hey sailed
on--

"To the west of them was the ocean,
To the right the desolate shore."

till they had passed the North Cape, already discovered by Othere,
the old sea-captain who dwelt in Helgoland.

A terrible storm now arose, and "the sea was so outrageous that the
ships could not keep their intended course, but some were driven one
way and some another way to their great peril and hazard." Then Sir
Hugh Willoughby shouted across the roaring seas to Richard Chancellor,
begging him not to go far from him. But the little ships got separated
and never met again. Willoughby was blown across the sea to Nova Zembla.

"The sea was rough and stormy,
The tempest howled and wailed,
And the sea-fog like a ghost
Haunted that dreary coast.
But onward still I sailed."

The weather grew more and more Arctic, and he made his way over to
a haven in Lapland where he decided to winter. He sent men to explore
the country, but no signs of mankind could be found; there were bears
and foxes and all manner of strange beasts, but never a human being.
It must have been desperately dreary as the winter advanced, with ice
and snow and freezing winds from the north. What this little handful
of Englishmen did, how they endured the bitter winter on the desolate
shores of Lapland, no man knows. Willoughby was alive in January
1554--then all is silent.

And what of Richard Chancellor on board the _Bonadventure_? "Pensive,
heavy, and sorrowful," but resolute to carry out his orders, "Master
Chancellor held on his course towards that unknown part of the world,
and sailed so far that he came at last to the place where he found
no night at all, but a continual light and brightness of the Sun,
shining clearly upon the huge and mighty Sea." After a time he found
and entered a large bay where he anchored, making friends with the
fisher folk on the shores of the White Sea to the north of Russia.
So frightened were the natives at the greatness of the English ships
that at first they ran away, half-dead with fear. Soon, however, they
regained confidence and, throwing themselves down, they began to kiss
the explorer's feet, "but he (according to his great and singular
courtesy) looked pleasantly upon them." By signs and gestures he
comforted them until they brought food to the "new-come guests," and
went to tell their king of the arrival of "a strange nation of singular
gentleness and courtesy."

Then the King of Russia