sh on my account, then?"
asked Hudson with great animation.

"To be sure we did. You surely did not suppose that we wanted them for
ourselves, did you?"

The whaling skipper muttered a few unintelligible words to himself, and
then shouted back in unmistakably hearty tones:

"Thank'ee, gentlemen, thank'ee with all my heart. That's another favour
I'm in your debt. That being the case, I think, if it's all the same to
you, I'd rather that the rest of the school be left to go their ways in
peace. I don't want them to be frightened; and eleven fish is as much
as we can well handle at one time."

"In that case, then," returned Sir Reginald, "we will wish you `Good-
bye,' and a prosperous voyage."

"Thank'ee, gentlemen; the same to you, and best thanks for all favours,"
replied Hudson.

And with mutual hand-wavings and dipping of colours the two craft
separated, the _Walrus_ bearing up to intercept her boats, and the
_Flying Fish_ heading northward at a speed of about twenty knots.

For about a couple of hours the adventurous voyagers were able to
maintain that speed; but toward noon they found themselves once more
surrounded by ice; and they had no choice but either to materially
reduce their speed and slowly thread their way through narrow and
tortuous channels, or once more take flight into the air. They chose
the latter alternative; and for the next two hours the flying ship sped
northward through Smith's Sound, for the most part over an unbroken
field of pack-ice which, to any ordinary vessel, would have opposed an
utterly impassable barrier. At two o'clock in the afternoon, however,
the Greenland shore suddenly trended to the north-eastward; and after
following it for a short time the ice once more began to be intersected
with water channels, short and narrow at first, but wider as they
proceeded, until at length they found themselves once more able to
descend in a water lane some four miles in width.

"And now," said the professor, as they were nearing a bold rocky
headland on their starboard bow, "we are about to be introduced to one
of _the_ sights _par excellence_ of the Arctic regions."

"What is it?" was the question which burst simultaneously from the lips
of his three companions.

"Wait and see," answered the professor, nodding mysteriously.

Sure enough, the moment that the _Flying Fish_ rounded the point a
magnificent spectacle burst upon the travellers' enraptured gaze. It
was neither more