d
thenceforth we need only sail on under ordinary conditions to Bennet
Island in the first place, and afterwards to Tsalal Island. Once on
that 'wide open sea,' what obstacle could arrest or even retard
our progress?"

"I can foresee none, captain, so soon as we shall get to the back
of the ice-wall. The passage through is the difficult point; it must
be our chief source of anxietys and if only the wind holds--"

"It will hold, Mr. Jeorling. All the navigators of the austral
seas have been able to ascertain, as I myself have done, the
permanence of this wind."

"That is true, and I rejoice in the assurance, captain. Besides, I
acknowledge, without shrinking from the admission, that I am
beginning to be superstitious."

"And why not, Mr. Jeorling? What is there unreasonable in
admitting the intervention of a supernatural power in the most
ordinary circumstances of life? And we, who sail the _Halbrane_,
should we venture to doubt it? Recall to your mind our meeting with
the unfortunate Patterson on our ship's course, the fragment of
ice carried into the waters where we were, and dissolved immediately
afterwards. Were not these facts providential? Nay, I go farther
still, and am sure that, after having done so much to guide us
towards our compatriots, God will not abandon us--"

"I think as you think, captain. No, His intervention is not to be
denied, and I do not believe that chance plays the part assigned to
it by superficial minds upon the stage of human life. All the facts
are united by a mysterious chain."

"A chain, Mr. Jeorling, whose first link, so far as we are
concerned, is Patterson's ice-block, and whose last will be Tsalal
Island. Ah! My brother! my poor brother! Left there for eleven
years, with his companions in misery, without being able to
entertain the hope that succour ever could reach them! And Patterson
carried far away from them, under we know not what conditions, they
not knowing what had become of him! If my heart is sick when I think
of these catastrophes, Mr. Jeorling, at least it will not fail me
unless it be at the moment when my brother throws himself into my
arms."

So then we two were agreed in our trust in Providence. It had been
made plain to us in a manifest fashion that God had entrusted us
with a mission, and we would do all that might be humanly possible
to accomplish it.

The schooner's crew, I ought to mention, were animated by the like
sentiments, and shared the same h