we are more than three miles from it," said Bell. "It can't be
the _Forward_!"

"Yes, but it is," answered the doctor; "the mirage makes it seem
nearer."

"Let us run!" cried Hatteras.

They left the sledge in charge of Duke, and hastened after the
captain. An hour later they came in sight of the ship. A terrible
sight! The brig was burning in the midst of the ice, which was melting
about her; the flames were lapping her hull, and the southerly breeze
brought to Hatteras's ears unaccustomed sounds.

Five hundred feet from the ship stood a man raising his hands in
despair; he stood there, powerless, facing the fire which was
destroying the _Forward_.

The man was alone; it was Johnson.

Hatteras ran towards him.

"My ship! my ship!" he cried.

"You! Captain!" answered Johnson; "you! stop! not a step farther!"

"Well?" asked Hatteras with a terrible air.

"The wretches!" answered Johnson, "they've been gone forty-eight
hours, after firing the ship!"

"Curse them!" groaned Hatteras.

Then a terrible explosion was heard; the earth trembled; the icebergs
fell; a column of smoke rose to the clouds, and the _Forward_
disappeared in an abyss of fire.

[Illustration: "Then a terrible explosion was heard."]

At that moment the doctor and Bell came up to Hatteras. He roused
himself suddenly from his despair.

"My friends," he said energetically, "the cowards have taken flight!
The brave will succeed! Johnson, Bell, you are bold; Doctor, you are
wise; as for me, I have faith! There is the North Pole! Come, to
work!"

Hatteras's companions felt their hearts glow at these brave words.

And yet the situation was terrible for these four men and the dying
man, abandoned without supplies, alone at the eighty-fourth degree of
latitude, in the very heart of the polar regions.

END OF PART I.

PART II.
THE DESERT OF ICE.

THE DESERT OF ICE.

CHAPTER I.
THE DOCTOR'S INVENTORY.

The design which Captain Hatteras had formed of exploring the North,
and of giving England the honor of discovering the Pole, was certainly
a bold one. This hardy sailor had just done all that human skill could
do. After struggling for nine months against contrary winds and seas,
after destroying icebergs and ice-fields, after enduring the severity
of an unprecedentedly cold winter, after going over all that his
predecessors had done, after carrying the _Forward_ beyond the seas
which were already known, in short,