meant the
outlandish creatures, who had invaded their territory. Occasionally,
two or three would proceed out together to fish in the quiet waters of
the creek, and these would pass another party coming back from the same
errand, when they would croak a greeting; but the majority did nothing
but strut about from one position to another in order to stare the
better at the intruders--an inspection which, it need hardly be told,
the latter returned with an equal interest.

However, the survivors from the _Nancy Bell_ had a good deal to do
besides watching the penguins, for it was now late in the afternoon and
growing dark, with the wind rising again. A few premonitory scattered
flakes of snow, too, that fell flutteringly down in a half hesitating
way every now and then, pointed out what the weather might be expected
to be bye and bye and reminded them that it would be just as well for
them to be under shelter of some sort before night came on to interrupt
their labours.

A word from Mr Meldrum was sufficient, the first mate then giving the
necessary orders for setting the whole party to work.

"All hands shift cargo!" he cried, stepping back upon the raft; when,
the men following him, he divided them into two gangs, the first of whom
he directed to carry out Mr Meldrum's instructions under Frank Harness,
while the second remained with him to remove the stores on to the beach,
where Mr Adams supervised their landing. But, before anything else was
done, the cot containing poor Captain Dinks--the only one who had not as
yet been ashore--was carefully lifted up from the raft and transported
to a spot high up from the water and shielded by a spur of the hills on
the right from the winds. This Mr Meldrum had selected as a favourable
place for their camp, and Snowball was already engaged there in building
up a fire with some wood that he had fortunately brought from the
wreck--for not a scrap of brush or twig, or the sign of any tree, could
be seen in the neighbourhood of the fiord, nor a single bit of drift on
the beach!

The stores being all landed and piled up on the shore some little
distance beyond high-water mark, Mr McCarthy's portion of the crew then
proceeded to take the raft to pieces and carry up the timbers of which
it was composed likewise to a place of safety, for fear lest the waves
should bear them away in the night-time when the tide again came in;
besides which, the material was wanted for other purposes