“Listen!” cried the captain.  “What is that?”

“Wolves, I think,” said the professor.  “And hark! surely that was a rifle-shot.  Pray Heaven we may be in time, Staysail!”

“Hurry up, men!  Hurry up!” cried the captain; and the men dashed onwards.

* * * * *

Tom had revived a little, and he and Frank were fighting harder than ever to hold the gate, as bold

          “Horatius kept the bridge
  In the brave days of old”.

But it was already giving way, and the beasts without seemed to know it.

Briton was on his legs ready, and all seemed to be lost, when suddenly a rattling volley of rifle fire was heard from beneath, with shouts of men.

Volley followed volley, and in less time than it takes me to tell it, the wild wolf-foxes were seeking safety in flight.

* * * * *

“Tell us all your story again,” said Tom to his uncle, as the children sat round the stove that same evening in the cosy cabin of the Valhalla.

They were all washed and clean by this time, and the girls were beautifully dressed.

[Illustration]

“Ah! well, you see,” said Uncle as he relit his pipe, “the professor here made a dart for the vessel when the storm came on.  He wanted a stronger crew.

“He caught us just in time, for though the gale was a furious one we could steam up to it, and were doing so, when suddenly there was a loud explosion; one of the boilers had burst, and the engines were smashed and useless.

“We were now at the mercy of the sea, the waves, and the icebergs too, and before another day we were blown far away to sea.

“Even then we had hope.  But in a week’s time we were frozen into the main pack, and there we have had to winter, and it is hardly a week since we got clear by cutting a canal with our great ice-saws.  Oh! it has been a dreary time for us, but must have been more so to you, poor darlings! and well and bravely you have borne it all!

“I am sure,” he added, “that even Pansy has grown, and her mother will hardly know her again when we all get home.”

“We are going now, aren’t we, ’Fessor Pete?” said Pansy, who was sitting on his knee.

“Yes, my dear, yes.  It is no use staying here when we have no steam, so the ship is now making for England’s sunny shores.  And we’ll get there in the rosy month of June.  Won’t it be nice?”

Pansy was jumping with joy.

Aralia clapped her hands and cried:  “Just too jolly for anything!”

By and by Aralia sat down to the piano, and Pete brought out his fiddle, and a very happy evening indeed was spent in the Valhalla.

The men were keeping it up forward too, around the galley fire, singing songs and spinning yarns, for the ship was “homeward bound”.

* * * * *