ghly, and spent three more days in oiling and cleaning the
engine. Then, all being ready, I dragged my twelve dead and laid them
together in two rows on the chart-room floor; and I hoisted for love the
poor little kayak which had served me through so many tribulations. At
nine in the morning of the 6th July, a week from my first sighting of
the _Boreal_, I descended to the engine-room to set out.

The screws, like those of most quite modern ships, were driven by the
simple contrivance of a constant stream of liquid air, contained in very
powerful tanks, exploding through capillary tubes into non-expansion
slide-valve chests, much as in the ordinary way with steam: a motor
which gave her, in spite of her bluff hulk, a speed of sixteen knots. It
is, therefore, the simplest thing for one man to take these ships round
the world, since their movement, or stopping, depend upon nothing but
the depressing or raising of a steel handle, provided that one does not
get blown to the sky meantime, as liquid air, in spite of its thousand
advantages, occasionally blows people. At any rate, I had tanks of air
sufficient to last me through twelve years' voyaging; and there was the
ordinary machine on board for making it, with forty tons of coal, in
case of need, in the bunkers, and two excellent Belleville boilers: so I
was well supplied with motors at least.

The ice here was quite slack, and I do not think I ever saw Arctic
weather so bright and gay, the temperature at 41 deg.. I found that I was
midway between Franz Josef and Spitzbergen, in latitude 79 deg. 23' N. and
longitude 39 deg. E.; my way was perfectly clear; and something almost like
a mournful hopefulness was in me as the engines slid into their clanking
turmoil, and those long-silent screws began to churn the Arctic sea. I
ran up with alacrity and took my stand at the wheel; and the bows of my
eventful Argo turned southward and westward.

* * * * *

When I needed food or sleep, the ship slept, too: when I awoke, she
continued her way.

Sixteen hours a day sometimes I stood sentinel at that wheel,
overlooking the varied monotony of the ice-sea, till my knees would
give, and I wondered why a wheel at which one might sit was not
contrived, rather delicate steering being often required among the floes
and bergs. By now, however, I was less weighted with my ball of Polar
clothes, and stood almost slim in a Lap great-coat, a round Siberian fur