ts, the
canvas bundle of sails, boat-covers, and tents unwieldy and of enormous
weight; the footing on the slippery, uneven ice precarious, and more
than once a man, staggering under his load, broke through the crust into
water so cold that the sensation was like that of burning.

But at last everything was over, the sledges reloaded, and the forward
movement resumed. Only one low hummock now intervened between them and
the longed-for level floe.

However, as they were about to start forward again a lamentable gigantic
sound began vibrating in their ears, a rumbling, groaning note rising by
quick degrees to a strident shriek. Other sounds, hollow and
shrill--treble mingling with diapason--joined in the first. The noise
came from just beyond the pressure-mound at the foot of which the party
had halted.

"Forward!" shouted Bennett; "hurry there, men!"

Desperately eager, the men bent panting to their work. The sledge
bearing the whaleboat topped the hummock.

"Now, then, over with her!" cried Ferriss.

But it was too late. As they stood looking down upon it for an instant,
the level floe, their one sustaining hope during all the day, suddenly
cracked from side to side with the noise of ordnance. Then the groaning
and shrieking recommenced. The crack immediately closed up, the pressure
on the sides of the floe began again, and on the smooth surface of the
ice, domes and mounds abruptly reared themselves. As the pressure
increased these domes and mounds cracked and burst into countless blocks
and slabs. Ridge after ridge was formed in the twinkling of an eye.
Thundering like a cannonade of siege guns, the whole floe burst up,
jagged, splintered, hummocky. In less than three minutes, and while the
Freja's men stood watching, the level stretch toward which since morning
they had struggled with incalculable toil was ground up into a vast mass
of confused and pathless rubble.

"Oh, this will never do," muttered Ferriss, disheartened.

"Come on, men!" exclaimed Bennett. "Mr. Ferriss, go forward, and choose
a road for us."

The labour of the morning was recommenced. With infinite patience,
infinite hardship, the sledges one by one were advanced. So heavy were
the three larger McClintocks that only one could be handled at a time,
and that one taxed the combined efforts of men and dogs to the
uttermost. The same ground had to be covered seven times. For every yard
gained seven had to be travelled. It was not a march, it