n."

"But tell me--what has happened?"

"We came upon an iceberg in the middle of the fog, and were unable
to keep clear of it."

"An iceberg, boatswain?"

"Yes, an iceberg, which has chosen just now to turn head over
heels. In turning, it struck the _Halbrane_ and carried it off just as
a battledore catches a shuttlecock, and now here we are, stranded at
certainly one hundred feet above the level of the Antarctic Sea."

Could one have imagined a more terrible conclusion to the
adventurous voyage of the _Halbrane_?

In the middle of these remote regions our only means of transport
had just been snatched from its natural element, and carried off by
the turn of an iceberg to a height of more than one hundred feet!
What a conclusion! To be swallowed up in a polar tempest, to be
destroyed in a fight with savages, to be crushed in the ice, such
are the dangers to which any ship engaged in the polar seas is
exposed! But to think that the _Halbrane_ had been lifted by a
floating mountain just as that mountain was turning over, was
stranded and almost at its summit--no! such a thing seemed quite
impossible.

I did not know whether we could succeed in letting down the schooner
from this height with the means we had at our disposal. But I did
know that Captain Len Guy, the mate and the older members of the
crew, when they had recovered from their first fright, would not
give up in despair, no matter how terrible the situation might be;
of that I had no doubt whatsoever! They would all look to the
general safety; as for the measures to be taken, no one yet knew
anything. A foggy veil, a sort of greyish mist still hung over the
iceberg. Nothing could be seen of its enormous mass except the
narrow craggy cleft in which the schooner was wedged, nor even what
place it occupied in the middle of the ice-fleet drifting towards
the south-east.

Common prudence demanded that we should quit the _Halbrane_, which
might slide down at a sharp shake ot the iceberg. Were we even
certain that the latter had regained its position on the surface of
the sea? Was her stability secure? Should we not be on the look-out
for a fresh upheaval? And if the schooner were to fall into the
abyss, which of us could extricate himself safe and sound from such
a fall, and then from the final plunge into the depths of the ocean?

In a few minutes the crew had abandoned the _Halbrane_. Each man
sought for refuge on the ice-slopes, awaiting the time when