ew near they noticed
a little fiord large enough to shelter their boat; they sailed towards
it, filled with the fear of finding the captain's body cast ashore by
the tempest.

[Illustration: "They noticed a little fiord."]

Still, it seemed unlikely that any corpse should rest there; there was
no beach, and the sea beat against the steep rocks; thick ashes, on
which no human foot had ever stepped, covered the ground beyond the
reach of the waves. At last the launch slipped between the breakers,
and there she was perfectly sheltered against the surf. Then Duke's
lamentable howling redoubled; the poor animal called for the captain
with his sad wails among the rocks. His barking was vain; and the
doctor caressed him, without being able to calm him, when the faithful
dog, as if he wanted to replace his master, made a prodigious leap,
and was the first to get ashore amid the dust and ashes which flew
about him.

"Duke! Duke!" said the doctor.

Duke did not hear him, but disappeared. The men then went ashore, and
made the launch fast. Altamont was preparing to climb up a large pile
of rocks, when Duke's distant barking was heard; it expressed pain,
not wrath.

"Listen!" said the doctor.

"Has he got on the track of some animal?" asked the boatswain.

"No," answered the doctor, quivering with emotion; "he's mourning,
crying! Hatteras's body is there!"

At these words the four men started after Duke, in the midst of
blinding cinders; they reached the end of the fiord, a little place
ten feet broad, where the waves were gently breaking. There Duke was
barking near a body wrapped up in the English flag.

"Hatteras, Hatteras!" cried the doctor, rushing to the body of his
friend.

But at once he uttered an explanation which it is impossible to
render. This bleeding and apparently lifeless body had just given
signs of life.

"Alive, alive!" he cried.

"Yes," said a feeble voice, "living on the land of the Pole, where the
tempest cast me up! Living on Queen Island!"

"Hurrah for England!" cried the five together.

"And for America!" added the doctor, holding out one hand to Hatteras
and the other to Altamont. Duke, too, hurrahed in his own way, which
was as good as any other.

At first these kind-hearted men were wholly given up to the pleasure
of seeing their captain again; they felt the tears welling up into
their eyes. The doctor examined Hatteras's condition. He was not
seriously injured. The wind had carrie