sel might reach smoother latitudes and fine weather, when they would
be able to repair damages and continue their voyage.

It was but a poor pretence of making sail, however!

All they could set was a close-reefed mizzentop-sail and a fore
staysail, which latter was hoisted on a jury-mast rigged forwards in
place of the foremast; while the missing rudder was replaced by an
ingenious makeshift, the joint handiwork of Mr Meldrum and the
carpenter, composed of lengths of a spare hawser and some of the smaller
spars, sawn up, lashed together, and then planked over, so as to offer a
yielding surface to the sea, and secured under the stern by guys and
tackles leading from the quarter galleries, the steering gear being then
attached.

This contrivance was found to work admirably in guiding the ship before
the wind, although if they had tried to wear her or put her about by it,
there might have been some difficulty and danger in the operation.

Towards the evening of this day, while the crippled _Nancy Bell_, so
ruthlessly shorn of her fair proportions, was going along pretty
bravely, nevertheless, at some six knots an hour or more under the
little sail she was carrying, with the sea still rough and wintry and
the sky all clouded over, the thermometer was noticed to go down again
several degrees; and Mr Meldrum, who alone had made the discovery for
the wind having been bitterly cold for days past the feeling in the air
would not have specially attracted attention--at once warned Captain
Dinks that they had run so far southwards that he was certain they were
near ice, and consequently it would be best to keep a strict look-out.

"Ice?" exclaimed the captain aghast. "Why, we aren't much below the
latitude of the Cape, I take it!"

"You'll find you are wrong when we're able to get an observation,"
replied Mr Meldrum. "I wouldn't be surprised to find that we were far
below `the Forties,' with all that drift and leeway we've had! However,
wherever we are, we're not far from ice, take my word for it, whether it
be a wandering berg out of its latitude or the drift from the Antarctic
ice-fields."

"All right, sir," said Captain Dinks laughing, "I'll take your word for
it; though an iceberg hereabouts, to my thinking, is a rather rum
visitor this time of year, and I'll believe it when I see it!"

However, the captain was wrong again.

Just before dark, the look-out in the maintop reported something ahead,
which presently tu