we can get
through the ice our voyage will be very much advanced."

"Unless," said the doctor, "we should be as unlucky as the _Fox_ in
1857, and should be caught the first year by the ice in the north of
Baffin's Bay, and we should have to winter among the icebergs."

"We must hope to be luckier, Mr. Shandon," said Johnson; "and if, with
a ship like the _Forward_, we can't go where we please, the attempt
must be given up forever."

"Besides," continued the doctor, "if the captain is on board he will
know better than we what is to be done, and so much the better because
we are perfectly ignorant; for his singularly brief letter gives us no
clew to the probable aim of the voyage."

"It's a great deal," answered Shandon, with some warmth, "to know what
route we have to take; and now for a good month, I fancy, we shall be
able to get along without his supernatural intervention and orders.
Besides, you know what I think about him."

"Ha, ha!" laughed the doctor; "I used to think as you did, that he was
going to leave the command of the ship in your hands, and that he
would never come on board; but--"

"But what?" asked Shandon, with some ill-humor.

"But since the arrival of the second letter, I have altered my views
somewhat."

"And why so, doctor?"

"Because, although this letter does tell you in which direction to go,
it still does not inform you of the final aim of the voyage; and we
have yet to know whither we are to go. I ask you how can a third
letter reach us now that we are on the open sea. The postal service on
the shore of Greenland is very defective. You see, Shandon, I fancy
that he is waiting for us at some Danish settlement up there,--at
Holsteinborg or Upernavik. We shall find that he has been completing
the supply of seal-skins, buying sledges and dogs,--in a word,
providing all the equipment for a journey in the arctic seas. So I
shall not be in the least surprised to see him coming out of his cabin
some fine morning and taking command in the least supernatural way in
the world."

"Possibly," answered Shandon, dryly; "but meanwhile the wind's
freshening, and there's no use risking our topsails in such weather."

Shandon left the doctor, and ordered the topsails furled.

"He still clings to that idea," said the doctor to the boatswain.

"Yes," was the answer, "and it's a pity; for you may very well be
right, Dr. Clawbonny."

Towards the evening of Saturday the _Forward_ rounded the Mull o