f New York!"

"An American!" said Hatteras.

"I shall save him," said the doctor; "I'll answer for it, and we shall
find out the explanation of this puzzle."

He returned to Altamont, while Hatteras remained pensive. The doctor
succeeded in recalling the unfortunate man to life, but not to
consciousness; he neither saw, heard, nor spoke, but at any rate he
was alive!

The next morning Hatteras said to the doctor,--

"We must start."

"All right, Hatteras! The sledge is not loaded; we shall carry this
poor fellow back to the ship with us.

"Very well," said Hatteras. "But first let us bury these corpses."

The two unknown sailors were placed beneath the ruins of the
snow-house; Simpson's body took the place of Altamont's.

The three travellers uttered a short prayer over their companion, and
at seven o'clock in the morning they set off again for the ship.

Two of the dogs were dead. Duke volunteered to drag the sledge, and he
worked as resolutely as a Greenland dog.

For twenty days, from January 31st to February 19th, the return was
very much like the first part of the journey. Save that it was in the
month of February, the coldest of the whole year, and the ice was
harder; the travellers suffered terribly from the cold, but not from
the wind or snow-storm.

The sun reappeared for the first time January 31st; every day it rose
higher above the horizon. Bell and the doctor were at the end of their
strength, almost blind and quite lame; the carpenter could not walk
without crutches. Altamont was alive, but continued insensible;
sometimes his life was despaired of, but unremitting care kept him
alive! And yet the doctor needed to take the greatest care of himself,
for his health was beginning to suffer.

Hatteras thought of the _Forward_! In what condition was he going to
find it? What had happened on board? Had Johnson been able to
withstand Shandon and his allies? The cold had been terrible! Had they
burned the ship? Had they spared her masts and keel?

While thinking of this, Hatteras walked on as if he had wished to get
an early view of the _Forward_.

February 24th, in the morning, he stopped suddenly. Three hundred
paces before him appeared a reddish glow, above which rose an immense
column of black smoke, which was lost in the gray clouds of the sky.

"See that smoke!" he shouted.

His heart beat as if it would burst.

"See that smoke!" he said to his companions. "My ship is on fire!"

"But