watter and look, and she'll say tat she's seen a chiant
having a swim."

The captain came on deck about an hour after with the haggard, drawn
look gone out of his face, and he mounted the bridge at once to the
mate, who handed him the glass, and Steve saw him take a long look to
the north-east before closing the telescope. Directly after Mr Lowe
descended and fetched the instruments to take their observations, with
the result that soon after the mate went below for a rest, leaving the
captain to direct the movements of the vessel.

There was so much open water around them now, and so direct a channel
toward the land, while all the rest of the space about them was hemmed
in with ice drifting northward, that to go to the north coast was the
least perilous course.

"I should like to get an observation from the crow's-nest," said the
captain, looking upward, "but everything is so coated with ice and
slippery that I hardly like to send a man aloft."

"I'll go!" cried Steve eagerly.

The captain shook his head.

"Too dangerous, my lad," he said.

"But you did not tell us where you made out we had been driven," said
the doctor, as Steve stood looking up at the ratlines thick with ice,
and the glassy look of shroud and stay, while great icicles hung from
the tops and yards.

"I beg your pardon," said the captain. "I was thinking of the land
yonder. I make out that we have been driven right up to 82 degrees
north latitude and about 45 east longitude."

"But what does that mean?" said Steve, laughing.

"Not very far from being as near to the North Pole as any one has
reached in this direction," said the captain, "and that we are close to
land that in all probability man has never set foot upon yet."

"Hooray!" cried Steve excitedly.

"We have come north at an exceptional time. Generally the icy barrier
stops all progress. This year that storm has broken it up in masses,
and it is quite possible that we may be able to penetrate farther yet."

"To the North Pole?" cried Steve.

"No," said the captain, smiling. "My dear boy, you have North Pole on
the brain. Would you be ready to go with me if I said that I would try
and penetrate the ice as far as I could?"

"Of course," cried Steve. "But you have no confidence in me, sir."

"What do you mean?"

"You will not let me go up even to the crow's-nest to use the glass."

"Yes, I will, my lad," replied the captain. "Take the glass and go up.
But warily, min