in the boat, and a
breaker of water; also there was, unfortunately, a breaker of rum, from
which the two sailors, Bill and Johnnie, were already taking quite as
much as was good for them. Consequently, though they were cold and wet
with the spray, they had not to face the added horrors of starvation and
thirst. At sundown, they shortened sail considerably, only leaving enough
canvas up to keep the boat ahead of the sea.

Somehow the long night wore away. Augusta scarcely closed her eyes; but
little Dick slept like a top upon her bosom, sheltered by her arms and
the blanket from the cold and penetrating spray. In the bottom of the
boat lay Mr. Meeson, to whom Augusta, pitying his condition--for he was
shivering dreadfully--had given the other blanket, keeping nothing for
herself except the woollen shawl.

At last, however, there came a faint glow in the east, and the daylight
began to break over the stormy sea. Augusta turned her head and stared
through the mist.

"What is that?" she said, in a voice trembling with excitement, to the
sailor Bill, who was taking his turn at the tiller; and she pointed to a
dark mass that loomed up almost over them.

The man looked, and then looked again; and then hallowed out joyfully,
"Land--land ahead!"

Up struggled Mr. Meeson on to his knees--his legs were so stiff that he
could not stand--and began to stare wildly about him.

"Thank God!" he cried. "Where is it? Is it New Zealand? If ever I get
there, I'll stop there. I'll never get on a ship again!"

"New Zealand!" growled the sailor. "Are you a fool? It's Kerguelen Land,
that's what it is--where it rains all day, and nobody lives--not even a
nigger. It's like enough that you'll stop there, though; for I don't
reckon that anybody will come to take you off in a hurry."

Mr. Meeson collapsed with a groan, and a few minutes afterwards the sun
rose, while the mist grew less and less till at last it almost
disappeared, revealing a grand panorama to the occupants of the boat. For
before them was line upon line of jagged and lofty peaks, stretching as
far as the eye could reach, gradually melting in the distance into the
cold white gleam of snow. Bill slightly altered the boat's course to the
southward, and, sailing round a point, she came into comparatively calm
water. Then, due north of them, running into the land, they saw the mouth
of a great fjord, bounded on each side by towering mountain banks, so
steep as to be almost prec