ided that coast. Whence came this repugnance,
which was shared by all the animals they saw, unless from terror?

The sailors experienced the same feeling; they gave way to the
feelings inspired by the situation, and gradually each one felt his
eyelids grow heavy. It was Hatteras's watch. He took the tiller; the
doctor, Altamont, Johnson, and Bell fell asleep, stretched on the
benches, and soon were dreaming soundly. Hatteras struggled against
his sleepiness; he wished to lose not a moment; but the gentle motion
of the launch rocked him, in spite of himself, into a gentle sleep.

The boat made hardly any headway; the wind did not keep her sails
full. Far off in the west a few icebergs were reflecting the sun's
rays, and glowing brightly in the midst of the ocean.

Hatteras began to dream. He recalled his whole life, with the
incalculable speed of dreams; he went through the winter again, the
scenes at Victoria Bay, Fort Providence, Doctor's House, the finding
the American beneath the snow. Here remoter incidents came up before
him; he dreamed of the burning of the _Forward_, of his treacherous
companions who had abandoned him. What had become of them? He thought
of Shandon, Wall, and the brutal Pen. Where were they now? Had they
succeeded in reaching Baffin's Bay across the ice? Then he went
further back, to his departure from England, to his previous voyages,
his failures and misfortunes. Then he forgot his present situation,
his success so near at hand, his hopes half realized. His dreams
carried him from joy to agony. So it went on for two hours; then his
thoughts changed; he began to think of the Pole, and he saw himself at
last setting foot on this English continent, and unfolding the flag of
the United Kingdom. While he was dozing in this way a huge, dark cloud
was climbing across the sky, throwing a deep shadow over the sea.

[Illustration]

It is difficult to imagine the great speed with which hurricanes arise
in the arctic seas. The vapors which rise under the equator are
condensed above the great glaciers of the North, and large masses of
air are needed to take their place. This can explain the severity of
arctic storms.

At the first shock of the wind the captain and his friends awoke from
their sleep, ready to manage the launch. The waves were high and
steep. The launch tossed helplessly about, now plunged into deep
abysses, now oscillated on the pointed crest of a wave, inclining
often at an angle of