I stayed in hopes of doin' something in the
sealing line, and only got some three hundred skins after all. It's
been a bad speculation for me. An old friend of mine came this way the
year before last, and, the season being an open one and not much ice
about, he reached as far north as Baffin's Bay and through Jones' Sound,
fillin' his ship with oil and bone in a single season. He was lucky
enough to hit upon a spot where the sea was fairly alive with whales,
and he filled the ship right up in that very spot. The fish seemed
tame, as though they hadn't been interfered with for years; and bein' an
old friend, as I said before, he gave me the latitude and longitude of
the place as a great secret, and I've been trying to reach the spot ever
since we came north, but have been kept back by the ice and the contrary
winds. If I could get there, even now, it would make the trip
profitable enough to serve my purpose; but I see no chance of it, and
the men are getting disheartened."

"Never mind, captain, cheer up; all may yet be well," exclaimed the
baronet. "We can't drag your ship _over_ the ice, but if there is only
a passage for her we can drag her _through_ it, and for little Florrie's
sake we will. If it is in our power to get you to the spot you wish to
reach, you shall go there. Now, as the present open water affords an
opportunity too good to be lost, return to your ship, secure our hawser
in such a way that we may put a big strain upon it without damaging the
vessel, and send a trustworthy hand aloft into the crow's-nest to look
out for the best channels. We will tow you to the northward as long as
a channel can be found through the ice, and at seven o'clock I hope you
will give us the pleasure of your company on board here to dinner, when
we will drink `many happy returns of the day' to Florrie in the best
champagne the _Flying Fish's_ cellar affords."

The captain of the whaler returned to his own ship in a state of such
mingled astonishment and elation that his people were at first inclined
to think he had suddenly gone demented. However, the order which he
gave them to secure the towing hawser in such a manner as would enable
the ship to withstand a heavy strain was intelligible enough; it told
them that, with the assistance of their strange rescuers, a supreme
effort was now to be made to reach those prolific fishing-grounds which
had from the first been the goal of their voyage; and that, best of all,