only shows white streaks on your dirty face. Look here, if
you don't stop that noise, I'll tell the captain when we take to the
boats that you're not worth saving, and then he'll leave you behind."

"Tell him to leave him behind!" whined Watty. "He's no good."

"Listeners never hear any good of themselves," said Steve to himself as
he walked aft, and then made for the way down to the engine-room. "But
do I always have my hands in my pockets?"

In spite of the cold, darkness, danger, and dread the boy could not help
smiling at himself and the force of habit; for at that moment there was
a heavy shock caused by a loose mass of ice striking the vessel just on
her sharp stem, and startled into the belief that something terrible was
about to happen, Steve answered the question he had just asked himself
about his hands by snatching them from his pockets to lay hold of the
vessel's side. Then as he looked over and saw the piece of ice--a large
fragment that must have been many tons in weight--grinding along by the
vessel's side, he could not help laughing, while directly after a thrill
of delight shot through him and the men sent up a cheer. For a
communication had passed between the captain and the engine-room as a
loud hissing noise was heard; and then, as an order was shouted to the
man at the wheel, the _Hvalross_ quivered in every timber with a
peculiar vibration.

The steam was up at last; the fans of the propeller were spinning round
and churning up the icy water, and the _Hvalross_ backed away from the
dangerous position.

"There, Andra!" cried Steve, as he approached the man who had just
hauled up one of the wooden fenders ground down into a mass of ragged
fibres, "what do you say to the steam now?"

"Joost naething, laddie. I'd hae done it better wi' hairf a capfu' o'
wint."

"But there was no wind!" cried Steve.

"Nae, there was nae wint. But it's a blessing we're awa frae the ice,
for it would hae maist broke my hairt to hae left my pipes ahint."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE LONELY ISLE.

With the steam up the captain's task became easier; but it was dangerous
work in that dense fog, and some hours of nervous navigation followed
amongst the ice-floes, which gathered round them of all sizes, from
masses which went spinning away at a touch from the iron prow of the
_Hvalross_ to huge fields acres in extent, broken away from the icy
barrier to the northward, to be carried by the current south into the