and you may have good reason
to rejoice that you knelt beside his last bed, in a tomb so wondrously
beautiful."

"We must hasten faster, Charley, for the fog _is_ coming, and we may
find the floes separated. Remember our friends know nothing of all we
have seen and heard, and to them I am still Regnar Orloff, half
educated, and a simple pilot of the Labrador."

With increased speed the pair pressed forward, crossing with difficulty
the gulf, which had opened between the berg and the first heavy floe.
Pole in hand, with one end of the rope attached to his belt, and his gun
slung at his back, Orloff led the way, while La Salle followed at the
other end, carrying an axe in his belt, and another in his hand. Luckily
many large fragments lay floating in the first lead, and prevented from
slipping by their sharp "crampets," they leaped from cake to cake, and
safely reached the second floe.

The mist clung damp to their faces as they attained the end of the
second floe, where a lead of water some twenty yards in width, and
clear of ice, intervened between them and the next. The quick eye of
Regnar caught sight of a small ice-cake floating by the windward side of
their floe, and leaping upon it, with pole and hands they shoved it
along the steep walls of ice, and with their united force gave it a
final impetus in the desired direction. The fragment whirled and bent
beneath them, until the water stood above their ankles; but just as they
began to fear a complete submersion, Orloff caught a projection of the
field with his boat-hook, and the two landed in safety.

As they hurried across the last floe, the rain fell, and the wind blew
heavily, dashing huge cakes against the windward side with a ceaseless
crashing of broken ice. Before they could reach the end of the field,
they saw their own turn as if on a pivot, and grind slowly past the
leeward point of the one across which they pressed at full speed. Their
efforts were in vain, for before they could reach the verge their refuge
was twenty feet distant; but Regnar was equal to the emergency.

"Cast loose your rope, Charley," said he; and in five seconds he had
coiled and whirled it twenty feet across the intervening chasm, to
Peter, who seized and retained it. "Now, La Salle, follow me," he cried;
and springing upon a floating fragment, he balanced himself with his
pole until he reached a more stable support farther from the berg.

The impetus, however, carried him too fa