tion when they approached it, for big masses had become detached
from it and were moving out into the open water, while the opening had
become perceptibly narrower. The light was now fading rapidly, and
Wyllard took the wheel when Dampier sent the man there forward.

"Get the cover off the second boat, and see everything clear for
hoisting out," he said to him, and then called to Wyllard. "We're
close enough. You'd better heave her round."

She came round with a thrashing of canvas, stretched out seawards, and
came back again with her deck sharply slanted and little puffs of
bitter spray blowing over her weather rail, for there was no doubt that
the breeze was freshening fast. Then Dampier sent a man up into the
foremast shrouds, and looked at Wyllard afterwards.

"I'd heave a couple of reefs down if I wasn't so anxious about that
blamed boat," he said. "As it is, I want to be ready to pick her up
just as soon as we see her, and it's quite likely she'd turn up when
we'd got way off the schooner, and the peak eased down."

Wyllard fancied that he was right as he glanced over the rail at the
dimness that was creeping in on them. It was blowing almost fresh now,
and the _Selache_ was driving very fast through the swell, which
commenced to froth here and there. It is, as he knew from experience,
always hard work, and often impossible, to pull a boat to windward in
any weight of breeze, which rendered it advisable to keep the schooner
under way. If the boat drove by them while they were reefing it might
be difficult to pick her up afterwards in the dark. He was now
distinctly anxious about her. At length, just as the light was dying
out, the man in the shrouds sent down a cry.

"I see them, sir," he said.

Dampier turned to Wyllard with a gesture of relief. "That's a weight
off my mind. I wish we had a reef in, but"--and he glanced up at the
canvas--"she'll have to stand it. Anyway, I'll leave you there. We
want to get that second boat lashed down again."

This, as Wyllard recognised, was necessary, though he would sooner have
had somebody by him, and the rest of them ready to let the mainsheet
run, for he was a little to windward of the opening, and surmised that
he would have to run the schooner down upon the boat. It was a few
moments later when he saw her emerge from among the ice, and the men in
her appeared to be pulling strenuously. They were, perhaps, half a
mile off, and the schooner was saili