Fortune, which had hitherto proved favourable to our brave explorers, did not desert them at the eleventh hour.

 

Soon after their arrival at Refuge Island a fair wind sprang up from the south, and when the Charity had been carefully patched and repaired, the kites were sent up and the voyage was continued. That day and night they spent again upon the boundless sea, for the island was soon left out of sight behind them, though the wind was not very fresh.

 

Towards morning it fell calm altogether, obliging them to haul down the kites and take to the oars.

 

“It can’t be far off now, Chingatok,” said the Captain, who became rather impatient as the end drew near.

 

“Not far,” was the brief reply.

 

“Land ho!” shouted Benjy, about half-an-hour after that.

 

But Benjy was forced to admit that anxiety had caused him to take an iceberg on the horizon for land.

 

“Well, anyhow you must admit,” said Benjy, on approaching the berg, “that it’s big enough for a fellow to mistake it for a mountain. I wonder what it’s doing here without any brothers or sisters to keep it company.”

 

“Under-currents brought it here, lad,” said the Captain. “You see, such a monster as that must go very deep down, and the warm under-current has not yet melted away enough of his base to permit the surface-current to carry him south like the smaller members of his family. He is still travelling north, but that won’t last long. He’ll soon become small enough to put about and go the other way. I never saw a bigger fellow than that, Benjy. Hayes, the American, mentions one which he measured, about 315 feet high, and nearly a mile long. It had been grounded for two years. He calculated that there must have been seven times as much of it below water as there was above, so that it was stranded in nearly half-a-mile depth of water. This berg cannot be far short of that one in size.”

 

“Hm! probably then his little brothers and sisters are being now crushed to bits in Baffin’s Bay,” said Benjy.

 

“Not unlikely, Ben, if they’ve not already been melted in the Atlantic, which will be this one’s fate at last—sooner or later.”

 

From a pool on this berg they obtained a supply of pure fresh water.

 

When our explorers did at last sight the land it came upon them unexpectedly, in the form of an island so low that they were quite close before observing it. The number of gulls hovering above it might have suggested its presence, but as these birds frequently hover in large flocks over shoals of small fish, little attention was paid to them.

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