frozen its whole length, and
+when wolves ran over to Jutland without wetting their feet; that of
+1509, during which the Mediterranean at Cette and Marseilles and the
+Adriatic at Venice were frozen, and the Baltic as late as April 10;
+that of 1608, which killed all the cattle in England; that of 1789,
+when the Thames was frozen--as far as Gravesend, six leagues--below
+London; that of 1813, of which the French retain such a terrible
+memory; and that of 1829, the earliest and longest winter of this
+century. So much for Europe."
+
+"But what temperature has been reached above the Arctic Circle?" asked
+Altamont.
+
+"Really," said the doctor, "I believe we have experienced the greatest
+cold that has ever been observed, since our spirit thermometer
+indicated one day -72 degrees; and if I remember aright, the lowest
+temperatures ever observed before were only -61 degrees at Melville
+Island, -65 degrees at Port Felix, and -70 degrees at Fort Reliance."
+
+"Yes," said Hatteras; "we were delayed, and unfortunately too, by a
+very severe winter!"
+
+"You were delayed?" exclaimed Altamont, staring at the captain.
+
+"In our journey westward," interposed the doctor, hastily.
+
+"So," said Altamont, continuing the conversation, "the maximum and
+minimum temperatures endured by men vary about two hundred degrees?"
+
+"Yes," answered the doctor; "a thermometer exposed to the open air and
+sheltered from reflection has never risen above 135 degrees, and in
+the greatest colds it never falls below -72 degrees. So, my friends,
+you see we can take our ease."
+
+"But still," said Johnson, "if the sun were to be extinguished
+suddenly, would not the earth endure greater cold?"
+
+"The sun won't be extinguished," answered the doctor; "but even if it
+should be, the temperature would not fall any lower, probably, than
+what I have mentioned."
+
+"That's strange."
+
+"O, I know it used to be said that in the space outside of the
+atmosphere the temperature was thousands of degrees below zero! but
+since the experiments of the Frenchman Fourrier, this has been
+disproved; he has shown that if the earth were placed in a medium void
+of all heat, that the temperature at the pole would be much greater,
+and that there would be very great differences between night and day;
+so, my friends, it is no colder a few millions of miles from the earth
+than it is here."
+
+"Tell me, Doctor," said Altamont, "is not the temperature of America
+lower than that of other countries of the world?"
+
+"Without doubt; but don't be proud of it," answered the doctor with a
+laugh.
+
+"And what is the reason?"
+
+"No very satisfactory explanation has ever been given; so it occurred
+to Hadley that a comet had come into collision with the earth and had
+altered the position of its axis of rotation, that is to say, of its
+poles; according to him, the North Pole, which used to be situated at
+Hudson's Bay, found itself carried farther east, and the land at the
+old Pole preserved a greater cold, which long centuries of the sun
+have not yet heated."
+
+"And you do not admit this hypothesis?"
+
+"Not for a moment; for what is true of the eastern coast of America is
+not true of the western coast, which has a higher temperature. No! we
+can prove that the isothermal lines differ from the terrestrial
+parallels, and that is all."
+
+"Do you know, Doctor," said Johnson, "that it is pleasant to talk
+about cold in our present circumstances?"
+
+"Exactly, Johnson; we can call practice to the aid of theory. These
+countries are a vast laboratory where curious experiments on low
+temperatures can be made. Only, be always careful; if any part of your
+body is frozen, rub it at once with snow to restore the circulation of
+the blood; and if you come near the fire, be careful, for you may burn
+your hands or feet without noticing it; then amputation would be
+necessary, and we should try to leave nothing of ourselves in these
+lands. And now I think it would be well for us to seek a few hours of
+sleep."
+
+"Willingly," answered the doctor's companions.
+
+"Who keeps watch over the stove?"
+
+"I do," answered Bell.
+
+"Well, my friend, take care the fire does not fall out, for it's most
+abominably cold this evening."
+
+"Don't be uneasy, Doctor; it's very sharp, but see, the sky is all
+ablaze!"
+
+"Yes," answered the doctor, going up to the window, "it's a
+magnificent aurora. What a glorious sight! I should never get tired of
+looking at it!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+In fact, the doctor admired all these cosmic phenomena, to which his
+companions paid but little attention; he had noticed, besides, that
+their appearance always preceded disturbances of the magnetic needle,
+and he was preparing some observations on the subject which he
+intended for Admiral Fitz-Roy's "Weather Book."
+
+Soon, while Bell was on watch near the stove, all the rest, stretched
+on their beds, slept quietly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+THE PLEASURES OF WINTER-QUARTERS.
+
+
+There is a gloomy monotony about life at the Pole. Man is wholly the
+sport of the changes of the weather, which alternates between intense
+cold and severe storms with savage relentlessness. The greater part of
+the time it is impossible to set foot out of doors; one is imprisoned
+in the hut of ice. Long months pass in this way, so that men lead the
+life of moles.
+
+The next day the thermometer was several degrees lower, and the air
+was full of clouds of snow, which absorbed all the light of day. The
+doctor saw himself kept within doors, and he folded his arms; there
+was nothing to be done, except every hour to clear away the
+entrance-hall and to repolish the ice-walls which the heat within made
+damp; but the snow-house was very finely built, and the snow added to
+its resistance by augmenting the thickness of its walls.
+
+The stores were equally secure. All the objects taken from the ship
+had been arranged in order in these "Docks of Merchandise," as the
+doctor called them. Now, although these stores were at a distance of
+only sixty feet from the house, it was yet on some days almost
+impossible to get to them; hence a certain quantity of provisions had
+always to be kept in the kitchen for daily needs.
+
+They had been wise in unloading the _Porpoise_. The ship was exposed
+to a gentle, but persistent pressure, which was gradually crushing it;
+it was evident that nothing could be done with its fragments; still
+the doctor kept hoping to be able to build a launch out of them to
+return to England in, but the time for building it had not yet come.
+
+So for the most part the five men remained in complete idleness.
+Hatteras was pensive and always lying on the bed; Altamont was
+drinking or sleeping, and the doctor took good care not to rouse him
+from his slumbers, for he was always afraid of some distressing
+quarrel. These two men seldom spoke to one another.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+So during meal-time the prudent Clawbonny always took care to guide
+the conversation and to direct it in such a way as not to offend the
+susceptibilities of either; but he had a great deal to do. He did his
+best to instruct, distract, and interest his companions; when he was
+not arranging his notes about the expedition, he read aloud some
+history, geography, or work on meteorology, which had reference to
+their condition; he presented things pleasantly and philosophically,
+deriving wholesome instruction from the slightest incidents; his
+inexhaustible memory never played him false; he applied his doctrines
+to the persons who were with him, reminding them of such or such a
+thing which happened under such or such circumstances; and he filled
+out his theories by the force of personal arguments.
+
+[Illustration: "He did his best to instruct and interest his
+companions."]
+
+This worthy man may be called the soul of this little world, a soul
+glowing with frankness and justice. His companions had perfect
+confidence in him; he even improved Captain Hatteras, who, besides,
+was very fond of him; he made his words, manners, and custom so
+agreeable, that the life of these five men within six degrees of the
+Pole seemed perfectly natural; when he was speaking, any one would
+have imagined he was in his office in Liverpool. And yet this
+situation was unlike that of castaways on the islands of the Pacific
+Ocean, those Robinsons whose touching history always aroused the envy
+of their readers. There, the natural richness offers a thousand
+different resources; a little imagination and effort suffice to secure
+material happiness; nature aids man; hunting and fishing supply all
+his wants; the trees grow to aid him, caverns shelter him, brooks
+slake his thirst, dense thickets hide him from the sun, and severe
+cold never comes upon him in the winter; a grain tossed into the earth
+brings forth a bounteous return a few months later. There, outside of
+society, everything is found to make man happy. And then these happy
+isles lie in the path of ships; the castaway can hope to be picked up,
+and he can wait in patience.
+
+But here on the coast of New America how great is the difference! This
+comparison would continually occur to the doctor, but he never
+mentioned it to the others, and he struggled against the enforced
+idleness.
+
+He yearned ardently for the spring, in order to resume his excursions;
+and yet he was anxious about it, for he foresaw difficulties between
+Hatteras and Altamont. If they pushed on to the Pole, there would
+necessarily be rivalry between the two men. Hence he had to prepare
+for the worst, and still, as far as he could, to try to pacify these
+rivals; but to reconcile an American and an Englishman, two men
+hostile to one another from their birth, one endowed with real insular
+prejudice, the other with the adventurous, irreverent spirit of his
+country, was no easy task. When the doctor thought of their eager
+rivalry, which in fact was one of nationalities, he could not help,
+not shrugging his shoulders, but lamenting human weakness. He would
+often talk to Johnson on this subject; he and the old sailor agreed in
+the matter; they were uncertain what view to take, and they foresaw
+complications in the future.
+
+Still, the bad weather continued; they could not leave Fort Providence
+even for an hour. Night and day they had to remain in the snow-house.
+They all found it tedious, except the doctor, who found diversion for
+himself.
+
+"Isn't there any way we can amuse ourselves?" said Altamont one
+evening. "This isn't really living, lying here like sluggish reptiles
+all winter."
+
+"It's a pity," said the doctor, "that we are too few to organize any
+system of distractions."
+
+"Do you mean it would be easier for us to combat idleness if there
+were more of us?" asked the American.
+
+"Yes; when whole crews have wintered in boreal regions, they have
+found out the way to avoid idleness."
+
+"To tell the truth," said Altamont, "I should like to know how they
+did; they must have been very ingenious to get any fun out of these
+surroundings. They didn't ask one another riddles, I suppose?"
+
+"No," answered the doctor, "but they introduced into these lands two
+great means of amusement, the press and the theatre."
+
+"What! did they have a newspaper?" asked the American.
+
+"Did they act plays?" asked Bell.
+
+"Yes, and with much amusement. While he was wintering at Melville
+Island, Captain Parry offered his crews these two entertainments, and
+they enjoyed them very much."
+
+"Well," said Johnson, "I should have liked to be there; it must have
+been funny enough."
+
+"Funny indeed; Lieutenant Beecher was manager of the theatre, and
+Captain Sabine editor of the 'Winter Chronicle, or Gazette of North
+Georgia.'"
+
+"Good names," said Altamont.
+
+"The paper appeared every Monday morning, from November 1, 1819, to
+March 20, 1820. It contained an account of everything that happened,
+the hunts, accidents, incidents, and of the weather; there were
+stories written for it; to be sure, it lacked the humor of Sterne, and
+the delightful articles of the 'Daily Telegraph'; but they got
+amusement from it; its readers were not over-critical, and I fancy no
+journalists ever enjoyed their occupation more."
+
+"Well," said Altamont, "I should like to hear some extracts from this
+paper, my dear Doctor; its articles must all have been frozen solid."
+
+"No, no," answered the doctor; "at any rate, what would have seemed
+simple enough to the Liverpool Philosophical Society, or the London
+Literary Institution, was perfectly satisfactory to the crews beneath
+the snow. Do you want a sample?"
+
+"What! Do you remember--"
+
+"No, but you had 'Parry's Voyages' on board the _Porpoise_, and I can
+read you his own account."
+
+"Do!" shouted the doctor's companions.
+
+"There's nothing easier."
+
+The doctor got the book from the shelves, and soon found the passage.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"See here," he said, "here are some extracts from the newspaper. It is
+a letter addressed to the editor:--
+
+"'It is with genuine satisfaction that your plan for the establishment
+of a newspaper has been received. I am convinced that under your
+charge it will furnish us with a great deal of amusement, and will
+serve to lighten materially the gloom of our hundred days of darkness.
+
+"'The interest which I, for my part, take in it has caused me to
+examine the effect of your announcement upon the members of our
+society, and I can assure you, to use the consecrated phrase of the
+London press, that it has produced a profound impression upon the
+public.
+
+"'The day after the appearance of your prospectus, there was on board
+an unusual and unprecedented demand for ink. The green cloth of our
+tables was suddenly covered with a deluge of quill-pens, to the great
+injury of one of our servants, who, in trying to remove them, got one
+under his nail.
+
+"'Finally, I know that Sergeant Martin has had no less than nine
+pocket-knives to sharpen.
+
+"'Our tables are groaning beneath the unaccustomed weight of
+inkstands, which had not seen the light for two months; and it is even
+whispered that the depths of the hold have been often opened to secure
+many reams of paper, which did not expect to issue so soon from their
+place of repose.
+
+"'I shall not forget to say to you that I have some suspicions that an
+effort will be made to slip into your box some articles, which,
+lacking complete originality, and not being wholly unpublished, may
+not suit your plan. I can affirm that no later than last evening an
+author was seen bending over his desk, holding in one hand an open
+volume of the "Spectator," while with the other he was thawing his ink
+by the flame of the lamp. It is useless to recommend you to keep a
+lookout against such devices; we must not see reappearing in the
+"Winter Chronicle" what our ancestors used to read at breakfast more
+than a century ago.'"
+
+"Well, well," said Altamont, when the doctor had finished reading,
+"there is really good humor in that, and the writer must have been a
+bright fellow."
+
+"Bright is the word," answered the doctor. "Stop a moment, here is an
+amusing advertisement:--
+
+"'Wanted. A middle-aged, respectable woman to help dress the ladies of
+the troupe of the "Theatre Royal of North Georgia." Suitable salary
+given, tea and beer free. Address the Committee of the theatre.--N. B.
+A widow preferred.'"
+
+"They were not disgusted, at any rate," said Johnson.
+
+"And did they get the widow?" asked Bell.
+
+"Probably," answered the doctor, "for here is an answer addressed to
+the committee:--
+
+
+"'Gentlemen: I am a widow, twenty-six years old, and I can produce
+warm testimonials as to my morals and talents. But before taking
+charge of the dresses of the actresses of your theatre, I am anxious
+to know if they intend to keep their trousers on, and whether I can
+have the aid of some strong sailors to lace their corsets properly.
+This being arranged, gentlemen, you may count upon your servant.
+
+"'A. B.
+
+"'P. S. Can you not substitute brandy for beer?'"
+
+
+"Bravo!" shouted Altamont. "I suppose they had ladies'-maids to lace
+you by the capstan. Well, they were jolly fellows!"
+
+"Like all who do what they set out to do," remarked Hatteras.
+
+Hatteras uttered these words, and then he relapsed into his usual
+silence. The doctor, unwilling to dwell on that subject, hastened to
+resume his reading.
+
+"See here," he said, "here is a picture of arctic sufferings; it may
+be varied infinitely; but a few of the observations are wise enough;
+for instance:--
+
+"'To go out in the morning to take the air, and on setting foot off
+the ship, to take a cold bath in the cook's trough.
+
+"'To go on a hunting-party, get near a fine reindeer, take aim, try to
+fire, and miss the shot on account of a damp cap.
+
+"'To start out with a piece of fresh bread in the pocket, and when one
+gets hungry to find it frozen hard enough to break one's teeth.
+
+"'To leave the table suddenly on hearing a wolf is in sight of the
+ship, and to come back and find one's dinner eaten by the cat.
+
+"'To return from a walk rapt in thought, and to be awakened suddenly
+by the embrace of a bear.'
+
+"You see, my friends," said the doctor, "we should not find it hard to
+imagine other polar troubles; but from the moment it becomes necessary
+to endure these miseries, it would be a pleasure to narrate them."
+
+"Upon my word," said Altamont, "that's an amusing paper, and it's a
+pity we can't subscribe to it."
+
+"Suppose we should start one," suggested Johnson.
+
+"We five!" answered Clawbonny; "we should all be editors, and there
+would be no readers."
+
+"Nor audience either, if we should act a play," said Altamont.
+
+"Tell us, Doctor," said Johnson, "something about Captain Parry's
+theatre; did they act new plays there?"
+
+"Of course; at first they made use of two volumes which were put on
+board of the _Hector_, and they had plays every fortnight; but soon
+they had acted all; then they resorted to original authors, and Parry
+himself wrote a suitable play for the Christmas holidays; it was very
+successful, and was called 'The Northwest Passage, or the End of the
+Voyage.'"
+
+"A capital title," answered Altamont; "but I confess, if I had to
+write on that subject, I should be puzzled about the end."
+
+"You are right," said Bell; "who can say how it will end?"
+
+"True," answered the doctor; "but why bother about the end, since the
+beginning is so favorable? Let us trust in Providence, my friends; let
+us act our part well, and since the end depends on the Author of all
+things, let us have confidence in him; he will know what to do with
+us."
+
+"Let us sleep on it," answered Johnson; "it is late, and since bedtime
+has come, let us turn in."
+
+"You are in a great hurry, my old friend," said the doctor.
+
+"Naturally enough, Doctor, I am so comfortable in bed! And then my
+dreams are pleasant. I dream of warm countries; or that, to tell the
+truth, half of my life is spent at the equator and half at the Pole!"
+
+"The deuce," said Altamont, "you have a happy temperament."
+
+"True," answered the boatswain.
+
+"Well, it would be cruel to detain Johnson any longer. His tropical
+sun is waiting for him. Let us go to bed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+DISQUIETING TRACES.
+
+
+In the night of April 26-27, the weather changed; the thermometer fell
+many degrees, and the inhabitants of Doctor's House perceived it from
+the cold which made its way beneath their coverings; Altamont, who was
+watching the stove, took care not to let the fire get low, and he was
+kept busy putting on enough coal to keep the temperature at 50
+degrees. This cold weather announced the end of the storm, and the
+doctor was glad of it, for now they could resume their usual
+occupations, their hunting, excursions, and explorations; this would
+put an end to the apathy of their loneliness, which in time sours even
+the finest characters.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The next morning the doctor rose early, and made his way over the
+drifts to the lighthouse. The wind was from the north; the air was
+clear, the snow was hard under his feet. Soon his five companions had
+left Doctor's House; their first care was to dig away the drifted
+snow, which now disguised the plateau; it would have been impossible
+to discover any traces of life upon it, for the tempest had buried all
+inequalities beneath fifteen feet of snow.
+
+After the snow was cleared away from the house, it was necessary to
+restore its architectural outline. This was very easy, and after the
+ice was removed a few blows with the snow-knife gave it its normal
+thickness. After two hours' work the granite appeared, and access to
+the stores and the powder-house was free. But since, in these
+uncertain climates, such things can happen every day, a new supply of
+food was carried to the kitchen. They were all wearied of salt food
+and yearned for fresh meat, and so the hunters were charged with
+changing the bill of fare, and they prepared to set out.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Still the end of April did not bring with it the polar spring, which
+was yet six weeks off; the sun's rays were still too feeble to melt
+the snow or to nourish the few plants of these regions. They feared
+lest animals should be scarce, both birds and quadrupeds. But a hare,
+a few ptarmigans, even a young fox, would have been welcome to the
+table of Doctor's House, and the hunters resolved to shoot whatever
+should come within range.
+
+The doctor, Altamont, and Bell determined to explore the country.
+Altamont, they felt sure from his habits, was a bold and skilful
+hunter, and, with all his bragging, a capital shot. So he went with
+the hunters, as did Duke, who was equally skilful and less prone to
+boasting.
+
+The three companions ascended the east cone and set out towards the
+large white plains; but they had gone no farther than two or three
+miles before they saw numerous tracks; from that point, they ran down
+to the shore of Victoria Bay, and appeared to surround Fort Providence
+with a series of concentric circles.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+After they had followed these footprints for a short time, the doctor
+said,--
+
+"Well, that is clear enough."
+
+"Too clear," said Bell; "they are bear tracks."
+
+"Good game," continued Altamont, "and there is only one fault in it
+to-day."
+
+"What's that?" asked the doctor.
+
+"The abundance," answered the American.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Bell.
+
+"I mean that there are distinct tracks of five bears; and five bears
+are a good many for five men."
+
+"Are you sure of what you say?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Judge for yourself; this mark is different from any other; the claws
+on this one are farther apart than those. Here is the print of a
+smaller bear. If you compare them together, you'll find traces of five
+animals."
+
+"You are right," said Bell, after a careful examination.
+
+"Then," said the doctor, "there is no need of useless bravado, but
+rather of caution; these animals are famished at the end of a severe
+winter, and they may be very dangerous; and since there is no doubt of
+their number--"
+
+"Nor of their intentions," interrupted the American.
+
+"Do you suppose," he asked, "that they have discovered our presence
+here?"
+
+"Without a doubt, unless we've fallen on a whole band of bears; but in
+that case, why do their prints go about in a circle, instead of
+running out of sight? See, they came from the southwest and stopped
+here, and began to explore the country."
+
+"You are right," said the doctor, "and it's certain they came last
+night."
+
+"And the other nights too," answered Altamont; "only the snow has
+covered their tracks."
+
+"No," said the doctor; "it's more likely that they waited for the end
+of the storm; they went to the bay to catch some seals, and then they
+scented us."
+
+"True," said Altamont; "so it is easy to know whether they will return
+to-night."
+
+"How so?" asked Bell.
+
+"By rubbing out some of their tracks; and if we find new ones
+to-morrow, we can be sure that they are trying to get into Fort
+Providence."
+
+"Well," said the doctor, "we shall at least know what to expect."
+
+The three then set to work, and soon effaced all the tracks over a
+space of about six hundred feet.
+
+"It's strange, however," said Bell, "that they could scent us at so
+great a distance; we didn't burn anything greasy which could attract
+them."
+
+"O," answered the doctor, "they have very fine sight, and delicate
+sense of smell! Besides, they are very intelligent, perhaps the most
+intelligent of animals, and they have found out something strange
+here."
+
+"Perhaps," continued Bell, "during the storm, they came up as far as
+the plateau."
+
+"Then," said the American, "why should they have stopped there?"
+
+"True, there is no answer to that," answered the doctor; "and we ought
+to believe that they are shortening the circle about Fort Providence."
+
+"We shall see," answered Altamont.
+
+"Now, let us go on," said the doctor; "but we'll keep our eyes open."
+
+They kept careful watch, through fear lest some bear should be hidden
+behind the masses of ice; often they took the blocks for animals, from
+their shape and whiteness, but soon they discovered their mistake.
+
+They returned at last to the shore beneath the cone, and from there
+their eyes swept in vain from Cape Washington to Johnson Island. They
+saw nothing; everything was white and motionless; not a sound was to
+be heard. They entered the snow-house.
+
+Hatteras and Johnson were informed of the condition of affairs, and
+they resolved to keep a strict watch. Night came; nothing occurred to
+alarm them, or to mar its beauty. At dawn the next morning, Hatteras
+and his companions, fully armed, went out to examine the condition of
+the snow; they found the same tracks as on the previous day, only
+nearer. Evidently the enemy was preparing to lay siege to Fort
+Providence.
+
+"They have opened their second parallel," said the doctor.
+
+"They have made a point in advance," answered Altamont; "see those
+footprints coming nearer the plateau; they are those of some strong
+animal."
+
+"Yes, they are gaining ground gradually," said Johnson; "it is evident
+that they are going to attack us."
+
+"There's no doubt of that," said the doctor; "let us avoid showing
+ourselves. We are not strong enough to fight successfully."
+
+"But where do these devilish bears come from?" asked Bell.
+
+"From behind those pieces of ice to the east, where they are spying
+us; don't let us get too near them."
+
+"And our hunt?" asked Altamont.
+
+"Let us put it off for a few days," answered the doctor; "let us again
+rub out these nearest marks, and to-morrow we shall see if they are
+renewed. In this way we can see the manoeuvres of our enemies."
+
+The doctor's advice was taken, and they returned to the fort; the
+presence of these terrible beasts forbade any excursion. Strict watch
+was kept over the neighborhood of Victoria Bay. The lighthouse was
+dismantled; it was of no real use, and might attract the attention of
+the animals; the lantern and the electric threads were carried to the
+house; then they took turns in watching the upper plateau.
+
+Again they had to endure the monotony of loneliness, but what else was
+to be done? They dared not risk a contest at so fearful odds; no one's
+life could be risked imprudently. Perhaps the bears, if they caught
+sight of nothing, might be thrown off the track; or, if they were met
+singly, they might be attacked successfully. However, this inaction
+was relieved by a new interest; they had to keep watch, and no one
+regretted it.
+
+April 28th passed by without any sign of the existence of the enemy.
+The next morning their curiosity as to the existence of new tracks was
+succeeded by astonishment. Not a trace was to be seen; the snow was
+intact.
+
+"Good," shouted Altamont, "the bears are thrown off the track! They
+have no perseverance! They are tired of waiting, and have gone! Good
+by, and now off to the hunt!"
+
+"Eh!" answered the doctor, "who can say? For greater safety, my
+friends, I beg one more day of watching; it is certain the enemy did
+not approach last night, at least from this side--"
+
+"Let us make a circuit of the plateau," said Altamont, "and then we
+shall make sure."
+
+"Willingly," said the doctor.
+
+But with all their care in exploration, not the slightest trace could
+be found.
+
+"Well, shall we start on our hunt?" asked Altamont, impatiently.
+
+"Let us wait till to-morrow," urged the doctor.
+
+"All right," answered Altamont, who had some reluctance, however,
+about conceding.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+They returned to the fort. Each one had to watch for an hour, as on
+the previous evening. When Altamont's turn came, he went to relieve
+Bell. As soon as he was gone, Hatteras called his companions together.
+The doctor left his notes, and Johnson his furnaces. It might have
+been supposed that Hatteras was going to discuss the dangers of the
+situation; he did not even think of them.
+
+"My friends," he said, "let us take advantage of the absence of this
+American, to talk over our affairs; some things don't concern him at
+all, and I don't care to have him meddling with them."
+
+The others looked at one another, uncertain of his meaning.
+
+"I want to speak with you," he said, "about our future plans."
+
+"Well," answered the doctor, "let us talk now we are alone."
+
+"In a month, or six weeks at the latest," Hatteras began, "we shall be
+able to make distant excursions. Had you thought of what might be done
+in the summer?"
+
+"Had you, Captain?" asked Johnson.
+
+"I? I can say that not an hour passes without my mind's recurring to
+my plan. I suppose no one of you has any thought of returning--"
+
+There was no immediate answer to this insinuation.
+
+"As for me," continued Hatteras, "if I have to go alone, I shall go to
+the North Pole; we are only three hundred and sixty miles from it at
+the outside. No men have ever been so near it, and I shall not let
+such a chance go by without the attempt, even if it be impossible.
+What are your views in the matter?"
+
+"Your own," answered the doctor.
+
+"And yours, Johnson?"
+
+"The same as the doctor's," answered the boatswain.
+
+"It is your turn to speak, Bell," said Hatteras.
+
+"Captain," answered the carpenter, "it is true we have no family
+awaiting us in England, but our country is our country: don't you
+think of going back?"
+
+"We shall go back easily as soon as we shall have discovered the Pole.
+In fact, more easily. The difficulties will not increase, for, on our
+way thither, we leave behind us the coldest spots on the globe. We
+have supplies of all sorts for a long time. There is nothing to hinder
+us, and we should be to blame if we did not push on to the end."
+
+"Well," answered Bell, "we are all of your opinion, Captain."
+
+"Good!" replied Hatteras. "I have never doubted of you. We shall
+succeed, my friends, and England shall have all the glory of our
+success."
+
+"But there is an American with us," said Johnson.
+
+Hatteras could not restrain a wrathful gesture at this remark.
+
+"I know it," he said in a deep voice.
+
+"We can't leave him here," continued the doctor.
+
+"No, we cannot," answered Hatteras, coldly.
+
+"And he will certainly come."
+
+"Yes, he will come, but who will command?"
+
+"You, Captain."
+
+"And if you obey me, will this Yankee refuse to obey?"
+
+"I don't think so," answered Johnson; "but if he is unwilling to obey
+your orders--"
+
+"It would have to be settled between him and me."
+
+The three Englishmen looked at Hatteras without a word. The doctor
+broke the silence.
+
+"How shall we travel?" he asked.
+
+"By keeping along the coast as much as possible," answered Hatteras.
+
+"But if we find the sea open, as is likely?"
+
+"Well, we shall cross it."
+
+"How? We have no boat."
+
+Hatteras did not answer; he was evidently embarrassed.
+
+"Perhaps," suggested Bell, "we might build a launch out of the timbers
+of the _Porpoise_."
+
+"Never!" shouted Hatteras, warmly.
+
+"Never?" exclaimed Johnson.
+
+The doctor shook his head; he understood the captain's unwillingness.
+
+"Never!" the latter answered. "A launch made out of the wood of an
+American ship would be an American launch--"
+
+"But, Captain--" interposed Johnson.
+
+The doctor made a sign to the old boatswain to keep silent. A more
+suitable time was required for that question. The doctor, although he
+understood Hatteras's repugnance, did not sympathize with it, and he
+determined to make his friend abandon this hasty decision. Hence he
+spoke of something else, of the possibility of going along the coast
+to the north, and that unknown point, the North Pole. In a word, he
+avoided all dangerous subjects of conversation up to the moment when
+it was suddenly ended by the entrance of Altamont. He had nothing new
+to report. The day ended in this way, and the night was quiet. The
+bears had evidently disappeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+THE ICE PRISON.
+
+
+The next day they determined to arrange the hunt, in which Hatteras,
+Altamont, and the carpenter were to take part; no more tracks were to
+be seen; the bears had decidedly given up their plan of attack, either
+from fear of their unknown enemies, or because there had been no sign
+of living beings beneath the mass of snow. During the absence of the
+three hunters, the doctor was to push on to Johnson Island to examine
+the condition of the ice, and to make some hydrographic
+investigations. The cold was sharp, but they supported it well, having
+become accustomed to it by this time. The boatswain was to remain at
+Doctor's House; in a word, to guard the house.
+
+The three hunters made their preparations; each one took a
+double-barrelled rifled gun, with conical balls; they carried a small
+quantity of pemmican, in case night should fall before their return;
+they also were provided with the snow-knife, which is so indispensable
+in these regions, and a hatchet which they wore in their belts. Thus
+armed and equipped they could go far; and since they were both skilled
+and bold, they could count on bringing back a good supply.
+
+At eight in the morning they set out. Duke sprang about ahead of them;
+they ascended the hill to the east, went about the lighthouse, and
+disappeared in the plains to the south, which were bounded by Mount
+Bell. The doctor, having agreed on a danger-signal with Johnson,
+descended towards the shore so as to reach the ice in Victoria Bay.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The boatswain remained at Fort Providence alone, but not idle. He
+first set free the Greenland dogs, which were playing about the Dog
+Palace; they in their joy rolled about in the snow. Johnson then gave
+his attentions to the cares of housekeeping. He had to renew the fuel
+and provisions, to set the stores in order, to mend many broken
+utensils, to patch the coverings, to work over the shoes for the long
+excursions of the summer. There was no lack of things to do, but the
+boatswain worked with the ease of a sailor, who has generally a
+smattering of all trades. While thus employed he began to think of the
+talk of the evening before; he thought of the captain, and especially
+of his obstinacy, which, after all, had something very heroic and very
+honorable about it, in his unwillingness that any American man or boat
+should reach the Pole before him, or even with him.
+
+"Still, it seems to me," he said to himself, "no easy task to cross
+the ocean without a boat; and if we have the open sea before us, we
+should need one. The strongest Englishman in the world couldn't swim
+three hundred miles. Patriotism has its limits. Well, we shall see. We
+have still time before us; Dr. Clawbonny has not yet said his last
+word in the matter; he is wise, and he may persuade the captain to
+change his mind. I'll bet that in going towards the island he'll
+glance at the fragments of the _Porpoise_, and will know exactly what
+can be made out of them."
+
+Johnson had reached this point in his reflections, and the hunters had
+been gone an hour, when a loud report was heard two or three miles to
+windward.
+
+"Good!" said the sailor; "they have come across something, and without
+going very far, for I heard them distinctly. After all, the air is so
+clear."
+
+A second and then a third report was heard.
+
+"Hulloa!" continued Johnson, "they've got into a good place."
+
+Three other reports, in quicker succession, were heard.
+
+"Six shots!" said Johnson; "now they've fired off everything. It was a
+hot time! Is it possible--"
+
+At the thought, Johnson grew pale; he quickly left the snow-house, and
+in a few moments he had run up to the top of the cone. He saw a sight
+that made him tremble.
+
+"The bears!" he shouted.
+
+The three hunters, followed by Duke, were running rapidly, followed by
+five enormous animals; their six bullets had not disabled them; the
+bears were gaining on them; Hatteras, behind the others, could only
+keep his distance from the animals by throwing away his cap, hatchet,
+and even his gun. The bears stopped, according to their habit, to
+sniff at the different objects, and lost a little on this ground on
+which they would have outstripped the swiftest horse. It was thus that
+Hatteras, Altamont, and Bell, all out of breath, came up to Johnson,
+and they all slid down the slope to the snow-house. The five bears
+were close behind, and the captain was obliged to ward off the blow of
+a paw with his knife. In a moment Hatteras and his companions were
+locked in the house. The animals stopped on the upper plateau of the
+truncated cone.
+
+[Illustration: "Hatteras could only keep his distance from the animals
+by throwing away his cap, hatchet, and even his gun."]
+
+"Well," said Hatteras, "we can now defend ourselves better, five to
+five!"
+
+"Four to five!" shouted Johnson in a terrified voice.
+
+"What?" asked Hatteras.
+
+"The doctor!" answered Johnson, pointing to the empty room.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"He is on the shore of the island!"
+
+"Poor man!" cried Bell.
+
+"We can't abandon him in this way," said Altamont.
+
+"Let us run!" said Hatteras.
+
+He opened the door quickly, but he had hardly time to shut it; a bear
+nearly crushed his skull with his claw.
+
+"They are there," he cried.
+
+"All?" asked Bell.
+
+"All!" answered Hatteras.
+
+Altamont hastened to the windows, heaping up the bays with pieces of
+ice torn from the walls of the house. His companions did the same
+without speaking. Duke's dull snarls alone broke the silence.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But it must be said these men had only a single thought; they forgot
+their own danger, and only considered the doctor. Poor Clawbonny! so
+kind, so devoted! the soul of the little colony! for the first time he
+was missing; extreme peril, a terrible death, awaited him; for when
+his excursion was over he would return quietly to Fort Providence, and
+would find these ferocious animals. And there was no way of warning
+him.
+
+"If I'm not mistaken, he will be on his guard; your shots must have
+warned him, and he must know something has happened."
+
+"But if he were far off," answered Altamont, "and did not understand?
+There are eight chances out of ten that he'll come back without
+suspicion of danger! The bears are hiding behind the scarp of the
+fort, and he can't see them."
+
+"We shall have to get rid of these dangerous beasts before his
+return," answered Hatteras.
+
+"But how?" asked Bell.
+
+To answer this question was not easy. A sortie seemed impossible. They
+took the precaution to barricade the entrance, but the bears could
+easily have overcome the obstacles if the idea had occurred to them;
+they knew the number and strength of their adversaries, and they could
+easily have reached them. The prisoners were posted in each one of the
+chambers of Doctor's House to watch for every attempt at entrance;
+when they listened, they heard the bears coming and going, growling,
+and tearing at the walls with their huge paws. But some action was
+necessary; time was pressing. Altamont resolved to make a loop-hole to
+shoot the assailants; in a few minutes he had made a little hole in
+the ice-wall; he pushed his gun through it; but it had scarcely
+reached the other side before it was torn from his hands with
+irresistible force before he could fire.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"The devil!" he cried, "we are too weak."
+
+And he hastened to close the loop-hole. Thus matters went for an hour,
+without any end appearing probable. The chances of a sortie were
+discussed; they seemed slight, for the bears could not be fought
+singly. Nevertheless, Hatteras and his companions, being anxious to
+finish it, and, it must be said, very much confused at being thus
+imprisoned by the beasts, were about to try a direct attack, when the
+captain thought of a new means of defence.
+
+He took the poker and plunged it into the stove; then he made an
+opening in the wall, but so as to keep a thin coating of ice outside.
+His companions watched him. When the poker was white hot, Hatteras
+said,--
+
+"This bar will drive away the bears, for they won't be able to seize
+it, and through the loop-hole we will be able to fire at them, without
+their taking our guns away from us."
+
+"A good idea!" cried Bell, going towards Altamont.
+
+Then Hatteras, withdrawing the poker from the stove, pushed it through
+the wall. The snow, steaming at its touch, hissed sharply. Two bears
+ran to seize the bar, but they roared fearfully when four shots were
+fired at once.
+
+"Hit!" shouted the American.
+
+"Hit!" repeated Bell.
+
+"Let us try again," said Hatteras, closing the opening for a moment.
+
+The poker was put again into the fire; in a few minutes it was red
+hot.
+
+Altamont and Bell returned to their place after loading their guns;
+Hatteras again pushed the poker through the loop-hole. But this time
+an impenetrable substance stopped it.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Curse it!" cried the American.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Johnson.
+
+"The matter! These cursed animals are heaping up the ice and snow so
+as to bury us alive!"
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"See, the poker can't go through! Really, this is absurd!"
+
+It was more than absurd, it was alarming. Matters looked worse. The
+bears, which are very intelligent beasts, employed this method of
+suffocating their prey. They heaped the ice in such a way as to render
+flight impossible.
+
+[Illustration: "The bears heaped the ice in such a way as to render
+flight impossible."]
+
+"This is hard," said Johnson, with a very mortified air. "It's well
+enough to have men treat you in this way, but bears!"
+
+After this reflection two hours passed by without any material change
+in their situation; a sortie became impossible; the thickened walls
+deadened all sound without. Altamont walked to and fro like a bold man
+in face of a danger greater than his courage. Hatteras thought
+anxiously of the doctor, and of the great danger awaiting him when he
+should return.
+
+"Ah," shouted Johnson, "if Dr. Clawbonny were only here!"
+
+"Well, what would he do?" asked Altamont.
+
+"O, he would be able to help us!"
+
+"How?" asked the American, with some asperity.
+
+"If I knew," answered Johnson, "I shouldn't want him here. Still, I
+can think of a piece of advice he would give us at this moment."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"To take some food. It can't hurt us. What do you think, Mr.
+Altamont?"
+
+"Let us eat if you care to," was the answer; "although our condition
+is stupid, not to say disgraceful."
+
+"I'll bet," said Johnson, "that we'll find some way of driving them
+off after dinner."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+They made no reply, but sat down to dinner. Johnson, as a pupil of the
+doctor, tried to be a philosopher in the face of danger, but he
+succeeded ill; his jokes stuck in his throat. Besides, they began to
+feel uncomfortable; the air was growing bad in this hermetically
+sealed prison; the stove-pipe drew insufficiently, and it was easy to
+see that in a short time the fire would go out; the oxygen, consumed
+by their lungs and the fire, would be replaced by carbonic acid, which
+would be fatal to them, as they all knew. Hatteras was the first to
+detect this new danger; he was unwilling to hide it from the others.
+
+"So, at any risk we must get out!" said Altamont.
+
+"Yes," answered Hatteras; "but let us wait till night; we will make a
+hole in the snow that we may get fresh air; then one shall take his
+place here and fire at the bears."
+
+"It's the only thing we can do," said the American.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Having agreed on this, they waited for the time of action; and during
+the following hours, Altamont did not spare imprecations against a
+state of things in which, as he put it, "there being men and bears
+concerned, the men were getting the worst of it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+THE MINE.
+
+
+Night came, and the lamp began to burn dimly in the close air of the
+room. At eight o'clock they made their final preparations. The guns
+were carefully loaded, and an opening was begun in the roof of the
+snow-house. Bell worked cleverly at this for a few minutes, when
+Johnson, who had left the bedroom, where he was on guard, for a few
+minutes, returned rapidly to his companions. He seemed disturbed.
+
+"What is the matter?" the captain asked.
+
+"The matter? nothing!" answered the old sailor, hesitatingly, "yet--"
+
+"What is it?" asked Altamont.
+
+"Hush! Don't you hear a strange sound?"
+
+"On which side?"
+
+"There! There is something happening to the wall of that room."
+
+Bell stopped his work; each one listened. A distant noise could be
+heard, apparently in the side wall; some one was evidently making a
+passage-way through the ice.
+
+"It's a tearing sound!" said Johnson.
+
+"Without a doubt," answered Altamont.
+
+"The bears?" asked Bell.
+
+"Yes, the bears," said Altamont.
+
+"They have changed their plan," continued the sailor; "they've given
+up trying to suffocate us."
+
+"Or else they think they've done it," added the American, who was
+getting very angry.
+
+"We shall be attacked," said Bell.
+
+"Well," remarked Hatteras, "we shall fight against them."
+
+"Confound it!" shouted Altamont; "I prefer that decidedly! I've had
+enough working in the dark! Now we shall see one another and fight!"
+
+"Yes," answered Johnson; "but with our guns it is impossible in so
+small a space."
+
+"Well, with a hatchet or a knife!"
+
+The noise increased; the scratching of claws could be heard; the bears
+had attacked the wall at the angle where it joined the snow fastened
+to the rock."
+
+"Evidently," said Johnson, "the animal is within six feet of us."
+
+"You are right, Johnson," answered the American, "but we have time to
+prepare ourselves to receive it!"
+
+The American took the axe in one hand, his knife in the other; resting
+on his right foot, his body thrown back, he stood ready to attack.
+Hatteras and Bell did the same. Johnson prepared his gun in case
+fire-arms should be necessary. The noise grew louder and louder; the
+ice kept cracking beneath the repeated blows. At last only a thin
+crust separated the adversaries; suddenly this crust tore asunder like
+paper through which a clown leaps, and an enormous black body appeared
+in the gloom of the room. Altamont raised his hand to strike it.
+
+[Illustration: "An enormous black body appeared in the gloom of the
+room. Altamont raised his hand to strike it."]
+
+"Stop! for heaven's sake, stop!" said a well-known voice.
+
+"The doctor, the doctor!" shouted Johnson.
+
+It was indeed the doctor, who, carried by the impetus, rolled into the
+room.
+
+"Good evening, my friends," he said, springing to his feet.
+
+His companions remained stupefied; but joy succeeded their
+stupefaction; each one wished to embrace the worthy man; Hatteras, who
+was much moved, clasped him for a long time to his breast. The doctor
+answered by a warm clasp of the hand.
+
+"What! you, Dr. Clawbonny!" said the boatswain.
+
+"Why, Johnson, I was much more anxious about your fate than you about
+mine."
+
+"But how did you know that we were attacked by bears?" asked Altamont;
+"our greatest fear was to see you returning quietly to Fort Providence
+without thought of danger."
+
+"O, I saw everything!" answered the doctor; "your shots warned me; I
+happened to be near the fragments of the _Porpoise_; I climbed up a
+hummock; I saw five bears chasing you; ah, I feared the worst for you!
+But the way you slid down the hill, and the hesitation of the animals,
+reassured me for a time; I knew you'd had time to lock yourselves in.
+Then I approached gradually, climbing and creeping between cakes of
+ice; I arrived near the fort, and I saw the huge beasts working like
+beavers; they were tossing the snow about, heaping up the ice so as to
+bury you alive. Fortunately, they did not think of hurling the blocks
+down from the top of the cone, for you would have been crushed without
+mercy."
+
+"But," said Bell, "you were not safe, Doctor; couldn't they leave
+their place and attack you?"
+
+"They didn't think of it; the Greenland dogs which Johnson let loose
+would sniff around at a little distance, but they didn't think of
+attacking them; no, they were sure of better game."
+
+"Thanks for the compliment," said Altamont, smiling.
+
+"O, you needn't be vain of it! When I saw the tactics of the bears, I
+resolved to join you; to be prudent, I waited till night; so at
+twilight I slipped noiselessly towards the slope, on the side of the
+magazine; I had my own idea in choosing this point; I wanted to make a
+gallery; so I set to work; I began with my snow-knife, and a capital
+tool it is! For three hours I dug and dug, and here I am, hungry and
+tired, but here at last--"
+
+"To share our fate?" asked Altamont.
+
+"To save all of us; but give me a piece of biscuit and some meat; I'm
+half starved."
+
+Soon the doctor was burying his white teeth in a large slice of salt
+beef. Although he was eating, he appeared willing to answer the
+questions they put to him.
+
+"To save us?" Bell began.
+
+"Certainly," answered the doctor, "and to rid us of the malicious
+pests who will end by finding our stores and devouring them."
+
+"We must stay here," said Hatteras.
+
+"Certainly," answered the doctor, "and yet rid ourselves of these
+animals."
+
+"There is then a means?" asked Bell.
+
+"A sure means," answered the doctor.
+
+"I said so," cried Johnson, rubbing his hands; "with Dr. Clawbonny, we
+need not despair; he always has some invention handy."
+
+"Not always handy; but after thinking for a while--"
+
+"Doctor," interrupted Altamont, "can't the bears get through the
+passage-way you cut?"
+
+"No, I took the precaution of closing it behind me; and now we can go
+from here to the powder-magazine without their suspecting it."
+
+"Good! Will you tell us what means you intend to employ to rid us of
+these unpleasant visitors?"
+
+"Something very simple, and which is already half done."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"You'll see. But I forgot I didn't come alone."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Johnson.
+
+"I have a companion to introduce to you."
+
+And with these words he pulled in from the gallery the newly killed
+body of a fox.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"A fox!" cried Bell.
+
+"My morning's game," answered the doctor, modestly, "and you'll see no
+fox was ever wanted more than this one."
+
+"But what is your plan, after all?" asked Altamont.
+
+"I intend to blow the bears up with a hundred pounds of powder."
+
+They all gazed at the doctor with amazement.
+
+"But the powder?" they asked.
+
+"It is in the magazine."
+
+"And the magazine?"
+
+"This passage-way leads to it. I had my own reason for digging this
+passage sixty feet long; I might have attacked the parapet nearer to
+the house, but I had my own idea."
+
+"Well, where are you going to put the mine?" asked the American.
+
+"On the slope, as far as possible from the house, the magazine, and
+the stores."
+
+"But how shall you get all the bears together?"
+
+"I'll take charge of that," answered the doctor; "but we've talked
+enough, now to work; we have a hundred feet to dig out to-night; it's
+tiresome work, but we five can do it in relays. Bell shall begin, and
+meanwhile we can take some rest."
+
+"Really," said Johnson, "the more I think of it, the more I admire Dr.
+Clawbonny's plan."
+
+"It's sure," answered the doctor.
+
+"O, from the moment you opened your mouth they are dead bears, and I
+already feel their fur about my shoulders!"
+
+"To work, then!"
+
+The doctor entered the dark gallery, followed by Bell; where the
+doctor had gone through, his companions were sure to find no
+difficulty; two reached the magazine and entered among the barrels,
+which were all arranged in good order. The doctor gave Bell the
+necessary instructions; the carpenter began work on the wall towards
+the slope, and his companion returned to the house.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Bell worked for an hour, and dug a passage about ten feet long,
+through which one might crawl. Then Altamont took his place, and did
+about as much; the snow which was taken from the gallery was carried
+into the kitchen, where the doctor melted it at the fire, that it
+might take up less room. The captain followed the American; then came
+Johnson. In ten hours, that is to say, at about eight o'clock in the
+morning, the gallery was finished. At daybreak the doctor peeped at
+the bears through a loop-hole in the wall of the powder-magazine.
+
+The patient animals had not left their place; there they were, coming
+and going, growling, but in general patrolling patiently; they kept
+going around the house, which was gradually disappearing beneath the
+snow. But at length they seemed to lose patience, for the doctor saw
+them begin to tear away the ice and snow they had heaped up.
+
+"Good!" he said to the captain, who was standing near him.
+
+"What are they doing?" he asked.
+
+"They seem to be trying to destroy what they have done and to get to
+us! But they'll be destroyed first! At any rate, there is no time to
+lose."
+
+The doctor made his way to the place where the mine was to be laid;
+then he enlarged the chamber all the height and breadth of the slope;
+a layer of ice, only a foot thick at the outside, remained; it had to
+be supported lest it should fall in. A stake resting on the granite
+soil served as a post; the fox's body was fastened to the top, and a
+long knotted cord ran the whole length of the gallery to the magazine.
+The doctor's companions followed his orders without clearly
+understanding his intention.
+
+"This is the bait," he said, pointing to the fox.
+
+At the foot of the post he placed a cask holding about a hundred
+pounds of powder.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"And here is the charge," he added.
+
+"But," asked Hatteras, "sha'n't we blow ourselves up at the same
+time?"
+
+"No, we are far enough off from the explosion; besides, our house is
+solid; and if it is hurt a little we can easily repair it."
+
+"Well," continued Altamont; "but how are you going to set it off?"
+
+"This way. By pulling this cord we pull over the post which holds up
+the ice above the powder; the fox's body will suddenly be seen on the
+slope, and you must confess that the starving animals will rush upon
+this unexpected prey."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Well, at that moment I shall explode the mine, and blow up guest and
+dinner."
+
+"Well, well!" exclaimed Johnson, who was listening eagerly.
+
+Hatteras had perfect confidence in his friend, and asked no question.
+He waited. But Altamont wanted it made perfectly clear.
+
+"Doctor," he began, "how can you calculate the length of the fuse so
+exactly that the explosion will take place at the right moment?"
+
+"It's very simple," answered the doctor; "I don't make any
+calculation."
+
+"But you have a fuse a hundred feet long?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Shall you set a train of powder simply?"
+
+"No! that might fail."
+
+"Will some one have to volunteer and light the powder?"
+
+"If you want any one," said Johnson, eagerly, "I'm your man."
+
+"It's not necessary, my friend," answered the doctor, grasping the
+boatswain's hand; "our five lives are precious, and they will be
+spared, thank God!"
+
+"Then," said the American, "I can't guess."
+
+"Well," answered the doctor, smiling, "if we couldn't get out of this
+little affair, what would be the use of physics?"
+
+"Ah!" said Johnson, brightening up, "physics!"
+
+"Yes! Haven't we here an electric pile and wires long enough,--those,
+you know, which connected with the lighthouse?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, we shall explode the powder when we please, instantly, and
+without danger."
+
+"Hurrah!" shouted Johnson.
+
+"Hurrah!" repeated his companions, not caring whether the enemy heard
+them or not. Soon the electric wires were run through the gallery from
+the house to the chamber of the mine. One of the extremities remained
+at the pile, the other was plunged into the centre of the cask, the
+two ends being placed at but a little distance from one another. At
+nine of the morning all was finished, and it was time; the bears were
+tearing the snow away furiously. The doctor thought the proper time
+had come. Johnson was sent to the magazine and charged with pulling
+the cord fastened to the post. He took his place.
+
+"Now," said the doctor to his companions, "load your guns in case they
+should not be all killed at once, and take your place near Johnson; as
+soon as you hear the explosion, run out."
+
+"All right!" said the American.
+
+"And now we have done all that men can do! We have helped ourselves;
+may God help us!"
+
+Hatteras, Altamont, and Bell went to the magazine. The doctor remained
+alone at the pile. Soon he heard Johnson's voice crying,--
+
+"Ready?"
+
+"All right!" he answered.
+
+Johnson gave a strong pull at the rope; it pulled over the stake; then
+he ran to the loop-hole and looked out. The surface of the slope had
+sunk in. The fox's body was visible upon the shattered ice. The bears,
+at first surprised, crowded about this new prey.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Fire!" shouted Johnson.
+
+The doctor at once established the electric current between the
+threads; a loud explosion followed; the house shook as if in an
+earthquake; the walls fell in. Hatteras, Altamont, and Bell hastened
+out of the magazine, ready to fire. But their guns were not needed;
+four of the five bears fell about them in fragments, while the fifth,
+badly burned, ran away as fast as he could.
+
+[Illustration: "A loud explosion followed."]
+
+"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" shouted the doctor's companions, while they
+crowded about him and embraced him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+THE POLAR SPRING.
+
+
+The prisoners were set free; they expressed their joy by the warmth of
+their thanks to the doctor. Johnson regretted somewhat the skins,
+which were burned and useless; but his regret did not sour his temper.
+They spent the day in repairing the house, which was somewhat injured
+by the explosion. They took away the blocks heaped up by the animals,
+and the walls were made secure. They worked briskly, encouraged by the
+cheery songs of the boatswain.
+
+The next day the weather was much milder; the wind changed suddenly,
+and the thermometer rose to +15 degrees. So great a difference was
+soon felt by both man and nature. The southerly wind brought with it
+the first signs of the polar spring. This comparative warmth lasted
+for many days; the thermometer, sheltered from the wind, even rose as
+high as +31 degrees, and there were signs of a thaw. The ice began to
+crack; a few spirts of salt-water arose here and there, like jets in
+an English park; a few days later it rained hard.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A dense vapor arose from the snow; this was a good sign, and the
+melting of the immense masses appeared to be near at hand. The pale
+disk of the sun grew brighter and drew longer spirals above the
+horizon; the night lasted scarcely three hours. Another similar
+symptom was the reappearance of some ptarmigans, arctic geese, plover,
+and flocks of quail; the air was soon filled with the deafening cries
+which they remembered from the previous summer. A few hares, which
+they were able to shoot, appeared on the shores of the bay, as well as
+the arctic mice, the burrows of which were like a honeycomb. The
+doctor called the attention of his friends to the fact that these
+animals began to lose their white winter plumage, or hair, to put on
+their summer dress; they were evidently getting ready for summer,
+while their sustenance appeared in the form of moss, poppy, saxifrage,
+and thin grass. A new life was peering through the melting snows. But
+with the harmless animals returned the famished foes; foxes and wolves
+arrived in search of their prey; mournful howling sounded during the
+brief darkness of the nights.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The wolf of these countries is near of kin to the dog; like him, it
+barks, and often in such a way as to deceive the sharpest ears, those
+of the dogs themselves, for instance; it is even said that they employ
+this device to attract dogs, and then eat them. This has been observed
+on the shores of Hudson's Bay, and the doctor could confirm it at New
+America; Johnson took care not to let loose the dogs of the sledge,
+who might have been destroyed in that way. As for Duke, he had seen
+too many of them, and he was too wise to be caught in any such way.
+
+During a fortnight they hunted a great deal; fresh food was abundant;
+they shot partridges, ptarmigans, and snow-birds, which were delicious
+eating. The hunters did not go far from Fort Providence. In fact,
+small game could almost be killed with a stick; and it gave much
+animation to the silent shores of Victoria Bay,--an unaccustomed sight
+which delighted their eyes.
+
+The fortnight succeeding the great defeat of the bears was taken up
+with different occupations. The thaw advanced steadily; the
+thermometer rose to 32 degrees, and torrents began to roar in the
+ravines, and thousands of cataracts fell down the declivities. The
+doctor cleared an acre of ground and sowed in it cresses, sorrel, and
+cochlearia, which are excellent remedies for the scurvy; the little
+greenish leaves were peeping above the ground when, with incredible
+rapidity, the cold again seized everything.
+
+In a single night, with a violent north-wind, the thermometer fell
+forty degrees, to -8 degrees. Everything was frozen; birds,
+quadrupeds, and seals disappeared as if by magic; the holes for the
+seals were closed, the crevasses disappeared, the ice became as hard
+as granite, and the waterfalls hung like long crystal pendants.
+
+It was a total change to the eye; it took place in the night of May
+11-12. And when Bell the next morning put his nose out of doors into
+this sharp frost, he nearly left it there.
+
+"O, this polar climate!" cried the doctor, a little disappointed;
+"that's the way it goes! Well, I shall have to begin sowing again."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Hatteras took things less philosophically, so eager was he to renew
+his explorations. But he had to resign himself.
+
+"Will this cold weather last long?" asked Johnson.
+
+"No, my friend, no," answered Clawbonny; "it's the last touch of
+winter we shall have! You know it's at home here, and we can't drive
+it away against its will."
+
+"It defends itself well," said Bell, rubbing his face.
+
+"Yes, but I ought to have expected it," said the doctor; "and I should
+not have thrown the seed away so stupidly, especially since I might
+have started them near the kitchen stove."
+
+"What!" asked Altamont, "could you have foreseen this change of
+weather?"
+
+"Certainly, and without resorting to magic. I ought to have put the
+seed under the protection of Saints Mamert, Panera, and Servais, whose
+days are the 11th, 12th, and 13th of this month."
+
+"Well, Doctor," said Altamont, "will you tell me what influence these
+three saints have on the weather?"
+
+"A very great influence, to believe gardeners, who call them the three
+saints of ice."
+
+"And why so, pray?"
+
+"Because generally there is a periodic frost in the month of May, and
+the greatest fall of temperature takes place from the 11th to the 13th
+of this month. It is a fact, that is all."
+
+"It is curious, but what is the explanation?" asked the American.
+
+"There are two: either by the interposition of a greater number of
+asteroids between the earth and the sun at this season, or simply by
+the melting of the snow, which thereby absorbs a great quantity of
+heat. Both explanations are plausible; must they be received? I don't
+know; but if I'm uncertain of the truth of the explanation, I ought
+not to have been of the fact, and so lose my crop."
+
+The doctor was right; for one reason or another the cold was very
+intense during the rest of the month of May; their hunting was
+interrupted, not so much by the severity of the weather as by the
+absence of game; fortunately, the supply of fresh meat was not yet
+quite exhausted. They found themselves accordingly condemned to new
+inactivity; for a fortnight, from the 11th to the 25th of May, only
+one incident broke the monotony of their lives; a serious illness,
+diphtheria, suddenly seized the carpenter; from the swollen tonsils
+and the false membrane in the throat, the doctor could not be ignorant
+of the nature of the disease; but he was in his element, and he soon
+drove it away, for evidently it had not counted on meeting him; his
+treatment was very simple, and the medicines were not hard to get; the
+doctor simply prescribed pieces of ice to be held in the mouth; in a
+few hours the swelling went down and the false membrane disappeared;
+twenty-four hours later Bell was up again.
+
+When the others wondered at the doctor's prescriptions: "This is the
+land of these complaints," he answered; "the cure must be near the
+disease."
+
+"The cure, and especially the doctor," added Johnson, in whose mind
+the doctor was assuming colossal proportions.
+
+During this new leisure the latter resolved to have a serious talk
+with the captain; he wanted to induce Hatteras to give up his
+intention of going northward without carrying some sort of a boat; a
+piece of wood, something with which he could cross an arm of the sea,
+if they should meet one. The captain, who was fixed in his views, had
+formally vowed not to use a boat made of the fragments of the American
+ship. The doctor was uncertain how to broach the subject, and yet a
+speedy decision was important, for the month of June would be the time
+for distant excursions. At last, after long reflection, he took
+Hatteras aside one day, and with his usual air of kindness said to
+him,--
+
+"Hatteras, you know I am your friend?"
+
+"Certainly," answered the captain, warmly, "my best friend; indeed, my
+only one."
+
+"If I give you a piece of advice," resumed the doctor, "advice which
+you don't ask for, would you consider it disinterested?"
+
+"Yes, for I know that selfish interest has never been your guide; but
+what do you want to say?"
+
+"One moment, Hatteras; I have something else to ask of you: Do you
+consider me a true Englishman like yourself, and eager for the glory
+of my country?"
+
+Hatteras looked at the doctor with surprise.
+
+"Yes," he answered, with his face expressing surprise at the question.
+
+"You want to reach the North Pole," resumed the doctor; "I understand
+your ambition, I share it, but to reach this end we need the means."
+
+"Well, haven't I so far sacrificed everything in order to succeed?"
+
+"No, Hatteras, you have not sacrificed your personal prejudices, and
+at this moment I see that you are ready to refuse the indispensable
+means of reaching the Pole."
+
+"Ah!" answered Hatteras, "you mean the launch; this man--"
+
+"Come, Hatteras, let us argue coolly, without passion, and look at all
+sides of the question. The line of the coast on which we have wintered
+may be broken; there is no proof that it runs six degrees to the
+north; if the information which has brought you so far is right, we
+ought to find a vast extent of open sea during the summer months. Now,
+with the Arctic Ocean before us, free of ice and favorable for
+navigation, what shall we do if we lack the means of crossing it?"
+
+Hatteras made no answer.
+
+"Do you want to be within a few miles of the Pole without being able
+to reach it?"
+
+Hatteras's head sank into his hands.
+
+"And now," continued the doctor, "let us look at the question from a
+moral point of view. I can understand that an Englishman should give
+up his life and his fortune for the honor of his country. But because
+a boat made of a few planks torn from a wrecked American ship first
+touches the coast or crosses the unknown ocean, can that diminish the
+honor of the discovery? If you found on this shore the hull of an
+abandoned ship, should you hesitate to make use of it? Doesn't the
+glory of success belong to the head of the expedition? And I ask you
+if this launch built by four Englishmen, manned by four Englishmen,
+would not be English from keel to gunwale?"
+
+Hatteras was still silent.
+
+"No," said Clawbonny, "let us talk frankly; it's not the boat you
+mind, it's the man."
+
+"Yes, Doctor, yes," answered the captain, "that American; I hate him
+with real English hate, that man thrown in my way by chance--"
+
+"To save you!"
+
+"To ruin me! He seems to defy me, to act as master, to imagine he
+holds my fate in his hands, and to have guessed my plans. Didn't he
+show his character when we were giving names to the new lands? Has he
+ever said what he was doing here? You can't free me of the idea which
+is killing me, that this man is the head of an expedition sent out by
+the government of the United States."
+
+"And if he is, Hatteras, what is there to show that he is in search of
+the Pole? Can't America try to discover the Northwest Passage as well
+as England? At any rate, Altamont is perfectly ignorant of your plans;
+for neither Johnson nor Bell nor you nor I has said a single word
+about them in his presence."
+
+"Well, I hope he'll never know them!"
+
+"He will know them finally, of course, for we can't leave him alone
+here."
+
+"Why not?" asked the captain, with some violence; "can't he remain at
+Fort Providence?"
+
+"He would never give his consent, Hatteras; and then to leave him
+here, uncertain of finding him again, would be more than imprudent, it
+would be inhuman. Altamont will come with us; he must come! But since
+there is no need of suggesting new ideas to him, let us say nothing,
+and build a launch apparently for reconnoitring these new shores."
+
+Hatteras could not make up his mind to accede to the demands of his
+friend, who waited for an answer which did not come.
+
+"And if he refused to let us tear his ship to pieces!" said the
+captain, finally.
+
+"In that case, you would have the right on your side; you could build
+the boat in spite of him, and he could do nothing about it."
+
+"I hope he will refuse," exclaimed Hatteras.
+
+"Before he refuses," answered the doctor, "he must be asked. I will
+undertake to do it."
+
+In fact, that evening, before supper, Clawbonny turned the
+conversation to certain proposed expeditions in the summer months for
+hydrographic observations.
+
+"I suppose, Altamont," he said, "that you will join us?"
+
+"Certainly," was the reply; "we must know how large New America is."
+
+Hatteras gazed earnestly at his rival while he made his answer.
+
+"And for that," continued Altamont, "we must make the best use we can
+of the fragments of the _Porpoise_; let us make a strong boat which
+can carry us far."
+
+"You hear, Bell," said the doctor, quickly; "to-morrow we shall set to
+work."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE.
+
+
+The next day Bell, Altamont, and the doctor went to the _Porpoise_;
+they found no lack of wood; the old three-masted launch, though
+injured by being wrecked, could still supply abundant material for the
+new one. The carpenter set to work at once; they needed a seaworthy
+boat, which should yet be light enough to carry on a sledge. Towards
+the end of May the weather grew warmer; the thermometer rose above the
+freezing-point; the spring came in earnest this time, and the men were
+able to lay aside their winter clothing. Much rain fell, and soon the
+snow began to slide and melt away. Hatteras could not hide his joy at
+seeing the first signs of thaw in the ice-fields. The open sea meant
+liberty for him.
+
+[Illustration: "The carpenter set to work at once."]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Whether or not his predecessors had been wrong on this great question
+of an open polar sea, he hoped soon to know. All chance of success in
+his undertaking depended on this. One evening, after a warm day in
+which the ice had given unmistakable signs of breaking up, he turned
+the conversation to the question of an open sea. He took up the
+familiar arguments, and found the doctor, as ever, a warm advocate of
+his doctrine. Besides, his conclusions were evidently accurate.
+
+"It is plain," he said, "that if the ocean before Victoria Bay gets
+clear of ice, its southern part will also be clear as far as New
+Cornwall and Queen's Channel. Penny and Belcher saw it in that state,
+and they certainly saw clearly."
+
+"I agree with you, Hatteras," answered the doctor, "and I have no
+reason for doubting the word of these sailors; a vain attempt has been
+made to explain their discovery as an effect of mirage; but they were
+so certain, it was impossible that they could have made such a
+mistake."
+
+"I always thought so," said Altamont; "the polar basin extends to the
+east as well as to the west."
+
+"We can suppose so, at any rate," answered Hatteras.
+
+"We ought to suppose so," continued the American, "for this open sea
+which Captains Penny and Belcher saw near the coast of Grinnell Land
+was seen by Morton, Kane's lieutenant, in the straits which are named
+after that bold explorer."
+
+"We are not in Kane's sea," answered Hatteras, coldly, "and
+consequently we cannot verify the fact."
+
+"It is supposable, at least," said Altamont.
+
+"Certainly," replied the doctor, who wished to avoid useless
+discussion. "What Altamont thinks ought to be the truth; unless there
+is a peculiar disposition of the surrounding land, the same effects
+appear at the same latitudes. Hence I believe the sea is open in the
+east as well as in the west."
+
+"At any rate, it makes very little difference to us," said Hatteras.
+
+"I don't agree with you, Hatteras," resumed the American, who was
+beginning to be annoyed by the affected unconcern of the captain; "it
+may make considerable difference to us."
+
+"And when, if I may ask?"
+
+"When we think of returning."
+
+"Returning!" cried Hatteras, "and who's thinking of that?"
+
+"No one," answered Altamont; "but we shall stop somewhere, I suppose."
+
+"And where?" asked Hatteras.
+
+For the first time the question was fairly put to Altamont. The doctor
+would have given one of his arms to have put a stop to the discussion.
+Since Altamont made no answer, the captain repeated his question.
+
+"And where?"
+
+"Where we are going," answered the American, quietly.
+
+"And who knows where that is?" said the peace-loving doctor.
+
+"I say, then," Altamont went on, "that if we want to make use of the
+polar basin in returning, we can try to gain Kane's sea; it will lead
+us more directly to Baffin's Bay."
+
+"So that is your idea?" asked the captain, ironically.
+
+"Yes, that is my idea, as it is that if these seas ever become
+practicable, they will be reached by the straightest way. O, that was
+a great discovery of Captain Kane's!"
+
+"Indeed!" said Hatteras, biting his lips till they bled.
+
+"Yes," said the doctor, "that cannot be denied; every one should have
+the praise he deserves."
+
+"Without considering," went on the obstinate American, "that no one
+had ever before gone so far to the north."
+
+"I like to think," said Hatteras, "that now the English have got ahead
+of him."
+
+"And the Americans!" said Altamont.
+
+"Americans!" repeated Hatteras.
+
+"What am I, then?" asked Altamont, proudly.
+
+"You are," answered Hatteras, who could hardly control his
+voice,--"you are a man who presumes to accord equal glory to science
+and to chance! Your American captain went far to the north, but as
+chance alone--"
+
+"Chance!" shouted Altamont; "do you dare to say that this great
+discovery is not due to Kane's energy and knowledge?"
+
+"I say," answered Hatteras, "that Kane's name is not fit to be
+pronounced in a country made famous by Parry, Franklin, Ross, Belcher,
+and Penny in these seas which opened the Northwest Passage to
+MacClure--"
+
+"MacClure!" interrupted the American; "you mention that man, and yet
+you complain of the work of chance? Wasn't it chance alone that
+favored him?"
+
+"No," answered Hatteras, warmly,--"no! It was his courage, his
+perseverance in spending four winters in the ice--"
+
+"I should think so!" retorted the American; "he got caught in the ice
+and couldn't get out, and he had to abandon the _Investigator_ at last
+to go back to England."
+
+"My friends--" said the doctor.
+
+"Besides," Altamont went on, "let us consider the result. You speak of
+the Northwest Passage; well, it has yet to be discovered!"
+
+Hatteras started at these words; no more vexatious question could have
+arisen between two rival nationalities. The doctor again tried to
+intervene.
+
+"You are mistaken, Altamont," he said.
+
+"No, I persist in my opinions," he said obstinately; "the Northwest
+Passage is yet to be found, to be sailed through, if you like that any
+better! MacClure never penetrated it, and to this day no ship that has
+sailed from Behring Strait has reached Baffin's Bay!"
+
+That was true, speaking exactly. What answer could be made?
+
+Nevertheless, Hatteras rose to his feet and said,--
+
+"I shall not permit the good name of an English captain to be attacked
+any further in my presence."
+
+"You will not permit it?" answered the American, who also rose to his
+feet; "but these are the facts, and it is beyond your power to destroy
+them."
+
+"Sir!" said Hatteras, pale with anger.
+
+"My friends," said the doctor, "don't get excited! We are discussing a
+scientific subject."
+
+Clawbonny looked with horror at a scientific discussion into which the
+hate of an American and an Englishman could enter.
+
+"I am going to give you the facts," began Hatteras, threateningly.
+
+"But I'm speaking now!" retorted the American.
+
+Johnson and Bell became very uneasy.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the doctor, severely, "let me say a word! I insist
+upon it, I know the facts as well, better than you do, and I can speak
+of them impartially."
+
+"Yes, yes," said Bell and Johnson, who were distressed at the turn the
+discussion had taken, and who formed a majority favorable to the
+doctor.
+
+"Go on, Doctor," said Johnson, "these gentlemen will listen, and you
+cannot fail to give us some information."
+
+"Go on, Doctor," said the American.
+
+Hatteras resumed his place with a sign of acquiescence, and folded his
+arms.
+
+"I will tell the simple truth about the facts," said the doctor, "and
+you must correct me if I omit or alter any detail."
+
+"We know you, Doctor," said Bell, "and you can speak without fear of
+interruption."
+
+"Here is the chart of the Polar Seas," resumed the doctor, who had
+brought it to the table; "it will be easy to trace MacClure's course,
+and you will be able to make up your minds for yourselves."
+
+Thereupon he unrolled one of the excellent maps published by order of
+the Admiralty, containing the latest discoveries in arctic regions;
+then he went on:--
+
+"You know, in 1848, two ships, the _Herald_, Captain Kellet, and the
+_Plover_, Commander Moore, were sent to Behring Strait in search of
+traces of Franklin; their search was vain; in 1850 they were joined by
+MacClure, who commanded the _Investigator_, a ship in which he had
+sailed, in 1849, under James Ross's orders. He was followed by Captain
+Collinson, his chief, who sailed in the _Enterprise_; but he arrived
+before him. At Behring Strait he declared he would wait no longer, and
+that he would go alone, on his own responsibility, and--you hear me,
+Altamont--that he would find either Franklin or the passage."
+
+Altamont showed neither approbation nor the contrary.
+
+"August 5, 1850," continued the doctor, "after a final communication
+with the _Plover_, MacClure sailed eastward by an almost unknown
+route; see how little land is marked upon the chart. August 30th he
+rounded Cape Bathurst; September 6th he discovered Baring Land, which
+he afterwards discovered to form part of Banks Land, then Prince
+Albert's Land. Then he resolved to enter the long straits between
+these two large islands, and he called it Prince of Wales Strait. You
+can follow his plan. He hoped to come out in Melville Sound, which we
+have just crossed, and with reason; but the ice at the end of the
+strait formed an impassable barrier. There MacClure wintered in
+1850-51, and meanwhile he pushed on over the ice, to make sure that
+the strait connected with the sound."
+
+"Yes," said Altamont, "but he didn't succeed."
+
+"One moment," said the doctor. "While wintering there, MacClure's
+officers explored all the neighboring coasts: Creswell, Baring's Land;
+Haswell, Prince Albert's Land, to the south; and Wynniat, Cape Walker,
+to the north. In July, at the beginning of the thaw, MacClure tried a
+second time to carry the _Investigator_ to Melville Sound; he got
+within twenty miles of it, twenty miles only, but the winds carried
+him with irresistible force to the south, before he could get through
+the obstacle. Then he determined to go back through Prince of Wales
+Strait, and go around Banks Land, to try at the west what he could not
+do in the east; he put about; the 18th he rounded Cape Kellet; the
+19th, Cape Prince Alfred, two degrees higher; then, after a hard
+struggle with the icebergs, he was caught in Banks Strait, in the
+series of straits leading to Baffin's Bay."
+
+[Illustration: "A hard struggle with the icebergs."]
+
+"But he couldn't get through them," said Altamont.
+
+"Wait a moment, and be as patient as MacClure was. September 26th, he
+took his station for the winter in Mercy Bay, and stayed there till
+1852. April came; MacClure had supplies for only eighteen months.
+Nevertheless, he was unwilling to return; he started, crossing Banks
+Strait by sledge, and reached Melville Island. Let us follow him. He
+hoped to find here Commander Austin's ships, which were sent to meet
+him by Baffin's Bay and Lancaster Sound; April 28th he arrived at
+Winter Harbor, at the place where Parry had wintered thirty-three
+years previously, but no trace of the ships; only he found in a cairn
+a paper, telling him that MacClintock, Austin's lieutenant, had been
+there the year before, and gone away. Any one else would have been in
+despair, but MacClure was not. He put in the cairn another paper, in
+which he announced his intention of returning to England by the
+Northwest Passage, which he had discovered by reaching Baffin's Bay
+and Lancaster Sound. If he is not heard from again, it will be because
+he will have been to the north or west of Melville Island; then he
+returned, not discouraged, to Mercy Bay for the third winter,
+1852-53."
+
+"I have never doubted his courage," said Altamont, "but his success."
+
+"Let us follow him again," resumed the doctor. "In the month of March,
+being on two-thirds rations, at the end of a very severe winter, when
+no game was to be had, MacClure determined to send back half of his
+crew to England, either by Baffin's Bay, or by Mackenzie River and
+Hudson's Bay; the other half was to bring the _Investigator_ back. He
+chose the weakest men, who could not stand a fourth winter; everything
+was ready, and their departure settled for April 15th, when on the
+6th, MacClure, who was walking on the ice with his lieutenant,
+Creswell, saw a man running northward and gesticulating; it was
+Lieutenant Pim of the _Herald_, lieutenant of the same Captain Kellet
+whom two years before he had left at Behring Strait, as I said when I
+began. Kellet, having reached Winter Harbor, found the paper left
+there by MacClure; having heard in that way of his position in Mercy
+Bay, he sent Lieutenant Pim to meet the captain. He was followed by a
+detachment of the men of the _Herald_, among whom was a midshipman of
+a French ship, M. de Bray, who was a volunteer aid of Captain Kellet.
+You don't doubt this meeting?"
+
+[Illustration: MacClure saw a man running and gesticulating.]
+
+"Not at all," answered Altamont.
+
+"Well, see what followed, and whether the Northwest Passage was really
+made. If you join Parry's discoveries to those of MacClure, you will
+see the northern coast of America was rounded."
+
+"But not by a single ship," said Altamont.
+
+"No, but by a single man. Let us go on. MacClure went to see Captain
+Kellet at Melville Island; in twelve days he made the one hundred and
+seventy miles between Winter Harbor and the island; he agreed with the
+commander of the _Herald_ to send him his sick, and returned; many
+others would have thought, had they been in MacClure's place, that
+they had done enough, but this bold young man determined to try his
+fortune again. Then, and please observe this, Lieutenant Creswell,
+with the sick and disabled men of the _Investigator_, left Mercy Bay,
+reached Winter Harbor, and from there, after a journey of four hundred
+and seventy miles on the ice, reached Beechey Island, June 2d, and a
+few days later, with twelve of his men, he took passage on board of
+the _Phoenix_."
+
+"In which I was at the time," said Johnson, "with Captain Inglefield,
+and we returned to England."
+
+"And October 7, 1853," continued the doctor, "Creswell arrived at
+London, after having crossed over the whole distance between Behring
+Strait and Cape Farewell."
+
+"Well," said Hatteras, "to enter at one end and go out by the other,
+isn't that going through?"
+
+"Yes," answered Altamont, "but by going four hundred and seventy miles
+over the ice."
+
+"Well, what difference does that make?"
+
+"The whole," answered the American. "Did MacClure's ship make the
+passage?"
+
+"No," answered the doctor, "for after a fourth winter, MacClure was
+obliged to leave it in the ice."
+
+"Well, in a sea-voyage it's important to have the ship reach her
+destination. If the Northwest Passage ever becomes practicable, it
+must be for ships and not for sledges. The ship must accomplish the
+voyage, or if not the ship, the launch."
+
+"The launch!" shouted Hatteras, who detected the hidden meaning in the
+American's words.
+
+"Altamont," said the doctor, hurriedly, "you make a puerile
+distinction, and we all consider you wrong."
+
+"That is easy, gentlemen," answered the American; "you are four to
+one. But that won't keep me from holding my own opinion."
+
+"Keep it," said Hatteras, "and so closely that we need hear nothing
+about it."
+
+"And what right have you to speak to me in that way?" asked the
+American in a rage.
+
+"My right as captain," answered Hatteras.
+
+"Am I under your commands?" retorted Altamont.
+
+"Without doubt, and look out for yourself, if--"
+
+The doctor, Johnson, and Bell intervened. It was time; the two enemies
+were gazing at one another. The doctor was very anxious. Still, after
+a few gentler words, Altamont went off to bed whistling "Yankee
+Doodle," and, whether he slept or not, he did not speak. Hatteras went
+out and paced up and down for an hour, and then he turned in without
+saying a word.
+
+[Illustration: "The doctor, Johnson, and Bell intervened. It was time;
+the two enemies were gazing at one another."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+NORTHERN ARCADIA.
+
+
+On May 29th, for the first time, the sun did not set; it merely
+touched the horizon and then rose at once; the day was twenty-four
+hours long. The next day it was surrounded by a magnificent halo, a
+bright circle with all the colors of the prism; this apparition, which
+was by no means rare, always attracted the doctor's attention; he
+never failed to note the date and appearance of the phenomenon; the
+one he saw on that day was of an elliptic shape, which he had seldom
+seen before.
+
+Soon the noisy flocks of birds appeared; bustards and wild geese came
+from Florida or Arkansas, flying northward with inconceivable rapidity
+and bringing the spring with them. The doctor shot a few, as well as
+three or four cranes and a single stork. However, the snow was melting
+everywhere beneath the sun; the salt-water, which overran the
+ice-field through the crevasses and the seal-holes, hastened the
+melting; the ice which was mingled with salt-water formed a soft
+slush. Large pools appeared on the land near the bay, and the exposed
+soil seemed to be a production of the arctic spring.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The doctor then resumed his planting; he had plenty of seed; besides,
+he was surprised to see a sort of sorrel growing naturally between the
+dried rocks, and he wondered at the force of nature which demanded so
+little in order to manifest itself. He sowed some cresses, of which
+the young sprouts, three weeks later, were already an inch long.
+
+The heath began to show timidly its little pale, rosy flowers. In
+fact, the flora of New America is very defective; still, this rare
+vegetation was agreeable to their eyes; it was all the feeble rays of
+the sun could nourish, a trace of the Providence which had not
+completely forgotten these distant countries. At last it became really
+warm; June 15th the thermometer stood at 57 degrees; the doctor could
+hardly believe his eyes; the country changed its appearance; numerous
+noisy cascades fell from the sunny summits of the hills; the ice
+loosened, and the great question of an open sea would soon be decided.
+The air was full of the noise of avalanches falling from the hills to
+the bottom of the ravines, and the cracking of the ice-field produced
+a deafening sound.
+
+A trip was made to Johnson Island; it was merely an unimportant, arid,
+barren island; but the old boatswain was no less proud of giving his
+name to a few desolate rocks. He even wanted to carve it on a high
+peak. During this excursion, Hatteras had carefully explored these
+lands, even beyond Cape Washington; the melting of the snow sensibly
+changed the country; ravines and hillocks appeared here and there,
+where the snow indicated nothing but monotonous stretches. The house
+and magazines threatened to melt away, and they had frequently to be
+repaired; fortunately, a temperature of 57 degrees is rare in these
+latitudes, and the mean is hardly above the freezing-point.
+
+By the middle of June the launch was far advanced and getting into
+shape. While Bell and Johnson were working at it, the others had a few
+successful hunts. Reindeer were shot, although they are hard to
+approach; but Altamont put in practice a device employed by the
+Indians of his own country; he crept over the ground with his gun and
+arms outstretched like the horns of one of these shy animals, and
+having thus come within easy gunshot, he could not fail.
+
+But the best game, the musk-ox, of which Parry found plenty at
+Melville Island, appeared not to frequent the shores of Victoria Bay.
+A distant hunt was determined on, as much to get these valuable
+animals as to reconnoitre the eastern lands. Hatteras did not propose
+to reach the Pole by this part of the continent, but the doctor was
+not sorry to get a general idea of the country. Hence they decided to
+start to the east of Fort Providence. Altamont intended to hunt; Duke
+naturally was of the party.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+So, Monday, June 17th, a pleasant day, with the thermometer at 41
+degrees, and the air quiet and clear, the three hunters, each carrying
+a double-barrelled gun, a hatchet, a snow-knife, and followed by Duke,
+left Doctor's House at six o'clock in the morning. They were fitted
+out for a trip of two or three days, with the requisite amount of
+provisions. By eight o'clock Hatteras and his two companions had gone
+eight miles. Not a living thing had tempted a shot, and their hunt
+threatened to be merely a trip.
+
+This new country exhibited vast plains running out of sight; new
+streams divided them everywhere, and large, unruffled pools reflected
+the sun. The layers of melting ice bared the ground to their feet; it
+belonged to the great division of sedimentary earth, and the result of
+the action of the water, which is so common on the surface of the
+globe. Still a few erratic blocks were seen of a singular nature,
+foreign to the soil where they were found, and whose presence it was
+hard to explain. Schists and different productions of limestone were
+found in abundance, as was also a sort of strange, transparent,
+colorless crystal, which has a refraction peculiar to Iceland spar.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But, although he was not hunting, the doctor had not time to
+geologize; he had to walk too quickly, in order to keep up with his
+friends. Still, he observed the land and talked as much as possible,
+for had he not there would have been total silence in the little band;
+neither Altamont nor the captain had any desire to talk to one
+another.
+
+By ten o'clock the hunters had got a dozen miles to the east; the sea
+was hidden beneath the horizon; the doctor proposed a halt for
+breakfast. They swallowed it rapidly, and in half an hour they were
+off again. The ground was sloping gently; a few patches of snow,
+preserved either by their position or the slope of the rocks, gave it
+a woolly appearance, like waves in a high wind. The country was still
+barren, and looking as if no living being had ever set foot in it.
+
+"We have no luck," said Altamont to the doctor; "to be sure, the
+country doesn't offer much food to animals, but the game here ought
+not to be over-particular, and ought to show itself."
+
+"Don't let us despair," said the doctor; "the summer has hardly begun;
+and if Parry met so many animals at Melville Island, we may be as
+lucky here."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Still, we are farther north," said Hatteras.
+
+"Certainly, but that is unimportant; it is the pole of cold we ought
+to consider; that is to say, that icy wilderness in the middle of
+which we wintered with the _Forward_; now the farther north we go, the
+farther we are from the coldest part of the globe; we ought to find,
+beyond, what Parry, Ross, and others found on the other side."
+
+"Well," said Altamont, with a regretful sigh, "so far we've been
+travellers rather than hunters."
+
+"Be patient," answered the doctor; "the country is changing gradually,
+and I should be astonished if we don't find game enough in the ravines
+where vegetation has had a chance to sprout."
+
+"It must be said," continued Altamont, "that we are going through an
+uninhabited and uninhabitable country."
+
+"O, uninhabitable is a strong word!" answered the doctor; "I can't
+believe any land uninhabitable; man, by many sacrifices, and for
+generations using all the resources of science, might finally
+fertilize such a country."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Do you think so?" asked Altamont.
+
+"Without doubt! If you were to go to the celebrated countries of the
+world, to Thebes, Nineveh, or Babylon, in the fertile valleys of our
+ancestors, it would seem impossible that men should ever have lived
+there; the air itself has grown bad since the disappearance of human
+beings. It is the general law of nature which makes those countries in
+which we do not live unhealthy and sterile, like those out of which
+life has died. In fact, man himself makes his own country by his
+presence, his habits, his industry, and, I might add, by his breath;
+he gradually modifies the exhalations of the soil and the atmospheric
+conditions, and he makes the air he breathes wholesome. So there are
+uninhabited lands, I grant, but none uninhabitable."
+
+Talking in this way, the hunters, who had become naturalists, pushed
+on and reached a sort of valley, fully exposed, at the bottom of which
+a river, nearly free of ice, was flowing; its southern exposure had
+brought forth a certain amount of vegetation. The earth showed a
+strong desire to grow fertile; with a few inches of rich soil it would
+have produced a good deal. The doctor called their attention to these
+indications.
+
+"See," he said, "a few hardy colonists might settle in this ravine.
+With industry and perseverance they could do a great deal; not as much
+as is seen in the temperate zones, but a respectable show. If I am not
+mistaken, there are some four-footed animals! They know the good
+spots."
+
+"They are Arctic hares," shouted Altamont, cocking his gun.
+
+"Wait a moment," cried the doctor,--"wait a moment, you hasty fellow.
+They don't think of running away! See, they'll come to us!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+And, in fact, three or four young hares, springing about in the heath
+and young moss, ran boldly towards the three men; they were so cunning
+that even Altamont was softened.
+
+Soon they were between the doctor's legs; he caressed them with his
+hand, saying,--
+
+"Why shoot these little animals which come to be petted? We need not
+kill them."
+
+"You are right, Doctor," answered Hatteras; "we'll let them live."
+
+"And these ptarmigan, too, which are flying towards us!" cried
+Altamont; "and these long-legged water-fowl!"
+
+A whole flock of birds passed over the hunters, not suspecting the
+peril from which the doctor's presence saved them. Even Duke was
+compelled to admire them.
+
+They were a curious and touching sight, flying about without fear,
+resting on Clawbonny's shoulders, lying at his feet, offering
+themselves to his caresses, seeming to do their best to welcome their
+new guests; they called one another joyously, flying from the most
+distant points; the doctor seemed to be a real bird-charmer. The
+hunters continued their march up the moist banks of the brook,
+followed by the familiar band, and turning from the valley they
+perceived a troop of eight or ten reindeer browsing on a few lichens
+half buried beneath the snow; they were graceful, quiet animals, with
+their branching antlers, which the female carried as well as the male;
+their wool-like fur was already losing its winter whiteness in favor
+of the summer brown and gray; they seemed no more timid than the hares
+and birds of the country. Such were the relations of the first men to
+the first animals in the early ages of the world.
+
+[Illustration: "They were a curious and touching sight, flying about
+without fear, resting on Clawbonny's shoulders," etc.]
+
+The hunters reached the middle of the band without any one flying;
+this time the doctor found it hard to restrain the instincts of
+Altamont, who could not calmly look on this game without a thirst for
+blood rising in his brain. Hatteras looked mildly at these gentle
+beasts, who rubbed their noses against the doctor's clothes; he was
+the friend of all the animals.
+
+"But," said Altamont, "didn't we come here to shoot?"
+
+"To shoot musk-ox," answered Clawbonny, "and nothing else! We should
+have no need of this game; we have food enough, so let us enjoy the
+sight of man walking thus among these animals, without alarming them."
+
+"That proves they have never seen one before," said Hatteras.
+
+"Evidently," answered the doctor; "and so we can be sure that these
+animals are not of American origin."
+
+"And why so?" said Altamont.
+
+"If they were born on the continent of North America, they would know
+what to think of men, and they would have fled at the sight of us. No;
+they probably came from the north, from those unknown lands where our
+kind has never set foot, and they have crossed the continents near the
+Pole. So, Altamont, you can't claim them as your fellow-countrymen."
+
+"O," answered Altamont, "a hunter does not scrutinize so closely, and
+the game belongs to the land where it was shot!"
+
+"Well, calm yourself, my Nimrod! As for me, I would rather never fire
+a gun in my life than alarm this timid population. See, even Duke
+fraternizes with the charming beasts! Come, we'll be kind when we can!
+Kindness is a force!"
+
+"Well, well," answered Altamont, who sympathized but slightly with
+this sensitiveness; "but I should be amused to see you armed with this
+kindness alone among a flock of bears or wolves!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"O, I don't pretend to charm wild beasts!" answered the doctor; "I
+have little faith in the enchantment of Orpheus; besides, bears and
+wolves wouldn't come up to us like the hares, partridges, and
+reindeer."
+
+"Why not," answered Altamont, "if they have never seen men?"
+
+"Because they are naturally ferocious, and ferocity, like
+maliciousness, begets suspicion; a remark which is true of man as well
+as of animals. A wicked man is distrustful, and fear is commonly found
+in those who are able to inspire it."
+
+This little lesson in natural philosophy ended the conversation.
+
+The whole day was passed in this Northern Arcadia, as the doctor named
+the valley, with the consent of his companions; and that evening,
+after a supper which had not cost the life of a single inhabitant of
+the country, the three hunters went to sleep in a cleft of a rock
+which was admirably adapted for a shelter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+ALTAMONT'S REVENGE.
+
+
+The next day the doctor and his two companions woke up after a
+perfectly quiet night. The cold, although not keen, increased towards
+daybreak, but they were well covered, and slept soundly under the
+watch of the peaceful animals.
+
+The weather being pleasant, they resolved to consecrate the day to a
+reconnaissance of the country, and the search of musk-oxen. Altamont
+insisted on shooting something, and they decided that, even if these
+oxen should be the gentlest animals in the world, they should be shot.
+Besides, their flesh, although strongly flavored with musk, was
+pleasant eating, and they all hoped to carry back to Fort Providence a
+good supply of it.
+
+During the early morning hours nothing noteworthy took place; the land
+grew different in the northeast; a few elevations, the beginning of a
+mountainous district, indicated a change. If this New America were not
+a continent, it was at any rate an important island; but then they did
+not have to trouble themselves about its geography.
+
+Duke ran ahead, and soon came across some traces of a herd of
+musk-oxen; he then advanced rapidly, and soon disappeared from the
+eyes of the hunters. They followed his clear barking, which soon grew
+so hasty that they knew he had discovered the object of their search.
+They pushed on, and in an hour and a half they came up to two of these
+animals; they were large, and formidable in appearance. They appeared
+much surprised at Duke's attacks, but not alarmed; they were feeding
+off a sort of reddish moss which grew on the thin soil. The doctor
+recognized them at once from their moderate height, their horns, which
+were broad at the base, the absence of muzzle, their sheep-like
+forehead, and short tail; their shape has earned for them from
+naturalists the name of "ovibos," a compound, and which expresses the
+two sorts of animals whose characteristics they share. Thick, long
+hair and a sort of delicate brown silk formed their fur.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+They ran away when they saw the two hunters, who came running up after
+them. It was hard to reach them for men who were out of breath after
+running half an hour. Hatteras and his companions stopped.
+
+"The Devil!" said Altamont.
+
+"That's just the word," said the doctor, as soon as he could take
+breath. "I'll grant they are Americans, and they can't have a very
+good idea of your countrymen."
+
+"That proves we are good hunters," answered Altamont.
+
+Still, the musk-oxen, seeing they were not pursued, stopped in a
+posture of surprise. It became evident that they could never be run
+down; they would have to be surrounded; the plateau on which they were
+aided this manoeuvre. The hunters, leaving Duke to harass them,
+descended through the neighboring ravines, so as to get around the
+plateau. Altamont and the doctor hid behind a rock at one end, while
+Hatteras, suddenly advancing from the other end, should drive the oxen
+towards them. In half an hour each had gained his post.
+
+"You don't object any longer to our shooting?" asked Altamont.
+
+"No, it's fair fighting," answered the doctor, who, in spite of
+gentleness, was a real sportsman.
+
+They were talking in this way, when they saw the oxen running, and
+Duke at their heels; farther on Hatteras was driving them, with loud
+cries, towards the American and the doctor, who ran to meet this
+magnificent prey.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+At once the oxen stopped, and, less fearful of a single enemy, they
+turned upon Hatteras. He awaited them calmly, aimed at the nearest,
+and fired; but the bullet struck the animal in the middle of his
+forehead, without penetrating the skull. Hatteras's second shot
+produced no other effect than to make the beasts furious; they ran to
+the disarmed hunter, and threw him down at once.
+
+"He is lost," cried the doctor.
+
+At the moment Clawbonny pronounced these words with an accent of
+despair, Altamont made a step forward to run to Hatteras's aid; then
+he stopped, struggling against himself and his prejudices.
+
+"No," he cried, "that would be cowardice."
+
+He hastened with Clawbonny to the scene of combat. His hesitation had
+not lasted half a second. But if the doctor saw what was taking place
+in the American's heart, Hatteras understood it, who would rather have
+died than have implored his rival's interference. Still, he had hardly
+time to perceive it, for Altamont appeared before him. Hatteras, lying
+on the ground, was trying to ward off the horns and hoofs of the two
+animals. But he could not long continue so unequal a struggle. He was
+about to be torn in pieces, when two shots were heard. Hatteras heard
+the bullets whistling by his head.
+
+"Don't be frightened!" shouted Altamont, hurling his gun to one side,
+and rushing upon the angry animals.
+
+One of the oxen fell, shot through the heart; the other, wild with
+rage, was just going to gore the captain, when Altamont faced him, and
+plunged into his mouth his hand, armed with a snow-knife; with the
+other he gave him a terrible blow with a hatchet on the head. This was
+done with marvellous rapidity, and a flash of lightning would have lit
+up the whole scene.
+
+[Illustration: "Gave him a terrible blow with a hatchet on the head."]
+
+The second ox fell back dead.
+
+"Hurrah! hurrah!" cried Clawbonny.
+
+Hatteras was saved. He owed his life to the man whom he detested most
+in the world. What was going on in his mind at this time? What emotion
+was there which he could not master? That is one of the secrets of the
+heart which defy all analysis.
+
+However that may be, Hatteras advanced to his rival without
+hesitation, and said to him seriously,--
+
+"You have saved my life, Altamont."
+
+"You saved mine," answered the American. There was a moment's silence.
+Then Altamont added, "We are now quits, Hatteras!"
+
+"No, Altamont," answered the captain; "when the doctor took you from
+your icy tomb, I did not know who you were, and you have saved me at
+the risk of your own life, knowing who I was."
+
+"You are a fellow-being," answered Altamont; "and whatever else he may
+be, an American is not a coward."
+
+"No, he is not," said the doctor; "he is a man! a man like you,
+Hatteras!"
+
+"And like me he shall share the glory which is awaiting us!"
+
+"The glory of going to the North Pole?" said Altamont.
+
+"Yes," said the captain, haughtily.
+
+"I had guessed it!" exclaimed the American. "So you dared conceive of
+this bold design! You dared try to reach that inaccessible point! Ah,
+that is great! It is sublime!"
+
+"But you," asked Hatteras, hurriedly, "were you not on your way to the
+Pole?"
+
+Altamont seemed to hesitate about replying.
+
+"Well?" said the doctor.
+
+"Well, no," answered the American,--"no; tell the truth, and shame the
+Devil! No, I did not have this great idea, which has brought you here.
+I was trying simply to sail through the Northwest Passage, that is
+all."
+
+"Altamont," said Hatteras, holding out his hand to the American,
+"share our glory, and go with us to the North Pole!"
+
+The two men then shook hands warmly.
+
+When they turned towards the doctor, they saw his eyes full of tears.
+
+"Ah, my friends," he murmured, as he dried his eyes, "how can my heart
+hold the joy with which you fill it? My dear companions, you have
+sacrificed a miserable question of nationality in order to unite in
+your common success! You know that England and America have nothing to
+do with all this; that mutual sympathy ought to bind you together
+against the dangers of the journey! If the North Pole is discovered,
+what difference does it make who does it? Why stand bickering about
+English or American, when we can be proud of being men?"
+
+The doctor embraced the reconciled foes; he could not restrain his
+joy. The two new friends felt themselves drawn closer together by the
+friendship this worthy man had for them both. Clawbonny spoke freely
+of the vanity of competition, of the madness of rivalry, and of the
+need of agreement between men so far from home. His words, his tears
+and caresses, came from the bottom of his heart.
+
+Still, he grew calm after embracing Hatteras and Altamont for the
+twentieth time.
+
+"And now," he said, "to work, to work! Since I was no use as a hunter,
+let me try in another capacity!"
+
+Thereupon he started to cut up the ox, which he called the "ox of
+reconciliation," but he did it as skilfully as if he were a surgeon
+conducting a delicate autopsy. His two companions gazed at him in
+amusement. In a few minutes he had cut from the body a hundred pounds
+of flesh; he gave each one a third of it, and they again took up their
+march to Fort Providence. At ten o'clock in the evening, after walking
+in the oblique rays of the sun, they reached Doctor's House, where
+Johnson and Bell had a good supper awaiting them.
+
+But before they sat down to table, the doctor said in a voice of
+triumph, as he pointed to his two companions,--
+
+"Johnson, I carried away with me an Englishman and an American, did I
+not?"
+
+"Yes, Dr. Clawbonny," answered the boatswain.
+
+"Well, I've brought back two brothers."
+
+[Illustration: "'Well, I've brought back two brothers.'"]
+
+The two sailors gladly shook Altamont's hand; the doctor told them
+what the American captain had done for the English captain, and that
+night the snow-house held five perfectly happy men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+THE LAST PREPARATIONS.
+
+
+The next day the weather changed; there was a return of cold; the snow
+and rain gust raged for many days.
+
+Bell had finished the launch; it was perfectly satisfactory for the
+purpose it was intended for; partly decked, and partly open, it could
+sail in heavy weather under mainsail and jib, while it was so light as
+not to be too heavy a load on the sledge for the dogs.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Then, too, a change of great importance was taking place in the state
+of the polar basin. The ice in the middle of the bay was beginning to
+give way; the tallest pieces, forever weakened by the collision of the
+rest, only needed a sufficiently heavy tempest to be torn away and to
+become icebergs. Still, Hatteras was unwilling to wait so long before
+starting. Since it was to be a land journey, he cared very little
+whether the sea was open or not. He determined to start June 25th;
+meanwhile all the preparations could be completed. Johnson and Bell
+put the sledge into perfect repair; the frame was strengthened and the
+runners renewed. The travellers intended to devote to their journey
+the few weeks of good weather which nature allows to these northern
+regions. Their sufferings would be less severe, the obstacles easier
+to overcome.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+A few days before their departure, June 20th, the ice had so many free
+passages, that they were able to make a trial trip on board of the new
+launch as far as Cape Washington. The sea was not perfectly free, far
+from it; but its surface was not solid, and it would have been
+impossible to make a trip on foot over the ice-fields. This half-day's
+sail showed the good sailing qualities of the launch. During the
+return they beheld a curious incident. It was a monstrous bear chasing
+a seal. Fortunately the former was so busily occupied, that he did not
+see the launch, otherwise he would certainly have pursued it; he kept
+on watch near a crevasse in the ice-field, into which the seal had
+evidently plunged. He was awaiting his reappearance with all the
+patience of a hunter, or rather of a fisherman, for he was really
+fishing. He was silent, motionless, without any sign of life. Suddenly
+the surface of the water was agitated; the seal had come up to
+breathe. The bear crouched low upon the ice, and rounded his two paws
+about the crevasse. The next moment the seal appeared, with his head
+above water; but he had not time to withdraw it. The bear's paws, as
+if driven by a spring, were clashed together, strangling the animal
+with irresistible force and dragging it out of the water.
+
+It was but a brief struggle; the seal struggled for a few seconds, and
+was then suffocated on the breast of his adversary, who, dragging him
+away easily, in spite of his size, and springing lightly from one
+piece of ice to another, reached land and disappeared with his prey.
+
+[Illustration: "The seal struggled for a few seconds, and was then
+suffocated on the breast of his adversary."]
+
+"A pleasant journey!" shouted Johnson; "that bear has got rather too
+many paws!"
+
+The launch soon reached the little anchorage Bell had made for her in
+the ice.
+
+Only four days were there before the time fixed for their departure.
+Hatteras hurried on the last preparations; he was in a hurry to leave
+New America, a land which was not his, and which he had not named; he
+did not feel at home.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+June 22d they began to carry to the sledge their camp-material, tent,
+and food. They carried only two hundred pounds of salt meat, three
+chests of preserved meat and vegetables, fifty pounds of pickles and
+lime-juice, five quarters of flour, packets of cresses and cochlearia
+from the doctor's garden; with the addition of two hundred pounds of
+powder, the instruments, arms, and personal baggage, the launch,
+Halkett-boat, and the weight of the sledge itself, the whole weighed
+fifteen hundred pounds,--a heavy load for four dogs, especially since,
+unlike the Esquimaux, who never travel more than four days in
+succession, they had none to replace them, and would have to work them
+every day. But the travellers determined to aid them when it was
+necessary, and they intended to proceed by easy stages; the distance
+from Victoria Bay to the Pole was three hundred and fifty-five miles
+at the outside, and going twelve miles a day they could make the
+journey in a month. Besides, when the land came to an end, the launch
+would enable them to finish the journey without fatigue for dogs or
+men.
+
+The latter were well, and in excellent condition. The winter, although
+severe, ended favorably enough. Each one had followed the doctor's
+advice, and escaped from the diseases common in these severe climates.
+In fact, they had grown a trifle thinner, which gave a great deal of
+pleasure to Clawbonny; but their bodies were inured to the rigors of
+that life, and these men were able to face the severest attacks of
+cold and hunger without succumbing. And then, too, they were going to
+the end of their journey, to the inaccessible Pole, after which their
+only thought would be of returning. The sympathy which bound together
+the five members of the expedition would aid their success in this
+bold trip, and no one doubted of their success.
+
+As a precaution, the doctor had urged his companions to prepare
+themselves for some time beforehand, and to "train" with much care.
+
+"My friends," he used to say, "I don't ask you to imitate the English
+racers, who lose eighteen pounds after two days' training, and
+twenty-five after five days, but we ought to do something to get into
+the best possible condition for a long journey. Now the first
+principle of training is to get rid of the fat on both horse and
+jockey, and this is done by means of purging, sweating, and violent
+exercise. These gentlemen know they will lose so much by medicine, and
+they arrive at their results with incredible accuracy; such a one who
+before training could not run a mile without being winded, can run
+twenty-five easily after it. There was a certain Townsend who ran a
+hundred miles in twelve hours without stopping."
+
+"A good result," answered Johnson; "and although we are not very fat,
+if we must get thinner yet--"
+
+"There is no need of it, Johnson; but without exaggerating, it can't
+be denied that training produces good effects; it strengthens the
+bones, makes the muscles more elastic, improves the hearing and the
+sight; so let us not forget it."
+
+In short, whether in training or not, the travellers were ready June
+23d; it was Sunday, and the day was devoted to absolute rest.
+
+The time for departure drew near, and the inhabitants of Fort
+Providence could not see it approach without a certain emotion. It
+grieved them to leave this snow-hut which had served so well to
+protect them; Victoria Bay, this hospitable shore where they had spent
+the last days of the winter. Would they find these buildings standing
+when they returned? Would not the rays of the sun melt away its
+fragile walls?
+
+In a word, they had passed pleasant hours there. The doctor, at the
+evening meal, called up to his companions' memory touching
+reminiscences, and he did not forget to thank Heaven for its evident
+protection.
+
+At last the hour of sleeping came. Each one went to bed early, so as
+to be up betimes. Thus passed their last night at Fort Providence.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+THE JOURNEY NORTHWARD.
+
+
+At dawn the next day Hatteras gave the signal for departure. The dogs
+were harnessed to the sledge; since they were well fed and had
+thoroughly rested, after a comfortable winter there was no reason for
+their not being of great service during the summer. Hence they were
+not averse to being put into harness.
+
+After all, these Greenland dogs are kind beasts. Their wildness was
+partly gone; they had lost their likeness to the wolf, and had become
+more like Duke, the finished model of the canine race,--in a word,
+they were becoming civilized. Duke could certainly claim a share in
+their education; he had given them lessons and an example in good
+manners. In his quality of Englishman, and so punctilious in the
+matter of cant, he was a long time in making the acquaintance of the
+other dogs, who had not been introduced to him, and in fact he never
+used to speak to them; but after sharing the same dangers and
+privations, they gradually grew used to one another. Duke, who had a
+kind heart, made the first advances, and soon all the dogs were
+friends. The doctor used to pet the Greenland dogs, and Duke saw him
+do it without jealousy. The men were in equally good condition; if the
+dogs could draw well, the men could walk well.
+
+They left at six o'clock in the morning; it was a very pleasant day.
+After they had followed the line of the bay and passed Cape
+Washington, Hatteras gave the order to turn northward; by seven the
+travellers lost sight of the lighthouse and of Fort Providence in the
+south.
+
+[Illustration: "They left at six o'clock in the morning."]
+
+The journey promised well, much better than the expedition begun in
+the dead of winter in search of coal. Hatteras then left behind him,
+on board of the ship, mutiny and despair, without being certain of the
+object of his journey; he left a crew half dead with cold, he started
+with companions who were weakened by the miseries of an arctic winter;
+he, too, eager for the north, had to return to the south! Now, on the
+other hand, surrounded by vigorous, healthy friends, encouraged and
+aided in many ways, he was starting for the Pole, the object of his
+whole life! No man had ever been nearer acquiring this glory for
+himself and his country.
+
+Was he thinking of all this, which was so naturally inspired by his
+present position? The doctor liked to think so, and could hardly doubt
+it when he saw him so eager. Clawbonny rejoiced in what so pleased his
+friend; and since the reconciliation of the two captains, the two
+friends, he was the happiest of men; for hatred, envy, and rivalry
+were passions he had never felt. What would be the issue of this
+voyage he did not know; but, at any rate, it began well, and that was
+a good deal.
+
+The western shore of New America stretched out in a series of bays
+beyond Cape Washington; the travellers, to avoid this long curve,
+after crossing the first spurs of Mount Bell, turned northward over
+the upper plateaus. This was a great saving of time; Hatteras was
+anxious, unless prevented by seas or mountains, to make a straight
+line of three hundred and fifty miles to the Pole from Fort
+Providence.
+
+Their journey was easy; these lofty plains were covered with deep
+snow, over which the sledge passed easily, and the men in their
+snow-shoes walked easily and rapidly.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The thermometer stood at 37 degrees. The weather was not absolutely
+settled; at one moment it was clear, the next cloudy: but neither cold
+nor showers could have stopped the eager party. They could be followed
+easily by the compass; the needle was more active as they receded from
+the magnetic pole; it is true that it turned to the opposite direction
+and pointed to the south, while they were walking northward; but this
+did not in any way embarrass them. Besides, the doctor devised a
+simple method of staking out the way and thereby avoiding perpetual
+reference to the compass; when once they had got their bearings by
+some object two or three miles to the north, they walked till they
+reached it, when they chose another, and so on. In this way they had a
+straight road.
+
+In the first two days they made twenty miles in twelve hours; the rest
+of the time was devoted to meals and rest. The tent was ample
+protection against the cold when they were sleeping. The temperature
+gradually rose. The snow melted away in some places, according to the
+shape of the ground, while in others it lay in large patches. Broad
+pools appeared here and there, often almost as large as lakes. They
+would walk in up to their waists very often; but they only laughed at
+it, and the doctor more than any.
+
+"Water has no right to wet us in this country," he used to say; "it
+ought to appear only as a solid, or a gas; as to its being liquid,
+it's absurd! Ice or vapor will do, but water won't!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+They did not forget their shooting, for thereby they got fresh meat.
+So Altamont and Bell, without going very far away, scoured the
+neighboring ravines; they brought back ptarmigan, geese, and a few
+gray rabbits. Gradually these animals became very shy and hard to
+approach. Without Duke they would often have found it hard to get any
+game. Hatteras advised them not to go off farther than a mile, for not
+a day nor an hour was to be lost, and he could not count on more than
+three months of good weather.
+
+Besides, each one had to be at his post by the sledge whenever a hard
+spot, a narrow gorge, or steep inclines lay in the path; then each one
+helped pull or push. More than once everything had to be taken off;
+and this even did not fully protect against shocks and damage, which
+Bell repaired as well as he could.
+
+The third day, Wednesday, June 26th, they came across a vast lake,
+still frozen by reason of its being sheltered from the sun; the ice
+was even strong enough to bear both men and sledge. It was a solid
+mirror which no arctic summers had melted, as was shown by the fact
+that its borders were surrounded by a dry snow, of which the lower
+layers evidently belonged to previous years.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+From this moment the land grew lower, whence the doctor concluded that
+it did not extend very far to the north. Besides, it was very likely
+that New America was merely an island, and did not extend to the Pole.
+The ground grew more level; in the west a few low hills could be seen
+in the distance, covered with a bluish mist.
+
+So far they had experienced no hardships; they had suffered from
+nothing except the reflection of the sun's rays upon the snow, which
+could easily give them snow-blindness. At any other time they would
+have travelled by night to avoid this inconvenience, but then there
+was no night. The snow was fortunately melting away, and it was much
+less brilliant when it was about turning into water.
+
+June 28th the temperature arose to 45 degrees; this was accompanied
+with heavy rain, which the travellers endured stoically, even with
+pleasure, for it hastened the disappearance of the snow. They had to
+put on their deer-skin moccasins, and change the runners of the
+sledge. Their journey was delayed, but still they were advancing
+without any serious obstacles. At times the doctor would pick up
+rounded or flat stones like pebbles worn smooth by the waves, and then
+he thought he was near the Polar Sea; but yet the plain stretched on
+out of sight. There was no trace of man, no hut, no cairn nor
+Esquimaux snow-house; they were evidently the first to set foot in
+this new land. The Greenlanders never had gone so far, and yet this
+country offered plenty of game for the support of that half-starved
+people. Sometimes bears appeared in the distance, but they showed no
+signs of attacking; afar off were herds of musk-oxen and reindeer. The
+doctor would have liked to catch some of the latter to harness to the
+sledge; but they were timid, and not to be caught alive.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The 29th, Bell shot a fox, and Altamont was lucky enough to bring down
+a medium-sized musk-ox, after giving his companions a high idea of his
+bravery and skill; he was indeed a remarkable hunter, and so much
+admired by the doctor. The ox was cut out, and gave plenty of
+excellent meat. These lucky supplies were always well received; the
+least greedy could not restrain their joy at the sight of the meat.
+The doctor laughed at himself when he caught himself admiring these
+huge joints.
+
+[Illustration: "On the 29th Bell shot a fox, and Altamont a
+medium-sized musk-ox."]
+
+"Let us not be afraid to eat it," he used to say; "a good dinner is a
+good thing in these expeditions."
+
+"Especially," said Johnson, "when it depends on a better or worse
+shot."
+
+"You are right, Johnson," replied the doctor; "one thinks less of
+one's food when one gets a regular supply from the kitchen."
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The 30th, the country became unexpectedly rugged, as if it had been
+upheaved by some volcanic commotion; the cones and peaks increased
+indefinitely in number, and were very high. A southeast breeze began
+to blow with violence, and soon became a real hurricane. It rushed
+across the snow-covered rocks, among the ice-mountains, which,
+although on the firm land, took the form of hummocks and icebergs;
+their presence on these lofty plateaus could not be explained even by
+the doctor, who had an explanation for almost everything. Warm, damp
+weather succeeded the tempest; it was a genuine thaw; on all sides
+resounded the cracking of the ice amid the roar of the avalanches.
+
+[Illustration: "The masses of ice took the forms of hummocks and
+icebergs."]
+
+[Illustration: "On all sides resounded the cracking of the ice amid
+the roar of the avalanches."]
+
+The travellers carefully avoided the base of these hills; they even
+took care not to talk aloud, for the sound of the voice could shake
+the air and cause accident. They were witnesses of frequent and
+terrible avalanches which they could not have foreseen. In fact, the
+main peculiarity of polar avalanches is their terrible swiftness;
+therein they differ from those of Switzerland and Norway, where they
+form a ball, of small size at first, and then, by adding to themselves
+the snow and rocks in its passage, it falls with increasing swiftness,
+destroys forests and villages, but taking an appreciable time in its
+course. Now, it is otherwise in the countries where arctic cold rages;
+the fall of the block of ice is unexpected and startling; its fall is
+almost instantaneous, and any one who saw it from beneath would be
+certainly crushed by it; the cannon-ball is not swifter, nor lightning
+quicker; it starts, falls, and crashes down in a single moment with
+the dreadful roar of thunder, and with dull echoes.
+
+So the amazed spectators see wonderful changes in the appearance of
+the country; the mountain becomes a plain under the action of a sudden
+thaw; when the rain has filtered into the fissures of the great blocks
+and freezes in a single night, it breaks everything by its
+irresistible expansion, which is more powerful in forming ice than in
+forming vapor: the phenomenon takes place with terrible swiftness.
+
+No catastrophe, fortunately, threatened the sledge and its drivers;
+the proper precautions were taken, and every danger avoided. Besides,
+this rugged, icy country was not of great extent, and three days
+later, July 3d, the travellers were on smoother ground. But their eyes
+were surprised by a new phenomenon, which has for a long time claimed
+the attention of the scientific men of the two worlds. It was this:
+the party followed a line of hills not more than fifty feet high,
+which appeared to run on several miles, and their eastern side was
+covered with red snow.
+
+The surprise and even the sort of alarm which the sight of this
+crimson curtain gave them may be easily imagined. The doctor hastened,
+if not to reassure, at least to instruct, his companions; he was
+familiar with this red snow and the chemical analysis made of it by
+Wollaston, Candolle, Bauer. He told them this red snow was not found
+in the arctic regions alone, but in Switzerland in the middle of the
+Alps; De Saussure collected a large quantity on the Breven in 1760;
+and since then Captains Ross, Sabine, and others had brought some back
+from their arctic journeys.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Altamont asked the doctor about the nature of this extraordinary
+substance. He was told that its color came simply from the presence of
+organic corpuscles. For a long time it was a question whether these
+corpuscles were animal or vegetable; but it was soon ascertained that
+they belonged to the family of microscopic mushrooms, of the genus
+_Uredo_, which Bauer proposed naming _Uredo vivalis_.
+
+Then the doctor, prying into the snow with his cane, showed his
+companions that the scarlet layer was only nine feet deep, and he bade
+them calculate how many of these mushrooms there might be on a space
+of many miles, when scientific men estimated forty-three thousand in a
+square centimetre.
+
+This coloring probably ran back to a remote period, for the mushrooms
+were not decomposed by either evaporation or the melting of the snow,
+nor was their color altered.
+
+The phenomenon, although explained, was no less strange. Red is a rare
+color in nature; the reflection of the sun's rays on this crimson
+surface produced strange effects; it gave the surrounding objects, men
+and animals, a brilliant appearance, as if they were lighted by an
+inward flame; and when the snow was melting, streams of blood seemed
+to be flowing beneath the travellers' feet.
+
+The doctor, who had not been able to examine this substance when he
+saw it on crimson cliffs from Baffin's Bay, here examined it at his
+ease, and gathered several bottlefuls of it.
+
+This red ground, the "Field of Blood," as he called it, took three
+hours' walk to pass over, and then the country resumed its habitual
+appearance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+FOOTPRINTS ON THE SNOW.
+
+
+July 4th a dense fog prevailed. They were only able with the greatest
+difficulty to keep a straight path; they had to consult the compass
+every moment. Fortunately there was no accident in the darkness,
+except that Bell lost his snow-shoes, which were broken against a
+projecting rock.
+
+"Well, really," said Johnson, "I thought, after seeing the Mersey and
+the Thames, that I knew all about fogs, but I see I was mistaken."
+
+"We ought," answered Bell, "to light torches as is done at London and
+Liverpool."
+
+[Illustration: "'We ought,' answered Bell, 'to light torches, as is
+done at London and Liverpool.'"]
+
+"Why not?" asked the doctor; "that's a good idea; it wouldn't light up
+the road much, but we could see the guide, and follow him more
+easily."
+
+"But what shall we do for torches?"
+
+"By lighting tow dipped in alcohol, and fastening to the end of
+walking-sticks."
+
+"Good!" said Johnson; "and we shall soon have it ready."
+
+A quarter of an hour later the little band was walking along with
+torches faintly lighting up the general gloom.
+
+But if they went straighter, they did not go quicker, and the fog
+lasted till July 6th; the earth being cold then, a blast of north-wind
+carried away all the mist as if it had been rags. Soon the doctor took
+an observation, and ascertained that meanwhile they had not made eight
+miles a day.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The 6th, they made an effort to make up for lost time, and they set
+out early. Altamont and Bell were ahead, choosing the way and looking
+out for game. Duke was with them. The weather, with its surprising
+fickleness, had become very clear and dry; and although the guides
+were two miles from the sledge, the doctor did not miss one of their
+movements. He was consequently very much startled to see them stop
+suddenly, and remain in a position of surprise; they seemed to be
+gazing into the distance, as if scanning the horizon. Then they bent
+down to the ground and seemed to be examining it closely, and they
+arose in evident amazement. Bell seemed to wish to push on, but
+Altamont held him back.
+
+"What can they be doing?" asked the doctor of Johnson.
+
+"I know no more than you, Doctor; I don't understand their gestures."
+
+"They have found the track of some animals," answered Hatteras.
+
+"That's not it," said the doctor.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because Duke would bark."
+
+"Still, they've seen marks of some sort."
+
+"Let us go on," said Hatteras; "we shall soon know."
+
+Johnson urged on the dogs, who quickened their pace.
+
+In twenty minutes the five were together, and Hatteras, the doctor,
+and Johnson were as much surprised as Bell and Altamont.
+
+There were in the snow indubitable traces of men, as fresh as if they
+had just been made.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"They are Esquimaux," said Hatteras.
+
+"Yes," said the doctor, "there is no doubt of that!"
+
+"You think so?" said Altamont.
+
+"Without any doubt."
+
+"Well, and this mark?" continued Altamont, pointing to another print,
+which was often repeated.
+
+"That one?"
+
+"Do you think it was made by an Esquimau?"
+
+The doctor examined it carefully, and was stupefied. The print of a
+European shoe, with nails, sole, and heel, was clearly stamped in the
+snow. There could be no further doubt; a man, a stranger, had been
+there.
+
+"Europeans here!" cried Hatteras.
+
+"Evidently," said Johnson.
+
+"And still," said the doctor, "it is so unlikely, that we ought to
+look twice before being sure."
+
+Thereupon he looked twice, three times, at the print, and he was
+obliged to acknowledge its extraordinary origin.
+
+De Foe's hero was not more amazed when he saw the footprint on the
+sand of his island; but if he was afraid, Hatteras was simply angry. A
+European so near the Pole!
+
+They pushed on to examine the footprints; for a quarter of a mile they
+were continually repeated, mingled with marks of moccasins; then they
+turned to the west. When they had reached this point they consulted as
+to whether they should follow them any farther.
+
+"No," said Hatteras. "Let us go on--"
+
+He was interrupted by an exclamation of the doctor, who had just
+picked up on the snow an object even more convincing, and of the
+origin of which there could be no doubt. It was the object-glass of a
+pocket telescope.
+
+"Now," he said, "we can't doubt that there is a stranger here--"
+
+"Forward!" cried Hatteras.
+
+He uttered this word so sharply that each one obeyed, and the sledge
+resumed its monotonous progress.
+
+They all scanned the horizon attentively, except Hatteras, who was
+filled with wrath and did not care to see anything. Still, since they
+ran the risk of coming across a band of travellers, they had to take
+precautions; it was very disappointing to see any one ahead of them on
+the route. The doctor, although not as angry as Hatteras, was somewhat
+vexed, in spite of his usual philosophy. Altamont seemed equally
+annoyed; Johnson and Bell muttered threatening words between their
+teeth.
+
+"Come," said the doctor, "let us take heart against our bad fortune."
+
+"We must confess," said Johnson, without being heard by Altamont,
+"that if we find the place taken, it would disgust us with journeying
+to the Pole."
+
+"And yet," answered Bell, "there is no possibility of doubting--"
+
+"No," retorted the doctor; "I turn it all over in vain, and say it is
+improbable, impossible; I have to give it up. This shoe was not
+pressed into the snow without being at the end of a leg, and without
+the leg being attached to a human body. I could forgive Esquimaux, but
+a European!"
+
+"The fact is," answered Johnson, "that if we are going to find all the
+rooms taken in the hotel of the end of the world, it would be
+annoying."
+
+"Very annoying," said Altamont.
+
+"Well, we shall see," said the doctor.
+
+And they pushed on. The day ended without any new fact to indicate the
+presence of strangers in this part of New America, and they at last
+encamped for the evening.
+
+A rather strong wind from the south had sprung up, and obliged them to
+seek a secure shelter for their tent in the bottom of a ravine. The
+sky was threatening; long clouds passed rapidly through the air; they
+passed near the ground, and so quickly that the eye could hardly
+follow them. At times some of the mist touched the ground, and the
+tent resisted with difficulty the violence of the hurricane.
+
+[Illustration: The hut was pitched in a ravine for shelter.]
+
+"It's going to be a nasty night," said Johnson, after supper.
+
+"It won't be cold, but stormy," answered the doctor; "let us take
+precautions, and make the tent firm with large stones."
+
+"You are right, Doctor; if the wind should carry away the canvas,
+Heaven alone knows where we should find it again."
+
+Hence they took every precaution against such a danger, and the
+wearied travellers lay down to sleep. But they found it impossible.
+The tempest was loose, and hastened northward with incomparable
+violence; the clouds were whirling about like steam which has just
+escaped from a boiler; the last avalanches, under the force of the
+hurricane, fell into the ravines, and their dull echoes were
+distinctly heard; the air seemed to be struggling with the water, and
+fire alone was absent from this contest of the elements.
+
+Amid the general tumult their ears distinguished separate sounds, not
+the crash of heavy falling bodies, but the distinct cracking of bodies
+breaking; a clear snap was frequently heard, like breaking steel, amid
+the roar of the tempest. These last sounds were evidently avalanches
+torn off by the gusts, but the doctor could not explain the others. In
+the few moments of anxious silence, when the hurricane seemed to be
+taking breath in order to blow with greater violence, the travellers
+exchanged their suppositions.
+
+"There is a sound of crashing," said the doctor, "as if icebergs and
+ice-fields were being blown against one another."
+
+"Yes," answered Altamont; "one would say the whole crust of the globe
+was falling in. Say, did you hear that?"
+
+"If we were near the sea," the doctor went on, "I should think it was
+ice breaking."
+
+"In fact," said Johnson, "there is no other explanation possible."
+
+"Can we have reached the coast?" asked Hatteras.
+
+"It's not impossible," answered the doctor. "Hold on," he said, after
+a very distinct sound; "shouldn't you say that was the crashing of
+ice? We may be very near the ocean."
+
+"If it is," continued Hatteras, "I should not be afraid to go across
+the ice-fields."
+
+"O," said the doctor, "they must be broken by such a tempest! We shall
+see to-morrow. However that may be, if any men have to travel in such
+a night as this, I pity them."
+
+The hurricane raged ten hours without cessation, and no one of those
+in the tent had a moment's sleep; the night passed in profound
+uneasiness. In fact, under such circumstances, every new incident, a
+tempest, an avalanche, might bring serious consequences. The doctor
+would gladly have gone out to reconnoitre, but how could he with such
+a wind raging?
+
+Fortunately the hurricane grew less violent early the next day; they
+could leave the tent which had resisted so sturdily. The doctor,
+Hatteras, and Johnson went to a hill about three hundred feet high,
+which they ascended without difficulty. Their eyes beheld an entirely
+altered country, composed of bare rocks, sharp ridges entirely clear
+of ice. It was summer succeeding winter, which had been driven away by
+the tempest; the snow had been blown away by the wind before it could
+melt, and the barren soil reappeared.
+
+[Illustration: "They climbed a hill which commanded a wide view."]
+
+But Hatteras's glances were all turned towards the north, where the
+horizon appeared to be hidden by dark mist.
+
+"That may be the effect of the ocean," said the doctor.
+
+"You are right," said Hatteras; "the sea must be there."
+
+"That's what we call the blink of the water," said Johnson.
+
+"Exactly," said the doctor.
+
+"Well, let us start," said Hatteras, "and push on to this new ocean."
+
+"That rejoices my heart," said Clawbonny to the captain.
+
+"Certainly," was the enthusiastic answer. "Soon we shall have reached
+the Pole! and doesn't the prospect delight you, too, Doctor?"
+
+"It does. I am always happy, and especially about the happiness of
+others!"
+
+The three Englishmen returned to the ravine; the sledge was made
+ready, and they left the camp and resumed their march. Each one
+dreaded finding new tracks, but all the rest of the way they saw no
+trace of any human being. Three hours later they reached the coast.
+
+"The sea! the sea!" they all shouted.
+
+"And the open sea!" cried the captain.
+
+[Illustration: "Three hours later they reached the coast. 'The sea!
+the sea!' they all shouted."]
+
+It was ten o'clock in the morning.
+
+In fact, the hurricane had cleared up the polar basin; the shattered
+ice was floating away in every direction; the largest pieces, forming
+icebergs, had just weighed anchor and were sailing on the open sea.
+The wind had made a harsh attack upon the field. Fragments of ice
+covered the surrounding rocks. The little which was left of the
+ice-field seemed very soft; on the rocks were large pieces of
+sea-weed. The ocean stretched beyond the line of vision, with no
+island or new land peering above the horizon.
+
+In the east and west were two capes gently sloping to the water; at
+their end the sea was breaking, and the wind was carrying a slight
+foam. The land of New America thus died away in the Polar Ocean,
+quietly and gently. It rounded into an open bay, with roadstead
+enclosed by the two promontories. In the middle a rock made a little
+natural harbor, sheltered against three points of the compass; it ran
+back into the land in the broad bed of a stream, through which ran
+down the melted snows of winter, now forming a perfect torrent.
+
+Hatteras, after noticing the outline of the coast, resolved to make
+the preparations for departure that very day, to launch the boat, to
+put the unloaded sledge on board for future excursions. That took all
+day; then the tent was raised, and after a comfortable meal work
+began. Meanwhile the doctor took out his instruments to take an
+observation and determine the position of a part of the bay. Hatteras
+hurried on the work; he was anxious to start; he wanted to leave the
+land, and to be in advance in case any others should reach the sea.
+
+At five o'clock in the evening Johnson and Bell had nothing to do but
+to fold their arms. The launch was rocking gently in her little
+harbor, with her mast set, her jib lowered, and her foresail in the
+brails; the provisions and most of the things on the sledge had been
+put on board; only the tent and a little of the camping material
+remained to be put on board the next day. The doctor found all these
+preparations complete on his return. When he saw the launch quietly
+sheltered from the wind, it occurred to him to give a name to the
+little harbor, and he proposed that of Altamont. This proposition was
+unanimously agreed to. So it was named Altamont Harbor.
+
+[Illustration: "The launch was rocking gently in her little harbor."]
+
+According to the doctor's calculations, it lay in latitude 87 degrees
+5 minutes, and longitude 118 degrees 35 minutes E. of Greenwich; that
+is to say, less than three degrees from the Pole. The band had gone
+more than two hundred miles from Victoria Bay to Altamont Harbor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+THE OPEN SEA.
+
+
+The next morning Johnson and Bell set about carrying on board the
+camping material. At eight o'clock all the preparations for departure
+were complete. At the moment of starting the doctor's thoughts
+returned to the footprints they had seen. Were these men trying to
+gain the North? Had they any means of crossing the Polar Sea! Should
+they meet them again? For three days they had come across no trace of
+the travellers, and certainly, whoever they were, they could not have
+reached Altamont Harbor. That was a place which they were the first to
+set foot in. But the doctor, who was harassed by his thoughts, wanted
+to take a last view of the country, and he ascended a little hill
+about a hundred feet high, whence he had a distant view to the south.
+
+When he had reached the top, he put his glass to his eyes. Great was
+his surprise when he found he could not see anything, either at a
+distance on the plains, or within a few feet of him. This seemed very
+odd; he made another examination, and at last he looked at the
+glass,--the object-glass was missing.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"The object-glass!" he cried.
+
+The sudden revelation may be imagined; he uttered a cry so loud as to
+be heard by his companions, and they were much astonished at seeing
+him running down the hill.
+
+"Well, what's the matter now?" asked Johnson.
+
+The doctor was out of breath, and unable to speak. At length he
+managed to bring out,--
+
+"The footprints!--the expedition!--"
+
+"Well, what?" said Hatteras; "are they here?"
+
+"No, no!" resumed the doctor,--"the object-glass, mine!"
+
+And he showed his own glass.
+
+"O, ho!" cried the American, "so you lost--"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+"But then the footprints--"
+
+"Our own!" cried the doctor. "We lost our way in the fog! We went
+around in a circle, and came across our own footprints!"
+
+"But the print of the shoes?" asked Hatteras.
+
+"Bell's, you know, who walked all day in the snow after breaking his
+snow-shoes."
+
+"That's true," said Bell.
+
+Their mistake was so clear, that they all, except Hatteras, burst out
+laughing, and he was none the less pleased at the discovery.
+
+"We were stupid enough," said the doctor, when they had stopped
+laughing. What good guesses we made! Strangers up here! Really, we
+ought to think before speaking. Well, since we are easy on this point,
+we can't do better than start."
+
+"Forward!" said Hatteras.
+
+A quarter of an hour later each one had taken his place on board of
+the launch, which sailed out of Altamont Harbor under mainsail and
+jib. This voyage began Wednesday, July 10th; they were then very near
+the Pole, exactly one hundred and seventy-five miles from it. However
+small the land might be at that point of the globe, the voyage would
+certainly be a short one. The wind was light, but fair. The
+thermometer stood at 50 degrees; it was really warm.
+
+The launch had not been injured by the journey on the sledge; it was
+in perfect order, and sailed easily. Johnson was at the helm; the
+doctor, Bell, and Altamont were lying as best they might among the
+load, partly on deck, partly below.
+
+Hatteras stood forward, with his eyes turned to the mysterious point,
+which attracted him with an irresistible power, as the magnetic pole
+attracts the needle. If there should be any land, he wanted to be the
+first to see it. This honor really belonged to him. He noticed,
+besides, that the surface of the Polar Sea was covered with short
+waves, like those of land locked seas. This he considered a proof of
+the nearness of the opposite shore, and the doctor shared his opinion.
+
+Hatteras's desire to find land at the North Pole is perfectly
+comprehensible. His disappointment would have been great if the
+uncertain sea covered the place where he wanted to find a piece of
+land, no matter how small! In fact, how could he give a special name
+to an uncertain portion of the sea? How plant the flag of his country
+among the waves? How take possession, in the name of her Gracious
+Majesty, of the liquid element?
+
+So Hatteras, compass in hand, gazed steadily at the north. There was
+nothing that he could see between him and the horizon, where the line
+of the blue water met the blue sky. A few floating icebergs seemed to
+be leaving the way free for these bold sailors. The appearance of this
+region was singularly strange. Was this impression simply the result
+of the nervous excitement of the travellers? It is hard to say. Still,
+the doctor in his journal has described the singular appearance of the
+ocean; he spoke of it as Penny did, according to whom these countries
+present an appearance "offering the most striking contrast of a sea
+filled with millions of living creatures."
+
+The sea, with its various colors, appeared strangely transparent, and
+endowed with a wonderful dispersive quality, as if it had been made
+with carburet of sulphur. This clearness let them see down into
+immeasurable depths; it seemed as if the sea were lit up like a large
+aquarium; probably some electric phenomenon at the bottom of the sea
+lit it up. So the launch seemed hung in a bottomless abyss.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+On the surface of the water the birds were flying in large flocks,
+like thick clouds big with a storm. Aquatic birds of all sorts were
+there, from the albatross which is common to the south, to the penguin
+of the arctic seas, but of enormous size. Their cries were deafening.
+In considering them the doctor found his knowledge of natural history
+too scanty; many of the names escaped him, and he found himself bowing
+his head when their wings beat the air.
+
+[Illustration: "Aquatic birds of all sorts were there."]
+
+Some of these large birds measured twenty feet from tip to tip; they
+covered the whole launch with their expanded wings; and there were
+legions of these birds, of which the names had never appeared in the
+London "Index Ornithologus." The doctor was dejected and stupefied at
+finding his science so faulty. Then, when his glance fell from the
+wonders of the air to the calm surface of the ocean, he saw no less
+astonishing productions of the animal kingdom, among others, medusae
+thirty feet broad; they served as food for the other fish, and they
+floated like islands amid the sea-weed. What a difference from the
+microscopic medusae observed in the seas of Greenland by Scoresby, and
+of which that explorer estimated the number at twenty-three trillions
+eight hundred and ninety-eight billions of millions in a space of two
+square miles!
+
+Then the eye glancing down into the transparent water, the sight was
+equally strange, so full was it of fishes; sometimes the animals were
+swimming about below, and the eye saw them gradually disappearing, and
+fading away like spectres; then they would leave the lower layers and
+rise to the surface. The monsters seemed in no way alarmed at the
+presence of the launch; they even passed near it, rubbing their fins
+against it; this, which would have alarmed whalers, did not disturb
+these men, and yet the sea-monsters were very large.
+
+[Illustration: "Then the eye glancing down into the transparent water,
+the sight was equally strange."]
+
+Young sea-calves played about them; the sword-fish, with its long,
+narrow, conical sword, with which it cleaves the ice, was chasing the
+more timid cetacea; numberless spouting whales were clearly to be
+heard. The sword-caper, with its delicate tail and large caudal fins,
+swam with incomprehensible quickness, feeding on smaller animals, such
+as the cod, as swift as itself; while the white whale, which is more
+inactive, swallowed peacefully the tranquil, lazy mollusks.
+
+Farther down were Greenland anamaks, long and dark; huge sperm-whales,
+swimming in the midst of ambergris, in which took place thomeric
+battles that reddened the ocean for many miles around; the great
+Labrador tegusik. Sharp-backed dolphins, the whole family of seals and
+walruses, sea-dogs, horses and bears, lions and elephants, seemed to
+be feeding on the rich pastures; and the doctor admired the numberless
+animals, as he would have done the crustacea in the crystal basins of
+the zoological garden.
+
+What beauty, variety, and power in nature! How strange and wonderful
+everything seemed in the polar regions!
+
+The air acquired an unnatural purity; one would have said it was full
+of oxygen; the explorers breathed with delight this air, which filled
+them with fresher life; without taking account of the result, they
+were, so to speak, exposed to a real consuming fire, of which one can
+give no idea, not even a feeble one. Their emotions, their breathing
+and digestion, were endowed with superhuman energy; their ideas became
+more excited; they lived a whole day in an hour.
+
+Through all these wonders the launch pushed on before a moderate
+breeze, occasionally feeling the air moved by the albatrosses' wings.
+
+Towards evening, the coast of New America disappeared beneath the
+horizon. In the temperate zones, as well as at the equator, night
+falls; but here the sun simply described a circle parallel to the line
+of the horizon. The launch, bathed in its oblique rays, could not lose
+sight of it.
+
+The animate beings of these regions seemed to know the approach of
+evening as truly as if the sun had set; birds, fish, cetacea, all
+disappeared. Whither? To the depths of the ocean? Who could say? But
+soon total silence succeeded to their cries, and the sound of their
+passage through the water; the sea grew calmer and calmer, and night
+retained its gentle peace even beneath the glowing sun.
+
+Since leaving Altamont Harbor the launch had made one degree to the
+north; the next day nothing appeared on the horizon, neither
+projecting peaks nor those vague signs by which sailors detect their
+nearness to land.
+
+The wind was good, but not strong, the sea not high; the birds and
+fish came as thick as the day before; the doctor, leaning over the
+gunwale, could see the cetacea rising slowly to the surface; a few
+icebergs and scattered pieces of ice alone broke the monotony of the
+ocean.
+
+But the ice grew rarer, and was not enough to interfere with the boat.
+It is to be remembered that the launch was then ten degrees above the
+pole of cold; and as to the parallels of temperature, they might as
+well have been ten degrees to the other side. There was nothing
+surprising in the sea being open at this epoch, as it must have been
+at Disco Island in Baffin's Bay. So a sailing vessel would have plenty
+of sailing room in the summer months.
+
+This observation had a great practical importance; in fact, if whalers
+can ever get to the polar basin, either by the seas of North America
+or those of the north of Asia, they are sure of getting full cargoes,
+for this part of the ocean seems to be the universal fishing-pond, the
+general reservoir of whales, seals, and all marine animals. At noon
+the line of the horizon was still unbroken; the doctor began to doubt
+of the existence of a continent in so high latitudes.
+
+Still, as he reflected, he was compelled to believe in the existence
+of an arctic continent; in fact, at the creation of the world, after
+the cooling of the terrestrial crust, the waters formed by the
+condensation of the atmospheric vapor were compelled to obey the
+centrifugal force, to fly to the equator and leave the motionless
+extremities of the globe. Hence the necessary emersion of the
+countries near the Pole. The doctor considered this reasoning very
+just. And so it seemed to Hatteras.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Hence the captain still tried to pierce the mists of the horizon. His
+glass never left his eyes. In the color of the water, the shape of the
+waves, the direction of the wind, he tried to find traces of
+neighboring land. His head was bent forward, and even one who did not
+know his thoughts would have admired, so full was his attitude of
+energetic desire and anxious interrogation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+THE APPROACH TO THE POLE.
+
+
+The time flew by in this uncertainty. Nothing appeared on the sharply
+defined circle of the sea; nothing was to be seen save sky and
+sea,--not one of those floating land-plants which rejoiced the heart
+of Christopher Columbus as he was about to discover America. Hatteras
+was still gazing. At length, at about six o'clock in the evening, a
+shapeless vapor appeared at a little height above the level of the
+sea; it looked like a puff of smoke; the sky was perfectly cold, so
+this vapor was no cloud; it would keep appearing and disappearing, as
+if it were in commotion. Hatteras was the first to detect this
+phenomenon; he examined it with his glass for a whole hour.
+
+Suddenly, some sure sign apparently occurred to him, for he stretched
+out his arms to the horizon and cried in a loud voice,--
+
+"Land, ho!"
+
+At these words each one sprang to his feet as if moved by electricity.
+A sort of smoke was clearly rising above the sea.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"I see it," cried the doctor.
+
+"Yes! certainly!--yes!" said Johnson.
+
+"It's a cloud," said Altamont.
+
+"It's land!" answered Hatteras, as if perfectly convinced.
+
+But, as often happens with objects that are indistinct in the
+distance, the point they had been looking at seemed to have
+disappeared. At length they found it again, and the doctor even
+fancied that he could see a swift light twenty or twenty-five miles to
+the north.
+
+"It's a volcano!" he cried.
+
+[Illustration: "'It's a volcano!' he cried."]
+
+"A volcano?" said Altamont.
+
+"Without doubt."
+
+"At this high latitude?"
+
+"And why not?" continued the doctor; "isn't Iceland a volcanic land,
+so to speak, made of volcanoes?"
+
+"Yes, Iceland," said the American, "but so near the Pole!"
+
+"Well, didn't Commodore James Ross find in the Southern Continent two
+active volcanoes, Erebus and Terror by name, in longitude 170 degrees
+and latitude 78 degrees? Why then shouldn't there be volcanoes at the
+North Pole?"
+
+"It may be so, after all," answered Altamont.
+
+"Ah," cried the doctor, "I see it clearly! It is a volcano."
+
+"Well," said Hatteras, "let us sail straight towards it."
+
+"The wind is changing," said Johnson.
+
+"Haul on the fore-sheet, and bring her nearer the wind."
+
+But this manoeuvre only turned the launch away from the point they had
+been gazing at, and even with their closest examination they could not
+find it again. Still, they could not doubt that they were nearing
+land. They had seen, if they had not reached, the object of their
+voyage, and within twenty-four hours they would set foot on this
+unknown shore. Providence, after letting them get so near, would not
+drive them back at the last moment.
+
+Still, no one manifested the joy which might have been expected under
+the circumstances; each one wondered in silence what this polar land
+might be. The animals seemed to shun it; at evening the birds, instead
+of seeking refuge there, flew with all speed to the south. Could not a
+single gull or ptarmigan find a resting-place there? Even the fish,
+the large cetacea, avoided that coast. Whence came this repugnance,
+which was shared by all the animals they saw, unless from terror?
+
+The sailors experienced the same feeling; they gave way to the
+feelings inspired by the situation, and gradually each one felt his
+eyelids grow heavy. It was Hatteras's watch. He took the tiller; the
+doctor, Altamont, Johnson, and Bell fell asleep, stretched on the
+benches, and soon were dreaming soundly. Hatteras struggled against
+his sleepiness; he wished to lose not a moment; but the gentle motion
+of the launch rocked him, in spite of himself, into a gentle sleep.
+
+The boat made hardly any headway; the wind did not keep her sails
+full. Far off in the west a few icebergs were reflecting the sun's
+rays, and glowing brightly in the midst of the ocean.
+
+Hatteras began to dream. He recalled his whole life, with the
+incalculable speed of dreams; he went through the winter again, the
+scenes at Victoria Bay, Fort Providence, Doctor's House, the finding
+the American beneath the snow. Here remoter incidents came up before
+him; he dreamed of the burning of the _Forward_, of his treacherous
+companions who had abandoned him. What had become of them? He thought
+of Shandon, Wall, and the brutal Pen. Where were they now? Had they
+succeeded in reaching Baffin's Bay across the ice? Then he went
+further back, to his departure from England, to his previous voyages,
+his failures and misfortunes. Then he forgot his present situation,
+his success so near at hand, his hopes half realized. His dreams
+carried him from joy to agony. So it went on for two hours; then his
+thoughts changed; he began to think of the Pole, and he saw himself at
+last setting foot on this English continent, and unfolding the flag of
+the United Kingdom. While he was dozing in this way a huge, dark cloud
+was climbing across the sky, throwing a deep shadow over the sea.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+It is difficult to imagine the great speed with which hurricanes arise
+in the arctic seas. The vapors which rise under the equator are
+condensed above the great glaciers of the North, and large masses of
+air are needed to take their place. This can explain the severity of
+arctic storms.
+
+At the first shock of the wind the captain and his friends awoke from
+their sleep, ready to manage the launch. The waves were high and
+steep. The launch tossed helplessly about, now plunged into deep
+abysses, now oscillated on the pointed crest of a wave, inclining
+often at an angle of more than forty-five degrees. Hatteras took firm
+hold of the tiller, which was noisily sliding from one side to the
+other. Every now and then some strong wave would strike it and nearly
+throw him over. Johnson and Bell were busily occupied in bailing out
+the water which the launch would occasionally ship.
+
+[Illustration: "The launch tossed helplessly about."]
+
+"This is a storm we hardly expected," said Altamont, holding fast to
+his bench.
+
+"We ought to expect anything here," answered the doctor.
+
+These remarks were made amid the roar of the tempest and the hissing
+of the waves, which the violence of the wind reduced to a fine spray.
+It was nearly impossible for one to hear his neighbor. It was hard to
+keep the boat's head to the north; the clouds hid everything a few
+fathoms from the boat, and they had no mark to sail by. This sudden
+tempest, just as they were about attaining their object, seemed full
+of warning; to their excited minds it came like an order to go no
+farther. Did Nature forbid approach to the Pole? Was this point of the
+globe surrounded by hurricanes and tempests which rendered access
+impossible? But any one who had caught sight of those men could have
+seen that they did not flinch before wind or wave, and that they would
+push on to the end. So they struggled on all day, braving death at
+every instant, and making no progress northward, but also losing no
+ground; they were wet through by the rain and waves; above the din of
+the storm they could hear the hoarse cries of the birds.
+
+But at six o'clock in the evening, while the waves were rising, there
+came a sudden calm. The wind stopped as if by a miracle. The sea was
+smooth, as if it had not felt a puff of wind for twelve hours. The
+hurricane seemed to have respected this part of the Polar Ocean. What
+was the reason? It was an extraordinary phenomenon, which Captain
+Sabine had witnessed in his voyages in Greenland seas. The fog,
+without lifting, was very bright. The launch drifted along in a zone
+of electric light, an immense St. Elmo fire, brilliant but without
+heat. The mast, sail, and rigging stood out black against the
+phosphorescent air; the men seemed to have plunged into a bath of
+transparent rays, and their faces were all lit up. The sudden calm of
+this portion of the ocean came, without doubt, from the ascending
+motion of the columns of air, while the tempest, which was a cyclone,
+turned rapidly about this peaceful centre. But this atmosphere on fire
+suggested a thought to Hatteras.
+
+[Illustration: "The fog, without lifting, was very bright."]
+
+"The volcano!" he cried.
+
+"Is it possible?" asked Bell.
+
+"No, no!" answered the doctor; "we should be smothered if the flames
+were to reach us."
+
+"Perhaps it is its reflection in the fog," said Altamont.
+
+"No. We should have to admit that we were near land, and in that case
+we should hear the eruption."
+
+"But then?" asked the captain.
+
+"It is a phenomenon," said the doctor, "which has been seldom observed
+hitherto. If we go on we cannot help leaving this luminous sphere and
+re-entering storm and darkness."
+
+"Whatever it is, push on!" said Hatteras.
+
+"Forward!" cried his companions, who did not wish to delay even for
+breathing-time in this quiet spot. The bright sail hung down the
+glistening mast; the oars dipped into the glowing waves, and appeared
+to drip with sparks. Hatteras, compass in hand, turned the boat's head
+to the north; gradually the mist lost its brightness and transparency;
+the wind could be heard roaring a short distance off; and soon the
+launch, lying over before a strong gust, re-entered the zone of
+storms. Fortunately, the hurricane had shifted a point towards the
+south, and the launch was able to run before the wind, straight for
+the Pole, running the risk of foundering, but sailing very fast; a
+rock, reef, or piece of ice might at any moment rise before them, and
+crush them to atoms. Still, no one of these men raised a single
+objection, nor suggested prudence. They were seized with the madness
+of danger. Thirst for the unknown took possession of them. They were
+going along, not blinded, but blindly, finding their speed only too
+slow for their impatience. Hatteras held the tiller firm amid the
+waves lashed into foam by the tempest. Still the proximity of land
+became evident. Strange signs filled the air. Suddenly the mist parted
+like a curtain torn by the wind, and for a moment, brief as a flash of
+lightning, a great burst of flame could be seen rising towards the
+sky.
+
+"The volcano! the volcano!" was the cry which escaped from the lips of
+all; but the strange vision disappeared at once; the wind shifted to
+the southeast, took the launch on her quarter, and drove her from this
+unapproachable land.
+
+"Malediction!" said Hatteras, shifting her sail; "we were not three
+miles from land!"
+
+Hatteras could not resist the force of the tempest; but without
+yielding to it, he brought the boat about in the wind, which was
+blowing with fearful violence. Every now and then the launch leaned to
+one side, so that almost her whole keel was exposed; still she obeyed
+her rudder, and rose like a stumbling horse which his rider brings up
+by spur and reins. Hatteras, with his hair flying and his hand on the
+tiller, seemed to be part of the boat, like horse and man at the time
+of the centaurs. Suddenly a terrible sight presented itself to their
+eyes. Within less than ten fathoms a floe was balancing on the waves;
+it fell and rose like the launch, threatening in its fall to crush it
+to atoms. But to this danger of being plunged into the abyss was added
+another no less terrible; for this drifting floe was covered with
+white bears, crowded together and wild with terror.
+
+[Illustration: "This drifting floe was covered with white bears,
+crowded together."]
+
+"Bears! bears!" cried Bell, in terror.
+
+And each one gazed with terror. The floe pitched fearfully, sometimes
+at such an angle that the bears were all rolled together. Then their
+roars were almost as loud as the tempest; a formidable din arose from
+the floating menagerie.
+
+If the floe had upset, the bears would have swum to the boat and
+clambered aboard.
+
+For a quarter of an hour, which was as long as a century, the launch
+and floe drifted along in consort, twenty fathoms from one another at
+one moment and nearly running together the next, and at times they
+were so near to one another, the bears need only have dropped to have
+got on board. The Greenland dogs trembled from terror; Duke remained
+motionless. Hatteras and his companions were silent; it did not occur
+to them to put the helm down and sail away, and they went straight on.
+A vague feeling, of astonishment rather than terror, took possession
+of them; they admired this spectacle which completed the struggle of
+the elements. Finally the floe drifted away, borne by the wind, which
+the launch was able to withstand, as she lay with her head to the
+wind, and it disappeared in the mist, its presence being known merely
+by the distant roaring of the bears.
+
+At that moment the fury of the tempest redoubled; there was an endless
+unchaining of atmospheric waves; the boat, borne by the waves, was
+tossed about giddily; her sail flew away like a huge white bird; a
+whirlpool, a new Maelstrom, formed among the waves; the boat was
+carried so fast that it seemed to the men as if the rapidly revolving
+water were motionless. They were gradually sinking down. There was an
+irresistible power dragging them down and ingulfing them alive. All
+five arose. They looked at one another with terror. They grew dizzy.
+They felt an undefinable dread of the abyss! But suddenly the launch
+arose perpendicularly. Her prow was higher than the whirling waves;
+the speed with which she was moving hurled her beyond the centre of
+attraction, and escaping by the tangent of this circumference which
+was making more than a thousand turns a second, she was hurled away
+with the rapidity of a cannon-ball.
+
+[Illustration: "Her sail flew away like a huge white bird; a
+whirlpool, a new Maelstrom, formed among the waves."]
+
+Altamont, the doctor, Johnson, and Bell were thrown down among the
+seats. When they rose, Hatteras had disappeared. It was two o'clock in
+the morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+THE ENGLISH FLAG.
+
+
+One cry, bursting from the lips of the other four, succeeded their
+first stupefaction.
+
+"Hatteras!" cried the doctor.
+
+"Gone!" said Johnson and Bell.
+
+"Lost!"
+
+They looked about, but nothing was to be seen on the storm-tossed sea.
+Duke barked despairingly; he tried to spring into the water, but Bell
+managed to hold him.
+
+"Take a place at the helm, Altamont," said the doctor; "let us try
+everything to save the captain."
+
+Johnson and Bell took their seats. Altamont took the helm, and the
+launch came into wind again. Johnson and Bell began to row vigorously;
+for an hour they remained at the scene of the accident. They sought
+earnestly, but in vain. The unfortunate Hatteras was lost in the
+storm! Lost, so near the Pole, so near the end, of which he had had
+but a glimpse!
+
+The doctor called aloud, and fired the guns; Duke added his howling,
+but there was no answer. Then profound grief seized Clawbonny; his
+head sank into his hands, and his companions saw that he was weeping.
+In fact, at this distance from land, with a scrap of wood to hold him
+up, Hatteras could not reach the shore alive; and if anything did come
+ashore, it would be his disfigured corpse. After hunting for an hour,
+they decided to turn to the north, and struggle against the last
+furies of the tempest.
+
+At five o'clock in the morning of July 11th the wind went down; the
+sea grew quieter; the sky regained its polar clearness, and within
+three miles of them appeared the land. This continent was but an
+island, or rather a volcano, peering up like a lighthouse at the North
+Pole. The mountain, in full eruption, was hurling forth a mass of
+burning stones and melting rocks. It seemed to be rising and falling
+beneath the successive blasts as if it were breathing; the things
+which were cast out reached a great height in the air; amid the jets
+of flame, torrents of lava were flowing down the side of the mountain;
+here creeping between steaming rocks, there falling in cascades amid
+the purple vapor: and lower down a thousand streams united in one
+large river, which ran boiling into the sea.
+
+[Illustration: "The mountain was in full eruption."]
+
+The volcano seemed to have but a single crater, whence arose a column
+of fire, lighted by transverse rays; one would have said that part of
+the magnificence of the phenomenon was due to electricity. Above the
+flames floated an immense cloud of smoke, red below, black above. It
+rose with great majesty, and unrolled into huge layers.
+
+The sky at a considerable height had an ashy hue; the darkness, which
+was so marked during the tempest, and of which the doctor could give
+no satisfactory explanation, evidently came from the ashes, which
+completely hid the sun. He remembered a similar fact that took place
+in 1812, at the Barbadoes, which at noon was plunged into total
+darkness by the mass of cinders thrown from the crater of Isle St.
+Vincent.
+
+This enormous volcano, jutting up in mid-ocean, was about six thousand
+feet high, very nearly the altitude of Hecla. A line from the summit
+to the base would form with the horizon an angle of about eleven
+degrees. It seemed to rise from the bosom of the waves as the launch
+approached it. There was no trace of vegetation. There was no shore;
+it ran down steep to the sea.
+
+"Shall we be able to land?" said the doctor.
+
+"The wind is carrying us there," answered Altamont.
+
+"But I can't see any beach on which we could set foot."
+
+"So it seems from here," answered Johnson; "but we shall find some
+place for our boat; that is all we need."
+
+"Let us go on, then!" answered Clawbonny, sadly.
+
+The doctor had no eyes for the strange continent which was rising
+before him. The land of the Pole was there, but not the man who had
+discovered it. Five hundred feet from the rocks the sea was boiling
+under the action of subterraneous fires. The island was from eight to
+ten miles in circumference, no more; and, according to their
+calculation, it was very near the Pole, if indeed the axis of the
+world did not pass exactly through it. As they drew near they noticed
+a little fiord large enough to shelter their boat; they sailed towards
+it, filled with the fear of finding the captain's body cast ashore by
+the tempest.
+
+[Illustration: "They noticed a little fiord."]
+
+Still, it seemed unlikely that any corpse should rest there; there was
+no beach, and the sea beat against the steep rocks; thick ashes, on
+which no human foot had ever stepped, covered the ground beyond the
+reach of the waves. At last the launch slipped between the breakers,
+and there she was perfectly sheltered against the surf. Then Duke's
+lamentable howling redoubled; the poor animal called for the captain
+with his sad wails among the rocks. His barking was vain; and the
+doctor caressed him, without being able to calm him, when the faithful
+dog, as if he wanted to replace his master, made a prodigious leap,
+and was the first to get ashore amid the dust and ashes which flew
+about him.
+
+"Duke! Duke!" said the doctor.
+
+Duke did not hear him, but disappeared. The men then went ashore, and
+made the launch fast. Altamont was preparing to climb up a large pile
+of rocks, when Duke's distant barking was heard; it expressed pain,
+not wrath.
+
+"Listen!" said the doctor.
+
+"Has he got on the track of some animal?" asked the boatswain.
+
+"No," answered the doctor, quivering with emotion; "he's mourning,
+crying! Hatteras's body is there!"
+
+At these words the four men started after Duke, in the midst of
+blinding cinders; they reached the end of the fiord, a little place
+ten feet broad, where the waves were gently breaking. There Duke was
+barking near a body wrapped up in the English flag.
+
+"Hatteras, Hatteras!" cried the doctor, rushing to the body of his
+friend.
+
+But at once he uttered an explanation which it is impossible to
+render. This bleeding and apparently lifeless body had just given
+signs of life.
+
+"Alive, alive!" he cried.
+
+"Yes," said a feeble voice, "living on the land of the Pole, where the
+tempest cast me up! Living on Queen Island!"
+
+"Hurrah for England!" cried the five together.
+
+"And for America!" added the doctor, holding out one hand to Hatteras
+and the other to Altamont. Duke, too, hurrahed in his own way, which
+was as good as any other.
+
+At first these kind-hearted men were wholly given up to the pleasure
+of seeing their captain again; they felt the tears welling up into
+their eyes. The doctor examined Hatteras's condition. He was not
+seriously injured. The wind had carried him to the shore, where it was
+hard to land; the bold sailor, often beaten back, at last succeeded in
+clambering upon a rock above the reach of the waves. Then he lost
+consciousness, after wrapping himself up in his flag, and he only came
+to himself under Duke's caresses and barking. After receiving a few
+attentions, Hatteras was able to rise, and, leaning on the doctor's
+arm, to go to the launch.
+
+"The Pole, the North Pole!" he repeated as he walked along.
+
+"You are happy!" the doctor said to him.
+
+"Yes, happy! And you, my friend, don't you feel happy at being here?
+This land is the land of the Pole! This sea we have crossed is the sea
+of the Pole! This air we breathe is the air of the Pole! O, the North
+Pole, the North Pole!"
+
+As he spoke, Hatteras was the victim of a violent excitement, a sort
+of fever, and the doctor in vain tried to calm him. His eyes were
+strangely bright, and his thoughts were boiling within him. Clawbonny
+ascribed this condition to the terrible perils he had gone through.
+Hatteras evidently needed rest, and they set about seeking a place to
+camp. Altamont soon found a grotto in the rocks, which had fallen in
+such a way as to form a cavern. Johnson and Bell brought provisions
+there, and let loose the dogs. Towards eleven o'clock everything was
+prepared for a meal; the canvas of the tent served as a cloth; the
+breakfast, consisting of pemmican, salt meat, tea and coffee, was set
+and soon devoured. But first, Hatteras demanded that an observation
+should be made; he wanted to know its position exactly. The doctor and
+Altamont then took their instruments, and after taking an observation
+they found the precise position of the grotto to be latitude 89
+degrees 59 minutes 15 seconds. The longitude at this height was of no
+importance, for all the meridians run together within a few hundred
+feet higher. So in reality the island was situated at the North Pole,
+and the ninetieth degree of latitude was only forty-five seconds from
+there, exactly three quarters of a mile, that is to say, towards the
+top of the volcano. When Hatteras knew this result, he asked that it
+should be stated in two documents, one to be placed in a cairn on the
+shore. So at once the doctor took his pen and wrote the following
+document, one copy of which is now in the archives of the Royal
+Geographical Society in London:--
+
+
+"July 11, 1861, in north latitude 89 degrees 59 minutes 15 seconds,
+'Queen Island' was discovered at the North Pole by Captain Hatteras,
+commanding the brig _Forward_ of Liverpool, who has set his name
+hereto, with his companions. Whoever shall find this document is
+entreated to forward it to the Admiralty.
+
+  (Signed)  JOHN HATTERAS, Captain of the _Forward_.
+            DR. CLAWBONNY.
+            ALTAMONT, Captain of the _Porpoise_.
+            JOHNSON, Boatswain.
+            BELL, Carpenter."
+
+
+"And now, my friends, to table!" said the doctor, gayly.
+
+[Illustration: "Altamont soon found a grotto in the rocks."]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+POLAR COSMOGRAPHY.
+
+
+Of course, to eat at table, they were obliged to sit on the ground.
+
+"But," said Clawbonny, "who wouldn't give all the tables and
+dining-rooms in the world, to dine in north latitude 89 degrees 59
+minutes 15 seconds?"
+
+The thoughts of each one were about their situation. They had no other
+idea than the North Pole. The dangers they had undergone to reach it,
+those to overcome before returning, were forgotten in their
+unprecedented success. What neither Europeans, Americans, nor Asiatics
+had been able to do, they had accomplished. Hence they were all ready
+to listen to the doctor when he told them all that his inexhaustible
+memory could recall about their position. It was with real enthusiasm
+that he first proposed their captain's health.
+
+[Illustration: "They were all ready to listen to the doctor."]
+
+"To John Hatteras!" he said.
+
+"To John Hatteras!" repeated the others.
+
+"To the North Pole!" answered the captain, with a warmth that was
+unusual in this man who was usually so self-restrained, but who now
+was in a state of great nervous excitement. They touched glasses, and
+the toasts were followed by earnest hand-shakings.
+
+"It is," said the doctor, "the most important geographical fact of our
+day! Who would have thought that this discovery would precede that of
+the centre of Africa or Australia? Really, Hatteras, you are greater
+than Livingstone, Burton, and Barth! All honor to you!"
+
+"You are right, Doctor," said Altamont; "it would seem, from the
+difficulty of the undertaking, that the Pole would be the last place
+discovered. Whenever the government was absolutely determined to know
+the middle of Africa, it would have succeeded at the cost of so many
+men and so much money; but here nothing is less certain than success,
+and there might be obstacles really insuperable."
+
+"Insuperable!" cried Hatteras with warmth; "there are no insuperable
+obstacles; there are more or less determined minds, that is all!"
+
+"Well," said Johnson, "we are here, and it is well. But, Doctor, will
+you tell me, once for all, what there is so remarkable about the
+Pole?"
+
+"It is this, Johnson, that it is the only motionless part of the
+globe, while all the rest is turning with extreme rapidity."
+
+"But I don't see that we are more motionless here than at Liverpool."
+
+"No more than you perceive the motion at Liverpool; and that is
+because in both cases you participate in the movement or the repose.
+But the fact is no less certain. The earth rotates in twenty-four
+hours, and this motion is on an axis with its extremities at the two
+poles. Well, we are at one of the extremities of the axis, which is
+necessarily motionless."
+
+"So," said Bell, "when our countrymen are turning rapidly, we are
+perfectly still?"
+
+"Very nearly, for we are not exactly at the Pole."
+
+"You are right, Doctor," said Hatteras seriously, and shaking his
+head; "we are still forty-five seconds from the precise spot."
+
+"That is not far," answered Altamont, "and we can consider ourselves
+motionless."
+
+"Yes," continued the doctor, "while those living at the equator move
+at the rate of three hundred and ninety-six leagues an hour."
+
+"And without getting tired!" said Bell.
+
+"Exactly!" answered the doctor.
+
+"But," continued Johnson, "besides this movement of rotation, doesn't
+the earth also move about the sun?"
+
+"Yes, and this takes a year."
+
+"Is it swifter than the other?"
+
+"Infinitely so; and I ought to say that, although we are at the Pole,
+it takes us with it as well as all the people in the world. So our
+pretended immobility is a chimera: we are motionless with regard to
+the other points of the globe, but not so with regard to the sun."
+
+"Good!" said Bell, with an accent of comic regret; "so I, who thought
+I was still, was mistaken! This illusion has to be given up! One can't
+have a moment's peace in this world."
+
+"You are right, Bell," answered Johnson; "and will you tell us,
+Doctor, how fast this motion is?"
+
+"It is very fast," answered the doctor; "the earth moves around the
+sun seventy-six times faster than a twenty-four-pound cannon-ball
+flies, which goes one hundred and ninety-five fathoms a second. It
+moves, then, seven leagues and six tenths per second; you see it is
+very different from the diurnal movement of the equator."
+
+"The deuce!" said Bell; "that is incredible, Doctor! More than seven
+leagues a second, and that when it would have been so easy to be
+motionless, if God had wished it!"
+
+"Good!" said Altamont; "do you think so, Bell? In that case no more
+night, nor spring, nor autumn, nor winter!"
+
+"Without considering a still more terrible result," continued the
+doctor.
+
+"What is that?" asked Johnson.
+
+"We should all fall into the sun!"
+
+"Fall into the sun!" repeated Bell with surprise.
+
+"Yes. If this motion were to stop, the earth would fall into the sun
+in sixty-four days and a half."
+
+"A fall of sixty-four days!" said Johnson.
+
+"No more nor less," answered the doctor; "for it would have to fall a
+distance of thirty-eight millions of leagues."
+
+"What is the weight of the earth?" asked Altamont.
+
+"It is five thousand eight hundred and ninety-one quadrillions of
+tons."
+
+"Good!" said Johnson; "those numbers have no meaning."
+
+"For that reason, Johnson, I was going to give you two comparisons
+which you could remember. Don't forget that it would take seventy-five
+moons to make the sun, and three hundred and fifty thousand earths to
+make up the weight of the sun."
+
+"That is tremendous!" said Altamont.
+
+"Tremendous is the word," answered the doctor; "but, to return to the
+Pole, no lesson on cosmography on this part of the globe could be more
+opportune, if it doesn't weary you."
+
+"Go on, Doctor, go on!"
+
+"I told you," resumed the doctor, who took as much pleasure in giving
+as the others did in receiving instruction,--"I told you that the Pole
+was motionless in comparison with the rest of the globe. Well, that is
+not quite true!"
+
+"What!" said Bell, "has that got to be taken back?"
+
+"Yes, Bell, the Pole is not always exactly in the same place; formerly
+the North Star was farther from the celestial pole than it is now. So
+our Pole has a certain motion; it describes a circle in about
+twenty-six years. That comes from the precession of the equinoxes, of
+which I shall speak soon."
+
+"But," asked Altamont, "might it not happen that some day the Pole
+should get farther from its place?"
+
+"Ah, my dear Altamont," answered the doctor, "you bring up there a
+great question, which scientific men investigated for a long time in
+consequence of a singular discovery."
+
+"What was that?"
+
+"This is it. In 1771 the body of a rhinoceros was found on the shore
+of the Arctic Sea, and in 1799 that of an elephant on the coast of
+Siberia. How did the animals of warm countries happen to be found in
+these latitudes? Thereupon there was much commotion among geologists,
+who were not so wise as a Frenchman, M. Elie de Beaumont, has been
+since. He showed that these animals used to live in rather high
+latitudes, and that the streams and rivers simply carried their bodies
+to the places where they were found. But do you know the explanation
+which scientific men gave before this one?"
+
+"Scientific men are capable of anything," said Altamont.
+
+"Yes, in explanation of a fact; well, they imagined that the Pole used
+to be at the equator and the equator at the Pole."
+
+"Bah!"
+
+"It was exactly what I tell you. Now, if it had been so, since the
+earth is flattened more than five leagues at the pole, the seas,
+carried to the equator by centrifugal force, would have covered
+mountains twice as high as the Himalayas; all the countries near the
+polar circle, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Siberia, Greenland, and New
+Britain, would have been buried in five leagues of water, while the
+regions at the equator, having become the pole, would have formed
+plateaus fifteen leagues high!"
+
+"What a change!" said Johnson.
+
+"O, that made no difference to scientific men!"
+
+"And how did they explain the alteration?" asked Altamont.
+
+"They said it was due to the shock of collision with a comet. The
+comet is the _deus ex machina_; whenever one comes to a difficult
+question in cosmography, a comet is lugged in. It is the most obliging
+of the heavenly bodies, and at the least sign from a scientific man it
+disarranges itself to arrange everything."
+
+"Then," said Johnson, "according to you, Doctor, this change is
+impossible?"
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"And if it should take place?"
+
+"If it did, the equator would be frozen in twenty-four hours!"
+
+"Good! if it were to take place now," said Bell, "people would as
+likely as not say we had never gone to the Pole."
+
+"Calm yourself, Bell. To return to the immobility of the terrestrial
+axis, the following is the result: if we were to spend a winter here,
+we should see the stars describing a circle about us. As for the sun,
+the day of the vernal equinox, March 23d, it would appear to us (I
+take no account of refraction) exactly cut in two by the horizon, and
+would rise gradually in longer and longer curves; but here it is
+remarkable that when it has once risen it sets no more; it is visible
+for six months. Then its disk touches the horizon again at the
+autumnal equinox, September 22d, and as soon as it is set, it is seen
+no more again all winter."
+
+"You were speaking just now of the flattening of the earth at the
+poles," said Johnson; "be good enough to explain that, Doctor."
+
+"I will. Since the earth was fluid when first created, you understand
+that its rotary movement would try to drive part of the mobile mass to
+the equator, where the centrifugal force was greater. If the earth had
+been motionless, it would have remained a perfect sphere; but in
+consequence of the phenomenon I have just described, it has an
+ellipsoidal form, and points at the pole are nearer the centre of the
+earth than points at the equator by about five leagues."
+
+"So," said Johnson, "if our captain wanted to take us to the centre of
+the earth, we should have five leagues less to go?"
+
+"Exactly, my friend."
+
+"Well, Captain, it's so much gained! We ought to avail ourselves of
+it."
+
+But Hatteras did not answer. Evidently he had lost all interest in the
+conversation, or perhaps he was listening without hearing.
+
+"Well," answered the doctor, "according to certain scientific men, it
+would be worth while to try this expedition."
+
+"What! really?" exclaimed Johnson.
+
+"But let me finish," answered the doctor. "I will tell you. I must
+first tell you this flattening of the poles is the cause of the
+precession of the equinoxes; that is to say, why every year the vernal
+equinox comes a day sooner than it would if the earth were perfectly
+round. This comes from the attraction of the sun operating in a
+different way on the heaped-up land of the equator, which then
+experiences a retrograde movement. Subsequently it displaces this Pole
+a little, as I just said. But, independently of this effect, this
+flattening ought to have a more curious and more personal effect,
+which we should perceive if we had mathematical sensibility."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Bell.
+
+"I mean that we are heavier here than at Liverpool."
+
+"Heavier?"
+
+"Yes; ourselves, the dogs, our guns, and instruments!"
+
+"Is it possible?"
+
+"Certainly, and for two reasons: the first is, that we are nearer the
+centre of the globe, which consequently attracts us more strongly, and
+this force of gravitation is nothing but weight; the second is, the
+rotary force, which is nothing at the pole, is very marked at the
+equator, and objects there have a tendency to fly from the earth: they
+are less heavy."
+
+"What!" exclaimed Johnson, seriously; "have we not the same weight
+everywhere?"
+
+"No, Johnson; according to Newton's law, bodies attract one another
+directly as their masses, and inversely to the square of their
+distances. Here I weigh more, because I am nearer the centre of
+attraction; and on another planet I should weigh more or less
+according to the mass of the planet."
+
+"What!" said Bell, "in the moon--"
+
+"In the moon my weight, which is two hundred pounds at Liverpool,
+would be only thirty-two pounds."
+
+"And in the sun?"
+
+"O, in the sun I should weigh more than five thousand pounds!"
+
+"Heavens!" said Bell; "you'd need a derrick to move your legs."
+
+"Probably," answered the doctor, laughing at Bell's amazement; "but
+here the difference is imperceptible, and by an equal effort of the
+muscles Bell would leap as high as on the docks at Liverpool."
+
+"Yes, but in the sun?" urged Bell.
+
+"My friend," answered the doctor, "the upshot of it all is that we are
+well off where we are, and need not want to go elsewhere."
+
+"You said just now," resumed Altamont, "that perhaps it would be worth
+while to make a journey to the centre of the world; has such an
+undertaking ever been thought of?"
+
+"Yes, and this is all I'm going to say about the Pole. There is no
+point in the world which has given rise to more chimeras and
+hypotheses. The ancients, in their ignorance, placed the garden of the
+Hesperides there. In the Middle Ages it was supposed that the earth
+was upheld on axles placed at the poles, on which it revolved; but
+when comets were seen moving freely, that idea had to be given up.
+Later, there was a French astronomer, Bailly, who said that the lost
+people mentioned by Plato, the Atlantides, lived here. Finally, it has
+been asserted in our own time that there was an immense opening at the
+poles, from which came the Northern Lights, and through which one
+could reach the inside of the earth; since in the hollow sphere two
+planets, Pluto and Proserpine, were said to move, and the air was
+luminous in consequence of the strong pressure it felt."
+
+"That has been maintained?" asked Altamont.
+
+"Yes, it has been written about seriously. Captain Symmes, a
+countryman of ours, proposed to Sir Humphry Davy, Humboldt, and Arago,
+to undertake the voyage! But they declined."
+
+"And they did well."
+
+"I think so. Whatever it may be, you see, my friends, that the
+imagination has busied itself about the Pole, and that sooner or later
+we must come to the reality."
+
+"At any rate, we shall see for ourselves," said Johnson, who clung to
+his idea.
+
+"Then, to-morrow we'll start," said the doctor, smiling at seeing the
+old sailor but half convinced; "and if there is any opening to the
+centre of the earth, we shall go there together."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+MOUNT HATTERAS.
+
+
+After this solid conversation every one made himself as comfortable as
+possible in the cavern, and soon fell asleep. Every one, that is,
+except Hatteras. Why did not this strange man sleep?
+
+Was not the object of his life attained? Had he not accomplished the
+bold projects which lay so near his heart? Why did not calmness
+succeed the agitation in his ardent mind? Would not one suppose that,
+when he had accomplished this end, Hatteras would fall into a sort of
+dejection, and that his over-stretched nerves would seek repose? After
+succeeding, it would seem natural that he should be seized with the
+feeling of sadness, which always follows satisfied desires.
+
+But no. He was only more excited. It was not, however, the thought of
+returning which agitated him so. Did he wish to go farther? Was there
+no limit to his ambition, and did he find the world too small, because
+he had been around it? However this may have been, he could not sleep.
+And yet this first night spent at the pole of the world was pleasant
+and quiet. The island was absolutely uninhabited. There was not a bird
+in its fire-impregnated atmosphere, not an animal on the soil of
+cinders, not a fish in its boiling waters. Only afar off the dull
+murmur of the mountain, from the summit of which arose puffs of hot
+smoke.
+
+When Bell, Johnson, Altamont, and the doctor awoke, Hatteras was not
+to be seen near them. Being anxious, they left the cave, and saw the
+captain standing on a rock. His eyes were fixed on the top of the
+volcano. He held his instruments in his hands, having evidently been
+calculating the exact height of the mountain. The doctor went up to
+him and spoke to him several times before he could rouse him from his
+revery. At last the captain seemed to understand him.
+
+[Illustration: "They saw the captain standing on a rock."]
+
+"Forward!" said the doctor, who was examining him
+attentively,--"forward! let us explore our island; we are all ready
+for our last excursion."
+
+"Our last," said Hatteras, with the intonation of people who are
+dreaming aloud; "yes, the last, indeed. But also," he continued with
+great animation, "the most wonderful!"
+
+He spoke in this way, rubbing his hands over his brow as if to allay
+its throbbing. At that moment, Altamont, Johnson, and Bell joined him;
+Hatteras appeared to awaken from his revery.
+
+[Illustration: "Hatteras appeared to wake from his revery."]
+
+"My friends," he said with emotion, "thanks for your courage, thanks
+for your perseverance, thanks for your superhuman efforts, which have
+allowed us to set foot on this land!"
+
+"Captain!" said Johnson, "we have only obeyed; all the honor is due to
+you alone!"
+
+"No, no!" resumed Hatteras with emotion; "to you as much as to me! to
+Altamont as well as to all of us! as to the doctor himself-- O, let my
+heart well over in your hands! It can no longer restrain its joy and
+gratitude!"
+
+Hatteras clasped the hands of his companions. He walked to and fro, no
+longer master of himself.
+
+"We have only done our duty as Englishmen," said Bell.
+
+"Our duty as friends," continued the doctor.
+
+"Yes," said Hatteras, "but all have not performed this duty. Some have
+given way! Still, they must be pardoned, both who were treacherous,
+and those who were led away to it! Poor men! I forgive them. You
+understand me, Doctor?"
+
+"Yes," answered the doctor, who was very uneasy at Hatteras's
+excitement.
+
+"So," went on the captain, "I don't want them to lose the money they
+came so far to seek. No, I shall not alter my plan; they shall be
+rich,--if they ever see England again!"
+
+Few could have withstood the tenderness with which Hatteras spoke
+these last words.
+
+"But, Captain," said Johnson, with an effort at pleasantry, "one would
+say you were making your will."
+
+"Perhaps I am," answered Hatteras, seriously.
+
+"Still you have before you a long and glorious life," continued the
+old sailor.
+
+"Who can say?" said Hatteras.
+
+A long silence followed these words. The doctor did not dare to try to
+interpret the last remark. But Hatteras soon expressed his meaning,
+for in a hasty, hardly restrained voice, he went on:--
+
+"My friends, listen to me. We have done a good deal so far, and yet
+there is a good deal to do."
+
+His companions gazed at him in astonishment.
+
+"Yes, we are on the land of the Pole, but we are not on the Pole
+itself!"
+
+"How so?" asked Altamont.
+
+"You don't mean it!" cried the doctor, anxiously.
+
+"Yes!" resumed Hatteras, earnestly, "I said that an Englishman should
+set foot on the Pole; I said it, and an Englishman shall do it."
+
+"What!" ejaculated the doctor.
+
+"We are now forty-five seconds from the unknown point," Hatteras went
+on, with increasing animation; "where it is, I am going!"
+
+"But that is the top of the volcano!" said the doctor.
+
+"I'm going!"
+
+"It's an inaccessible spot!"
+
+"I'm going!"
+
+"It's a fiery crater!"
+
+"I'm going!"
+
+The firmness with which Hatteras uttered these words cannot be given.
+His friends were stupefied; they gazed with horror at the volcano
+tipped with flame. Then the doctor began; he urged and besought
+Hatteras to give up his design; he said everything he could imagine,
+from entreaty to well-meant threats; but he obtained no concession
+from the nervous captain, who was possessed with a sort of madness
+which may be called polar madness. Only violent means could stop him,
+rushing to his ruin. But seeing that thereby they would produce
+serious results, the doctor wished to keep them for a last resource.
+He hoped, too, that some physical impossibility, some unsurmountable
+difficulty, would compel him to give up his plan.
+
+"Since it is so," he said, "we shall follow you."
+
+"Yes," answered the captain, "half-way up the mountain! No farther!
+Haven't you got to carry back to England the copy of the document
+which proves our discovery, in case--"
+
+"Still--"
+
+"It is settled," said Hatteras, in a tone of command; "and since my
+entreaties as a friend are not enough, I order it as captain."
+
+The doctor was unwilling to urge him any further, and a few moments
+later the little band, equipped for a hard climb, and preceded by
+Duke, set out. The sky was perfectly clear. The thermometer stood at
+52 degrees. The air had all the brilliancy which is so marked at this
+high latitude. It was eight o'clock in the morning. Hatteras went
+ahead with his dog, the others followed close behind.
+
+"I'm anxious," said Johnson.
+
+"No, no, there's nothing to fear," answered the doctor; "we are here."
+
+It was a strange island, in appearance so new and singular! The
+volcano did not seem old, and geologists would have ascribed a recent
+date to its formation.
+
+The rocks were heaped upon one another, and only kept in place by
+almost miraculous balancing. The mountain, in fact, was composed of
+nothing but stones that had fallen from above. There was no soil, no
+moss, no lichen, no trace of vegetation. The carbonic acid from the
+crater had not yet had time to unite with the hydrogen of the water;
+nor the ammonia of the clouds, to form under the action of the light,
+organized matter. This island had arisen from successive volcanic
+eruptions, like many other mountains; what they have hurled forth has
+built them up. For instance, Etna has poured forth a volume of lava
+larger than itself; and the Monte Nuovo, near Naples, was formed by
+ashes in the short space of forty-eight hours. The heap of rocks
+composing Queen's Island had evidently come from the bowels of the
+earth. Formerly the sea covered it all; it had been formed long since
+by the condensation of the vapor on the cooling globe; but in
+proportion as the volcanoes of the Old and New World disappeared, they
+were replaced by new craters.
+
+In fact, the earth can be compared to a vast spheroidal boiler. Under
+the influence of the central fire an immense quantity of vapor is
+generated, which is exposed to a pressure of thousands of atmospheres,
+and which would blow up the globe, were it not for the safety-valves
+opening on the outside.
+
+These safety-valves are the volcanoes; when one closes, another opens;
+and at the poles, where, doubtless in consequence of the flattening of
+the earth's surface, the crust is thinner, it is not strange that a
+volcano should be suddenly formed by the upheaval of the bottom of the
+waves. The doctor noticed all this as he followed Hatteras; his foot
+sank into a volcanic tufa, and the deposits of ashes, volcanic stones,
+etc., like the syenite and granite of Iceland. But he attributed a
+comparatively recent origin to the island, on account of the fact that
+no sedimentary soil had yet formed upon it. Water, too, was lacking.
+If Queen's Island had existed for several years, there would have been
+springs upon it, as there are in the neighborhood of volcanoes. Now,
+not only was there no drop of water there, but the vapors which arose
+from the stream of lava seemed absolutely anhydrous.
+
+This island, then, was of recent formation; and since it appeared in
+one day, it might disappear in another and sink beneath the ocean.
+
+The ascent grew more difficult the higher they went; the sides of the
+mountain became nearly perpendicular, and they had to be very careful
+to avoid accident. Often columns of cinders were blown about them and
+threatened to choke them, or torrents of lava barred their path. On
+some such places these streams were hard on top, but the molten stream
+flowed beneath. Each one had to test it first to escape sinking into
+the glowing mass. From time to time the crater vomited forth huge
+red-hot rocks amid burning gases; some of these bodies burst in the
+air like shells, and the fragments were hurled far off in all
+directions. The innumerable dangers of this ascent may be readily
+perceived, as well as the foolhardiness of the attempt.
+
+Still, Hatteras climbed with wonderful agility, and while spurning the
+use of his iron-tipped staff, he ascended the steepest slopes. He soon
+reached a circular rock, which formed a sort of plateau about ten feet
+broad; a glowing stream surrounded it, which was divided at the corner
+by a higher rock, and left only a narrow passage through which
+Hatteras slipped boldly. There he stopped, and his companions were
+able to join him. Then he seemed to estimate the distance yet
+remaining; horizontally there were only about six hundred feet of the
+crater remaining, that is to say, from the mathematical point of the
+Pole; but vertically they had fifteen hundred feet yet to climb. The
+ascent had already taken three hours; Hatteras did not seem tired; his
+companions were exhausted.
+
+The top of the volcano seemed inaccessible. The doctor wished at any
+risk to keep Hatteras from going higher. At first he tried gentle
+means, but the captain's excitement amounted to delirium; on the way
+he had exhibited all the signs of growing madness, and whoever has
+known him in the different scenes of his life cannot be surprised. In
+proportion as Hatteras rose above the ocean his excitement increased;
+he lived no longer with men; he thought he was growing larger with the
+mountain itself.
+
+"Hatteras," said the doctor, "this is far enough! we can't go any
+farther!"
+
+"Stay where you are, then," answered the captain in a strange voice;
+"I shall go higher!"
+
+"No! that's useless! you are at the Pole here!"
+
+"No, no, higher!"
+
+"My friend, it's I who am speaking to you, Dr. Clawbonny! Don't you
+know me?"
+
+"Higher! higher!" repeated the madman.
+
+"Well, no, we sha'n't let--"
+
+The doctor had not finished the sentence before Hatteras, by a violent
+effort, sprang over the stream of lava and was out of their reach.
+They uttered a cry, thinking Hatteras was lost in the fiery abyss; but
+he had reached the other side, followed by Duke, who was unwilling to
+abandon him.
+
+He disappeared behind a puff of smoke, and his voice was heard growing
+fainter and fainter in the distance.
+
+"To the north!" he was shouting, "to the top of Mount Hatteras! Do you
+remember Mount Hatteras?"
+
+They could not think of getting up to him; there were twenty chances
+to one against their being able to cross the stream he had leaped over
+with the skill and luck of madmen. Nor could they get around it.
+Altamont in vain tried to pass; he was nearly lost in trying to cross
+the stream of lava; his companions were obliged to hold him by force.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+"Hatteras, Hatteras!" shouted the doctor.
+
+But the captain did not answer; Duke's barking alone was heard upon
+the mountain.
+
+Still, Hatteras could be seen at intervals through the column of smoke
+and the showers of cinders. Sometimes his arm or head would emerge
+from the whirlwind. Then he would disappear and be seen again higher
+up in the rocks. His height diminished with the fantastic swiftness of
+objects rising in the air. Half an hour later he seemed but a fraction
+of his usual size.
+
+The air was filled with the dull noises of the volcano; the mountain
+was roaring like a boiler, its sides were quivering. Hatteras kept on,
+and Duke followed. From time to time some enormous rock would give way
+beneath them and go crashing down to the sea. But Hatteras did not
+look back. He had made use of his staff as a pole on which to fasten
+the English flag. His companions observed every one of his movements.
+His dimensions became gradually smaller, and Duke seemed no larger
+than a rat. One moment the wind seemed to drive down upon them a great
+wave of flame. The doctor uttered a cry of anguish, but Hatteras
+reappeared, standing and brandishing the flag.
+
+[Illustration: "But Hatteras did not look back. He had made use of his
+staff as a pole on which to fasten the English flag."]
+
+This sight lasted for more than an hour,--an hour of struggle with the
+trembling rocks, with the beds of ashes into which this madman would
+sink up to the waist. Now he would be climbing on his knees and making
+use of every inequality in the mountain, and now he would hang by his
+hands at some sharp corner, swinging in the wind like a dry leaf.
+
+At last he reached the top, the yawning mouth of the crater. The
+doctor then hoped that the wretched man, having attained his object,
+would perhaps return and have only those dangers before him.
+
+He gave a last shout.
+
+"Hatteras, Hatteras!"
+
+The doctor's cry moved the American's heart so that he cried out,--
+
+"I will save him!"
+
+Then with one leap crossing the fiery torrent at the risk of falling
+in, he disappeared among the rocks. Clawbonny did not have time to
+stop him. Still, Hatteras, having reached the top, was climbing on top
+of a rock which overhung the abyss. The stones were raining about him.
+Duke was still following him. The poor beast seemed already dizzy at
+the sight beneath him. Hatteras was whirling about his head the flag,
+which was lighted with the brilliant reflection, and the red bunting
+could be seen above the crater. With one hand Hatteras was holding it;
+with the other he was pointing to the zenith, the celestial pole.
+Still he seemed to hesitate. He was seeking the mathematical point
+where all the meridians meet, and on which in his sublime obstinacy he
+wanted to set his foot.
+
+Suddenly the rock gave way beneath him. He disappeared. A terrible cry
+from his companions rose even to the summit of the mountain. A
+second--a century--passed! Clawbonny considered his friend lost and
+buried forever in the depths of the volcano. But Altamont was there,
+and Duke too. The man and the dog had seized him just when he was
+disappearing in the abyss. Hatteras was saved, saved in spite of
+himself, and half an hour later the captain of the _Forward_ lay
+unconscious in the arms of his despairing friends.
+
+When he came to himself, the doctor gave him a questioning glance in
+mute agony. But his vague look, like that of a blind man, made no
+reply.
+
+"Heavens!" said Johnson, "he is blind!"
+
+"No," answered Clawbonny,--"no! My poor friends, we have saved
+Hatteras's body! His mind is at the top of the volcano! He has lost
+his reason!"
+
+"Mad?" cried Johnson and Altamont in deep distress.
+
+"Mad!" answered the doctor.
+
+And he wept bitterly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+RETURN TO THE SOUTH.
+
+
+Three hours after this sad conclusion to the adventures of Captain
+Hatteras, Clawbonny, Altamont, and the two sailors were assembled in
+the cavern at the foot of the volcano. Then Clawbonny was asked to
+give his opinion on what was to be done.
+
+"My friends," he said, "we cannot prolong our stay at Queen's Island;
+the sea is open before us; our provisions are sufficient; we must set
+out and reach Fort Providence as soon as possible, and we can go into
+winter-quarters till next summer."
+
+"That is my opinion," said Altamont; "the wind is fair, and to-morrow
+we shall set sail."
+
+The day passed in great gloom. The captain's madness was a sad
+foreboding, and when Johnson, Bell, and Altamont thought of their
+return, they were afraid of their loneliness and remoteness. They felt
+the need of Hatteras's bold soul. Still, like energetic men they made
+ready for a new struggle with the elements, and with themselves, in
+case they should feel themselves growing faint-hearted.
+
+The next day, Saturday, July 13th, the camping materials were put on
+the boat, and soon everything was ready for their departure. But
+before leaving this rock forever, the doctor, following Hatteras's
+intentions, put up a cairn at the place where the captain reached the
+island; this cairn was built of large rocks laid on one another, so as
+to form a perfectly visible landmark, if it were not destroyed by the
+eruption.
+
+[Illustration: "The doctor put up a cairn."]
+
+On one of the lateral stones Bell carved with a chisel this simple
+inscription:--
+
+  JOHN HATTERAS
+      1861.
+
+A copy of the document was placed inside of the cairn in an
+hermetically sealed tin cylinder, and the proof of this great
+discovery was left here on these lonely rocks.
+
+Then the four men and the captain,--a poor body without a mind,--and
+his faithful Duke, sad and melancholy, got into the boat for the
+return voyage. It was ten o'clock in the morning. A new sail was set
+up with the canvas of the tent. The launch, sailing before the wind,
+left Queen's Island, and that evening the doctor, standing on his
+bench, waved a last farewell to Mount Hatteras, which was lighting up
+the horizon.
+
+Their voyage was very quick; the sea, which was always open, was easy
+sailing, and it seemed really easier to go away from the Pole than to
+approach it. But Hatteras was in no state to understand what was going
+on about him; he lay at full length in the launch, his mouth closed,
+his expression dull, and his arms folded. Duke lay at his feet. It was
+in vain that the doctor questioned him. Hatteras did not hear him.
+
+For forty-eight hours the breeze was fair and the sea smooth.
+Clawbonny and his companions rejoiced in the north-wind. July 15th,
+they made Altamont Harbor in the south; but since the Polar Ocean was
+open all along the coast, instead of crossing New America by sledge,
+they resolved to sail around it, and reach Victoria Bay by sea. This
+voyage was quicker and easier. In fact, the space which had taken them
+a fortnight on sledges took them hardly a week by sail; and after
+following the rugged outline of the coast, which was fringed with
+numerous fiords, and determining its shape, they reached Victoria Bay,
+Monday evening, July 23d.
+
+The launch was firmly anchored to the shore, and each one ran to Fort
+Providence. The Doctor's House, the stores, the magazine, the
+fortifications, all had melted in the sun, and the supplies had been
+devoured by hungry beasts.
+
+It was a sad sight.
+
+They were nearly at the end of their supplies, and they had intended
+to renew them at Fort Providence. The impossibility of passing the
+winter there was evident. Like people accustomed to decide rapidly,
+they determined to reach Baffin's Bay as soon as possible.
+
+"We have nothing else to do," said the doctor; "Baffin's Bay is not
+six hundred miles from here; we might sail as far as our launch would
+carry us, reach Jones's Sound, and from there the Danish settlements."
+
+"Yes," answered Altamont; "let us collect all the provisions we can,
+and leave."
+
+By strict search they found a few chests of pemmican here and there,
+and two barrels of preserved meat, which had escaped destruction. In
+short, they had a supply for six weeks, and powder enough. This was
+promptly collected. The day was devoted to calking the launch,
+repairing it, and the next day, July 24th, they put out to sea again.
+
+The continent towards latitude 83 degrees inclined towards the east.
+It was possible that it joined the countries known under the name of
+Grinnell Land, Ellesmere, and North Lincoln, which form the coast-line
+of Baffin's Bay. They could then hold it for certain that Jones's
+Sound opened in the inner seas, like Lancaster Sound. The launch then
+sailed without much difficulty, easily avoiding the floating ice. The
+doctor, by way of precaution against possible delay, put them all on
+half-rations; but this did not trouble them much, and their health was
+unimpaired.
+
+Besides, they were able to shoot occasionally; they killed ducks,
+geese, and other game, which gave them fresh and wholesome food. As
+for their drink, they had a full supply from the floating ice, which
+they met on the way, for they took care not to go far from the coast,
+the launch being too small for the open sea.
+
+At this period of the year the thermometer was already, for the
+greater part of time, beneath the freezing-point; after a certain
+amount of rainy weather snow began to fall, with other signs of the
+end of summer; the sun sank nearer the horizon, and more and more of
+its disk sank beneath it every day. July 30th they saw it disappear
+for the first time, that is to say, they had a few minutes of night.
+
+Still, the launch sailed well, sometimes making from sixty to
+seventy-five miles a day; they did not stop a moment; they knew what
+fatigues to endure, what obstacles to surmount; the way by land was
+before them, if they had to take it, and these confined seas must soon
+be closed; indeed, the young ice was already forming here and there.
+Winter suddenly succeeds summer in these latitudes; there are no
+intermediate seasons; no spring, no autumn. So they had to hurry. July
+31st, the sky being clear at sunset, the first stars were seen in the
+constellations overhead. From this day on there was perpetual mist,
+which interfered very much with their sailing. The doctor, when he saw
+all the signs of winter's approach, became very uneasy; he knew the
+difficulties Sir John Ross had found in getting to Baffin's Bay, after
+leaving his ship; and indeed, having once tried to pass the ice, he
+was obliged to return to his ship, and go into winter-quarters for the
+fourth year; but he had at least a shelter against the weather, food,
+and fuel. If such a misfortune were to befall the survivors of the
+_Forward_, if they had to stop or put back, they were lost; the doctor
+did not express his uneasiness to his companions; but he urged them to
+get as far eastward as possible.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Finally, August 15th, after thirty days of rather good sailing, after
+struggling for forty-eight hours against the ice, which was
+accumulating, after having imperilled their little launch a hundred
+times, they saw themselves absolutely stopped, unable to go farther;
+the sea was all frozen, and the thermometer marked on an average +15
+degrees. Moreover, in all the north and east it was easy to detect the
+nearness of land, by the presence of pebbles; frozen fresh water was
+found more frequently. Altamont made an observation with great
+exactness, and found they were in latitude 77 degrees 15 minutes, and
+longitude 85 degrees 2 minutes.
+
+"So, then," said the doctor, "this is our exact position; we have
+reached North Lincoln, exactly at Cape Eden; we are entering Jones's
+Sound; if we had been a little luckier, we should have found the sea
+open to Baffin's Bay. But we need not complain. If my poor Hatteras
+had at first found so open a sea, he would have soon reached the Pole,
+his companions would not have deserted him, and he would not have lost
+his reason under his terrible sufferings!"
+
+"Then," said Altamont, "we have only one course to follow; to abandon
+the launch, and get to the east coast of Lincoln by sledge."
+
+"Abandon the launch and take the sledge? Well," answered the doctor;
+"but instead of crossing Lincoln, I propose going through Jones's
+Sound on the ice, and reaching North Devon."
+
+"And why?" asked Altamont.
+
+"Because we should get nearer to Lancaster Sound, and have more chance
+of meeting whalers."
+
+"You are right, Doctor, but I am afraid the ice is not yet hard
+enough."
+
+"We can try," said Clawbonny.
+
+The launch was unloaded; Bell and Johnson put the sledge together; all
+its parts were in good condition. The next day the dogs were harnessed
+in, and they went along the coast to reach the ice-field.
+
+Then they began again the journey which has been so often described;
+it was tiresome and slow; Altamont was right in doubting the strength
+of the ice; they could not go through Jones's Sound, and they had to
+follow the coast of Lincoln.
+
+August 21st they turned to one side and reached the entrance of
+Glacier Sound; then they ventured upon the ice-field, and the next day
+they reached Cobourg Island, which they crossed in less than two days
+amid snow-squalls. They could advance more easily on the ice-fields,
+and at last, August 24th, they set foot on North Devon.
+
+"Now," said the doctor, "we have only to cross this, and reach Cape
+Warender, at the entrance of Lancaster Sound."
+
+But the weather became very cold and unpleasant; the snow-squalls
+became as violent as in winter; they all found themselves nearly
+exhausted. Their provisions were giving out, and each man had but a
+third of a ration, in order to allow to the dogs enough food in
+proportion to their work.
+
+The nature of the ground added much to the fatigue of the journey;
+North Devon was far from level; they had to cross the Trauter
+Mountains by almost impassable ravines, struggling against all the
+fury of the elements. The sledge, men, and dogs had to rest, and more
+than once despair seized the little band, hardened as it was to the
+fatigues of a polar journey. But, without their noticing it, these
+poor men were nearly worn out, physically and morally; they could not
+support such incessant fatigue for eighteen months with impunity, nor
+such a succession of hopes and despairs. Besides, it should be borne
+in mind that they went forward with enthusiasm and conviction, which
+they lacked when returning. So they with difficulty dragged on; they
+walked almost from habit, with the animal energy left almost
+independent of their will.
+
+It was not until August 30th that they at last left the chaos of
+mountains, of which one can form no idea from the mountains of lower
+zones, but they left it half dead. The doctor could no longer cheer up
+his companions, and he felt himself breaking down. The Trauter
+Mountains ended in a sort of rugged plain, heaped up at the time of
+the formation of the mountains. There they were compelled to take a
+few days of rest; the men could not set one foot before another; two
+of the dogs had died of exhaustion. They sheltered themselves behind a
+piece of ice, at a temperature of -2 degrees; no one dared put up the
+tent. Their food had become very scanty, and, in spite of their
+extreme economy with their rations, they had a supply for but a week
+more; game became rarer, having left for a milder climate. Starvation
+threatened these exhausted men.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Altamont, who all along had shown great devotion and unselfishness,
+took advantage of the strength he had left, and resolved to procure by
+hunting some food for his companions. He took his gun, called Duke,
+and strode off for the plains to the north; the doctor, Johnson, and
+Bell saw him go away without much interest. For an hour they did not
+once hear his gun, and they saw him returning without firing a single
+shot; but he was running as if in great alarm.
+
+"What is the matter?" asked the doctor.
+
+"There! under the snow!" answered Altamont in great alarm, indicating
+a point in the horizon.
+
+"What?"
+
+"A whole band of men--"
+
+"Alive?"
+
+"Dead,--frozen,--and even--"
+
+[Illustration: "Dead--frozen."]
+
+The American durst not finish his sentence, but his face expressed
+clearly his horror. The doctor, Johnson, Bell, aroused by this
+incident, were able to rise, and drag themselves along in Altamont's
+footprints to the part of the plain to which he had pointed. They soon
+reached a narrow space, at the bottom of a deep ravine, and there a
+terrible sight met their eyes.
+
+Bodies were lying half buried beneath the snow; here an arm, there a
+leg, or clinched hands, and faces still preserving an expression of
+despair.
+
+The doctor drew near; then he stepped back, pale and agitated, while
+Duke barked mournfully.
+
+"Horror!" he said.
+
+"Well?" asked the boatswain.
+
+"Didn't you recognize them?" said the doctor in a strange voice.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Look!"
+
+This ravine had been the scene of the last struggle between the men
+and the climate, despair, and hunger, for from some horrible signs it
+was easy to see that they had been obliged to eat human flesh. Among
+them the doctor had recognized Shandon, Pen, and the wretched crew of
+the _Forward_; their strength and food had failed them; their launch
+had probably been crushed by an avalanche, or carried into some
+ravine, and they could not take to the open sea; probably they were
+lost among these unknown continents. Besides, men who had left in
+mutiny could not long be united with the closeness which is necessary
+for the accomplishment of great things. A ringleader of a revolt has
+never more than a doubtful authority in his hands. And, without doubt,
+Shandon was promptly deposed.
+
+However that may have been, the crew had evidently undergone a
+thousand tortures, a thousand despairs, to end with this terrible
+catastrophe; but the secret of their sufferings is forever buried
+beneath the arctic snows.
+
+"Let us flee!" cried the doctor.
+
+And he dragged his companions far from the scene of the disaster.
+Horror lent them momentary strength. They set out again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+CONCLUSION.
+
+
+Why linger over the perpetual sufferings of the survivors? They
+themselves could never recall to their memory a clear vision of what
+had happened in the week after their horrible discovery of the remains
+of the crew. However, September 9th, by a miracle of energy, they
+reached Cape Horsburgh, at the end of North Devon.
+
+They were dying of hunger; they had not eaten for forty-eight hours,
+and their last meal had been the flesh of their last Esquimaux dog.
+Bell could go no farther, and old Johnson felt ready to die. They were
+on the shore of Baffin's Bay, on the way to Europe. Three miles from
+land the waves were breaking on the edges of the ice-field. They had
+to await the uncertain passage of a whaler, and how many days yet?
+
+But Heaven took pity on them, for the next day Altamont clearly saw a
+sail. The anguish which follows such an appearance of a sail, the
+tortures of disappointment, are well known. The ship seemed to
+approach and then to recede. Terrible are the alternations of hope and
+despair, and too often at the moment the castaways consider themselves
+saved the sail sinks beneath the horizon.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The doctor and his companions went through all these emotions; they
+had reached the western limit of the ice-field, and yet they saw the
+ship disappear, taking no note of their presence. They shouted, but in
+vain.
+
+Then the doctor had a last inspiration of that busy mind which had
+served him in such good stead.
+
+A floe had drifted against the ice-field.
+
+"That floe!" he said, pointing to it.
+
+They did not catch his meaning.
+
+"Let us get on it!" he cried.
+
+They saw his plan at once.
+
+"Ah, Clawbonny, Dr. Clawbonny!" cried Johnson, kissing the doctor's
+hands.
+
+Bell, with Altamont's aid, ran to the sledge; he brought one of the
+uprights, stood it up on the floe for a mast, making it fast with
+ropes; the tent was torn up for a sail. The wind was fair; the poor
+castaways put out to sea on this frail raft.
+
+Two hours later, after unheard-of efforts, the last men of the
+_Forward_ were taken aboard the Danish whaler _Hans Christian_, which
+was sailing to Davis Strait. The captain received kindly these
+spectres who had lost their semblance to human beings; when he saw
+their sufferings he understood their history; he gave them every
+attention, and managed to save their lives. Ten days later, Clawbonny,
+Johnson, Bell, Altamont, and Captain Hatteras landed at Korsoeur, in
+Zeeland, in Denmark; a steamboat carried them to Kiel; thence, _via_
+Altona and Hamburg, they reached London the 13th of the same month,
+hardly recovered from their long sufferings.
+
+[Illustration: "Two hours later, after unheard-of efforts, the last
+men of the _Forward_ were taken aboard the Danish whaler _Hans
+Christian_."]
+
+[Illustration: "A steamboat carried them to Kiel."]
+
+The first thought of the doctor was to ask permission of the Royal
+Geographical Society of London to lay a communication before it; he
+was admitted to the meeting of July 15th. The astonishment of the
+learned assembly, and its enthusiastic cheers after reading Hatteras's
+document, may be imagined.
+
+This journey, the only one of its kind, went over all the discoveries
+that had been made in the regions about the Pole; it brought together
+the expeditions of Parry, Ross, Franklin, MacClure; it completed the
+chart between the one hundredth and one hundred and fifteenth
+meridians; and, finally, it ended with the point of the globe hitherto
+inaccessible, with the Pole itself.
+
+Never had news so unexpected burst upon astonished England.
+
+The English take great interest in geographical facts; they are proud
+of them, lord and cockney, from the merchant prince to the workman in
+the docks.
+
+The news of this great discovery was telegraphed over the United
+Kingdom with great rapidity; the papers printed the name of Hatteras
+at the head of their columns as that of a martyr, and England glowed
+with pride.
+
+The doctor and his companions were feasted everywhere; they were
+formally presented to her Majesty by the Lord High Chancellor.
+
+The government confirmed the name of Queen's Island for the rock at
+the North Pole, of Mount Hatteras for the mountain itself, and of
+Altamont Harbor for the port in New America.
+
+Altamont did not part from those whose misery and glory he had shared,
+and who were now his friends. He followed the doctor, Johnson, and
+Bell to Liverpool, where they were warmly received, after they had
+been thought to be long dead, and buried in the eternal ice.
+
+But Dr. Clawbonny always gave the glory to the man who most deserved
+it. In his account of the journey entitled "The English at the North
+Pole," published the next year by the Royal Geographical Society, he
+made John Hatteras equal to the greatest explorers, the rival of those
+bold men who sacrifice everything to science.
+
+But the sad victim of a lofty passion lived peacefully at the asylum
+of Starr Cottage near Liverpool, where the doctor had placed him. His
+madness was of a gentle kind, but he never spoke, he understood
+nothing, his power of speech seemed to have gone with his reason. A
+single feeling seemed to unite him to the outer world, his love for
+Duke, who was not separated from him.
+
+This disease, this "polar madness," pursued its course quietly,
+presenting no particular symptom, when Dr. Clawbonny, who often
+visited his poor patient, was struck by his singular manner.
+
+For some time Captain Hatteras, followed by his faithful dog, that
+used to gaze at him sadly, would walk for hours every day; but he
+always walked in one way, in the direction of a certain path. When he
+had reached the end, he would return, walking backwards. If any one
+stopped him, he would point his finger at a portion of the sky. If any
+one tried to make him turn round, he grew angry, and Duke would show
+his anger and bark furiously.
+
+The doctor observed carefully this odd mania; he understood the motive
+of this strange obstinacy; he guessed the reason of this walk always
+in the same direction, and, so to speak, under the influence of a
+magnetic force.
+
+Captain John Hatteras was always walking towards the north.
+
+
+FINIS.
+
+
+
+
+University Press, Cambridge: Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's notes on inconsistencies, errors and corrections.
+
+Table of Contents: Part II., Chapter X., "The Pleasure of
+Winter-Quarters" is corrected to "The Pleasures of Winter-Quarters" to
+match the chapter title.
+
+Part I.
+
+Chapter 2: The letter says the large Danish dog will arrive on the
+15th of February.  In chapter 3 the dog arrives on the 15th of March
+"as the captain's letter had said." Other versions have the same
+inconsistency.
+
+Chapter 5: In the discussion of steamers, the doctor observes of the
+_Fox_ that MacClintock "succeeded in making his way more easily and
+more directly than all his successors." Other translations say
+"predecessors" which makes more sense.
+
+Chapter 5: On April 14 the longitude given is 22 degrees 37 minutes.
+Other versions give 22 degrees 58 minutes. Other versions agree that
+the latitude is 51 degrees--which hardly seems possible for a ship
+leaving Ireland at nearly 56 degrees latitude and sailing northwest.
+57 degrees seems more likely. A few days later the latitude is further
+confused during the discussion of iceberg sightings. The doctor states
+that they are two degrees further north than a sighting of icebergs
+occurring at 42 degrees latitude, apparently confusing the _Forward's_
+latitude with that of the _Ann Poole_.
+
+Chapter 6: In the remembrance of Parry's expedition into Lancaster
+Sound, mention is made of the prize for crossing a meridian at higher
+than the seventy-seventh parallel. Here the specific meridian is left
+out, which is not very informative. In the French version, it is the
+170th meridian, which is clearly wrong. The Ward and Lock translation
+changes it to the 117th meridian. Historically, the prize was for the
+110th meridian.
+
+Chapter 8: On Saturday, the temperature is stated to have fallen to 8
+degrees above zero. The French and Routledge translation state 8
+degrees below zero. This makes more sense since the previous
+temperature cited, from which it had fallen, was 6 degrees above zero.
+
+Chapter 8: The block of ice which turns upside down is stated to be
+800 feet high. This appears to be a mistranslation of the French;
+other translations have it as at least a hundred feet high.
+
+Chapter 9: According to this translation, the _Forward_ crosses the
+62nd parallel on May 5. This is clearly incorrect since the ship is
+north of its May 1 latitude of 68 degrees. Other versions have this as
+the 72nd parallel. This agrees with the accompanying map.
+
+Chapter 10: Although "the Governor was born on the island of Disco,
+and he has never left the place," the landing party meets him at
+Upernavik which is well north of the island of Disco.
+
+Chapter 12: The captain declares their latitude to be at 72 degrees
+when they are actually at 74 degrees. The promise of 1000 pounds for
+each degree beyond 72 is continued throughout the book.
+
+Chapter 12: Names of several English explorers have been garbled in
+this translation:
+
+  "Stuart" = Charles Sturt
+  "McDougall Stuart" = John McDouall Stuart
+  "Wells" = William John Wills
+  "Havnoan" = ??--Haouran (French version) is a place in Syria.
+
+Chapter 15: "During the day two whalers were seen making toward the
+south;" should be "During the day two whales were seen" etc. to agree
+with other translations and the French version. Finding whalers in
+this area would contradict the spirit of the adventure.
+
+Chapter 16: "the barometer fell to 29 degrees" should be "the
+barometer fell to 29 inches" to agree with the French version and the
+measurement scale of barometers.
+
+Chapter 16: "Friday, June 7th" should be "Friday, June 8th" to agree
+with the French version and the timing since the previous date of June
+6.
+
+Chapter 16: "found a declination of only 89 degrees 50 minutes,"
+should be "89 degrees 59 minutes'" to agree with other translations
+and the French version and to make sense of the following statement of
+being within a minute of the magnetic pole.
+
+Chapter 18: "'The way west is easier than the way north.'" agrees with
+the French, but has been changed to "'The way east'" in other
+translations. Baffin's Bay is, in fact, east of Melville Bay.
+
+Chapter 18: Clifton's counting of the crew at sixteen is faulty since
+Garry turned into Hatteras and would no longer be counted. The per
+degree rate should be 62 pounds not 72 pounds to agree with all other
+versions and actual calculation.
+
+Chapter 18: On June 19th, Point Minto is said by all versions to be at
+72 degrees latitude. It is actually at 73 degrees. The next paragraph
+immediately proceeds to 74 degrees latitude at Melville Bay.
+
+Chapter 20: Creswell's march to Beechey Island was 470 miles in the
+French version and in later discussions in Part II, Chapter 15.
+
+Chapter 21: The year of Lieutenant Bellot's first expedition in search
+of Franklin is corrected from "18 0" to "1850."
+
+Chapter 23: The large white masses gathering "indicated an approaching
+thaw" is translated in another version as "an approaching frost" which
+agrees with the French version and makes more sense.
+
+Chapter 25: Clifton's anticipated fortune is said to be
+"hardly-earned" when "hard-earned" would be more appropriate.
+
+Chapter 29: The temperature on January 15 of -22 should be -32 degrees
+to agree with the French version and the other translations.
+
+Chapter 31: The doctor's ophthalmia should not lead to "deafness" but
+to "blindness" as in other translations.
+
+Chapter 33: In the final sentence of the chapter the latitude of the
+_Forward_ should be "eightieth degree" not "eighty-fourth degree."
+Eighty-fourth is clearly wrong since in chapter 2 of part II, their
+latitude is stated as eighty degrees fifteen minutes.
+
+Part II.
+
+Chapter 1: The count of "eighteen men who had sailed in the brig"
+continues to ignore that there were only seventeen men and that
+Hatteras and Garry are one and the same person.
+
+Chapter 2: Johnson's question, "how far are we from the nearest sea to
+the west?" should be "how far are we from the nearest sea to the
+east?" The disorientation continues with Bell's suggestion to travel
+south or west. Baffin's Bay, the only place they can hope for rescue
+is south and east of their current position.
+
+Chapter 3: The date of the day the doctor killed the seal is stated as
+the 18th and should be the 15th. The date mentioned two paragraphs
+previously was the 14th, and the date mentioned as the next day in the
+next paragraph is the 16th.
+
+Chapter 5: "Hatteras loaded the gun with the last charge of powder"
+should be "the doctor loaded the gun with the last charge of powder"
+to agree with the French and the sense of the paragraph.
+
+Chapter 5: Altamont comments that his ship is less than four degrees
+from the Pole when it actually is not, but is within seven degrees.
+
+Chapter 9: The author's intention for the outside temperature here is
+uncertain. The -31 degrees of this translation does not agree with the
+French in which it is -73 degrees (-31 degrees Centigrade). The latter
+two are not equivalent temperatures. Later in this chapter it is
+stated that the outside temperature can never exist lower than -72
+degrees. If the author intended -31 degrees Centigrade, this would
+convert to -24 degrees Fahrenheit.
+
+Chapter 9: "The temperature of Englishmen is generally 101 degrees" is
+a incorrect conversion of the more accurate 37 degrees Celsius in the
+French version. The correct temperature should be 98.6 degrees.
+
+Chapter 9: The mention of "Hadley" concerning a comet collision should
+be "Halley" as in the French version.
+
+Chapter 19: "_Uredo vivalis_" should be "_Uredo nivalis_" as in the
+French version.
+
+Chapter 20: In this translation as in the French version, Altamont
+Harbor is said to be at longitude 118 degrees 35 minutes E. of
+Greenwich, whereas it should be W. of Greenwich.
+
+Chapter 22: The spelling of the name "Penn" is corrected to "Pen" as a
+typographical error.
+
+Chapter 23: "With a scrap of wood to hold him up," should be "without
+a scrap of wood to hold him up," as found in the French version and
+required by the sense of the sentence.
+
+Chapter 23: The doctor "uttered an explanation which it is impossible
+to render," should be "uttered an exclamation which it is impossible
+to render," as found in the French version and required by the sense
+of the sentence.
+
+Chapter 24: The doctors comparison "it would take seventy-five moons
+to make the sun," should be "it would take seventy-five moons to make
+the earth," as in the French version.
+
+Chapter 24: The motion of the Pole "describes a circle in about
+twenty-six years" should be "describes a circle in about twenty-six
+thousand years" as in the French version.
+
+Chapter 26: "The American durst not not finish his sentence," is
+corrected to "The American durst not finish his sentence," as a
+typographical error.
+
+Chapter 26: The spelling of the name "Penn" is corrected to "Pen" as a
+typographical error.
+
+Chapter 27: The timeline of the concluding chapter is odd. September
+9, 1861 the party is at the end of North Devon. The next day
+(September 10) they are picked up by the Danish whaler. Ten days later
+(September 20) they arrive in Denmark. The 13th of the same month
+(September 13? October 13?) they reach London. July 15 (1862?)
+Clawbonny attends the Royal Geographical Society of London meeting.
+For this to astonish the learned assembly it would need to be two days
+after their arrival in London rather than 9 months.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Voyages and Adventures of Captain
+Hatteras, by Jules Verne
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