e
o'clock, watching in the gleaming twilight. Never shall I forget those
twilights. The sun was not out of sight more than three hours and a
half, and the whole northern semicircle glowed continuously. It shone
on the sails; it shone on the sea. The great glassy faces of the
swells cast it back in phosphorescent flashes. The patches of ice
showed white as chalk. The ocean took a pale French gray tint.
Overhead the clouds drifted in ghostly troops, and far up in the sky
an unnatural sort of glare eclipsed the sparkle of stars. Properly
speaking, there was no night. One could read easily at one o'clock.
Twilight and dawn joined hands. The sun rose far up in the north-east.
Queer nights these! Until we got used to it, or rather until fatigue
conquered us, we had no little difficulty in going to sleep. We were
not accustomed to naps in the daytime. As a sort of compromise, I
recollect that we used to spread an old sail over the skylight, and
hang up blankets over the bull's-eyes in the stern, to keep out this
everlasting daylight. We needed night. Born far down toward the
equinoxes, we sighed for our intervals of darkness and shadows. But we
got used to it after a fortnight of gaping. One gets used to any
thing, every thing. "Use is second nature," says an old proverb. It is
more than that: it is _Nature_ herself.

Land and ice, ho!

"Tumble out!" shouted Raed.

It was half-past three. We went on deck. The sun was shining brightly.
Scarcely any wind; sea like glass in the sunlight; ice in small
patches all about.

"Where's your land?" asked Wade.

"Off there," replied young Hobbs, pointing to the north-west.

Ah, yes! there it was,--a line of dark gray cliffs, low in the water.
Between us and them a dozen white icebergs glittered in the sun.

"Is that the cape, captain?" queried Kit.

"Must be," was the reply. "Same latitude. Can't be any thing else.
Answers to the chart exactly."

"Oh! that's Cape Resolution fast enough," said Raed. "Those cliffs
correspond with the descriptions, I should say."

"How far off?" asked Wade.

"Well, seven or eight leagues," replied the captain.

"The Button Islands, on the south side of the entrance, ought to be in
sight, to the south-west," remarked Raed, looking off in that
direction; "but I don't see them," he added.

The captain got his glass, and climbed up to the gaff of the foresail.

"Yes, there 'tis!" he shouted. "Low down; low land. No cliffs."

"Why are they cal