tes he said:

"I can't go on like this! What a queer climate! It changes too suddenly,
and the icicles are cutting my face. Captain! I say, captain!"

But he obtained no answer; he discharged his gun, and notwithstanding
his thick gloves, burnt his hand with the trigger. During this
operation he thought he saw a confused mass moving at a few steps
from him.

"At last!" said he. "Hatteras! Bell! Simpson! Is it you? Answer, do!"

A hollow growl was the only answer.

"Whatever is that?" thought the doctor. The mass approached, and its
outline was more distinctly seen. "Why, it's a bear!" thought the
terrified doctor. It was a bear, lost too in the frost-rime, passing
within a few steps of the men of whose existence it was ignorant.
The doctor saw its enormous paws beating the air, and did not like
the situation. He jumped back and the mass disappeared like a phantom.
The doctor felt the ground rising under his feet; climbing on
all-fours he got to the top of a block, then another, feeling the
end with his stick. "It's an iceberg!" he said to himself: "if I get
to the top I shall be saved." So saying he climbed to a height of
about eighty feet; his head was higher than the frozen fog, of which
he could clearly see the top. As he looked round he saw the heads
of his three companions emerging from the dense fluid.

"Hatteras!"

"Doctor!"

"Bell!"

"Simpson!"

The four names were all shouted at the same time; the sky, lightened
by a magnificent halo, threw pale rays which coloured the frost-rime
like clouds, and the summits of the icebergs seemed to emerge from
liquid silver. The travellers found themselves circumscribed by a
circle less than a hundred feet in diameter. Thanks to the purity
of the upper layers of air, they could hear each other distinctly,
and could talk from the top of their icebergs. After the first shots
they had all thought the best thing they could do was to climb.

"The sledge!" cried the captain.

"It's eighty feet below us," answered Simpson.

"In what condition?"

"In good condition."

"What about the bear?" asked the doctor.

"What bear?" asked Bell.

"The bear that nearly broke my head," answered the doctor.

"If there is a bear we must go down," said Hatteras.

"If we do we shall get lost again," said the doctor.

"And our dogs?" said Hatteras.

At this moment Dick's bark was heard through the fog.

"That's Dick," said Hatteras; "there's something up; I shall go down."