h Tom Singleton,
was observed to pause abruptly and make signals for the men to advance
with caution. He evidently saw something unusual, for he crouched
behind a rock and peeped over it. Hastening up as silently as possible,
they discovered that a group of Polar bears were amusing themselves on
the other side of the cliffs, within long gunshot. Unfortunately not
one of the party had brought firearms. Intent only on catching a sight
of the sun, they had hurried off, unmindful of the possibility of their
catching sight of anything else. They had not even a spear, and the few
oak cudgels that some carried, however effectual they might have proved
at Donnybrook, were utterly worthless there.

There were four large bears and a young one, and the gambols they
performed were of the most startling as well as amusing kind. But that
which interested and surprised the crew most was the fact that these
bears were playing with barrels, and casks, and tent-poles, and sails!
They were engaged in a regular frolic with these articles, tossing them
up in the air, pawing them about, and leaping over them like kittens.
In these movements they displayed their enormous strength several times.
Their leaps, although performed with the utmost ease, were so great as
to prove the iron nature of their muscles. They tossed the heavy casks,
too, high in the air like tennis-balls; and in two instances, while the
crew were watching them, dashed a cask in pieces with a slight blow of
their paws. The tough canvas yielded before them like sheets of paper,
and the havoc they committed was wonderful to behold.

"Most extraordinary!" exclaimed Captain Guy, after watching them for
some time in silence. "I cannot imagine where these creatures can have
got hold of such things. Were not the goods at Store Island all right
this morning, Mr Bolton?"

"Yes, sir, they were."

"Nothing missing from the ship!"

"No, sir, nothing."

"It's most unaccountable."

"Captain Guy," said O'Riley, addressing his commander with a solemn
face, "haven't ye more nor wance towld me the queer thing in the deserts
they calls the _mirage_?"

"I have," answered the captain with a puzzled look.

"An' didn't ye say there was something like it in the Polar seas, that
made ye see flags, an' ships, an' things o' that sort when there was no
sich things there at all?"

"True, O'Riley, I did."

"Faix, then, it's my opinion that yon bears is a mirage, an' the sooner
we