t be far off; but as far as the eye could reach,
Hatteras saw no indication of it. He came down without saying a word.

"Do you believe in an open sea?" asked Shandon of the lieutenant.

"I am beginning not to," answered Wall.

"Wasn't I right to say the pretended discovery was purely imagination?
But they would not believe me, and even you were against me, Wall."

"We shall believe in you for the future, Shandon."

"Yes," said he, "when it's too late," and so saying he went back to
his cabin, where he had stopped almost ever since his dispute with
the captain. The wind veered round south towards evening; Hatteras
ordered the brig to be put under sail and the fires to be put out;
the crew had to work very hard for the next few days; they were more
than a week getting to Barrow Point. The _Forward_ had only made thirty
miles in ten days. There the wind turned north again, and the screw
was set to work. Hatteras still hoped to find an open sea beyond the
77th parallel, as Sir Edward Belcher had done. Ought he to treat these
accounts as apocryphal? or had the winter come upon him earlier? On
the 15th of August Mount Percy raised its peak, covered with eternal
snow, through the mist. The next day the sun set for the first time,
ending thus the long series of days with twenty-four hours in them.
The men had ended by getting accustomed to the continual daylight,
but it had never made any difference to the animals; the Greenland
dogs went to their rest at their accustomed hour, and Dick slept as
regularly every evening as though darkness had covered the sky. Still,
during the nights which followed the 15th of August, darkness was
never profound; although the sun set, he still gave sufficient light
by refraction. On the 19th of August, after a pretty good observation,
they sighted Cape Franklin on the east coast and Cape Lady Franklin
on the west coast; the gratitude of the English people had given these
names to the two opposite points--probably the last reached by
Franklin: the name of the devoted wife, opposite to that of her husband,
is a touching emblem of the sympathy which always united them.

The doctor, by following Johnson's advice, accustomed himself to
support the low temperature; he almost always stayed on deck braving
the cold, the wind, and the snow. He got rather thinner, but his
constitution did not suffer. Besides, he expected to be much worse
off, and joyfully prepared for the approaching winter.

"Loo