yes were turned.

Captain Len Guy, the mate, the boatswain, Hardy, and Martin Holt,
whom I accompanied, went up again towards the schooner in order to
make a minute investigation of the hull. On the starboard side the
operation would be easy enough, because the _Halbrane_ had a list to
the opposite side. On the port side we would have to slide along to
the keel as well as we could by scooping out the ice, in order to
insure the inspection of every part of the planking.

After an examination which lasted two hours, it was discovered that
the damage was of little importance, and could be repaired in a
short time. Two or three planks only were wrenched away by the
collision. In the inside the skin was intact, the ribs not having
given way. Our vessel, constructed for the polar seas, had resisted
where many others less solidly built would have been dashed to
pieces. The rudder had indeed been unshipped, but that could easily
be set right.

Having finished our inspection inside and outside, we agreed that
the damage was less considerable than we feared, and on that subject
we became reassured. Reassured! Yes, if we could only succeed in
getting the schooner afloat again.

CHAPTER XX,
"UNMERCIFUL DISASTER"

In the morning, after breakfast, it was decided that the men should
begin to dig a sloping bed which would allow the _Halbrane_ to slide
to the foot of the iceberg. Would that Heaven might grant success to
the operation, for who could contemplate without terror having to
brave the severity of the austral winter, and to pass six months
under such conditions as ours on a vast iceberg, dragged none could
tell whither? Once the winter had set in, none of us could have
escaped from that most terrible of fates--dying of cold.

At this moment, Dirk Peters, who was observing the horizon from
south to east at about one hundred paces off, cried out in a rough
voice: "Lying to!"

Lying to? What could the half-breed mean by that, except that the
floating mass had suddenly ceased to drift? As for the cause of this
stoppage, it was neither the moment to investigate it, nor to ask
ourselves what the consequences were likely to be.

"It is true, however," cried the boatswain. "The iceberg is
not stirring, and perhaps has not stirred since it capsized!"

"How?" said I, "it no longer changes its place?"

"No," replied the mate, "and the proof is that the others,
drifting on, are leaving it behind!"

And, in fact, whils