y delightful.
There was something so peaceful, yet so wild, so romantic and so strange
about the region, that the young men felt as if they had passed into a
new world altogether. It is scarcely surprising that they should feel
thus, when it is remembered that profound calms usually prevailed at
that season, causing the sea to appear like another heaven below them;
that the sun never went down, but circled round and round the horizon--
dipping, indeed, a little more and more towards it each night, but not
yet disappearing; that myriads of wild birds filled the air with
plaintive cries; that whales, and sea-unicorns, and walruses sported
around; that icebergs were only numerous enough to give a certain
strangeness of aspect to the scene--a strangeness which was increased by
the frequent appearance of arctic phenomena, such as several mock-suns
rivalling the real one, and objects being enveloped in a golden haze, or
turned upside down by changes in atmospheric temperature.

"No wonder that arctic voyagers are always hankering after the far
north," said Leo to Benjy, one magnificent morning, as they rowed
towards the outlying islands over the golden sea.

Captain Vane was with them that morning, and it was easy to see that the
Captain was in a peculiar frame of mind. A certain twinkle in his eyes
and an occasional smile, apparently at nothing, showed that his
thoughts, whatever they might be, were busy.

Now, it cannot have failed by this time to strike the intelligent
reader, that Captain Vane was a man given to mystery, and rather fond of
taking by surprise not only Eskimos but his own companions. On the
bright morning referred to he took with him in the boat a small flat
box, or packing-case, measuring about three feet square, and not more
than four inches deep.

As they drew near to Leo's favourite sporting-ground,--a long flat
island with several small lakes on it which were bordered by tall reeds
and sedges, where myriads of ducks, geese, gulls, plover, puffins, and
other birds revelled in abject felicity,--Benjy asked his father what he
had got in the box.

"I've got somethin' in it, Benjy,--somethin'."

"Why, daddy," returned the boy with a laugh, "if I were an absolute
lunatic you could not treat me with greater contempt. Do you suppose I
am so weak as to imagine that you would bring a packing-case all the way
from England to the North Pole with nothing in it?"

"You're a funny boy, Benjy," said the Ca