another time Steve would have felt all eagerness to be of the party; but
he was disappointed, and his eyes were wandering over the shore, which
suddenly ended and gave place to ice.

"Where shall we land?" said the captain quietly. "No boat can get
ashore amongst these breakers, and we can go no farther north. It will
be deep water right up to the floe, so we will go close to it in case
there is a passage between it and the land. But I doubt it; and our
friends yonder will save their skins unless we can land south and come
up to them along the shore."

"Then you think they have come over the ice?"

"Of course; just as reindeer do from other regions hundreds of miles
away."

They steamed on, passing the bears, which, after watching them for a
time as if feeling their security, went on searching among the rock
pools and crevices for food. A quarter of an hour later the engine was
slowed; five minutes later it was stopped, and the _Hvalross_ lay in the
crystal water at the foot of a perpendicular ice cliff ten or fifteen
feet high, wonderfully regular at the top, and extending straight to the
land on one side, where it met the high rocky cliffs. On their right it
stretched away, as far as the telescopes could help them to see, an
impassable icy barrier, shutting off all ships from further progress to
the north.

"You see," said the captain, "we cannot land here, and we can go no
farther till the ice breaks up or opens out in channels."

"Don't you think a boat could land just there, sir, where the sea is
calmer?" said Steve, who felt a strange attraction to the shore.

Captain Marsham did not answer, but stood looking in the direction
pointed out by Steve, where for a few moments the shore did look quiet;
the next minute a heavy swell glided slowly in, rose, curled over, and
deluged the shore with white water.

"Do you want me to answer your question, Steve?" he said at last. "That
breaker was at least ten feet high. Do you think a boat could live
there?"

"No," said Steve sorrowfully. "But you will try to the south, sir?"

"Of course, my lad," was the reply; and the engine was reversed, the
_Hvalross_ backing away from the glittering ice cliff, in which the
waves were working gigantic honeycombs of the most delicate sapphire
blue, in and out of which the waters raced and made strange sucking and
splashing sounds, peculiarly suggestive of savage sea monsters gliding
in and out and playing amidst the icy