eir hopes of success. So the explorers
pressed steadily onward, always with an anxious lookout above them for
fear of striking the overhanging ice, always with an anxious lookout
below for fear of dangers which might loom up from the bottom, always
with an anxious lookout starboard for fear of running against the
foundations of Greenland, always with an anxious lookout to port for
fear of striking the groundwork of the unknown land to the west, and
always keeping a lookout in every direction for whatever revelation
these unknown waters might choose to make to them.

Captain Jim Hubbell had no sympathy with the methods of navigation
practised on board the Dipsey. So long as he could not go out on deck
and take his noon observations, he did not believe it would be possible
for him to know exactly where his vessel was; but he accepted the
situation, and objected to none of the methods of the scientific
navigators.

"It's a mighty simple way of sailin'," he said to Sammy. "As long
as there's water to sail in, you have just got to git on a line of
longitude--it doesn't matter what line, so long as there's water ahead
of you--and keep there; and so long as you steer due north, always
takin' care not to switch off to the magnetic pole, of course you will
keep there; and as all lines of longitude come to the same point at
last, and as that's the point you are sailin' for, of course, if you can
keep on that line of longitude as long as it lasts, it follows that
you are bound to git there. If you come to any place on this line of
longitude where there's not enough water to sail her, you have got to
stop her; and then, if you can't see any way of goin' ahead on another
line of longitude, you can put her about and go out of this on the same
line of longitude that you came up into it on, and so you may expect
to find a way clear. It's mighty simple sailin'--regular spellin' book
navigation--but it isn't the right thing."

"It seems that way, Cap'n Jim," said Sammy, "and I expect there's a long
stretch of underwater business ahead of us yet, but still we can't tell.
How do we know that we will not get up some mornin' soon and look out of
the upper skylight and see nothin' but water over us and daylight beyond
that?"

"When we do that, Sammy," said Captain Jim, "then I'll truly believe I'm
on a v'yage!"

CHAPTER VII. GOOD NEWS GOES FROM SARDIS

When Roland Clewe, after a voyage from Cape Tariff which would have been
te