t a mile nearer to us.

"It is ice," said he, "and it is lucky that it is dissolving.
The _Halbrane_ might have come to serious grief by collision with it
in the night."

I was struck by the fixity of his gaze upon the object, whose nature
he had so promptly declared: he continued to contemplate it for
several minutes, and I guessed what was passing in the mind of the
man under the obsession of a fixed idea. This fragment of ice, torn
from the southern icebergs, came from those waters wherein his
thoughts continually ranged. He wanted to see it more near, perhaps
at close quarters, it might be to take away some bits of it. At an
order from West the schooner was directed towards the floating mass;
presently we were within two cables'-length, and I could examine
it.

The mound in the center was melting rapidly; before the end of the
day nothing would remain of the fragment of ice which had been
carried by the currents so high up as the forty-fifth parallel.

Captain Len Guy gazed at it steadily, but he now needed no glass,
and presently we all began to distinguish a second object which
little by little detached itself from the mass, according as the
melting process went on--a black shape, stretched on the white ice.

What was our surprise, mingled with horror, when we saw first an
arm, then a leg, then a trunk, then a head appear, forming a human
body, not in a state of nakedness, but clothed in dark garments.

For a moment I even thought that the limbs moved, that the hands
were stretched towards us.

The crew uttered a simultaneous cry. No! this body was not moving,
but it was slowly slipping off the icy surface.

I looked at Captain Len Guy. His face was as livid as that of the
corpse that had drifted down from the far latitudes of the austral
zone. What could be done was done to recover the body of the
unfortunate man, and who can tell whether a faint breath of life did
not animate it even then? In any case his pockets might perhaps
contain some document that would enable his identity to be
established. Then, accompanied by a last prayer, those human remains
should be committed to the depths of the ocean, the cemetery of
sailors who die at sea.

A boat Was let down. I followed it with my eyes as it neared the
side of the ice fragment eaten by the waves.

Hurliguerly set foot upon a spot which still offered some
resistance. Gratian got out after him, while Francis kept the boat
fast by the chain. The two