ky and desolate, with high cliffs behind it, so that
further progress to the eastward was evidently impossible, unless by
passing round the island to the north or south of it.

"I said you would come to _something_," said the magician,
sententiously, as they drew near to the forbidding coast.

"You were right, Aglootook. Indeed, it would be impossible for you to
be wrong," replied Cheenbuk, with one of those glances at Anteek which
rendered it hard for the boy to preserve his gravity; yet he was
constrained to make the effort, for the magician was very sensitive on
the point, and suspected the boy.

They were by this time running between the headlands of a small bay, and
suddenly came in sight of an object which caused them all to exclaim
with surprise and excitement--for there, under the shelter of a high
cliff, lay a three-masted ship, or, as the Indian termed it, the white
man's big canoe.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

INTERESTING, AMUSING, AND ASTOUNDING DISCOVERIES.

Although close under the cliffs, and apparently on the rocks, the vessel
was by no means a wreck, neither had it the aspect of one. There were
no broken masts or tattered sails or ropes dangling from the yards. On
the contrary, the masts were straight and sound; such of the yards as
had not been lowered were squared, and all the ropes were trim and taut.

The deck was covered over with a roof of canvas, and the snow banked up
all round so as to meet the lower edges of it and form a protection from
the wind. Up one side of this bank of snow a flight of stairs had been
cut, leading to the port gangway, and the prints of many feet were seen
all round the ship converging towards the stairs, the steps of which
were worn as if by much use.

At first the natives approached the vessel with extreme caution, not
being sure of what might be their reception if any man should be on
board, and with a sense of awe at beholding a mysterious object which
had hitherto been utterly beyond the range of their experience, though
not quite unknown to them by report. By degrees, however, they drew
nearer and nearer, until they reached the bottom of the snow staircase.
Still there was no sound to be heard in the white man's big canoe to
indicate the presence of a human being.

At last Cheenbuk uttered a shout with the view of attracting attention,
but there was no reply.

"Make the fire-spouter speak," he said, looking at his Indian friend.

Nazinred silently o