"Come now, David, you are passing your jokes off on a greenhorn," I
replied. "Why, if the water was not cold, I don't think I should find
much difficulty in swimming there, when we got a little closer in."

This answer produced a fresh succession of chuckles. Still on we
sailed; and I confess that at the end of an hour we appeared no nearer
than before.

"Well, what do you think of it now?" asked old David.

"Why, that there must be a strong current against us, setting off
shore," I answered, wishing to show my knowledge.

He replied that there was no current, and that I was wrong. Another
half-hour passed, and still we did not seem to have gained ground.

"What do you think of our being off Cape Flyaway, youngster?" asked
David, pretending to be alarmed. "Did you never hear speak of that?
The longer you sail after it the farther off it goes, till it takes you
right round the world. If that's it, and I don't say it isn't, it will
be long enough before we get back to old England again." Having thus
delivered himself, he walked away, to avoid being questioned.

Tom Stokes, who was near me, and, as I have said, was very fond of
reading, heard his remark.

"Do you know, Peter, I am not certain that what David says is altogether
wrong," he remarked, in a mysterious manner. "I have just been reading
in a book an account of a voyage made many centuries ago by a Danish
captain to these seas. His name was Rink, but I forget the name of the
ship. His crew consisted of eighty stout brave fellows; but when they
got up here, some of the bravest were frightened with the wonders they
beheld--the monsters of the deep, the fogs, the snows, and the mountains
of ice--and at last they saw at no great distance a high picturesque
land on which they wished to land, but though they sailed rapidly on, or
appeared to sail, they got no nearer to it. This increased the alarm
they already felt. One-half of the crew were of opinion that the land
itself moved away from them; the others that there were some powerful
loadstone rocks somewhere astern, which kept the ship back. At last
Captain Rink finding a northerly breeze spring up, and being somewhat
short of provisions, put up the helm and ran home, every one on board
giving a different account of the wonders they had seen, but all
agreeing that it was a region of ice-demons and snow-spirits, and that
they would never, if they could help it, venture there again."

For some hou