. We are not Greenland whale-fishers. Mind how you come down."

"Yes, I'll take care," replied Steve; and the captain made no reference
to the last ascent, but walked away.

"You'll remember your promise, Johannes?" said Steve after a few
minutes.

"Oh yes, sir; never fear. Only give me the chance, and you shall
harpoon a white whale and catch your fish."

But that chance did not seem as if it would come, as the _Hvalross_
sailed on over a calm sea day after day, the wind serving well, and the
coal-bunkers remaining well charged ready for the days when the cold
weather was returning--that was, if they had not already achieved their
aim.

Here and there, as they kept along a mile or so from the floe, it began
to show signs of breaking up, for at times loose fields of many acres in
extent were passed, and at others detached fragments, imperceptibly
gliding southward to dissolve slowly from the combined influence of the
sunshine and the warmer sea into which they drifted.

"I say, Mr Handscombe," said Steve one evening, when the sun in the
north-west was shining with a softened radiance which turned the distant
ice-floe into gold, "isn't this getting to be a little tame and--and--"

"Monotonous?" said the doctor, finishing the boy's sentence, for he had
begun to hesitate.

"Yes, I meant something of that kind. I thought we were going to have
all kinds of adventures, and it's always blue sea and the ice away there
to the left."

"Oh, I see," said the doctor; "you want a bear every day, with a bit of
whale-fishing, being lost in the mist, and a few wrecks discovered
thrown in."

"No, I don't," said the lad pettishly; "but I don't want to be always
sailing along like this, doing nothing. If you go up in the crow's-nest
there's ice and sun, and if you stop on deck it's always the same. I
want to be doing something. Look at Skeny here, growing quite fat."

"Shall I ask Captain Marsham to see if we can't find the sea-serpent for
you?"

"There, now you're laughing at me."

"Then don't be so impatient. Why, you stupid fellow, isn't it wonderful
enough to be sailing along here in what looks like constant summer save
for the floating ice, and with that glorious sun going round and round
in the sky without setting? Is not this constant daylight alone worth
the journey?"

"Ye-es," replied Steve; "only it does seem a bit wasteful."

"Wasteful?"

"Yes. What's the good of having the sun shining when you are