them. There was the boat, a mere white speck
on the water, flying away with a fresh northerly breeze
towards the volcano, while the smoke from the latter
made a conspicuous and not very distant land-mark.
Nearer at home, all appeared unusually plain for a
region in which fogs were so apt to prevail. The
cove lay almost beneath them, and the schooner, just
then, struck the imagination of her commander as a
fearfully small craft to come so far from home and
to penetrate so deep among the mazes of the ice.
It was that ice, itself, however, that attracted most
of Roswell’s attention. Far as the eye could
reach, north, south, east and west, the ocean was brilliant
and chill with the vast floating masses. The
effect on the air was always perceptible in that region,
‘killing the summer,’ as the sealers expressed
it; but it seemed to be doubly so at the elevation
to which the two adventurers had attained. Still,
the panorama was magnificent. The only part of
the ocean that did not seem to be alive with ice-bergs,
if one may use such an expression, was the space within
the group, and that was as clear as an estuary in
a mild climate. It really appeared as if nature
had tabooed that privileged spot, in order that the
communication between the different islands should
remain open. Of course, the presence of so many
obstacles to the billows without, and indeed even to
the rake of the winds, produced smooth water within,
the slow, breath-like heaving and setting of the ceaseless
ground-swell, being the only perceptible motion to
the water in side.
“’Tis a very remarkable view, Stephen,”
said Roswell Gardiner, “but there will be one
much finer, if we can work our way up that cone of
a mountain, and stand on its naked cap. I wish
I had brought an old ensign and a small spar along,
to set up the gridiron, in honour of the States.
We’re beginning to put out our feelers, old
Stimson, and shall have ’em on far better bits
of territory than this, before the earth has gone round
in its track another hundred years.”
“Well, to my notion, Captain Gar’ner,”
answered the seaman, following his officer towards
the base of the cone, “Uncle Sam has got more
land now than he knows what to do with. If a
body could discover a bit of ocean, or a largish sort
of a sea, there might be some use in it. Whales
are getting to be skeary, and are mostly driven off
their old grounds; and as for the seals, you must
bury yourself, craft and all, up to the truck in ice,
to get a smile from one of their good-lookin’
count’nances, as I always say.”
“I’m afraid, Stephen, it is all over with
the discovery of more seas. Even the moon, they
now say, is altogether without water, having not so
much as a lake or a large pond to take a duck in.”
“Without water, sir!” exclaimed Stimson,
quite aghast. “If ’tis so, sir, it
must be right, since the same hand that made
the moon made this ’arth, and all it contains.
But what can they do for seafaring folks in
the moon, if what you tell me, Captain Gar’ner,
is the truth?”