some monster creature lying
imbedded within the ice, its mighty carcase prostrate as it had fallen;
the conformation of its enormous forehead presented directly to our
gaze. Its little toffee-ball eyes--little proportionately, that is to
say--squinted at us, it seemed, through half-closed lids, and a huge,
hairy trunk lay curled, like the proboscis of a dead moth, between its
tree-like fore-legs. Away beyond, the great red-brown drum of its hide
bellied upward on ribs as thick as a Dutch galliot's, and sprouting from
its shoulders was the hump I have mentioned, but here, from its position,
sprawled abroad and lying over in a shapeless mass.

"There was something else--horribly nauseating but for its strangeness.
The brute had been partly disembowelled, as there was ample evidence to
show, for the ice had preserved all.

"Suddenly my companion gave a high nervous shriek.

"'Look!' he cried--'the hand! the hand sticking out of the side!'

"I saw in a moment; turned, and called excitedly to the captain. He--all
the crew--came tumbling forward up the slippery deck. I seized him by the
shoulder.

"'Do you see?' I screamed--'the human hand beckoning to us from that
great body!'

"He gazed stupidly, swaying where he stood.

"'One o' them bloomin' pre-hadymite cows!' he muttered; 'caught in the
cold nip, by thunder! and some unfortnit crept into her for warmth.'

"I believed the creature's rude intuition had flown true.

"'Cannot you get at it?' I gasped.

"He stared at me. All in an instant a little paltry demon of avarice
blinked out of his eye-holes.

"'Why,' he said slowly, 'who knows but it mayn't be a gal a-jingling from
top to toe with gold curtain rings!'

"He was a furious dare-devil immediately, and quick, and savage, and
peremptory. His spirit entered into his men. They went over the side
with pikes and axes, and, scrambling for any foothold, set to work on the
ice like maniacs. In the lust of cupidity they did not even think how
they wrought against their own safety and that of the ship.

"The point of the uppermost tusk came to within a foot of the
ice-surface. This they soon reached, and, prising frantically with
crowbars, flaked off and rolled away half-ton blocks of the
superincumbent mass. I need not detail the fierce process. In half an
hour they had laid bare a great segment of that part of the trunk whence
the hand protruded, and then they paused, and at a word flung down their
tools.

"I w