ening; long clouds passed rapidly through the air; they
passed near the ground, and so quickly that the eye could hardly
follow them. At times some of the mist touched the ground, and the
tent resisted with difficulty the violence of the hurricane.

[Illustration: The hut was pitched in a ravine for shelter.]

"It's going to be a nasty night," said Johnson, after supper.

"It won't be cold, but stormy," answered the doctor; "let us take
precautions, and make the tent firm with large stones."

"You are right, Doctor; if the wind should carry away the canvas,
Heaven alone knows where we should find it again."

Hence they took every precaution against such a danger, and the
wearied travellers lay down to sleep. But they found it impossible.
The tempest was loose, and hastened northward with incomparable
violence; the clouds were whirling about like steam which has just
escaped from a boiler; the last avalanches, under the force of the
hurricane, fell into the ravines, and their dull echoes were
distinctly heard; the air seemed to be struggling with the water, and
fire alone was absent from this contest of the elements.

Amid the general tumult their ears distinguished separate sounds, not
the crash of heavy falling bodies, but the distinct cracking of bodies
breaking; a clear snap was frequently heard, like breaking steel, amid
the roar of the tempest. These last sounds were evidently avalanches
torn off by the gusts, but the doctor could not explain the others. In
the few moments of anxious silence, when the hurricane seemed to be
taking breath in order to blow with greater violence, the travellers
exchanged their suppositions.

"There is a sound of crashing," said the doctor, "as if icebergs and
ice-fields were being blown against one another."

"Yes," answered Altamont; "one would say the whole crust of the globe
was falling in. Say, did you hear that?"

"If we were near the sea," the doctor went on, "I should think it was
ice breaking."

"In fact," said Johnson, "there is no other explanation possible."

"Can we have reached the coast?" asked Hatteras.

"It's not impossible," answered the doctor. "Hold on," he said, after
a very distinct sound; "shouldn't you say that was the crashing of
ice? We may be very near the ocean."

"If it is," continued Hatteras, "I should not be afraid to go across
the ice-fields."

"O," said the doctor, "they must be broken by such a tempest! We shall
see to-morrow. However