now one glorious span of silver and gold.

They had not long to wait, for the fog was gliding away fast before the
soft, summer wind.

All at once the blue water stretching from them to the foot of the mist
began to look white, a minute later it could be seen to be in wild
commotion, and in another minute to north and south there lay, not more
than a mile away, a wave-beaten beach, upon which the blue waves beat
and fell back in dazzling silver and diamond spray with a tremendous
roar.

But there was plenty yet to see; for, as the mist reached the shore, it
seemed to grow more dense, and began to roll in great clouds up some
vast slope, and then higher and higher, revealing a long, narrow beach;
then a line of chaotic rocks, which had fallen from above; then higher
and higher, cliff upon cliff, weather-beaten to a hundred hues; and up
above these again, towering mountains; lastly, as if to give the
culminating beauty to the scene, the clouds rolled away from one
tremendous peak, attended by a score of minor heights, crowned with
dazzling ice and snow, vivid and beautiful in the glorious summer sun.

"That's worth some trouble to come and see!" said Captain Marsham.

"Worth trouble?" cried Steve, whose heart was swelling with delight and
the words he wanted to say. "Oh!"

That ejaculation contained all. It was very short, but it meant
everything; and it was some time before he woke up to the knowledge of
what he was gazing at and what was being done.

It was with quite a start that he turned on being touched upon the
shoulder, and found Dr Handscombe at his side.

"Well, Steve boy," said the doctor, "what do you think of Jan Mayen?"

"Is this Jan Mayen--the island?"

"Yes."

"Beautiful! lovely! What a place to live in!"

"Delightful!" said the doctor drily. "Not a tree hardly a green thing,
eternal ice and snow!"

"Oh, but it's dazzling, lovely!"

"Yes, when the mist's off it," said the doctor.

"And it is not quite off that mountain."

"Yes, quite off. That smoke you are looking at is from a volcano."

"And shall we land and explore it?"

"I hope so."

"When?"

"That depends on the captain. I hope to spend a few good days there."

"And do you think _they_ are here?"

"Impossible to say yet," said the doctor. "If our friends have taken
refuge here, it will be on this southern shore, where they could get
most sunshine; but I can see no signal flying, no sign of a wreck. But
there, I d