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CHAPTER XI.

THE POLAR OCEAN.

ELIEVED from anxiety for their safety by the breadth of the channel, and its comparative freedom from ice, they were now able to admire more leisurely the grand scenery of the Greenland shore, with its stupendous cliffs and glittering glaciers. The Sound narrowing as they proceeded, they were able to discern on their left the blue ridges of Grinnell Land, from which the snow was rapidly disappearing, and on their right the towering cliffs and the masses of ice which, glittering like blocks of sapphire, filled up the gaps in the rocky wall.

The northern extremity of the Sound began at length to be watched for with eagerness, not unmingled with anxiety on the part of Captain Webb, uncertain as he was of the breadth of water

which might be found between the northern coast of Greenland and the North Pole, and upon which seemed to depend the success of the quest for the spot around which a halo of mystery had been drawn for ages.

It was a fine evening, and the air was comparatively mild for that high latitude, when a group of the explorers, standing with their backs to the setting sun, saw the glaciers tending to the eastward, and the blue waves, merely rippled by the breeze, widening as they were ploughed by the vessel's bows. Captain Webb looked towards the coast of Grinnell Land, which still stretched northward, and resumed his anxious pacing of the deck.

"We are getting out of the Sound!" exclaimed Charlie Wilson, eagerly and excitedly, as he directed the attention of Willie Webb to the eastward curve of the Greenland glaciers, which flashed and glittered in the level beams of the setting sun like masses of opal.

Another hour passed, and the rainbow hues of the glaciers had faded out, leaving ice and water of a cold pale blue tint, as the sun sank behind the distant ridges of Grinnell Land, and the colour of the sky changed from rose to grey, when a lofty promontory was passed, which seemed the northeastern point of the land on their left.

"Three cheers for the Polar Ocean!" cried Captain Webb, doffing his cap, and waving it enthusiastically; and the cheers were given by his hardy crew with an energy that startled the seabirds from their resting-places among the cliffs, and sent them skimming and screaming over the waves. "We are the first men that have reached these waters, which the Yankees only saw from yonder tall headland, and we will splice the mainbrace on the strength of it."

Acclamations greeted this announcement, and those of the crew who were between decks came scrambling up the companion to see the new ocean, and what might prove to be the utmost limits of the land. A glass of spirits was served out to each man, and all the talk that evening, as the crew gazed northward over the far-stretching waste of dark water, longing to penetrate the unknown secrets beyond, was concerning their prospect of reaching the northern axis of the earth.

"What do you think the Pole is like, youngster?" said the second officer to Charlie Wilson, with a merry twinkle of the eyes that belied the assumed gravity of his countenance. "Do you think we shall find a tall pole sticking out of the ground, like a flag-staff?"

"We may do that, if the Germans get there before us," returned Charlie.

Charlie!" exclaimed Mr.

"Well answered, Charlie!" Morton.

"Well, shall we find land or water round the Pole?" said the second officer. "Answer me that, and I will bet a shilling the answer will be wrong."

"I will not bet, Mr. Markham," rejoined Charlie, "but I fancy we shall find land—a large island, in the midst of a calm ocean, free from ice."

"At the back of the north wind, eh?" said Markham, with a smile of incredulity.

"The Esquimaux have a tradition of a far northern island," observed Morton, in a more serious tone. "I am rather doubtful about the calm and iceless ocean, Charlie; and I see no reason for anticipating land, rather than water. That there is land all around the South Pole is no reason for expecting a like state of things at the North Pole; for it was always held that an extensive tract of land was to be expected round the South Pole, to balance the preponderance of land north of the equator."

"We are now about five hundred miles from the Pole, aren't we, Mr. Morton ?" inquired Charlie, as he looked once more across the fast darkening waters."

"Not much less," replied Morton.

"And with this wind and such an open sea, we

could run that distance in two or three days," said Charlie, whose blue eyes sparkled at the thought.

"It is possible," returned the chief officer, with a thoughtful air. "But dead calms, contrary winds, dense fogs, and the suddenness and rapidity with which ice sometimes forms in these seas baffle all calculations. A sailor's maxim is, to hope for the best, and be prepared for the worst."

He glanced round the horizon as he spoke, and then walked away from the group, followed. by Markham, leaving Charlie and Willie still gazing upon the darkening waters, and pondering the mystery of the North Pole.

Captain Webb had, in the meantime, detected on the horizon the signs of an approaching change of weather, and the lads were roused from their reverie by the sound of creaking spars and falling blocks as the requisite alterations were made in the disposition of the sails. The breeze diminished gradually to nearly a dead calm, and a thick mist began to fall, moistening the deck and the rigging, without being perceptible to the sight or the touch. Charlie retired to his berth, to dream that he had discovered the Pole; and through the long night the vessel, veiled in mist and darkness, remained almost motionless.

When Charlie ascended to the deck on the following morning, a dense fog rested upon the